So, we've already had some folks asking for what sort of ideas we're looking for for LotS. I'd initially said we have everything we need based on Keith's and my own concepts, and past player suggestions, but I've changed my mind on that. While we are keeping things a bit "close to the vest" on what will be the coolest features of the expansion that tie all this together, I can say that there will be a large number of the following, and we're definitely looking for specific ideas in the following categories:
AI GuardiansYou know what's already there in the base game, but we want to add a bunch more of these for the expansion. Ideally I'd like to add around 10 new guardians (so 50 ships in all just from these, with 5 marks of each), but we'll see what really happens. So far I have ideas for 7 of these, so it could be fewer or more than my target of 10.
AI Guard PostsBasically the same notes as the guardians, and I hope to add around 10 of these also (so 50 ships in all just from these, too, with 5 marks of each). So far I have ideas for 4 of these, so it definitely could be fewer than my target of 10.
AI Core Guard PostsThese are only used on the AI homeworlds, and so can be very powerful. I'm even open to some that are so super powerful that they're only seen on certain difficulties or with certain AI types. There's only a mark V variant of these, and since these are only shown at the end of the game I'm not as keen to add tons of them. At the moment I have ideas for 4 of these, but depending on the ideas I could do a few more potentially.
"Bigger Than A Starship, Smaller Than A Golem"There's a new class of ships that both the humans and the AIs will be getting, which are larger than a starship but smaller than a golem. These would be built like starships, rather than captured like golems, but the methods that players gain the ability to build them is something new -- I don't want to get into that just yet, but it's very new and cool. I could definitely use a lot of ideas for these, and in fact the more the merrier.
Other AI WeaponsWe're always interested in big things for the AI (along the lines of radar jammers, alarm posts, etc). We'll only be doing ones that are relatively quick to implement, though, in terms of this expansion -- these aren't the focus, but if there are a lot of straightforward-to-code-but-cool-to-play-with ones, we'll do them.
"Candy Techs"This is little stuff that would cost 250 knowledge to unlock. Like the advanced warp sensor. This stuff would be useful, but not hugely so or not in all situations, to justify the low knowledge cost but still make them tempting. The idea being that probably you shouldn't unlock most of this stuff most of the time, but the temptation is significant. These also aren't a core focus of this expansion, but they're something that I'd like to explore.
Please make suggestions one-per-entry in Mantis.Our "idea tracker" is where this sort of thing should go:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/
