Developers asking for ideas: stuff you find on a space battlefield.

[x4000]

Hey guys,

So, you all constantly have lots of really interesting and fun ideas, and I wanted to give everyone a chance to get theirs in while we are going through an ideation phase here.  I have been coming up with lots of things as well, and I think you'll be really happy with it, but many heads tend to be better than one.  Some of the coolest ideas in AI War's expansions and later versions were player suggestions.

So!  Here's the deal.  Aside from space ships, what can you think of that you'd find on a battlefield in space?  Here are some examples of things that I've been thinking of:

1. Abandoned Hydral technology of various sorts that the player can interact with to gain a tactical advantage in that battle only.  Activating an ion cannon, for instance, or capturing a power station that makes your ships faster, etc.  We have something like 6 of these sorts of things halfway implemented at this point, and they should be out tomorrow.

2. There are obviously things like turrets when the enemy is fortified, which is something new we are adding.

3. We already have things like gravity wells, space junk, asteroid fields, etc.

4. We do have external space stations of various sorts in certain battles, but only in certain kinds.  I think it would be interesting to have smaller sorts of facilities in orbit around planets in particular.  These would belong to the enemy, and would help to fortify their position tactically in that battle, and/or their position strategically in the larger game.  Destroying these might help you win the battle, but cost you ill will with the race outside the battle, or cause other secondary bad effects in the larger game.  Or they might simply be obstacles to overcome, like a force field that you have to slip small ships inside in order to fight through, etc.


Anyway, I'm still coming up with more things, but people here have so many ideas that I thought I would ask and see what sort of crazy neat stuff you come up with.

[madcow]

Derelict and/or civilian ships? If you board one, you can take it over to use for that fight (only that fight). Boarding civilian ships causes the faction to hate you more (for attacking non-combatants).

[Gemzo]

In the other topic I posted about some possible "space terrain." Perhaps I could be more specific about possibilities with that for this topic. I'm not really meaning battlefield-wide terrain, but rather medium sized areas with special effects. Maybe there could be a mapwide nebula, but a mapwide minefield would be awfully silly (and painful).

I said there could be minefields, doing damage over time while moving through it perhaps depending on ship size and current movement speed. There could anti-shield minefields too. While going into a minefield usually doesn't sound like a good idea and might essentially be a brick wall, it might be worth it if you're on the run and your ships are less susceptible to the field than theirs. There's also the possibility there's something on the other side/inside it that you want to get to that's worth the pain.

I also said there could be nebulae, acting to contrast minefields. While minefields do damage to ships as they pass through them, nebulae could change how things act inside them instead. Not just ships, but maybe shots as well. Perhaps ships inside one nebula would be slowed down, and another nebula could increase damage taken for inside it. But their effect doesn't have to be strictly negative, and nor does each nebula only have to have one effect. Maybe there could be a nebula you come across that slows (or speeds up) shots that pass through it, and it also amplifies the damage of those shots. There's really a lot of possibilities with this, I think.

Oh yeah, I initially posted the nebula idea for hiding ships in since obscuring view was said to be unfeasible. Maybe some could do that. Or maybe they all just do that... There could be special effects, whether from certain pilots, ship types, tech, or whatever, that allow seeing further into a nebulae than normal - or just reveal them entirely. Could also be the inverse, with effects that make your "nebula sight range" go down, or maybe even going to the extreme of temporarily being unable to see ships in a nebula. Could even be ship types that can't see in a nebula by default.

Oh, and maybe there could be colored mini-wormholes that allow instant transportation between similarly colored wormholes. Maybe even allow firing through them! Possibly restrict usage based on ship size, so you might want to deploy some ships specifically to take advantage of these; or predict your enemy is going to use the wormholes, and position yourself to prepare for it. Could have different versions of these wormholes, like maybe unstable ones that only work for a few ships before collapsing, maybe ones that are delayed and take time for ships to emerge from, or maybe even ones that are one-way only! Could compound multiple effects on one set of wormholes as well...

[Azurian]

Magnetic clouds / nebulae.

• Variation #1
  They can make ships travel extremely slow if they enter the nebula but repair slightly over time.
  
  Variation #2
  Can hide ships because they jam the frequencies of scanners.
  
  Variation # 3
  Similiar to the oceans in Civilizations game, they require special components/tech  to travel thru them. You can have shallow nebulae and deep nebulae. Shallow = coast, deep = ocean. This will help give space some needed geography. Armada 2526 did something similiar.
  
  Variation # 4
  Fighters / Strikecraft and small ships become disabled on entering a nebula without some sort of protection tech.
  
  Variation #5
  Adding to Variation 4, the small ships become subject to attrition if not moved out of nebula space.
  

Comet / Space Derbis strike

• Very low random chance a comet/space derbis  will randomly pass thru the combat and explode on impact on first/several/anything in its path. Similiar to the movie Gravity with Sandra Bolluck that just cane out.

Anamoly: Magnetic anomaly

A very strong magnetic field that renders metallic ballistics useless against the side it's at but are faster on the side the side the magnetic field is facing. If the magnetic field faces the right side of the screen (the force is coming from the right), a player on the left will have an advantage and the player on the right will have a serious advantage unless it moved its fleet to the right of the left player.


Anamoly: Crystalline  anomaly
[listl]

• THe battlefield is littered with ice or metallic asteroids OR takes place inside the rings of a planet like Saturn. This makes beam weapons ineffective because they bounce off / ricochet off the rockets in an unpredictable manner across the battlefield that puts both sides in danger.

Anomaly: Exohertz anomaly

• A powerful sea of electromagnetic waves from an unknown source makes missile technology ineffective since it distorts their guidance systems.
  

Ship Graveyard

• An old graveyard of extinct ships that could give the player the chance to send scout/survey ships to look for treasure while the battle takes place.

Bounty System

• Part of the meta game, there is a bounty system for hunting down wanted pirate raider "Admirals", from level 1-10 in reward. In a battle their is a random chance you might meet/end up fighting a pirate raider's Admiral's fleet  and the enemy at the same time. The pirate raider admiral will also fight the enemy to board and steal their ships and use them against you.

Armistice

• Small random chance the fight might start in  an armistice because there is a space creature/ pirate invasion and you are forced to work with the enemy. Once you fight the neutral threat, that specific local fleet decides not to fight you for gratitude for that one time.

[Azurian]

Okay so it's 4am and I had a weird dream about this, so I woke up and had to type this before I forget. It sounds crazy.


Are there moons in The Last Federation? If there are, they can be like capture the flag for the alien races or for yourself and everybody, with shady buildings or unique moon bases/factories/factories. It can be 9 Planets and like up to 40-50 moons per game! Each moon can have a subfaction of an alien racepotentially.

[madcow]

Another idea shamelessly ripped from aliens.  Stasis/cryofrozen xenomorphs.  Capturing them will cause you to launch them out at enemy ships. When they hit a ship they will kill all its crew. Potentially a chance of hitting the planet and killing the population?

Microblack hole.  Don't get too close!

Plasma field. Ships take constant damage in it, can be potentially large.

Solar wind.  This probably isn't accurate to what actual solar winds do, but will push ships that enter it along its path.

Magnetic debris. Acts as cover. Missiles will tend to hit this instead of nearby ships. Maybe it just effectively lowers the range to simulate the lowered accuracy.

[Mick]

Giant Space Kraken - enough said really.

[nas1m]

Giant Space Kraken - enough said really.

This probably breaks the scope of what is feasible in terms of art - but, man! Do I love this idea ...

[madcow]

Swarms of miniature giant space hamsters seems like a good alternative.

[nas1m]

Swarms of miniature giant space hamsters seems like a good alternative.

In general some kind of space fauna would be an awesome thing to make space come alive. Not sure how it integrates with the vision of the solar system the game takes place in as far as Chris & Co are concerned, though. Disregarding all feasibility concerns for the moment ...

[topper]

--Tractor beam station: freeze/unfreeze enemy command ship in place.

--Explosive debris field: Draw enemy ships over it and boom.

--Nanobot virus pod: Destroy it and it infects all nearby ships, which take damage over time as the nanobots work until exploding and spreading the virus to all nearby ships.

--Distress signal beacon: Draws nearby enemy ships to it.

Yay cheesy tactics!

It seems like the asymmetric play means the player will be actively trying to exploit the enemy AI and the environment. This sounds great as long as the variety is there such that you cant always use the same cheese.

[echo2361]

I imagine once a race attains space flight they would start building orbital shipyards. These could be objectives to defend/attack in missions. If race X wants to slow race Y's ship building capabilities they could put out a contract for an attack on Y's shipyards. Or Y could put out a mission to protect their shipyards from an impending strike from pirates or race X. Some shipyards could have turret defenses or orbital hangars launching fighters to defend them. In general I like the idea of races having orbital facilities that can be raided/defended, be they civilian habitats, research stations, trading posts, or shipyards.

On a different note, a few people have mentioned nebulas and while I like the idea of certain areas of space having interesting effects on ships, I don't like the name nebula being used for them. Nebulas are huge things, many many times the size of a solar system. Usually solar systems reside inside nebulas, not the other way around. It would be odd seeing mini ones inside this game's solar system. Maybe they could just be called "anomalies" or something like that instead?

[khadgar]

I think you touched all the bases of what I would expect thematically.

As far as gameplay wise, on a battlefield the size of the one in that video, there isn't a HUGE deal of room to fit in all sorts of goodies.

I might expect to find some advantageous 'terrain', such as a thick dust cloud which makes my ships harder to see (graphically at the least) and perhaps gives them a huge boost to dodge chance. Think Dark Swarm from Starcraft 1.

In addition to the above type of terrain, there could be more dangerous terrain as well. Maybe a lightning cloud, that slowly damages ships inside of it or near it. Perhaps some sort of comet, solar flare, radiation wave, or other ill effect that both sides would want to avoid, or lure the other faction into.

I also think it would fit in pretty well to have a second "bonus" objective, or even multiple victory conditions on some mission types. For example, "Defeat the enemy flagship" is standard victory with no special metagame influences. Perhaps there is a scrambler/EMP beacon on the map that, when activated (through some means), disables all enemy ships and wins you a battle, with potential different metagame consequences. Or maybe there is a third faction involved in the fight who is trying to escape (Civilian Dignitary? Celebrity? Scientists?), and if you can win the battle within a certain time limit before they escape, you get some sort of bonus for capturing them.

EDIT: Dodge chance, not doge chance.

[Misery]

I also think it would fit in pretty well to have a second "bonus" objective, or even multiple victory conditions on some mission types. For example, "Defeat the enemy flagship" is standard victory with no special metagame influences. Perhaps there is a scrambler/EMP beacon on the map that, when activated (through some means), disables all enemy ships and wins you a battle, with potential different metagame consequences.

I second this idea.

I kinda like the concept of occaisionally finding a not-totally-murderous way to defeat an enemy, perhaps causing a different effect with a faction that you'd rather not be angering too much at a given point, or something like that.

[x4000]

Just a note that I have been reading this and these are some great things in here!  Keep 'em coming if you have them, there are a number of these that will almost definitely make it in.