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

[Cyborg]

Flying toasters, reminiscent of After Dark.




But seriously:

• Victory condition which involves capturing a ship(Maybe it belongs to one of the races or some mission)
• victory condition which involves surviving for some time limit
• victory condition which involves making it to some small moon(Or maybe it isn't a moon! ) or location without losing your flagship
• Random mercenary ships that pass by, may or may not be friendly
• The Zenith trader
• cookie monster
• trade posts
• Heist locations

[Mick]

Flying toasters, reminiscent of After Dark.

Oh man, that's a classic. I remember using ResEdit to replace the toasters with cheese wheels, and I made it randomly play the system's "quack" sound, and I called it "Flying Cheeseducks".

[Breach]

Sleeper ship colony. This could be a wreck lookalike (risky if wrecks also present the opportunity for treasure of some sort) or a inactive space station. If the object is hit with a projectile or hit by another ship, the ships activate. This could be a swarm of ships that have a tendency to go after whoever incited/activated them although not strictly limited to attacking them, or a large behemoth that moves slowly destroying anything that comes into direct contact with it.

[PokerChen]

(1) Once in a blue moon, a lost/damaged civilian ship. The only sane reason for such to appear on the battlefield are damaged drives/systems. May be emitting distress signal. All diplomatic penalties for shooting /saving said ships in a zone of war apply. May frame enemy fleet by "causing" them to attack the ship.

(2) Expanding on the bounty system, you yourself can have a bounty on your head set by factions who don't wish overt hostility to the federation / etc.  This may result in pirates stalking your fleet waiting for the right time to strike (after a tough battle, for example). You may wish to chase them out or bribe them off.

(3) Chance upon a derelict Voyager 2 equivalent space artifact. This has profound scientific implications of course, although with only some of the factions.

(4) Hunter-killer network guarding an orbiting body of interest. Perhaps guarding a neutral orbiting body of interest...

(5) A restaurant at the end of the universe.

(6) Self sufficient wandering space hippies.

(7) Of type 4 in your opening post, various utilities like large solar farms and space mirrors (oh the 7-years-bad-luck) are highly convenient for hiding behind. Captured-and-tethered asteroids/comets being prepared for mining by an orbital station (elsewhere). A good old mining operation that's been (or being) evacuated after hearing of your imminent arrival could be nice. Solar sails can be used to capture solar wind for H/He generation, although they're kinda low efficiency. Orbital elevators would be unlikely to be seen IMO as they'll likely be too heavily guarded to offer a mercenary a chance?
 And then there are the more evil ones (in terms of destroying, that is), like magnetic field generators that protect a planet in question from being ravaged by the local star. Terraforming satellites (depending on the host species and their adaptability to the environment).

( Do you already have Van Allen belts? Are you sure?

(9) The cookie monster.

(10) Wreckage of a space sausage delivery truck after an unfortunate interstellar highway accident. Not so good for vegans.

(11) Not just any sleeper station, but a deactivated von Neumann generator that assisted in a previous grey goo apocalypse. May irreversibly "cleanse" the local star system. I'd note that it's likely for a major faction to stop what they're doing and destroy these on first sight since it poses existential threat. One of those Voyager Omega Directives.

(12) One of the various space-surviving organisms you may wish to invent and populate the game with. Would it be space lichens growing on an otherwise innocent rock, omnivorous baceria, or a giant jelly fish? Only the last one would require significant in-game art.
 An asteroid studded with broccoli, on the other hand, might stretch the imagination for a good cause.

...you know, space is vast...

[topper]

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

And from the .103 patch notes:

"Now if a shot hits a piece of debris, it damages any ships that are also touching that same piece of debris. That way ships can't hide on top of a single asteroid or similar, gaining protection that way. They have to literally be behind it."

I see possible issues:
--You can get hit by a shot that should have actually missed.
--Players are confused about why they take damage or why they can move "through" an object but then it blocks their shots.
--Screwed up AoE weapons.

As long as there are not terrible AI pathing issues, why not make some space objects simply impassable? I feel like that makes more sense than trying to create a pretend 3D environment by having objects that are passable but also block shots.

[PokerChen]

(13) I would also expect to find a large number of civilian and non-civilian satellites in orbit around planets. Humanity relies upon, e.g. multiple GPS networks and an uncountable number of comms and measuring satellites. Tens of thousands of satellites sort of mean that you'll see them in an random battlefield (there's no fuel in most of them to actually dodge, and more likely a treaty between factions would be concluded during the game against directly destroying each other's civilian networks).

(14) Every planetoid that's of interest will tend of have a number of unmanned probes/satellites/etc. too assuming they haven't been destroyed by hostile fire. From Cassinis that photograph and measure, to  terraforming probes that prepare for the possibility of settlement, and commercial ones that might be for mining, or entertainment. Being in international "waters", so to speak, interfering with uses will probably have a less universal impact on your reputation.

(15) Gas giant ring operations can involve both a nebulae-like dust cloud and a large variety (in size) of ice bodies depending on where you are in the ring and planetary history. Their density and thickness fluctuations could permit things up to 700m (in our case) to exist inside.
 ...although, I'd tend to think particle densities in rings would interfere with nothing of note other than blocking shots. The dispersal rate of energy weapons, and rudimentary sensors? If a faction's sensors can't resolve a fighter from a standard chunk of ice, I think their engineers should probably be fired.

[Teal_Blue]

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

And from the .103 patch notes:

"Now if a shot hits a piece of debris, it damages any ships that are also touching that same piece of debris. That way ships can't hide on top of a single asteroid or similar, gaining protection that way. They have to literally be behind it."

I see possible issues:
--You can get hit by a shot that should have actually missed.
--Players are confused about why they take damage or why they can move "through" an object but then it blocks their shots.
--Screwed up AoE weapons.

As long as there are not terrible AI pathing issues, why not make some space objects simply impassable? I feel like that makes more sense than trying to create a pretend 3D environment by having objects that are passable but also block shots.

Hey Topper,
                           I agree with the 3d thing you said, i mean having items be impassable. (I thought they were, you mean they 'aren't'?) Anyway, i think you are right it will make more sense to the player.

[Vyndicu]

Definitely put in civilian space stations that you can take out to wreck a race's resource stockpile or resource harvest operation for an obvious cost (race disposition toward you). If those are already in awesome.

On a second thought why not do a "firefly train job" (google it if you are not sure what I meant)  mission on a civilian ship (freighter for resource) that can be used to make another race more stronger or acceleration their "spacefaring progression" with the same cost as above. Perhaps after doing it so many the civilian's race start to employ stronger escort and issue a bounty on your head etc... (similar concept to AIP vs resource taken in AI war) If it was not clear the starship where you steal doesn't have to be on planet itself but in open interplanetary space.

I think I will come back when I have more ideas as it is very late for me.

[PokerChen]

 Oh, I don't know how different the game lore is - but, when a race is shown inhabiting a Gas giant, I'm assuming this is actually on a moon of the gas giant? Since it's magnitudes more difficult to achieve spaceflight from the interior.

 In this case, if you had time to slot in some background art, there are some unique conditions you can "inflict" in the extreme outer atmosphere. High winds, electrical storms, etc. There can be strong motivations to invest and set up, for example, He-3 collectors if the race's home moon is particularly poor (geological composition, thinner atomsphere...)