Good day, Stardock community, recently I have been pondering how mining and combat are going to be implemented in the fourth installation of the Star Control series. And after much though I have come up with some ideas.
Mining:
Take 2: Do any of you SC2 fanatics remember the thrill of finding a rainbow world? Or discovering one of those rare and oh so satisfying ruby worlds? As much as I loved the mining mechanics in the SC2 its 2D surface map always...bugged me, it served its need sure, but something about it always bugged me. Now that we have far greater potential for graphics I think that a few adjustments and twists to the original mining formula could be done. First, instead of the old surface exploration I think mining could be made far more engaging if the minerals are located on a 3D globe, in which the camera will be locked (unless the user presses certain key where he can move the camera at will) on the lander wherever it goes. With this 3D map we can have a whole variety of new features, such as night time on certain parts of the planet (where the lander automatically activates some of its lights to illuminate all things in front of it), of course I would like to point out that like, like Star Control 2 the lander will be scaled up so it makes traveling far quicker, and I believe this should also hold true for SCIV, so sorry, no hour long planet traveling as that will take away some of the charm of Star Control's mining mechanics. Another thing that should be implemented into the new globe system is the utilization of mineral "biomes", where certain parts of the planet have different resources. For example, a radioactive-rich biome, while holding valuable minerals, is surrounded by huge lava and fire pits, making more common minerals, like basic metals, much more attractive. This creates a risk-reward situation where a person has to ask: "There are some nice radioactives and tzo crystals over there, but there are a lot of hazards surrounding these valuables, and I have lost most of my crew thanks to running in to a Ur-Quan dreadnought, should I risk it? Or should I mine the more common minerals?" I believe this will force the player to make more tough decisions which can make the game more exciting (at least, from my perspective). By adding this new mining system I believe that the outcome would be more exciting then the SC2 version while still holding true to its basic roots.
Combat: Now I know that SCIV combat is something of much controversy among Star Control fans, some love the old, arcade style of combat seen in Star Control 2, while others believe that it needs a complete overhaul. I have a few ideas that will hopefully cater to both sides of this debate. I believe using Galactic Civilizations III combat as a starting point is a good idea. I think the idea of a top-down view with the option of a free-roaming camera would work wonderfully in Star Control IV, imagine seeing an Earthling Cruiser and Ur-Quan dreadnought fighting at close range with all of the advantages of modern graphics, and the ability to view the battle at any angle. Now I believe that Star Control combat can be taken to a new level with the implementation of "escorts", ships controlled by the AI, but can add extra firepower to the battle. Generally I think the player should be controlling his flagship, with his escorts acting as the front-line. However, the player should have the option to not include his flagship in certain battles and therefore, control one of his escorts (a la Star Control 2). Allowing to have all of your fleets ships engage in combat at once will certainly help out new players, as when they engage a lone Ur-Quan scout they can rely on their escorts to take it down, while still learning how to control their flagship. This will also make combat move much faster, as you will not have to pick off every ship in the enemy's fleet in 1v1 battles like SC2, but instead be able to fly each fleet into each other in one, beautiful battle. I believe customization is also a very important thing for combat vessels, and I think you should be able to upgrade you flagship and escorts extensively. This will allow you to make your own combat style, whether relying on strong escorts to protect your flagship (which could then be made into a pure mining and cargo vessel) or relying on the awesome power of your capital ship, which in the end could mount hellborne cannons that do massive amounts of damage. Each class of ship (be it capital, cruiser, destroyer or frigate) should have their own individual advantages and upgrades, which will enrich the combat experience of Star Control IV.
Tell me what you think of these ideas and don't forget to pitch in your own! Constructive criticism is welcome.
P.S. sorry for the blank page before, I have no idea what happened.
Nope, nothing.
It should be fixed now thanks for your patience
Those are some very interesting ideas and guesses as to what in store for the next Star Control.
Not a fan of multiple ships combat.
Top down Space Pirates And Zombies 2 or Void Expanse in full 3D with barrel rolls, "Nesterov's loop" and other eye candy SFX would be already GREAT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6SkYQyz7l8
I'd also like mini games beside resource gathering and combat like flying through static/moving asteroid/mine fields to pick something important up (the choice of a ship should matter here). Boss/space station fights where you need to figure out its behavior/weak spots and the strategy to beat it. Resource gathering on planet - top down view, full 3D, Mass Effect style Mako (jet jumping, amphibious/underwater capable) fully upgrade-able and customize-able vehicle. Also, scanning the planet needs to be meaningful: not only planet conditions needs to be compared to the capabilities of your Lander, but also, bio life needs to be player analysed in order to know if you can take on it. Example: if speed and weight mass of creatures exceed speed and firepower of your Lander - you better find some other hunting ground 'cause that T-Rekt will rofl stomp yo ass into dirt and your syreen son will live the rest of his life as a bastard.
To be honest I never ever fought any aliens with anything but fully upgraded Vindicator, 'cause losing ships was too costly (resource gathering gets boring + you're timed in SC2) and you had poor choice of ships through out the game.
So, I'd rather have tons of upgrade choices and customization for my Vindicator (to make it a glass cannon or a tank or a midrange allarounder) & Lander and keep other fleet ships for special missions and mini games rather than anything else. I want to have a frakkin' Death Star/Destroyer of The Worlds at my disposal at the end of the game, so my upgrades for the main Boss fight would matter and I wanna be able (with proper upgrades) to steam roll anything last 1/3" of the campaign, 'cause to be frank combat gets boring after awhile.
This is why I believe the option to select having escorts or not would be great. Some people want their flagships to be a cargo vessel and not be armed. Having escorts to protect them can allow them to do this. Want your fully upgraded tank-style (or glass-cannon) Vindicator? That is fine, you an invest more/all of your resources into making it the best combat vessel in the galaxy. But this will simply give some more options and diversity so one can play any way he wishes.
^ how would you control your escort?
I'd like to see mining incorporate more interesting dynamics to keep that aspect of the gameplay fresh as well. As the game goes on, it gets tiresome and collecting minerals got to be a bit of a chore, particularly since you had no inclination about where to find mineral abundant worlds. And let's face it, if you didn't have the resource guide or look up the best worlds in some other strategy guide walkthrough, there was no method within the game to know where the best places to go were.
I'm all for adventuring into the unknown, but it might be nice to at least have some way to know where to go and calculate the risk of the endeavor before you depart rather than just blindly taking a shot in the dark.
I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these haven't already been planned into the new game design, but here are a few mining gameplay ideas I think would be really cool:
Two options to control escorts (and by options I mean the player decides before battle):
A: leave them to be controlled by the AI entirely
B: give them a RTS style of control being able to control them via the mouse while controlling the flagship with QWEASD and the Crtl keys. Of course you can choose to not have any escorts at all. It's all about the option of choice
I think if a deep space scanner is implemented it should only detect a few kind of minerals, like radioactives (because if it detected purple minerals it would be hideously OP)
I think world exploration (at least from a lander) is a good idea as well, it would be awesome if there were tons of hidden treasures throughout planets that you could find and add to your ship or use to help you in your journey.
I think there should be advisors as well, but also on the surface having hazards that are easily visible surrounding valuable resources will add another layer of depth to the mining.
Also, I believe greater planet diversity (even procedurally generated planet surfaces every time you make a new game) would be awesome, making mining more interesting with different worlds, some that may not be possible to explore without some technology.
True. Wouldn't be an issue though if it was designed to be upgradeable. I forgot to mention that this deep space scanner should have a usage cost as opposed to being just a free tool, much like warping away from combat in SC2 cost five units of fuel, and it would probably have multiple levels of efficiency based on how much you're willing to spend upgrading it. And the upgrades might not be cheap.
This scanner would probably also have a time factor to limit it from being overpowered. It could be designed so that stronger scans to detect exotic resources would take longer to process. This would be at least somewhat scientifically sound; when we look into space with conventional radio telescopes, it takes a rather long time to collect accurate data. It does not report back instantaneously the moment you hit the scan button!
It could also easily be prevented from being overpowered by designing it with upgrade levels just like any other tech. When you first build a space scanner, it might only be able to find basic stuff but as you spend more time and money upgrading it, you would be able to detect more and more valuable stuff.
The more challenging question to me is: would it be better gameplay-wise to only have something like this located at your starbase, or turn it into something that you can install on your ship so that you can use it wherever you go? I'm inclined to say it should remain at your starbase because having it with you all the time might be seen as an unfair advantage.
I think using it on a ship if it takes some kind of resource to use, has a limited array of minerals to find (like once upgraded fully it can find radioactive, it should never be able to find purples) and is limited by a cool-down
If we're talking about chores of SC2 then I'd rather have that scanner on the Vindicator (3DO name of your flagship) and you can only use it when already in the system, so it depletes resources from your ship which you can refill as you go. Otherwise, returning back to the base to scan mineral rich systems would turn into another chore. System scanner would save you shizz ton of time of going to each planet to scan it. It doesn't necessarily need to provide detailed info about them. Just a rough estimation of what can be expected. Could possibly be upgraded by the end of the game to completely scan the system planets to speed up the story-line advance. This way the joy of exploration and seeing new systems is still there too.
Regarding Advisors telling you not to go if it's too dangerous. I think the better solution would be what I already mentioned above. Have the info of the planet and info of your lander capabilities in front of your eyes and evaluate the risks yourself. Just like SC2 (Ur-Quan Masters) had temps, geo activity etc. from which you could judge if you're capable of surviving the resource gathering. But, I guess it's ok if you decide to consult advisors if you're not sure enough. The main point is that YOU wanna decide whether to go or not and not computer telling you. Otherwise it'd be pretty boring to sit through all that counsel with little to no involvement from your side. Besides, if you take a risk and fail, there's always a last save there.
Sure, also if we make planets bigger with different biomes (excluding some planets of course) the player can decide whether to mine more valuable resources by observing the hazards on the biome.
This doesn't sound like Star Control at all. The beauty of the SC2 combat was one on one melee. Why change it?
Because some players do not design their ships to be pure combat vessels, some would prefer to have escorts protect their big ships while their flagship can specialize in cargo operations. Again the player can choose to have his escorts AI controlled, or he can control them manually.
^ My Vindicator was never a pure combat vessel up until the point where Melnorme info traded for bio data was exhausted and I didn't need any resources anymore. But even then I managed to kill any alien ship including green and black Ur-Quan ships without a problem. I never used any ship other than the flagship for combat except the final boss which you could only safely kill with the Pkunk ship.
Also, you didn't have to use your flagship to fight at all. It could have been purely resource gathering vessel with escorts fighting the battles for you in SC2, you just had to be really good with them.
I guess your desire is to fight battles with more than 2 ships involved, which would make the battles more of an RTS type of battles than arcade. I doubt developers are aiming for it.
I think that both would be interesting types of combat. I also think there should be a dual feature, where you could challenge the leader of a group of vessels, and if you win you can get away. Maybe not all captains would except this, or maybe you might have to insult them. The different races personality also could affect this. Where the Spathi might never accept a dual, the Thraddash would. That is just an idea, but I think it might be nice to have a combination of both, having quick dog fights and big epic battles would be very fun. If there are big battles, I think they should play out where you can give various ships tasks, including your flagship so you could choose to be in direct control of any ship.
^ Don't you think it'll be extremely hard to balance?
Yeah probably. I am thinking 90% old style, and 10% this style. I also think that the flagship should be less OP later game. Boss battles with space stations and such would also be pretty sweet.
A large part of what made Starcontrol a great game was the one on one duels and special abilities of the ships... it really must be carried over in some form.
Perhaps early on in the full game, before you have a chance to upgrade the carrier, it would be wiser to send out scouts/single ships against alien patrols/probes/cargo transports (and take their cargo if you win so you don't need to mine!)Maybe in the main game, certain encounters will call for duels and others will call for all out battles depending on context (where you can select your ship/mission type/position within the battle). Think of FPS multi-player games like Battlefield where there are different player classes plus different vehicles which you can pilot. Perhaps the single ships could be the equivalent of player classes and the carrier ships would be the equivalent of vehicles... So... picture yourself flying around in a fighter with two weapons on offer, main laser and a secondary ability (cloaking for 5 seconds as an example). You're then able to take out larger ships and even dock them once their shields are down and pilot them (like you would pilot a tank in Battlefield 2). All this would be happening amongst asteroid fields so you have obstacles to avoid, just like in oldschool 2d melee...Also, IF anyone ever played Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, an ancient flight simulator, it had the right balance of arcade style flight simulation with the choice of dueling, dogfights against multiples enemies and all out air battles with bombers and fighters on both sides... it would be a good style of game play to emulate, but obviously updated and in space with a Starcontrol theme By the way, this is my first post. Hi, I'm Lord 82.
There's a million games out there where you control multiple ships. There's a million games where you and a squad fight innumerable enemy vessels, large and small. There's a million games with RTS components during ship battles (like Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire). There's a million games like Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen where it's you against a throng of foes. They're everywhere, in all of history of games... Wing Commander, Xwing vs. Tie Fighter ever, many decades ago where it's 3d and you go up against entire armies....
Yet there's only been ONE Star Control. Where the balance is SO right, and nailed SO spot-on, and balanced SO superbly where you CAN fight one-on-one, and it's still riveting and delicious and you have a chance no matter what ship you choose. That balance has to be NAILED SO RIGHT for it to work.
Which is why there are literally ZERO one-on-one dogfighting spaceship combat games. It's a tall order, but it has to be done, and done right for this to be a STAR CONTROL game.
Go 3d, and you have yet another Star Citizen clone. Go with multiple ships and you've got another Sins of a Solar Empire clone.
THAT IS YOUR EDGE, Stardock. That's what makes you unique in this new glut of space-games. That's what your calling is. The perfection and preservation of fun factor, just using one-on-one spaceship dogfighting. That is where the $$ is, and where the fan-service is.
Change it, or leave that part out and you all-of-a-sudden don't have Star Control anymore. You're just one of a million.
^ That sounded almost convincing.
Jokes aside, I'm all for 1v1 battles, but you know 'em stubborn devs. They'll do w/e they think is best. Even though sometimes it's a total FailFish.
All they need to worry about (core SC things) IMO:
1. Variety and balance of alien ships for 1v1 battles.
2. Superb full 3D graphics.
3. Immersive and engaging storyline.
4. Top notch UI.
^ To add onto that:
5. Diverse worlds with a huge star map
6. Plenty of diverse and unique alien species
7. Refined mining
^ Agreed. I would like to add on:
8. Nerf flagship later game (did any of you really use any ship other than that when you got hellbore cannons?)
9. Keep the star control "feel" of exploration through uncharted space to become strong enough to defeat a powerful foe.
I agree with cuorebrave about the battles but I just wanted to mix things up some
and I also think that having some more boss battles besides just maybe a final boss would be nice. The Sa-Matra fight should be a starting point for these.
I will not buy this game if it does not have the authentic Star Control top-down 2D Super Melee combat with ships that have completely unique weapons and abilities.
I played Super Melee more than I played the TBS game in SC1 or the RPG in SC2 and SC3.
Don't make this a MoO3. Keep the core gameplay that defined the series.
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