FTL Multiplayer

[Blooperluigi]

With a friend we already talked about "what a multiplayer FTL could be" ...

There's many possibilities ; personally, I would like the game to be quite the same, except that at either every jump, either every moment, you may come across another player's ship !..
Then, why not having for both player a long list of "What to do?"

If the first one chooses to show his goods but the second want to fight, it will trigger the proper event !

By the way, the "pause" button would work for only a few seconds and have a reload time...
(what about a "space-time controle room" which allows to use "pause" ?... ^^
Players could focus it..)

I really like these ideas! I'll be sure to write them down and see what I can do with them
Thanks,
Blooper

[itg]

PvP combat is a cool idea and all, but I'm not sure how much fun it would be to get blown up by another player in the middle of a good run because you were momentarily low on HP, or to lose right after beating a human because you took a ton of damage and spent all your missiles.

Ship vs. ship balance becomes a huge issue if you let players fight players, too. Imagine running into someone playing the Crystal B. What are you supposed to do? Thanks to lockdown, you basically can't fight back. You're practically guaranteed to lose some crew, even if you dominate the space battle and blow up the Crystal ship before they murder your whole crew.

I'm not saying PvP can't be done well, but these are some things to think about. Maybe you could trigger an event to stop the battle after, say, 10 hull damage is done (or the crew is dead), then revive all dead crewmen, clone bay style. It would need some clever flavor text to explain it all, though.

[zeek]

I would think boarding would be a really bad idea. I mean against enemy ships they are either charging their FTL drive at the beginning of the fight or they're not going to (unless you're also shooting them while boarding). Against a player they're always going to be charging their FTL drive and it's pretty easy to grief your opponent by running away with their boarders on your ship when you're clearly going to lose the fight.

[Blooperluigi]

PvP combat is a cool idea and all, but I'm not sure how much fun it would be to get blown up by another player in the middle of a good run because you were momentarily low on HP, or to lose right after beating a human because you took a ton of damage and spent all your missiles.

Ship vs. ship balance becomes a huge issue if you let players fight players, too. Imagine running into someone playing the Crystal B. What are you supposed to do? Thanks to lockdown, you basically can't fight back. You're practically guaranteed to lose some crew, even if you dominate the space battle and blow up the Crystal ship before they murder your whole crew.

I'm not saying PvP can't be done well, but these are some things to think about. Maybe you could trigger an event to stop the battle after, say, 10 hull damage is done (or the crew is dead), then revive all dead crewmen, clone bay style. It would need some clever flavor text to explain it all, though.

Yeah this is one of the reasons that it's gonna be Co-op at first.

[Blooperluigi]

I would think boarding would be a really bad idea. I mean against enemy ships they are either charging their FTL drive at the beginning of the fight or they're not going to (unless you're also shooting them while boarding). Against a player they're always going to be charging their FTL drive and it's pretty easy to grief your opponent by running away with their boarders on your ship when you're clearly going to lose the fight.

Yeah I agree, it might just be a case of removing the boarding system

[Dirka]

I would think boarding would be a really bad idea. I mean against enemy ships they are either charging their FTL drive at the beginning of the fight or they're not going to (unless you're also shooting them while boarding). Against a player they're always going to be charging their FTL drive and it's pretty easy to grief your opponent by running away with their boarders on your ship when you're clearly going to lose the fight.

I don't think that's a dealbreaker in itself, it just changes the game for boarding loadouts. First priority, if you want to board, is now taking down the enemy's piloting or engines, and keeping it that way. On top of medbay and possibly weapons that's another thing to juggle. It makes boarding more risky, which is fine by me, since it re-balances rewards and risks a bit.

As for the crystal opponent problem: a workaround here would be allowing teleporting to and from your own ship (If that's doable, code-wise). That way you can rescue caught crewmembers at the price of tying up your teleporter.

PvP mode would probably be a hot sticky mess anyway, since half the time one player will get shafted by the other's loadout. But as long as you can decide whether you want to meet other players or not, you know exactly what you're in for. I for one wouldn't mind getting curbstomped in new and hilarious ways by other players. Losing is fun!

To offer some input into the whole game-mode brainstorming session: How about a chase mode? The first player works for the federation, and plays the game more or less as usual. The second player is an elite commander for the rebels and is tasked with hunting player 1 down. He starts a couple of jumps behind the former, with a slight advantage in kit, but gains little to no rewards through fights and events. Instead he has to stop at secret rebel bases to supply, repair and upgrade his ship. During regular events, his opponents are the feds, the inhabitants of the respective sectors and maybe the odd scout or assault that has gone rogue or was reprogrammed. The location and heading of the federation player is displayed in a way similar to the flagship. If the rebel catches up, there will be a PvP fight, from which either player can retreat. The rebel loses if the fed reaches sector 8. Players would be faced with the choice of either proceeding carefully and risking confrontation, or rushing through sectors, missing out on upgrades, and, as a result, tougher fights.

Damn, now I'm sad that I have neither the time nor the know-how to make this happen, it sounds really exiting.

[Zandorum]

I think something along the lines of a infinite sandbox space mode where you can see other players ships like you see the boss ship on your map with the option to fight or trade when you meet them on a beacon.

[Benjamin_Cook]

I think a nice gamemode would be a 3v3 battle, except with only two ships. One player (elected by his fellow teammates) will coordinate the battle with the two other players on his/her team actually dealing with the crew and what they're doing. The person in charge of the "mini-fleet" will have a split-screen view of his team's ships and system statuses, with his view of the enemy ships dependent on the sensor levels of the ships under his command. If team 1 ship A gets destroyed, team 1 ship B will have to fight BOTH enemy ships, one at a time. Perhaps as an added bonus, the enemy ship gets to fire one weapon at the survivor with triple the weapon charge time.

[Blooperluigi]

I would think boarding would be a really bad idea. I mean against enemy ships they are either charging their FTL drive at the beginning of the fight or they're not going to (unless you're also shooting them while boarding). Against a player they're always going to be charging their FTL drive and it's pretty easy to grief your opponent by running away with their boarders on your ship when you're clearly going to lose the fight.

I don't think that's a dealbreaker in itself, it just changes the game for boarding loadouts. First priority, if you want to board, is now taking down the enemy's piloting or engines, and keeping it that way. On top of medbay and possibly weapons that's another thing to juggle. It makes boarding more risky, which is fine by me, since it re-balances rewards and risks a bit.

As for the crystal opponent problem: a workaround here would be allowing teleporting to and from your own ship (If that's doable, code-wise). That way you can rescue caught crewmembers at the price of tying up your teleporter.

PvP mode would probably be a hot sticky mess anyway, since half the time one player will get shafted by the other's loadout. But as long as you can decide whether you want to meet other players or not, you know exactly what you're in for. I for one wouldn't mind getting curbstomped in new and hilarious ways by other players. Losing is fun!

Yeah PvP would be very difficult to balance (maybe there could be ways to do it but I'm not sure yet).
As for the TP situation, maybe there could be an upgrade which TP's your crew back to your ship in the event that the enemy jumps out.

To offer some input into the whole game-mode brainstorming session: How about a chase mode? The first player works for the federation, and plays the game more or less as usual. The second player is an elite commander for the rebels and is tasked with hunting player 1 down. He starts a couple of jumps behind the former, with a slight advantage in kit, but gains little to no rewards through fights and events. Instead he has to stop at secret rebel bases to supply, repair and upgrade his ship. During regular events, his opponents are the feds, the inhabitants of the respective sectors and maybe the odd scout or assault that has gone rogue or was reprogrammed. The location and heading of the federation player is displayed in a way similar to the flagship. If the rebel catches up, there will be a PvP fight, from which either player can retreat. The rebel loses if the fed reaches sector 8. Players would be faced with the choice of either proceeding carefully and risking confrontation, or rushing through sectors, missing out on upgrades, and, as a result, tougher fights.

Damn, now I'm sad that I have neither the time nor the know-how to make this happen, it sounds really exiting.

I've thought about this and it would be an interesting thing to do. I'll probably try it later on (probably after general release)

[Blooperluigi]

I think something along the lines of a infinite sandbox space mode where you can see other players ships like you see the boss ship on your map with the option to fight or trade when you meet them on a beacon.

Yeah this sounds like a good plan ;D