Transporters and Abandoning Ship!

General discussion about the game.
Darthcaboose
Posts: 109
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:14 pm

Transporters and Abandoning Ship!

Postby Darthcaboose » Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:36 am

Ever since I've seen the transporter show up in the FTL alpha development videos, it's been interesting to think about all the possibilities that could come with that. You can actually get kind of existential when you think about these things... I've seen some of these ideas crop up both on the Comments section of the FTL Kickstarter as well as here in the forums, but I'd like to flesh them out here a bit more.

The player is tasked with controlling the ship and the ship's crewmembers. Does the player have an actual representation in the game, or does he just play an invisible hand in the whole state of affairs of the Kestrel? You might be thinking "What does this have to do with transporters?" but just keep reading...

Game mechanics permitting, if a player decides to send over all his crewmembers to the enemy ship in the attempt to overwhelm the enemy ship's crew, the player still has control over the automated parts of the ship (weapons can still be set to fire, drones can still be controlled, power can be redirected as needed, and the autopilot can keep evading as well) yet can also control his away team's actions on board the enemy ship.

Now, if the enemy ship were to jump away, we have a bit of a conundrum. The player's ship is still there, with no one around to crew it. What happens here? Where does the player's control jump to? Does it stick with the Kestrel / player's ship, left to fly aimlessly about in space without a pilot until it runs out of fuel (i.e. Game Over)? Or does it jump to the crewmembers now stuck aboard the enemy ship's vessel, perhaps with a chance to still overwhelm the crew and commandeer the new ship? Wouldn't that be a slightly more interesting scenario, since your crew members don't have the support of their own ship to transport them back?

What happens if all except one crewmember (for example, you keep the pilot for the evasion bonus) jumps onto the enemy ship and then the enemy ship jumps away? How would the game determine whether to follow the solitary pilot or the other crewmembers exploits (especially if the number of away team redshirts outnumbers the crew still onboard the player's ship)?

Should the majority of crewmembers in such a situation determine what the player is tasked with controlling, or will it always be based on the player's own ship? What do you all think about this?
Warbird
Posts: 223
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:23 am

Re: Transporters and Abandoning Ship!

Postby Warbird » Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:15 am

Methinks the most likely arrangement would be a game over for when you lose all your members. Losing members to a enemy ship warp would be just that, losing members. The focus of the game seems to be more on the ship than the crew itself; as you can get more crew, but you're stuck with your ship. That being said, I see no reason why you couldn't follow the adventures of Urist McCrewmember, but I do think it could make things extremely convoluted.
Image
Niknaktom
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:43 am

Re: Transporters and Abandoning Ship!

Postby Niknaktom » Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:07 pm

These are the sort of things we will figure out in the beta. What WILL happen if you send over all your crew and the ship jumps?
Only fools go, where angels fear to tread