Idea for Multiplayer

[Aerowind]

I doubt it would really work too well. For one, that's quite a lot of (single player)work for what will usually be a pretty quick showdown. This would work better as a cloud of players instead of doing this with one of your friends and playing along. What I mean is, play through the game normally like you would single player, but instead of fighting the AI Flagship, you get paired with a person that's also made it to the end and have your final fight.

[Icehawk78]

Just out of interest, if the source was released would this be do-able?

Technically anything is "doable", but in reality, you'd have to massively add a ton to the game, given that the original developers' lack of interest in multiplayer means that they very likely did not use coding practices which would easily extend to multiplayer formats.

However, the game itself would also be vastly different, without complete freedom to pause, or with both players having complete freedom to pause and affecting both players.

[Unlucky Scarecrow]

How would you stop the game from becoming "Whoever launches their Ion bomb first wins"?

[Madiuss]

Multiplayer vs maybe not a good idea but Coop could be cool. Playing with a friend exploring sectors and facing AI.

[Wizzerzak]

How would you stop the game from becoming "Whoever launches their Ion bomb first wins"?

Cloaking

[steej]

I am totally up for this!

I think it would be great!
Vs and coop would work. Even a 'challenge' or 'race to the end mode' world work too

I'm not talking about a hughe MMO style of game here, just a two player thing.

[ColdHeart]

Due to the random nature of the game, I'm not sure a PvP version would work well.

Player A gets shops and empty areas in their initial travels, gets the rare nice upgrade but over-all barely gets anything useful or complimenting their initial ship choice.

Player B gets a few easy kills and shops selling upgrades which compliment their initial ship choice. Or just getting gifted free weapons early on. By the end has a killer ship.

Who wins? Player B.
Why? Random luck.

This does not a good game make.

Also how do you handle pausing the game in the final fight? It would be really irritating to have one player randomly pausing the game if I'm trying to time stuff. Like sending my boarding crew over after the bomb has gone off.

By choosing not to have multiplayer elements, a lot of these issues can be ignored. Trying to then make a fun multiplayer game from it, not the easiest of things to do.

[Agent_L]

This game is played with constant pause-unpause.
Have you ever tried to pause a multiplayer game?

[Aerowind]

Do Timestop spells count? Though I will say there have been multiplayer games with pause...just not one where playing the game is actually centered around it.

That said, it's not really too hard to play this game without pause. Admittedly, it does drastically change the playstyle though, which is a huge downside to those who do like to pause and assess the situation a lot.

Probably the absolute best way to have multiplayer is to go the cooperative route. Leave pause in (maybe make it limited to keep from griefing), and have two on two ship battles. Make it so you can beam your own crew onto your teammates ship to help with repairs or fending off boarders if they need it and other little things to make it more than just two people playing single player side by side.

[Wizzerzak]

I don't really see the pause thing a problem. I'ts not like pausing is a major 'element' to the game. Sure, some people use it pretty much all the time but you don't get any in-game advantage from it, it simply makes the game easier for the player. Thus having no pausing in the final battle will test how well you can make decisions on the spot - remember the other player also has this pressure of no-pause.

And I see your point about the randomness of it but I feel that ties it more to the main game (which is very luck based). Also, think of pretty much all board games, they all require some aspect of luck (some more than others) but luck can only take you so far, if you are better than the other player then, even if they're lucky, you can develop a strategy to beat them.

Edit: Also, another point about the pausing:
many RTS games have pause in single-player mode and some people spend ages in pause readjusting troops, setting destinations etc. However these games do not have a pause button in multiplayer do they? It adds to the skill of the game, even if it does change the strategy a bit.