Metagame ideas

[dra6o0n]

The vanilla game was a arcade, rougelike style where you have to progress.
But a new metagame idea may fit in with the current game style to add some flavor to it.

Project Zomboid is going for a metagame, where a single world that the player creates and use, is persistent even after the player dies and loses his character permanently.

Whilst it's not possible for this unless the fleet is disabled, having the player's action leaving it's mark in the world until you die and 'make a new ship' will remain in play.

The #1 issue I see in the game when running these ideas, is that using the 'new game' in the new game menu creates a new save game instance, not reusing a old instance like a 'new game+'.

So I wonder if there is the possibility of modding the 'new game' and 'game over' so the game world remain in play, but with new ships or story.

So a couple ideas to make metagame thrive throughout playthrough...

1) Disable fleet to allow open exploration (moddable already).
2) Incorporate time based scripting, so enemies in a sector may respawn and new events may be created.
3) Allow backtracking, by having various long range warps link both ways instead of one way.

You could have a system where a galaxy consists of a 5x5 sector, and every sector is connected by a long range beacon.

Now if said death and replaying a world works, you would play through and upgrade your ships in a single playthrough, only to die later on. If you created another ship and started playing again, you may run into your old wreckage and may salvage stuff from it, but take too many 'jumps' and pirates or looters may hoard them, thus you may find ships that are holding your old stuff. Heck, it wouldn't be surprised if enemies leveled up from your death.

It would be pretty bad if you died far too often and enemies end up being OP to you, so have it that the tech they use, is limited to a few ships, maybe boss flagships that wanders through sectors. Killing enemies that has leveled grants a ton more rewards than normal, obviously.

[Vhati]

3) Allow backtracking, by having various long range warps link both ways instead of one way.

Each sector ceases to exist as soon as you jump from the exit beacon.

a single world that the player creates and use, is persistent even after the player dies

The entire saved game (your ship, scores, and the current sector) is deleted when you die.

So I wonder if there is the possibility of modding the 'new game' and 'game over' so the game world remain in play, but with new ships or story.

There isn't.

2) Incorporate time based scripting, so enemies in a sector may respawn and new events may be created.

Events are placed when the sector is created. Each beacon triggers its event when entered by your ship and is inert from then on... until the fleet sets a new event to trigger on entry. Aside from quests, new events can't be created.

Heck, it wouldn't be surprised if enemies leveled up from your death.

When you jump away from a beacon outside of combat, any ship that was there ceases to exist.
If you flee a combat then return, a new ship is spawned of similar variety to the one you left.
Enemies can't upgrade, use scrap to buy anything, or equip items lying around.