Hurray! Another multiplayer clone project. :)

[Cog]

But he could call the project JamP...

[kcd.Spektor]

But he could call the project JamP...

[The_Bear]

What species/organization is going to be the main enemy, I think it would be easier to come up with quests to the game if people know this.

No one specific for now.
Once again - any suggestions are welcome

Maybe the mantis, or a new race thats even worse than the mantis with new technology of mass destruction.

Or the mantis and a new organization with support from the slugs and the rockmen against the federation with the engies and the zoltan. The new organization is not evil like the rebels but simply another organization like the federation(I say federation but I mean the human ships if anyone didn't understand that). The mantis attack everyone. It shouldn't end with one of the organizations defeating the other since I think you said that ships will attack each other you can make it so the federation, the mantis and the other organization have to do something like take over a station to gain control over an enemy sector. Not all sectors are under control by one of the organizations because none of the organizations are evil so lots of sectors can be neutral without having to worry about a giant fleet taking control over everything. Most of the sectors should be under controll by new neutral aliens that you may add and by pirates. The mantis will still attack these sectors since they are evil.

All races/organizations should have their own storyline.

[kcd.Spektor]

Maybe the mantis, or a new race thats even worse than the mantis with new technology of mass destruction.
...
All races/organizations should have their own storyline.

I just thought:
1. Most likely there should be different races that the original FTL, so there are no legal problems.
2. The new races can be very similar to the original ones.
3. Most importantly all the races that will be present depends on the persone who can draw the mob sprites
4. It would be great to have analogy of the original races: Humans, Gian alien spiders , some cyborgs, some energy life forms, Rocky golems, anything else.
5. Basicly as soon as I find some one who can draw mob sprites, we will know what races there will be.
Anyone knows somebody who can do that?

[The_Bear]

They cant deny you adding humans and giant spiders.

[The_Bear]

Forget the races, What do you think about the idea.

[kcd.Spektor]

Forget the races, What do you think about the idea.

All other story lines and quests will depend on how I make the universe generator and it's API.
Other than that - all stories and quests are good.

[stylesrj]

I can't remember very well but someone did once make a whole bunch of sprites for different races, including Giant Alien Spiders. Someone probably knows the thread which had it and can link to it. I like to think it's buried somewhere in Captain's Edition.

[Gencool]

I've done spiders before!


Original Link

I was imagining them as an environmental hazard, rather than a playable race, though. I also really like the idea of having a version that's 4 tiles big but can squeeze down corridors.

Also I have these guys:





The Fire Sprite idea came from a reddit thread where someone suggested them as a race.
I put a response which outlines them a bit more clearly (I am MustachioEquestrian on Reddit), so I'm fairly confident that I have enough right to claim them as at least 50% my own.

The other is from a semi abandoned concept for a mod based around the Ghost class.


OH and don't forget the Elves. They're a comedy class but could be great as an easteregg (in the FTXmas mod they're basically chaos demons)


I'd have a couple of requests before my stuff gets used though (mostly 'cause animation can take ages and i'd like to hold on to the rights of things where possible)


[edit]

I almost forgot, I did these concept gifs a while ago, too;
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27831

[Cog]

8. Give ideas for events

9. Give ideas for quests

10. Give ideas for Races/storylines

11. Any suggestions are welcome

I think events have to wait until the game is more balanced and we are more familiar with how combat works. In this game fighting multiple ships will be possible. Balancing that with the player's ship power will require some kind of mechanism that tracks how powerful the player's ship is. In FTL it was what sector am I in... since this is open world, how will that be handled?

Some ideas (none of which do I particularly favor):

-Based on how many jump nodes you have visited. (Probably most unforgiving)
-Based on how many enemy ships you have encountered. (a little less unforgiving)
-Based on how much scrap/money you have gained. (a little less still)
-Based on how many separate occasions you have gained scrap/money. (maybe a happy medium, but probably boring that difficulty climbs at a steady, continuous rate, like Oblivion and their level 20 cougars)
-Based on distance (via some distance formula) from home square. (probably balanced but boring)
-Based on the map generating a danger-level for different areas of the map and giving the player some kind of cues to indicate "this area is level 1 danger, this area is level 7 danger" etc. This could be accurate or sometimes inaccurate (off by 1 to 2 levels maybe, randomly.)

If the last suggestion, I would in particular suggest that different races not be stronger than others (like Rogue AI space is level 7 while Engi space is level 1, for instance) though maybe certain races (like aforementioned Rogue AI... I mean captain's edition AI Avatar ships, not Rebel Drone ships) might have a (potentially hidden) modifier to danger level.

Will there be any kind of time limitation in the game? If not, the player could have something like a base of operations they return to. If so, we're drifting very far from FTL indeed, but the decisions so far have already moved us far from it, so maybe that's fine.

Ideas for races/storylines:

Feature some fan favorites... like a race that powers ship systems, a race that has telepathy, a race that repairs stuff quickly, but I would mix it up and make them more flavorful. I loved that Captain's edition gave more detail about the different races from the socialize options, but would have enjoyed more. I would suggest making a list of advantages and hindrances, then giving each race a mix of both that seems balanced. If a race has more advantage than disadvantage, it can be balanced by their being harder to find by chance or being a secret (like crystal crew.)

Some advantage ideas for races:

(ones in FTL previously)

Gain skill experience faster
Move faster than normal
Do more combat damage
Repair faster than normal
Power rooms they are in
Explode when they die for damage to all enemies
Have more HP than normal
Take no damage from fire
Take less/no suffocation damage (Crystal/Lanius)
Not require breathing (AI Avatar)
Be able to lockdown room (crystal lockdown)
Be able to see into connected rooms without sensors
Be able to sense enemy crew aboard other ships
Be immune to mind control
Remove oxygen/air from room
Have telepathic senses

(some new suggestions)

-Heal crew that are nearby
-Take less combat damage (different from more HP)
-Local teleportation ability
-Deal hull damage to ship from outside (imagining some kind of alien that can attack the ship from the outside with claws/whatever in melee, slowly doing points of hull damage. Weapons should be able to target them, but are slow. Some kind of point defense lasers could help handle them)
-Generate Oxygen/another atmosphere type in a room/convert oxygen to another atmosphere/vice versa
-Mind Control enemies
-Pacify everyone in room, activated ability (no combat fighting)
-Deal combat damage through walls (telekinetic attacks)
-Cause acid puddles when damaged/killed, eventually causes hull breaches (imagine this + clone-bay and teleporters)
-Leave slime trails that slow movement
-Chance to stun enemies on combat damage
-Jedi force-like grab/push that can move target enemy towards or away from you
-Be continually on fire and deal damage to those nearby, also draining oxygen. (maybe take extra damage in rooms without oxygen. they don't start fires, but they can't put fires out either and don't take fire damage (other than helping cause the oxygen to deplete))
-Breathe a different atmosphere that is poisonous to oxygen-breathers
-Be immune to stun/acid/combat damage/whatever
-Have phoenix/clone-bay type ability where if they die, they respawn.
-Explode causing hull damage when they die
-Erect temporary walls, activated ability
-Go into frenzy/do extra combat damage/extra repair/extra something, activated ability
-Gain speed/combat damage boost/HP after killing crew
-Heal hull damage (maybe 1 per jump? Might not work if no time constraint)
-Become invisible (activated/in response to taking combat damage/when in vacuum/other)
-Shapeshift
-Born pregnant (think tribbles)
-Asexual reproduction by division (able to split in two, into two crew)
-Be enormous (can block off 1-block wide corridor, can physically push enemies maybe)
-Be tiny (high % chance of combat damage evade)
-Fly (no immediate advantage on a spaceship occurs, but maybe just a race that flies, could be beneficial in certain events)
-Breathe underwater and swim (ships filled with water, reduce non-swimming races speed in water filled areas, prevent non-melee combat damage (ray guns don't work), also water would do extreme damage to alien race that's constantly on fire, also fires impossible in water filled rooms and causes suffocation damage to boarders out of atmosphere in tanks...breaches more dangerous to water ship)
-Able to see in the dark/have sonar/other sight (ships are in complete darkness. Non-telepathic races don't have sensors view even of the room they're in!, but, can't use sensors or "see" in the traditional way)
-Immune to radiation + can see ultra-violet/x-rays (ships do slow radiation damage to all boarders, also meaningful in events maybe)
-lots more possibilities... maybe we should have everyone in the thread just brainstorm them, then collect them together into a big list and look at what aliens could be created.
-Symbiotic (gain various advantages from having more of them on the same ship or in the same room)

Perk ideas (these would be abilities a player could have their character start with or gain throughout the course of the game, to distinguish them from NPC crew as special)
-Inspire nearby crew (more combat damage/take less combat damage/gain more xp/etc)
-Scrounger (+% to scrap/money collected)
-Generate threat (force AI crew to only target them and not others, activated)
-Fast (+% to movement rate)
-Tough (+% to HP)
-Smart (+% to XP rate)
-Strong (+% to melee damage, not very helpful to non-hand-to-hand fighting races)
-Charismatic (beneficial in events, helps gain crew or avoid problems, should not be made too powerful)
-Renowned (beneficial in events, earned during gameplay)
-Peacemaker (known for being peaceful, earned during gameplay, affects events)
-Warmonger (known for being brutal, earned during gameplay, affects events...should be more disadvantageous since A, it's evil and B, killing innocents to take their stuff provides temporary rewards of its own)
-Devices/alien artifacts (could have all kinds of static or activated abilities. One example from my friend: project holographic copies of yourself to confuse enemies in combat, other random examples: personal teleporter, personal shield generator, advanced/special blaster rifle, nanotech repair bots (increases your repair rate), emergency heal to HP on critical HP level etc... could have a whole separate list of these and they could have a huge variety)
-We should solicit ideas from the thread

Disadvantages:
(Already in FTL)

-Cause less combat damage
-Have lower HP
-Move slower
-Repair slower
-Universal translator doesn't function very well with their language
-Bad reputation as thieves (slugs)
-Bad reputation as ignorant/having foolish religion (rocks)

(new ideas)

-Gain skill XP slower
-Can't control systems (for NPC crew only, imagine like an Ewok who doesn't understand computers but can be a boarder)
-Takes bleeding damage (extra damage over time after taking combat damage until medbay)
-Can't be healed in level 1 medbay (heals slower in level 2+ medbay) (or can't be healed in medbay at all)
-can't be cloned in clone-bay
-Temporary blindness while in bright light
-move very slowly outside water/their ship environment
-can't put out fires (thinking of fire race above)
-bad reputation as x (various possibilities, examples: slavers, smell bad/unclean, cruel, emotionless, cowardly, betrayers, vengeful, etc)
-Melee attacks slower than normal (but do normal/extra damage when it hits)
-Technophobic (won't use devices)
-Xenophobic (hate all other aliens and won't work with them)
-Brittle (takes extra damage from critical hits (think crystal-like race))
-Extremely short lifespan (only live x jumps/x minutes after they join your crew...clone-bay doesn't protect against natural causes death)
-Monstrous/repulsive (NPC crew (of certain races) unable to stay in same room with them, though willing to walk through a room with them in it)
-Unwilling to engage in crew combat (like a pacifist or monk)
-Symbiotic (gain disadvantages if fellow crew dies or from having few fellow crew around)
-Enormous (can't fit through normal/single wide doors...could perhaps pay/upgrade your doors system to accomodate)
-Cowardly (% chance to flee for x seconds on taking combat damage, if in vacuum, if in room with environmental hazard (fire/radiation/suffocation/etc))
-Should solicit ideas from thread

The idea of a fire race is something I invented on my own, incidentally. Neat that someone already had the same idea.