Hey Onionman
Thought I would make a thread that will help get some answers to some gameplay questions and maybe give you some insight on what players are looking for...
Here is a few I had:
1. In Ensign 1, will you be stationed somewhere? Because in most of the videos you are in a small craft and that usually wouldn't be used for long traveling. And if on a station, will there be any NPC's you can communicate with for missions or to get the low down on what is happening in the universe.
2. Will there be any possibility of crew members on your ships?
3. Could you fly a ship into a hanger set to self-destruct and use another ship that is in the hanger to make your escape? 😈
4. Will there be a economy in the game or crafting system?
5. Will there be any leveling/skills for yourself or any possible crew mates?
6. Will you be able to interact with any of the displays/controls on your ship?
Hey DarkOne, sorry for the late reply, I've been at the MAGFest convention.
So...some of these ideas are things I'd like to do but I honestly just couldn't get done as a one man programming team. And some of the other long term plans for Ensign-1 I'm not sure if I want to reveal just yet, but given all that, I'll try to answer your questions.
1. I'd like there to be a central space station that can be used as a city and marketplace in the game. Haven't decided much past that though. For the single player, your base is going to be Ensign-1 itself, most missions will start and end there. For multiplayer I haven't actually decided how it will work. If there will be a central station surrounded by wormholes to hot battle spots or what. I don't even know how big the multiplayer will be yet, a lot of that depends on how successful we are.
2. It's a good idea, but I don't see it happening in the short term :/ And by that I mean, no AI crew members. Player controlled definitely we'll have something for them to do.
3. That's an excellent idea and one that makes a lot of sense. I'll see what we can do ...
4. There will be money, not going to say an economy yet since I haven't decided if there will be trading. You will have credits to spend on better ships and weapons though.
5. So this one is kind of asking about the longer term ideas with Ensign-1. Between just us here on spacesimcentral, what I was thinking was actually having more or less permadeth in the game :/ I haven't mentioned this before, but that's what I'd like to do. You'd keep any money you've gained (through inheritance or such) but you'd lose all rank and your ship when you died. So no levels as far as skills per-se, just things that could be bought back like armor, weapons, and ships.
6. That's a good long term goal, but it isn't in our short term game design.
Hey Darkone, Gaming on Linux did interview us about Ensign-1 at
http://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php? ... ign-1.783/
It might answer a few more of the questions you or others had.
This was a nice Q&A, make sure you thank Rusty for me for getting a lot of the Single Player elements into the game. Creating your own engine must have been a huge challenge, but in the end you will know what it can or cannot do and if you can you can modify it to do it.
So possibly August as a rough time frame... not bad that is 6 months away and I could see that happening.
How will FTL travel work? Will it use jump points like Wing Commander, Hyperdrive like in Star Wars, or ranged jumps like in Battletech?
3 games I haven't played, but jump gates.
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