What this game needs...

[monsterfurby]

First of all: I honestly think that Starshatter is a game with great potential, especially as it seems that the Graphics engine is being developed even further. I truly enjoy playing it, but in comparison to semi-dynamic campaigns a la Wing Commander, it is lacking something. So what would that be, one might ask? Well, the fascination in other Space Sims is not only given by physics, special effects and/or dynamics in a campaign, but also by the player being able to identify themselves with the game. Sure, you are fighting for some fictional force and you want them to win, but in the end you are only flying besides nameless pilots against nameless pilots.
Therefore I would like to suggest one feature that would truly enhance the gameplay: give us wingmen and capship crew with personality! You could give them different stats and let them have a career similar to the player's. Of course, once they reach a certain rank, the player should be able to choose who to fly with. As for the crew: they could improve certain stats of your ship and occasionally comment on the events. The Enemy could have personalities too, so players would slowly build rivalries with the enemy commanders and aces.
I think that this would greatly add to the atmosphere in the campaign (Eurofighter Typhoon did this pretty well) and make this game the PERFECT Space Combat game (now, if I would manage to survive a little longer in a light fighter, that is [:D])
So far about my quarter dollar, any comments?

[Incendiary Lemon]

I think a RPG styled crew system is a good direction, starting small with your wingmen and then moving up to the capital ships. Manually crewing stations on cap ships is another entry on my wishlist, rather like in I-War you could leave it to the crew or do it better yourself. All depends on where Milo wants to take Starshatter though, he's made it accessibility a priority scrubbing most of the annoying Spacesim conventions (like torpedo interception missions) he may not want to go too far in the managment direction.

Edit - I think Silent Hunter III is actually a pretty good model for cap ship management.

[monsterfurby]

Well you don't necessarily need too much management. Simply knowing that one of your fellow pilots has fallen in combat or promoted or has a better killboard than you would already be a major motivation.

[amazingd]

Is there no way to track overall attrition in the full version?

If not, this would be a good addition.

How does one keep track of force levels and such?

[Kuokkanen]

Like keeping number of available fighters and starship conditions on interstellar level isn't enough, you want even more data? Sheesh! If you want play with the crew, download BattleCruiser 3000 A.D. or BattleCruiser Millennium.
(yep, they are freeware)

[Penleeki]

Since its impossible for the player to die, it might be a bit wierd having ai pilots who can be killed.

I agree with better attrition tracking though. It seems daft that you start a campaign with absolutely no idea what the enemy strength is, and although you can note down the size of enemy groups (deducting kills) when you encounter them, its a bit unrealistic that your fellow AI ships don't do the same thing and share the information.

[John DiCamillo]

Monsterfurby:

The hard part about doing a character-based storyline in Starshatter is that I would have to restrict the player to follow one of a handful of ships and career paths. You would lose the ability to reassign yourself to a different squadron or starship command whenever you wanted to. Otherwise, you would be coming into the middle of a different storyline, and it wouldn't make any sense.

Btw, this is exactly how Sierra's Babylon 5: Into the Fire was going to work. You would start out as a Starfury pilot and follow that storyline for a while. Then at predetermined branch points in the script you would get the opportunity to either stay where you were or accept promotion to a different squadron or command of a Hyperion or Omega class destroyer.

I wanted more flexibility than that in Starshatter, so I opted to forgo having crewmates and wingmen with characters that you could track. Instead, the story is based on your friends like Sara and Jonas, and key military and political people like Admiral Evars and the Alliance President. I think the story itself is fine, but the presentation is a bit dry (or "sterile" as some people have said). We are trying to juice up the presentation a bit for The Gathering Storm.

Penleeki et al:

Yes, you can already keep track of the overall roster of ships in the campaign on each side, both in the demo and the full game.

Go to the FORCES tab of the main campaign screen and you will find a tree control showing the complete order of battle for the Alliance. You can expand the branches and leaves of this tree to see exactly how many fighters are still flying and how much damage each starship has sustained. Just above the OOB tree is a menu that lets you switch from the Alliance to all the other friendly and enemy factions that are active in the campaign. Of course, for enemy factions you will only see the ships and squadrons that have already been encountered by some friendly unit. That is part of how Starshatter implements the "fog of war".

[Penleeki]

[X(]
Didn't spot that one. Thankyou very much for pointing it out.

[wdboyd]

Salutations,

Ship repair facilities... ie spaceborne dry docks, or station repair, etc.

I don't mean "fast" repairs. It should take some game time, but one should have outside ship repair capability. Then one could stay aboard or possibly come back to a favorite old craft after it's repaired or refitted for combat.

All navies have such facilities for damaged war ships.

Thanks [:)]

[Incendiary Lemon]

Because the individual campaigns take place over a matter of days I don't think drydocks make sense. In 4.0 cap ships retained any hull damage incurred from mission to mission. Milo altered that somewhat in one of the patches so now they will recover some damage if they're in a critical state.

If operations were slower paced and took ingame weeks then it work to "withdraw" ships from the line for repairs and refitting. I like the intensity of the current campaigns though. Given how devastating the weaponary is - they will be short. I'd love to know what Milo's plans for expanding the core game are though and what "Gathering Storm" entails.

Anyway keep up the critiscm and suggestions. Not that I've contributed anything but many community ideas have filtered up.

Cheers

[Janster]

Hey, I disagree, what this game needs is FAR FAR better starship control and systems.

we're getting too little info on whats going on, and possible threats, and the big ships needs to be able to protect themselves..

Also eh, whats the point with shields when they don't deflect crap...Sigh..

Janster

[monsterfurby]

Actually, I found the Shields to be not to bad... but that might be because I'm more of a pilot and usually don't command Capships - and that I know where to hit them (Turrets ahoy!)

In Response to John: Well, Character-Based doesn't necessarily mean character-centered. Sure, the News messages and mails from your friends add a lot to the atmosphere. However, since the game keeps track of the remaining ships in each Squadron, it would just be a good idea to have it also keep track of the Pilots assigned there. It might just be randomly generated names and callsigns, but simply knowing that there is someone flying next to you who saved your rear end on the last run against that carrier instead of some "Wolf 3" dude would, at least for me, add a lot to the atmosphere of the game.

[Janster]

hmm thats odd, my shields have never stopped anything, nor been hit by anything that has sapped their strenght at any point.

Thus they have no use and I am considering turning them off to save power.

Janster

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Janster

hmm thats odd, my shields have never stopped anything, nor been hit by anything that has sapped their strenght at any point.

Thus they have no use and I am considering turning them off to save power.

Shields don't STOP hull receiving damage, they just REDUCE amount of damage taken. Turn off and you'll be dead before enemy ship.