Wilbobaggins

I would LOVE it if this info was/has to be displayed on a control panel. Yes a hud with stuff like highlighting position and distance would be expected but having to look at control panel or a large display would be great and give them a use. Kinda like elite dangerous: Worst case: probably a pop out hud like EVE best case: A screen like that to display all ships/targets in area. and another for detail of one you have scanned like you mentioned above. Also all integrated into customisable control panels like mentioned here

i just want to build a base on a awesome ass space whale!

I don't see why the way of navigating between well established systems should be anymore complicated or different from any other game (simple star-map ect) However discovering new systems and reaching them is entirely up to the devs Perhaps we will start with but a dot on our map and later have it expand outwards as each new system is jumped to for the first time. Perhaps we will be shown the star systems for quite a distance around the center but fill in the details as we scan each system. We shall see but making exploring interesting and worth doing in such a large universe is no doubt vital!

Just the space whales would be cool, reminds me of a Doctor who episode.... Notice the scale: perfect for the planned epic scale of DU!

And us you! We will certainly return at several times, maybe to kit out more guns or mining equipment, basically anything we cant make on board (hopefully almost nothing!)

Wow! Thanks for all the replies and support! I'll add more details soon! As for what happens when the ship gets taken: well yes it will be game over (for now) but hay: BRING IT ON! As for being in for the long run we hope there will be a few ways to get back from time to time. For that we will have to wait to know more about the game mechanics!

Our plan is simple: Build the biggest starship that ever there was: Big enough to fully enclose an entire society from mining to shipyard. Think of it as a city state on the move or an Independent Starship State(ISS). The First of its kind. Wander, this will be first after completion of the starship, a testing phase so to think where we test out and improve all the ship's systems. This will also be a key time for gathering crew. Leave. I know we just got here, to our new home in the systems around the arkship but we must explore, go further than anyone has ever gone and keep going. We will take what we need from the planets we pass and processing it all on board as we move on. Everyone one is welcome, we are going to need hundreds of members to build and maintain such a massive ship on such a massive, (endless) journey! We will continue this nomadic existence possibly forever, maybe stopping off for weeks at a time to build upon our great starship that will be the core of all we do. Maybe some day we shall return, until then we will wander the skies in search of knowledge and transcendence! Possible crew positions: Board members: Vote on what the ship should do Admiral: Carries out the orders of the board commanding ISSWM and support ships together ISSWM captain: commands the crew of ISSWM Internal security: Repels boarders, manages internal security systems like internal anti personal turrets and internal bulkheads External security: Runs the drone, fighter and other support ship squadrons to tackle anyone trying to attack ISSWM. Also responsible for scouting for enemies. Manufacturing: turns natural resources into what we need. Hangar crew: responsible for maintaining all aspects of the hangars, from refueling to repairing to replacing destroyed ships. Constructors: responsible for keeping the ship running and constantly upgrading it. Will of course be responsible for making the ship to begin with. Miners: responsible for prospecting and mining be it with a fleet of small mining ships, a huge mining rig carried by ISSWM or huge mining tools built into ISSWM itself. Sections of the ship: Very probable Bridge (huge) Think a massive control center Hanger: where ships of many shapes and sizes can dock, repair, refuel ect. (maybe even capital ships) Manufacturing: Natural resources in one end, what we need out the other, be it ships or parts of ISS WM its self. Propulsion: This thing needs to move. Not fast but we need to get to places. FTL drives hopefully included. Crew Quarters Cargo: Where we keep everything (ships, ore, food) until we need it later. Point/anti fighter/anti missile defence Maybe Parks: Large open green places inside the ship for recreation and enjoyment Farms/food production Living areas, think a city on board. Like a massive crew quarters but well... nicer. Capital ship weapons Orbital bombardment weapons built in mining equipment Probably not Doomsday class weapons Battering ram on front Asteroid/capital ship deconstruction unit. (a massive mouth that eats things.. big things!)

Yes that is exactly what I mean. The jump gates would of course not be able to go THAT far so yeah you would need a network they just need to be longer ranged, faster and generally more convenient than using the FTL drives. it is just I think it would be a great benefit to the DU universe if the network was created, maintained and expanded by the community rather than just being there from the get-go such as in EVE Online. The exit gate would be the way to stop the surprise attacks. However it would probably be a two-way system to minimize over complication.

From what I have gathered individual ships will have FTL drives I think that having star gates would add a good deal to the game with their own advantages and disadvantages Advantages: Faster Needs no fuel on the ship's part Can be much longer ranged (jump to several "systems" away rather than just next "system") Disadvantages: Requires a lot of resources to set up Requires and exit gate I.E its not a long ranged jump to anywhere Requires a bit of resources to maintain Should there be a function for players to charge others (Toll) to use the gates then you could see an epic community maintained web of jump gates connecting the reaches of space and allowing far faster travel than short range FTL "hopping" from one place to another

Something living on the planets beyond the odd deer would be nice, on top of all the natural threats. I'm thinking: Some kind of man eating bug like infestation common on a few planets (think a scaled back starship troopers) Some ancient drones protecting those alien ruins the devs mentioned Booby-trapped wrecks from battles gone by

What a great idea! I would love a floating base deep in the clouds of a gas giant, slowly sucking resources from the atmosphere around it. i think we will have to wait to see how the developers plan to implement gravity. Maybe there should be some sort of airship part to help float or you are going to need a lot of power to keep your extractors afloat!

A bit of variation like lava planets for my pirate base would be awesome

rather than by player level ect I am pretty sure that the building limits would be how much resources the player can bring to bare. I am sure the resources and level of the player will be reasonably linked. This will probably be the effect for the tech tree as you will have to have to have the resources to unlock the blueprints (probably quite a bit more that per unit of object) for your items/modules requiring rank/reputation idea this would still work as maybe the resources needed would be require the higher amount of resources that can only be accessed by someone of high rank in a medium to large organization. We are still yet to see how much/what the RPG elements will mean/affect gameplay

I think dying should have a reasonable penalty but there should be a way you can play with little risk to yourself. namely for combat, why would you risk running into the enemy base with shotgun and pistol or into the depths of their fleet with a fighter when you could be safely in the heart of your capital ship? I think it should be possible to remotely control small ships (with limited ability) or infantry "drones" This may really enhance the amount of land battles and fighter squadrons, especially if members of an organization can join in from afar when they cant make it to the fleet battle.

Great idea, having all these levels in the organizations and roles and stuff it would be silly not to have matching chat channels as well be it text of voice. Being able to send/share other stuff with specific groups would also be important. I'm specifically thinking of way points and/or targets

It would defiantly be great to have weapons that scale to the possible ultra super mega titans. Just as fighter weapons are silly on a capital ship, capital weapons would be silly on a titan. (*cough* death star *cough* doomsday weapons *cough*)

I think that starting off, when you have limited resources, getting small jobs to earn cash to save up for your first ship upgrades/weapons/scanners/cargo-enlargement should be a relatively easy thing to do. This may sound a bit crazy but i think it would be an awesome way to introduce players to thew scale and action of the game: "Droids" (kinda thing) So you can go into cryro sleep in the arkship and inhabit "droids" This thread is no place to examine this idea in full but for example consider capital ship turrets. The larger ones could have hundreds of turrets which could never be filled by organization members efficiently Now we all know that a thinking human being is often for better than an AI in most turret scenarios (except twitch based missile point defense ect) so why not let players remotely take over turrets? What and why: Owners of large ships can have these special upgrades that allows a player to remotely control them The ship owner can set payment by minute, enemy damage or kills ect Those in cryro ship can see the offers pop up and virtually "hop" into the turret The turret controller who is probably a new player will easily get to see and feel part of the battles that go on Would off course be possible to turn off when not fighting and ai would take over when no one accepts the position i just think this would be great for players who are starting off to not only get to see and participate in the most awesome parts of the game but skip the normal small trade grinding that is so commonly the only option for players with weak starting ships in other games. I could make a new idea thread for this if anyone is interested, i have far more to add on this concept (FPS combat?)

Wow thanks for the prompt replies!!!!! Sorry I guess there are more devlogs than i thought! yay more info on this amazing looking game I am yet to read!

Yes! I think you should at the very minimum be able to color your standard cloths and spacesuit Want your crew all wearing red? Tick Want to be able to distinguish crew/organization/enemy from crew/organization/enemy? Tick Want the red shirts and yellow shirts from star trek? Tick to add to this I think the ability to add organization/custom emblems to your uniform would be great. Your corp icon on your shoulder? Want to a huge one on your back? Tick! Yeah, and the ability to stop others from using your emblems would off course be great. (dont want some toilet cleaner running around your battle cruiser wearing the admiral uniform do you?) Oh and spacesuit wise it would be great to have other things like the toxic fumes covering this volcano planet you found rather than just no oxygen in space. Having that and stuff like airlocks on such planets allowing you to filter the air and not use a spacesuit in your base/star ship would be the kind of depth that would shift this game from great to legendary!

Hi! Now for the classic new member idea of dubious worth or point! So here goes: So: Custom Control Panels What do I mean? A standard control panel/screen that you see in so many sci-fi command centers or star ship bridges but customisable. What is displayed and intractable can be moved around, added and removed ect How? a tile based drag and drop system Drag in buttons that activate scripts ect Be able to write parts eg "Weapons Systems" at the top or "Activate turrets" next to a button that activates a script that does just that. Be able to adjust values (like you can variables in scripts), I'm thinking throttle or engine power ect Drag in "screens" that can play camera views (if added) Why? Think of all the scripts and other things going on in the ship. How are you going to run/control those parts/scripts? There is no way fixed/"standard" control panels would cut it in such a deep and editable game that we have been promised. While this method may seem the obvious choice to many I just want to explain why I wanted to mention it: Space Engineers massive failure in this department So with Space Engineers its great: you can add many parts and every part has settings and variables (rotor speed as an example) But changing this on the fly? At first you had to follow these steps: go to any tiny number pad around the ship or cockpit enter into the control panel scroll through hundreds of parts (thousands for larger ships) Change what you wanted eg rotor direction to open your hanger door or what not. Then they brought in buttons and toolbars... now you can select things for each part to do and put them on a toolbar for later use or assign one to a button. Great? not really, here are some major flaws No name on the buttons (later they added hovering cursor over reveals a name hovering in mid air. I mean really?) Just an ugly toolbar at the bottom of the screen, really not immersive Assigned them to buttons? Well now you have a huge button block with four buttons that takes up a whole block. Then they added screens. Hurray! you might think but alas: 1 standard black screen (that again takes up and entire block) Need a mod to get it to update in real time Cannot link to cameras that are on your ship Can only really label big things like doors or containers (in a standard size/font/color) as everything else (buttons ect) are too small Oh and did I mention their cockpit screens do NOTHING!?!?!?!?! So... I hope you can forgive my anti SE rant but this is a cautionary tale of what was a really poor/lazy system that i am sure this game can improve on! Don't think this is an important feature however? Imagine what you can do with it? You a fighter? Set it up so you have a large radar display on your right next to your power level display just where you always wanted it. You a trader? have a live screen displaying current market prices around the systems right there beside your radar to look at as you glide into land. You a ship captain? Have a multiple display screen showing radar, energy levels, weapon conditions You a city owner? have massive custom display showing information about the city for new comers? How about street maps or direction signs? You in control of a huge spaceport and want to show off? How about have live displays giving directions to empty spots where you can land? And once they have landed and disembarked present them with a well presented screen asking them to select what they want done to their ship. Do they want to have it taken into deep storage with that awesome rail system you created? Do they want repair bots sent? Do they want to refuel/rearm? Did they enjoy their service ? Oh and did i mention scrips to control the displays? Click here to bring up the ship stats display, Click here to bring up the trading market.... So hey, thanks for getting this far. While some of you may think this is obvious I hope you can see why I thought it worth mentioning!