Proposal Discussion Derelicts - Mechanics and Purpose

[breakpointUK]

What can we do with Derelicts?

Types:-
Escape Capsule (not Players)
Small Combat Ship
Medium Transport Ship
Large Cargo Ship
NPCs Large Ship (Larger than player controlled Cargo ship)
Space station (small to medium)

Location:-
Floating in space
Floating in orbit
On Planetoids/Moons

Located by:-
Appears/does not appear on Nav map
Appears/does not appear on Scanner
Only by special equipment (Derelict Locator)

Protected by:-
Decoys
Mines
NPCs
No Protection

Lootable:-
Equipment and Cargo requires Ship Based Equipment (such as scoop)
Equipment and Cargo requires EVA
Avatar Items requires EVA (Avatar has backpack? (Inventory))
Automated Equipment, Cargo and Item transfer
No Loot

Respawn (with Protection if applicable):-
Derelict disappears once looted (after X time since found)
Derelict stays at location

Loot Respawn:-
With Derelict (after X time respawn)
After X time

Missions:-
Could appear as mission objective
Could be part of a rescue mission (could loot be Slaves/Robots?)
Could be part of a rescue mission (transport NPC)
Mission items placed a location of Derelict
Players items can be left on Derelict (storage, not personal)
Special Rare (usable) equipments/items (loot percentage drop chance) on Derelict

Any ideas for the mechanics and purpose of Derelicts?

 

[Davidtq]

What can we do with Derelicts?

Types:-
Escape Capsule (not Players)
Small Combat Ship
Medium Transport Ship
Large Cargo Ship
NPCs Large Ship (Larger than player controlled Cargo ship)
Space station (small to medium)

Location:-
Floating in space
Floating in orbit
On Planetoids/Moons

Located by:-
Appears/does not appear on Nav map
Appears/does not appear on Scanner
Only by special equipment (Derelict Locator)

Protected by:-
Decoys
Mines
NPCs
No Protection

Lootable:-
Equipment and Cargo requires Ship Based Equipment (such as scoop)
Equipment and Cargo requires EVA
Avatar Items requires EVA (Avatar has backpack? (Inventory))
Automated Equipment, Cargo and Item transfer
No Loot

Respawn (with Protection if applicable):-
Derelict disappears once looted (after X time since found)
Derelict stays at location

Loot Respawn:-
With Derelict (after X time respawn)
After X time

Missions:-
Could appear as mission objective
Could be part of a rescue mission (could loot be Slaves/Robots?)
Could be part of a rescue mission (transport NPC)
Mission items placed a location of Derelict
Players items can be left on Derelict
Special Rare (usable) equipments/items (loot percentage drop chance) on Derelict

Any ideas for the mechanics and purpose of Derelicts?

Right heres my thoughts.

Derelicts should not be "spawned" or created by a special system, derelicts should be "created" as a natural by product of npc on npc or npc on player interaction.

Escape capsules can be rescued to be sold as slaves, to be turned to fertilizer, or perhaps returned for insurance reward.

Now ships, I definetely think that a mechanic for extracting cargo via scoops is a good idea, I think perhaps a more indepth process to salavage equipment is a very good idea

Maybe a repair the ship process to resell would be good as well? Perhaps salvaging hulls using mining equipment for raw materials? I definetely think theres a lot of scope there with the EVA expansion. I could really imagine some heavy atmospherics wandering around a derelict ship with flickering lighting sifting through the previous occupants person affects in the crew quarters etc...

Perhaps such an event could in fact be an ambush as well...

Ive got no problems with proper missions to do xyz with specially generated derelicts or escape pods, but I definetely thing there should be remains of npc battles that we can happen across and interact with for profit.

 

[DoctorDanny]

If the derelict's computer core still has some power you should be able to download navigation information and such from it.

'ancient alien' derelicts should be hackable as well allowing you to download subroutines and algoritms that can benifit (or damage) your subsystems.

 

[Kerrash]

I think you pretty much summed up all the options there breakpoint

I suppose it will all depend on the level of interaction we can have. When EVA is possible, I can imagine searching a prison ship and having to fight the survivors to escape.

Finding an old hermit living in his crashed ship has always appealed as a funny option to me.

All of these possibilities with derelict objects, could lead to entire mission lines. Fun stuff!

 

[Ian Phillips]

Respawn (with Protection if applicable):-
Derelict disappears once looted (after X time since found)
Derelict stays at location

Loot Respawn:-
With Derelict (after X time respawn)
After X time

Absolutely no respawn - because its not 'real'. Also this just generates goods to be looted and has has an effect that has been discussed to death in the 'economy' threads.

I am in favor of having the derelict stay at a location/in an orbit, but there could be a problem with systems getting cluttered over time, and the tracking of that by the server.

An ititial population of wrecks could be generated procedurally, but fights are going to occur at random places in a system (well - in the region of main routes within a system), and those will have to be tracked if wrecks become permanent additions to the star system.

 

[Quantum Enigma]

We could retrieve the Black Boxes from derelict ship's and return them to the relevant authority for a reward.

Depending on the cause of the 'accident' (probably pirates yarr) a warrant and bounty could be issued for the perpetrator.

If no Black Box is retrieved, no-one would ever know what happened to the ship and therefore no bounty or warrant.

 

[DWorth]

The alien derelicts should be rare, until other races are introduced. Perhaps the developers could tease us by having a few derelicts from races to be introduced turn up on the edges of explored space?

Maybe the discovery of a derelict could trigger an event in the wider gameworld? The awakening of a powerful alien ship, the unleashing of a deadly plague or parasitic organism that leads to whole systems being quarantined and the resulting attempts to fight it, or the introduction of a new piece of technology.

 

[Hamerstein]

I completely agree with the concerns that respawning derelicts would just end up as cheap loot pick-ups and ruin the ambience of the experience.

But I'm concerned that we'll run out of interesting derelicts if there is no way of generating new ones.

The suggestion that derelicts can occur from space battles is elegant, but would there be a good reason why they wouldn't be looted by the survivors, either immediately or in a relatively short time afterwards?

All the good stuff would be gone, we'd be left with hulks that might look interesting, but wouldn't offer anything new after the first plunderers.

Hulks attracting new occupants over time wouldn't be immersion breaking, some new spawns could occur - if the locations could be randomised and remote (like the dark systems), so it wouldn't be a simple case of doing a farming circuit every 8 hours (for example).

As instances will disappear and recreate depending on population, I'd assume we'd get new stuff to explore each time a new instance was generated? That's assuming that instancing works how it's been generally envisaged of course. I wouldn't expect the same wreck to occur across all instances of a system, or if they did, they'd still have unique features for each iteration.

 

[Robert Maynard]

There could be NPC tugs to clean up after battles where a derelict is one of the end results. These could be towed to a suitable point in space where they would be unlikely to "wander off" to be picked clean.

Reasoning for not returning them to planetary surface is that it would require too much energy and they may not be structurally sound enough to survive the transit.

Normal stations would not be able to recycle them, however maybe they could be stripped / cut up into chunks as a variant of mining by players in the salvage business.

 

[@_JustinPinner]

If the derelict's computer core still has some power you should be able to download navigation information and such from it.

'ancient alien' derelicts should be hackable as well allowing you to download subroutines and algoritms that can benifit (or damage) your subsystems.

I like this idea.

 

[@_JustinPinner]

How about towing derelicts back to a junk yard where you can hand them over for cash or pay to strip them down to dust if you like? If they're too big for a single ship to tow you'd have to either dismantle anything you can in-situ or negotiate a co-op with other players perhaps?

If you're feeling particularly mean-spirited, tow one towards the nearest sun or planet, let her go and watch her burn! Note: this shouldn't work with live ships

Respawn? Depends on the mechanics. Maybe it could work with randomised locations, the 'verse is pretty big after all.

 

[Memnoch]

As a salvager you could buy a dedicated cutting beam for slicing off bits of hull to sell as scrap.

 

[Ian Phillips]

But I'm concerned that we'll run out of interesting derelicts if there is no way of generating new ones.

just shoot someone

 

[Gauntlet]

Absolutely no respawn - because its not 'real'. Also this just generates goods to be looted and has has an effect that has been discussed to death in the 'economy' threads.

I am in favor of having the derelict stay at a location/in an orbit, but there could be a problem with systems getting cluttered over time, and the tracking of that by the server.

An ititial population of wrecks could be generated procedurally, but fights are going to occur at random places in a system (well - in the region of main routes within a system), and those will have to be tracked if wrecks become permanent additions to the star system.

Derelicts should probably not stay indefinitely as you'll keep bumping into your derelict cobra every time you re-enter the system from a re-spawn, I can just see a train of derelict cobbies halfway to the station from witchpoint

On a realism note though I think derelicts should probably linger for a while and then be salvaged, these could be npc wrecking crews cutting up or towing hulks back to station for re-fit and sale

 

[insanephoton]

The vast majority of derelicts should be produced by player and NPC actions, but very occasionally something different might turn up of alien or ancient origin.