Hey CMDRs and FDevs o7
I have put together a list of some ideas for the Elite: Dangerous. These heavily rely on existing mechanics and assets with the idea that minimal development/expansion would be required. A lot of these features are scripting oriented, or reuse existing mechanics/assets in new and interesting ways. There are some net-new ideas, but the idea is to keep them minimal to maximize the return for minimal development costs/time.
With that, let's get into it.
-Gameplay Loops-
These ideas are all centered around "things to do" in the game. They focus on unique gameplay loops that put out different types of rewards than just "credits" and "rep."
PowerPlay Enlistment: The idea behind enlistment is a bit like PowerPlay "Enhanced." You choose a PowerPlay faction, after which your first immediate mission is to travel to that leader's homeworld station. Upon arrival, you are given a set of missions (based on the need of the faction, i.e. materials, defense, exploration, etc.) and a "loaner-military ship." This ship is pre-configured and cannot be modded visually or module-wise (after all, it's the military's ship, not yours). The missions can be quest-chains, multiple tandem missions, etc. all with unique flavor text, with the opportunity for unique mission scripting (i.e. think the old X-wing-style missions from the DOS game) and minimal individual mission rewards (usually in the form of materials). After the PowerPlay period (a couple weeks?), based on your contribution, you are paid out a "salary" (think like "personal-community goals"), and if you reach a certain tier, you can keep the ship loaned to you, which may have unique PowerPlay faction visuals, which can then be reconfigured.
Find a home, get a job: This is a similar idea to the above, but a little smaller, and specific to stations/outposts. If you decide to bind yourself to a home station (think typical MMO "home location" binding), you can have the opportunity to work for the station for minimal credit-based rewards, but unique rewards upon the completion of station-specific goals. Example: You decide to work for a station who's station goal is to become a weapons dealing hub, so your job is to transport weapons from other stations to your home station. This amounts to a lot of trading/smuggling mission quest-chains. After the chains are complete, the reward is a permanent discount on weapons modules that the station sells, along with the opportunity to purchase pre-engineered weapons modules, or "modified" weapons (think like PowerPlay weapons). Along with this, when you are bound to a station, you will have the opportunity to respawn at said station on death with a discount to ship re-buy costs should you choose to respawn there instead of your last visited station.
Join the Pilot's Federation: Upon joining the Pilot's Federation, you unlock a pseudo-achievement system, along with instance "mini-games" that offer unique rewards. An example of one of these instances would be a "timed checkpoint course" where you fly a specialized Pilot's Federation enhanced "Eagle." This Eagle may have enhanced speed/handling (like a hot-rodded type of thing) with slightly modified unique visuals/sounds. Upon getting a "Gold Medal" time on said course (which secretly double as training missions), you can keep the ship, which can't be modded. Along with this type of scenario, you have Pilot's Federation "milestones" which aren't like "rep grinding" but more of an achievement-based system. i.e. Kill 1,000 other bounty ships (legal kills) for unique cosmetic/module rewards. They can even be module-specific, like kill 500 with a Beam Laser hardpoint to earn a pre-engineered/PowerPlay-style Beam Laser, or a cosmetic modification option for your Beam Laser hardpoints. Scan 500 worlds to earn a modded FSD that uses less fuel or has an extended jump range with a unique charge-up sound/graphic. These types of things.
The Criminal Underworld: In addition to the Pilot's Federation, which is based mostly around legal tasks, the Pirate/Smuggler's guilds can be based around illegal activities (piracy, smuggling, black market trading, etc.) and reward modules and cosmetics based around illicit activity. Like a Power Plant that operates more efficiently in Silent Running, or specialized limpets, or weapons modules designed around disabling other ships (like an Ion/EMP cannon, etc.). Again, the opportunity to earn unique, pre-configured ships can be available based on courses designed around training illegal activity.
Player Experience: In addition to these achievement-based systems, the opportunity for player-based experience comes into play. Think of this like "engineering, but for player CMDR character." Over time and repetition of tasks, you can build up bonuses to skills and functions, similar to engineering bonuses without the penalties. These bonuses are carried between all ships and even into multi-crew. If you have a bonus to weapon energy management, this will apply to any multi-crew situation you are a part of.
These are all reward systems that provide valuable, gameplay loops that reward beyond "credits," "rep" and "engineering."
-QoL/Gameplay enhancement features-
These are features designed to be as simple as possible. These aren't "Space legs" or "Atmospheric landings," which are massive undertakings... these are more simple, additions which mainly have to do with making certain existing mechanics more visible and manageable.
Alternate Docking Request method: The largest issue with a simple, repetitive thing, is that you have to break focus to request docking. Moving docking requests to the Comms panel, or allowing it to be bound to a hotkey will allow the player to maintain forward focus to make docking a little more elegant. Right now, from a lore-mechanic standpoint, sending "communications" through the left panel is counter-intuitive. It should be sent through the communications panel.
Better Bookmarks: The ability to color, categorize, and access bookmarks through the Navigation Panel (in lieu of the galaxy map) would make ship navigation a bit more elegant. The ability to set a "home" bookmark with a quick "target home system" in the navigation panel (remove the Galactic Powers option and put that somewhere else) would be VERY helpful.
View Station List from Galaxy Map: Instead of opening ANOTHER map to quickly plot a course to a station within a system, if the system data is available, you should be able to see a quick "drop-down" list of stations within a system with a type icon and a ls distance so you can quickly plot a full course from the Galaxy Map.
Supercruise Lock (Semi-autopilot): The ability to lock systems and stations and set an "inefficient" auto-cruise that aligns you to your target and applies an unoptimized but "safe" acceleration curve (sacrifice time for convenience, like the docking module) would make certain types of missions a bit more realistic feeling (even airplanes have autopilot), with some sacrifice/risk-reward elements. Getting interdicted in auto-cruise will result in an immediate submission with hull damage, that sort of thing.
Player and Ship bio's: A simple feature to be able to write ship/player bios that are visible on scan from other players.
X/Y/Z axis speedometers: A visual representation of how fast you are moving in any direction with associated blue-zones would be a great, elegant addition to piloting.
Forward/Aft shield distribution: A direct-rob of the same feature from the X-Wing feature, controlling shield distribution would be a great dynamic addition to combat.
"Outoing" Ship/Module transfer requests: The ability to have something "delivered" to a station you are not currently at (but have previously visited) would be amazing and make movement around the Galaxy way more elegant and intuitive. If I am at Lave and can have a ship I own or modules I own be delivered from Jameson to LHS 3347, etc. (for a fee and time, just like current deliveries), that would make the Galaxy feel more connected and alive.
Store other Modules in Cargo Modules: Assigning each module type a tonnage value and allowing players to move their own stuff in their ship if they have the room would be awesome.
Player Passenger transport: The ability to be "transported" by an NPC/player from system to system as a passenger would be great. Players could be transported for a fee to stations that sell ships they want, or just get across the galaxy and have their ship sent to them in tandem. This can be opened up to multiplayer as well, being able to move your friends from station to station or other's for a fee (managed by the game, not by player to player trading, i.e. not a 1:1 payout, passenger pays a smaller fee than the payout to the played doing the work based on distance, that way this can easily be tracked for abuse/farming, maybe also a cooldown period before a player passenger mission can be requested or fulfilled again).
Ship loadout saves/animation skips: The ability to save ship loadout configurations (as long as the modules are present at the station, otherwise player gets a prompt to authorize all module transfers with the cumulative credit/time totals presented) would be great. Additionally, the ability to skip hardpoint animations and such would be awesome as well.
Post-Processing effect options: The ability to layer on post-processing effects (similar to what players do now with ReShade, EDFX, etc.) would be awesome. A lot of games are including these visual profiles nowadays and they ALWAYS are a welcome addition to any game that relies on beautiful visuals. A lot of players are running higher-end cards (1070's 1080ti's) and would love to use the extra horsepower to enhance the visuals of the game... and please, PLEASE make them applicable in VR!
Federations and "Founders worlds" for pirates/bounty hunters/explorers etc.: Permit-based specialized systems for each role in the game where you can get engineered components and specialized ship kits/cosmetics for each role in the game (piracy, bounty hunting, exploration, trading, etc.) based on player-progression/achievement.
- Asset/Feature creation -
This is some of the "bigger" stuff that might cost a bit more in the way of resources and time to create, this is the "wish-wishlist" part of the story.
Official VoiceAttack/HCS integration: Any player that uses VoiceAttack will tell you how integral it becomes to the Elite: Dangerous experience. An official purchase/partnership/licensing deal with both VoiceAttack and HCS Voicepacks would be awesome. This would open up so much more opportunity for immersion in game, along with bringing these features to the consoles. The voice assets created by HCS could give us per-ship computer AI voices (i.e. Astra on a Sidewinder, Orion on an ASP, etc.) and can be piped through the environmental/positional audio of the game for even better sounding immersion. Obviously the custom-configuration that VoiceAttack offers may have to be toned down quite a bit, but having basic module/menu/panel control (and awareness) through voice commands integrated right into the E
Client would be incredible.
Manufacturer-based Ship UI options: The ability for each ship manufacturer to integrate their own UI (functionally/structurally identical, talking like, font/line/shape/sound changes here) would be great, with the option to switch back to the Pilot's Federation UI if desired and can lead to better ship diversity and immersion!
Functional Ship Kit modules: Some specialized modules that have similar visual effects to the cash-shop ship kits (with the option to turn them off or override them with purchased cash-shop kits). These can be hull integrity, speed, turn-speed, etc.
Illegal ship modules: Ship modules that are geared toward illegal activities that, when scanned, will incur a fine or bounty. These can be similar to the ones described above in The Criminal Underworld section. An example of something like this would be a "smugglers cargo hold" that will help hide illegal cargo a the cost of quite a bit of ship power, but if the module is turned off, and you're scanned you will incur either a fine or a bounty, requiring the player to manage more things manually and pay attention.
Push modules beyond safety limits: Part of every great space sci-fi adventure is that moment where you gotta risk it all to do something spectacular. There should be an option to push your modules beyond their limits at the risk of module/ship damage/death. Overcharge your FSD for quick bootup with the risk of high-waking to an incorrect system, being completely disabled for a period of time after the jump, or even risk of death from FSDing through a planet or star. Boost up to 500kms with the risk of 150% heat, damage to other modules, disabling of other modules, etc. This would make combat, smuggling, open-world PVP etc. way more intense and engaging.
Ship towing/storing: Similar to the previous module transfer proposed, the ability to store small ships inside large ships based on tonnage values (i.e. a sidewinder can fit in a 4E cargo, a med-sized ship can fit in a 6E), or, alternatively (and harder to implement, can be attached via tow-cable (have fun getting that through the mail slot!).Imagine being able to not only pirate cargo, but actual player ships! Oh, I guess it could be used for rescuing too...
More energy weapons with travel time: Similar to the SLF plasma cannon thingy, more energy based weapons with travel time would be awesome.
Stronger flight-assist off mechanics w/ blackout: Better 6-dof mobility with FA-off, that comes with a visibility penalty for pushing it too hard (letting you do those BSG-style flips and turns if you can manage it), similar to overtuning, this can result in ship/module damage as a tradeoff.
More in-ship distraction: The ability to do more fun things in your ship during long flights, assuming no legality is involved, apps like Netflix, discord, twitch, etc. (with some fun distortion effects!) being superimposed into the ship UI would be awesome for those long flights.
AI Ship crew interaction: For bigger ships, it would feel great to feel like there were always people on-board helping out; either hearing intercom chatter, messages in the chat UI, etc. that can be based on system events. For instance, instead of your computer saying "shields offline" you can hear your engineer yell "The shields are down! Reroute power to systems so I can get them back online" and things like, "Commander! We're taking heat damage!" This would make flying a Corvette, cutter or Anaconda feel more "alive" than you piloting your own personal ghost town.
Station "bars/shops": Even without space legs, the ability to exit your ship to a sort of static "bar/shop/ship dealer/etc" would be fun. Pre-canned animations for your avatar to exit/board the ship will help show how massive some of the ships are as well.
These features would do quite a bit to flesh out the Elite: Dangerous experience, and a great deal of them require minimal modification to the existing game outside of scripting/text/systems manipulation. These aren't massive, expansion-worthy additions like Space-legs or Atmospheric flight/landings... these are just designed around creating satisfying gameplay loops and giving players other things to work toward that don't rely on credits/material/rep grinding.
o7
I have put together a list of some ideas for the Elite: Dangerous. These heavily rely on existing mechanics and assets with the idea that minimal development/expansion would be required. A lot of these features are scripting oriented, or reuse existing mechanics/assets in new and interesting ways. There are some net-new ideas, but the idea is to keep them minimal to maximize the return for minimal development costs/time.
With that, let's get into it.
-Gameplay Loops-
These ideas are all centered around "things to do" in the game. They focus on unique gameplay loops that put out different types of rewards than just "credits" and "rep."
PowerPlay Enlistment: The idea behind enlistment is a bit like PowerPlay "Enhanced." You choose a PowerPlay faction, after which your first immediate mission is to travel to that leader's homeworld station. Upon arrival, you are given a set of missions (based on the need of the faction, i.e. materials, defense, exploration, etc.) and a "loaner-military ship." This ship is pre-configured and cannot be modded visually or module-wise (after all, it's the military's ship, not yours). The missions can be quest-chains, multiple tandem missions, etc. all with unique flavor text, with the opportunity for unique mission scripting (i.e. think the old X-wing-style missions from the DOS game) and minimal individual mission rewards (usually in the form of materials). After the PowerPlay period (a couple weeks?), based on your contribution, you are paid out a "salary" (think like "personal-community goals"), and if you reach a certain tier, you can keep the ship loaned to you, which may have unique PowerPlay faction visuals, which can then be reconfigured.
Find a home, get a job: This is a similar idea to the above, but a little smaller, and specific to stations/outposts. If you decide to bind yourself to a home station (think typical MMO "home location" binding), you can have the opportunity to work for the station for minimal credit-based rewards, but unique rewards upon the completion of station-specific goals. Example: You decide to work for a station who's station goal is to become a weapons dealing hub, so your job is to transport weapons from other stations to your home station. This amounts to a lot of trading/smuggling mission quest-chains. After the chains are complete, the reward is a permanent discount on weapons modules that the station sells, along with the opportunity to purchase pre-engineered weapons modules, or "modified" weapons (think like PowerPlay weapons). Along with this, when you are bound to a station, you will have the opportunity to respawn at said station on death with a discount to ship re-buy costs should you choose to respawn there instead of your last visited station.
Join the Pilot's Federation: Upon joining the Pilot's Federation, you unlock a pseudo-achievement system, along with instance "mini-games" that offer unique rewards. An example of one of these instances would be a "timed checkpoint course" where you fly a specialized Pilot's Federation enhanced "Eagle." This Eagle may have enhanced speed/handling (like a hot-rodded type of thing) with slightly modified unique visuals/sounds. Upon getting a "Gold Medal" time on said course (which secretly double as training missions), you can keep the ship, which can't be modded. Along with this type of scenario, you have Pilot's Federation "milestones" which aren't like "rep grinding" but more of an achievement-based system. i.e. Kill 1,000 other bounty ships (legal kills) for unique cosmetic/module rewards. They can even be module-specific, like kill 500 with a Beam Laser hardpoint to earn a pre-engineered/PowerPlay-style Beam Laser, or a cosmetic modification option for your Beam Laser hardpoints. Scan 500 worlds to earn a modded FSD that uses less fuel or has an extended jump range with a unique charge-up sound/graphic. These types of things.
The Criminal Underworld: In addition to the Pilot's Federation, which is based mostly around legal tasks, the Pirate/Smuggler's guilds can be based around illegal activities (piracy, smuggling, black market trading, etc.) and reward modules and cosmetics based around illicit activity. Like a Power Plant that operates more efficiently in Silent Running, or specialized limpets, or weapons modules designed around disabling other ships (like an Ion/EMP cannon, etc.). Again, the opportunity to earn unique, pre-configured ships can be available based on courses designed around training illegal activity.
Player Experience: In addition to these achievement-based systems, the opportunity for player-based experience comes into play. Think of this like "engineering, but for player CMDR character." Over time and repetition of tasks, you can build up bonuses to skills and functions, similar to engineering bonuses without the penalties. These bonuses are carried between all ships and even into multi-crew. If you have a bonus to weapon energy management, this will apply to any multi-crew situation you are a part of.
These are all reward systems that provide valuable, gameplay loops that reward beyond "credits," "rep" and "engineering."
-QoL/Gameplay enhancement features-
These are features designed to be as simple as possible. These aren't "Space legs" or "Atmospheric landings," which are massive undertakings... these are more simple, additions which mainly have to do with making certain existing mechanics more visible and manageable.
Alternate Docking Request method: The largest issue with a simple, repetitive thing, is that you have to break focus to request docking. Moving docking requests to the Comms panel, or allowing it to be bound to a hotkey will allow the player to maintain forward focus to make docking a little more elegant. Right now, from a lore-mechanic standpoint, sending "communications" through the left panel is counter-intuitive. It should be sent through the communications panel.
Better Bookmarks: The ability to color, categorize, and access bookmarks through the Navigation Panel (in lieu of the galaxy map) would make ship navigation a bit more elegant. The ability to set a "home" bookmark with a quick "target home system" in the navigation panel (remove the Galactic Powers option and put that somewhere else) would be VERY helpful.
View Station List from Galaxy Map: Instead of opening ANOTHER map to quickly plot a course to a station within a system, if the system data is available, you should be able to see a quick "drop-down" list of stations within a system with a type icon and a ls distance so you can quickly plot a full course from the Galaxy Map.
Supercruise Lock (Semi-autopilot): The ability to lock systems and stations and set an "inefficient" auto-cruise that aligns you to your target and applies an unoptimized but "safe" acceleration curve (sacrifice time for convenience, like the docking module) would make certain types of missions a bit more realistic feeling (even airplanes have autopilot), with some sacrifice/risk-reward elements. Getting interdicted in auto-cruise will result in an immediate submission with hull damage, that sort of thing.
Player and Ship bio's: A simple feature to be able to write ship/player bios that are visible on scan from other players.
X/Y/Z axis speedometers: A visual representation of how fast you are moving in any direction with associated blue-zones would be a great, elegant addition to piloting.
Forward/Aft shield distribution: A direct-rob of the same feature from the X-Wing feature, controlling shield distribution would be a great dynamic addition to combat.
"Outoing" Ship/Module transfer requests: The ability to have something "delivered" to a station you are not currently at (but have previously visited) would be amazing and make movement around the Galaxy way more elegant and intuitive. If I am at Lave and can have a ship I own or modules I own be delivered from Jameson to LHS 3347, etc. (for a fee and time, just like current deliveries), that would make the Galaxy feel more connected and alive.
Store other Modules in Cargo Modules: Assigning each module type a tonnage value and allowing players to move their own stuff in their ship if they have the room would be awesome.
Player Passenger transport: The ability to be "transported" by an NPC/player from system to system as a passenger would be great. Players could be transported for a fee to stations that sell ships they want, or just get across the galaxy and have their ship sent to them in tandem. This can be opened up to multiplayer as well, being able to move your friends from station to station or other's for a fee (managed by the game, not by player to player trading, i.e. not a 1:1 payout, passenger pays a smaller fee than the payout to the played doing the work based on distance, that way this can easily be tracked for abuse/farming, maybe also a cooldown period before a player passenger mission can be requested or fulfilled again).
Ship loadout saves/animation skips: The ability to save ship loadout configurations (as long as the modules are present at the station, otherwise player gets a prompt to authorize all module transfers with the cumulative credit/time totals presented) would be great. Additionally, the ability to skip hardpoint animations and such would be awesome as well.
Post-Processing effect options: The ability to layer on post-processing effects (similar to what players do now with ReShade, EDFX, etc.) would be awesome. A lot of games are including these visual profiles nowadays and they ALWAYS are a welcome addition to any game that relies on beautiful visuals. A lot of players are running higher-end cards (1070's 1080ti's) and would love to use the extra horsepower to enhance the visuals of the game... and please, PLEASE make them applicable in VR!
Federations and "Founders worlds" for pirates/bounty hunters/explorers etc.: Permit-based specialized systems for each role in the game where you can get engineered components and specialized ship kits/cosmetics for each role in the game (piracy, bounty hunting, exploration, trading, etc.) based on player-progression/achievement.
- Asset/Feature creation -
This is some of the "bigger" stuff that might cost a bit more in the way of resources and time to create, this is the "wish-wishlist" part of the story.
Official VoiceAttack/HCS integration: Any player that uses VoiceAttack will tell you how integral it becomes to the Elite: Dangerous experience. An official purchase/partnership/licensing deal with both VoiceAttack and HCS Voicepacks would be awesome. This would open up so much more opportunity for immersion in game, along with bringing these features to the consoles. The voice assets created by HCS could give us per-ship computer AI voices (i.e. Astra on a Sidewinder, Orion on an ASP, etc.) and can be piped through the environmental/positional audio of the game for even better sounding immersion. Obviously the custom-configuration that VoiceAttack offers may have to be toned down quite a bit, but having basic module/menu/panel control (and awareness) through voice commands integrated right into the E
Client would be incredible. Manufacturer-based Ship UI options: The ability for each ship manufacturer to integrate their own UI (functionally/structurally identical, talking like, font/line/shape/sound changes here) would be great, with the option to switch back to the Pilot's Federation UI if desired and can lead to better ship diversity and immersion!
Functional Ship Kit modules: Some specialized modules that have similar visual effects to the cash-shop ship kits (with the option to turn them off or override them with purchased cash-shop kits). These can be hull integrity, speed, turn-speed, etc.
Illegal ship modules: Ship modules that are geared toward illegal activities that, when scanned, will incur a fine or bounty. These can be similar to the ones described above in The Criminal Underworld section. An example of something like this would be a "smugglers cargo hold" that will help hide illegal cargo a the cost of quite a bit of ship power, but if the module is turned off, and you're scanned you will incur either a fine or a bounty, requiring the player to manage more things manually and pay attention.
Push modules beyond safety limits: Part of every great space sci-fi adventure is that moment where you gotta risk it all to do something spectacular. There should be an option to push your modules beyond their limits at the risk of module/ship damage/death. Overcharge your FSD for quick bootup with the risk of high-waking to an incorrect system, being completely disabled for a period of time after the jump, or even risk of death from FSDing through a planet or star. Boost up to 500kms with the risk of 150% heat, damage to other modules, disabling of other modules, etc. This would make combat, smuggling, open-world PVP etc. way more intense and engaging.
Ship towing/storing: Similar to the previous module transfer proposed, the ability to store small ships inside large ships based on tonnage values (i.e. a sidewinder can fit in a 4E cargo, a med-sized ship can fit in a 6E), or, alternatively (and harder to implement, can be attached via tow-cable (have fun getting that through the mail slot!).Imagine being able to not only pirate cargo, but actual player ships! Oh, I guess it could be used for rescuing too...
More energy weapons with travel time: Similar to the SLF plasma cannon thingy, more energy based weapons with travel time would be awesome.
Stronger flight-assist off mechanics w/ blackout: Better 6-dof mobility with FA-off, that comes with a visibility penalty for pushing it too hard (letting you do those BSG-style flips and turns if you can manage it), similar to overtuning, this can result in ship/module damage as a tradeoff.
More in-ship distraction: The ability to do more fun things in your ship during long flights, assuming no legality is involved, apps like Netflix, discord, twitch, etc. (with some fun distortion effects!) being superimposed into the ship UI would be awesome for those long flights.
AI Ship crew interaction: For bigger ships, it would feel great to feel like there were always people on-board helping out; either hearing intercom chatter, messages in the chat UI, etc. that can be based on system events. For instance, instead of your computer saying "shields offline" you can hear your engineer yell "The shields are down! Reroute power to systems so I can get them back online" and things like, "Commander! We're taking heat damage!" This would make flying a Corvette, cutter or Anaconda feel more "alive" than you piloting your own personal ghost town.
Station "bars/shops": Even without space legs, the ability to exit your ship to a sort of static "bar/shop/ship dealer/etc" would be fun. Pre-canned animations for your avatar to exit/board the ship will help show how massive some of the ships are as well.
These features would do quite a bit to flesh out the Elite: Dangerous experience, and a great deal of them require minimal modification to the existing game outside of scripting/text/systems manipulation. These aren't massive, expansion-worthy additions like Space-legs or Atmospheric flight/landings... these are just designed around creating satisfying gameplay loops and giving players other things to work toward that don't rely on credits/material/rep grinding.
o7
