Things we see a lot and could have variation

Alex Brentnall · Feb 9, 2018

Hi All!

I had a thought about putting a quick list together of things we will see in game every time we login that could do with some variation added. Things like station interiors, planet colours, hud colours/set-ups etc.
The idea is to have a quick go-to list of things where adding a few variations would have a massive impact on the game since it's something we see every single login.

I'll start off with the obvious few I can think of. If the idea isn't obvious add a bit of explanation and it'll help build a cool thread.
-Hud colours
-Hud arrangement/style/design
-Starport services screen <- Could be state dependant so flickering/broken during war or UA bomb, could be faction so different colours for identification of Fed/Emp/All etc.

Edit: Adding one I just thought of that I think needs to be in:

Filters - Make re-shade a filter/art style in game. Have it so you can choose between gritty realistic view and a more game-ified view (if I can use that word).
This made me think of it, amazing images that were filtered: https://imgur.com/gallery/O6qLC

Raumfahrer Spiff · Feb 9, 2018

I'm not sure if this'll be covered in the mining/exploration upgrade in q4, but more asteroid models would be fantastic. The uniformity of asteroid rings is maddening once you've spent ages in several rings. It would be nice to see more irregular shapes and surfaces with different characteristics.

Also, more variety with the volcanism. For the most part every time I find a geyser field, it feels copy pasted. An occasional lonely giant geyser would be awesome.

And I know this is a long shot, but landing pads at installations, for more station variety.

Caointean · Feb 9, 2018

Alex Brentnall said:
-Hud colours
-Hud arrangement/style/design

As much as I would love to see some HUD customisation, Sandro just said in yesterday's stream that the UI colour customisation is actually very hard to implement. So we'll have to wait a bit more.

Henri · Feb 9, 2018

missions? everystation has the same ten missions.
signal sources.
combat zones, resource zones etc. each system has the same fish in a barrel instances.

basically everything that gets recycled more than a few hundred times.

markets - could be more dynamic and maybe have some variation.

NW3 · Feb 9, 2018

Alex Brentnall said:
-Starport services screen <- Could be state dependant so flickering/broken during war...

This is already in the game. Go do some passenger rescue missions in any station which has been attacked by the Thargoids.

Stealthie · Feb 9, 2018

How about the ships, themselves?

People have been talking about "the ideal exploration ship" recently, for example.
How about if, say, 99% of ships are factory-spec but very rarely you'd find a ship that was reconfigured slightly, in a way that'd make it better for some role?
You might get an AspX which, instead of the normal "6,5,3,3,3,2,2" internals, has "6,4,3,2,2,1,1" internals instead, which'd make it better suited to exploration and make it a few tonnes lighter which, again, would improve it's capability as an explorer.
Alternatively, you might stumble across an AspX which has "6,5,5,4,3,2,1" internals to make it more suited to trading, at the expense of a bit of extra weight.

If it could be implemented, all it'd take would be to spend a couple of hours sitting and working out ways to optimise ships for roles such as mining, trading, exploration and combat and then create tweaked versions of the ships which, if you were lucky enough to find one, would be prized possessions.

bicarbon8 · Feb 9, 2018

Stealthie said:
How about the ships, themselves?

People have been talking about "the ideal exploration ship" recently, for example.
How about if, say, 99% of ships are factory-spec but very rarely you'd find a ship that was reconfigured slightly, in a way that'd make it better for some role?
You might get an AspX which, instead of the normal "6,5,3,3,3,2,2" internals, has "6,4,3,2,2,1,1" internals instead, which'd make it better suited to exploration and make it a few tonnes lighter which, again, would improve it's capability as an explorer.
Alternatively, you might stumble across an AspX which has "6,5,5,4,3,2,1" internals to make it more suited to trading, at the expense of a bit of extra weight.

If it could be implemented, all it'd take would be to spend a couple of hours sitting and working out ways to optimise ships for roles such as mining, trading, exploration and combat and then create tweaked versions of the ships which, if you were lucky enough to find one, would be prized possessions.

this is an interesting idea; a bit like the "No Man's Sky" RNG ship loadouts, but instead of being completely random, it would only occasionally change by a small degree... it would certainly add variety and that is, I agree, something that should be added to the ships.

Shanaeri · Feb 9, 2018

NPC ship loadout, based on their powerplay alliance, combat rank, location and run counters to the current meta

Alex Brentnall · Feb 9, 2018

Caointean said:
As much as I would love to see some HUD customisation, Sandro just said in yesterday's stream that the UI colour customisation is actually very hard to implement. So we'll have to wait a bit more.

This is more of a "wishlist" than a "go-do list".

Henri said:
missions? everystation has the same ten missions.
signal sources.
combat zones, resource zones etc. each system has the same fish in a barrel instances.

basically everything that gets recycled more than a few hundred times.

markets - could be more dynamic and maybe have some variation.

I was more thinking visuals but yeah, definitely those too

NW3 said:
This is already in the game. Go do some passenger rescue missions in any station which has been attacked by the Thargoids.

Very true, I was actually thinking of how cool those were when I wrote the additional bit of text on it. I just feel it could be radically expanded to give more life/variation to the galaxy

Stealthie said:
How about the ships, themselves?

People have been talking about "the ideal exploration ship" recently, for example.
How about if, say, 99% of ships are factory-spec but very rarely you'd find a ship that was reconfigured slightly, in a way that'd make it better for some role?
You might get an AspX which, instead of the normal "6,5,3,3,3,2,2" internals, has "6,4,3,2,2,1,1" internals instead, which'd make it better suited to exploration and make it a few tonnes lighter which, again, would improve it's capability as an explorer.
Alternatively, you might stumble across an AspX which has "6,5,5,4,3,2,1" internals to make it more suited to trading, at the expense of a bit of extra weight.

If it could be implemented, all it'd take would be to spend a couple of hours sitting and working out ways to optimise ships for roles such as mining, trading, exploration and combat and then create tweaked versions of the ships which, if you were lucky enough to find one, would be prized possessions.

I like it but I feel it'd just lead to people shooting for the edge god-ship case same as engineering used to be and it'd be an RNG based shoot whether you found it in 2 hours or 20 hours of searching...

Maybe buff all ships by X but you can get cheaper ships at aftermarket dealers often with some internals or weapons already upgraded. Downside is most of them will have something inoperable or missing or start needing massive repairs/overhauls... Basically if you buy from the shipyard it's the best but there's cheap deals at risk

Not sure, definitely interesting concept but would need to be done right to avoid the same problems we've seen before..

@All - Keep it coming, I'm liking what I'm seeing, some good suggestions!

I'd like to see ships with blue/green/red engine trails if they are powerplay ships.... Or security ships etc. That could be cool... Or it could look terrible, no way of knowing without trying I think.