What would you most want to see in a Drox Expansion?

[droxop55]

I come from the Spaceward Ho! age, where winning the galaxy in that game allowed you to name a planet.

Could we name a planet (and it show up in the next sector generation(s) ) upon a win?

[phyvo]

I just have a few thoughts here as someone whose played to level 30. I'm not so much concerned with adding oodles of content as I am with polishing current aspects of the game.

- Large sectors currently are annoying. Just finding every exit to a system and the jump gate takes a long time, in large sectors this quickly becomes a problem as you try to simply get from one race to another. In a military win there's always that last race holding out in 1 or 2 planets that you just can't find while your own race derps around elsewhere. Races you're allied with, moreover, can have scores of systems you know nothing about (except whatever appears in the quest log) even though supposedly you're allied. Simply revealing quest destinations on the map isn't enough because often you still have no idea what systems connect to what and sometimes things can be very unintuitive and criss-cross or connect across large distances.

- Some stats like regeneration and radar are not useful. You can never get enough regen to warrant dedicating entire slots to it since consumables are too good and planets/stations are so accessible. Radar is completely useless as it stands and only serves to rob you of stats that actually help you kill things or prevent your death.

Originally Posted by adrianadrian

i'd honestly like to see the ability to target and destroy mines. the amount of mines in a star system can get ridiculous under certain circumstances.

I hate trap systems for this reason. Mines floating towards you while you're trying to refuel and such are also really obnoxious. The number of wormholes teleporting you random places can also be a pain sometimes.

Originally Posted by Roswitha

Some suggestions that have been posted in the forums are:

A way to link weapons so they fire at once.

Very much yes. If I have 2 or more of the same kind of weapon there basically aren't any situations where I wouldn't want them all to fire at the same time. Lasers are the worst by far and are trying to break my 1 key with ships flying in and out of range all the time.``````

Originally Posted by Bluddy

This is a list of stuff that can be done in the expansion as well as things I'd like to see in the base game.

- Split the currency up. This worked really well for DoP and I think it'll be good here (and was suggested elsewhere). Have one kind of currency (A) for operations on planets and for bribing races, and another (B) as your personal fortune that you can use to buy stuff with. You could only get (A) from the Drox high command, and the amount you get depends on how well you did in the previous sector. This makes things like spending on propaganda worthwhile, and you need to figure out how to best use the limited resources you have (or make more of them) in the sector. Otherwise, why invest in propaganda when you always have the option of not spending your money, or of just starting a new sector?

Honestly basically all the planet options right now feel entirely useless. In terms of rumors I once spent 90,000 credits trying to get one race added into my 2 race alliance, doing every race relations mission available. They just refused to do it and were hell-bent on allying with the other doomed race (who I had rumored against) that I had also given up on diplomatically. Then randomly later one of my allies declares war on my other ally because the other ally had dropped their opinion of them for no apparent reason, which I couldn't see because the line still showed a green relationship. All this makes race relations feel very random rather than influenced by your rumors.

As for the other options, if you don't like a particular race it's much easier to just walk over and kill them than muddle around creating unrest with propaganda or whatever, especially in larger systems. Stealing tech just feels utterly worthless.

That said they should definitely separate currencies, though I think the planet influence currency should be received for doing quests rather than locking the player out of a playstyle for the sake of punishing their poor performance.

[CautiousChaos]

So many ideas already given... For me, I just want to have a clear purpose for what I'm doing. Master of Orion 2 was a great big sandbox, but there were guardrails in place to help build purpose.

Drox to me comes across as boiling down the ingredients in Depths and Din's and extruding them through a space theme. Round sectors, space monsters that look like planes, fetch me a pepper quests.

I'm still chipping away at it, but i can't see how Drox can appear to more than just we hardcore nuts.

[droxop55]

Originally Posted by CautiousChaos

I'm still chipping away at it, but i can't see how Drox can appear to more than just we hardcore nuts.

I think the activity in the Drox forums speaks for this answer. It looks like it is already appealing to new people.

[droxop55]

Would it be possible to add a 'Sort' and/or 'Filter' button to the list of quests given by a race in the relations interface. When I go to the quests screen, most of the time I am looking for either:

The quests that give the most XP
The quests that give the most Credits
Quests that give any Fear points (ie filter out anything that gives no fear)
Quests that give any Legendary points (ie filter out anything that gives no legend)

From there I might pick up the top two XP quests, or top 3 fear.. etc.

Sometimes the quest list is ridiculously long (its a good thing, dont change that), but it would be nice to be able to only show which type I am looking for at the moment.

[droxop55]

Because of playing Drox, I bought Din's Curse and Demon War. I can see the similarities in the games as well as the engine used.

There are some things in Din's Curse that could easily carry over into Drox. Here are some immediate recommendations:

• Gambler - I do see that this vendor is in the game and does exactly what I had described earlier with purchasing unidentified items. This function can easily be brought over into the Drox universe in some way, perhaps from planets. I do like the 'Galactic Forge' idea combining multiple components into one random one. Perhaps they could co-exist in the game somehow.
  
  
• Purchasing temporary enchantments - One of the traveling vendors allows you to purchase (what looks to be) 5 minute, 10 minute, 15 and 30 minute buffs that do a variety of things (+mana, +health, +regen, +STR, etc). This seems like a perfect fit into Drox as well, purchasing temporary ship buffs that fall in a similar line, perhaps from planets. Purchasing a buff would apply the buff immediately to you, it would not be an item that goes into your inventory to use later.
  
  
• Vendors that sell specific item types - Some of the vendors sell only a specific item type (say, two handed weapons). I see this also being a perfect fit into the Drox universe, where certain planets specialize in one, or possibly two, categories of components. These planets would, potentially, sell stronger-than-the-average components of the type the planet sells.
  
  
• Planets that sell only 'commodities' - Not from Din, and commodities is not the correct term here, but essentially a planet that only sells those items that planets desire for quests, such as a crate of non-lethal weapons. A planet like this could be very valuable, as you could pick up a bunch of items and quickly make some cash by selling them to the correct planet, and solving the quest.

Id say the above would assist with varying up the planet types in the game. It would break up the idea that each planet is, currently, the same regarding its function (they are basically all the same). Balance would be needed of course, meaning the sector shouldnt have an over population of one planet type (100% plate armor selling planets for the win!), and not all planet types would be in the game at one time either. The sector simply may not have a 'Laser specialized planet', for example.

Alternately, perhaps, through some sort of planetary influence, you can augment a planet to sell a specific category type through some sort of new function, maybe a 'commercialize' button. Influence in this way to change the solar system may very well be more Drox like, instead of the galaxy coming pre-conditioned with what planet types there will be. It would mean that your involvement in the game leaves even more lasting effects on the sector, making it possibly even more rogue like.

[spacehog]

Lots of neat ideas coming out of this thread. I ultimately vote for something that could also carry over to past/future games.

This might not be what you're looking for in an expansion, but here it is nonetheless:

It would be cool if there was some sort of persistent 'lobby' sector for multiplayer. Instead of searching for servers, each player who connects to multiplayer initially starts out in this lobby sector (the Drox Operative Headquarters?) complete with vendors, the ability to trade items with other players, etc. From this sector, players can form a party and then generate a new world where they can adventure together just like standard multiplayer gameplay. (For Din's Curse / Demon War this lobby could be a persistent town with vendors, p2p trading, etc.) Basically it's a way for players to interact with each other (with or without generating worlds) even if they are at different levels. If they are similar levels, they can generate a world and leave the lobby to play on their own server.

Multiplayer servers that are already in motion should be accessible from the lobby, too. There could be some sort of Drox Operative Jumpgate that lets players warp into preexisting multiplayer games.

Player connects to lobby -> trades a few items -> finds another player, starts a party, generates a new world -> standard Drox Operative multiplayer gameplay.

I'm having trouble articulating my ideas so I'll shut up and let you use your imagination.

[droxop55]

I like the idea of a multiplayer lobby.

I then would suggest that if a multiplayer lobby came into existence, the Drox demo should be updated to allow multiplayer up to level 6 (as it does now in single player), and be able to join the lobby.

Having the demo be able to multiplay would, in my opinion, help sell more copies.

[droxop55]

Id like an in-game way of viewing all of the component types in the game. It is hard to tell if I have run across all of the types yet or not.

I suppose it would be similar to the shipyard list.

I havent decided if I like the idea of showing question marks for all of the components that I have not found. Part of me wants to know everything that is available, and the other part enjoys the discovery.

[CautiousChaos]

And some of the ship AI is a little suspect.

If I get mobbed and I just stop engines I find that other ships do the same. Right next to me. Pew Pew Pew and they're all gone. Gotta change that - it's just odd.

Maybe it's more comical than odd. It's like I'm taking a breather with an ol' buddy. And pummeling him with beam weapons at the same time.

-cc