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

[McCormick]

The latest patch notes (1.001) list a number of things that have been suggested in this thread. That's encouraging! I especially like the adjustment to how the game determines when to display a green plus on items for sale.

Expansion Idea:

Originally Posted by Bluddy

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A more advanced version (aka my dream version) would involve entering another area when you enter the field of a planet. Planet interaction would occur in this map, which is a map of the planet as it's being developed by the colony. It would be much like an area in DC/DoP, except everything would be in smaller scale of course (individual people would be tiny). This area would represent the planet itself and its facilities, so you'd have a shipyard, a pub, some factories, high-rise buildings etc. Attacking the planet would mean withstanding the shooting of flak cannons and low altitude vehicles as you target specific installations. Furthermore, instead of just choosing abstract choices such as espionage or sabotage, you'd drop off a hired spy right next to a factory, trying to avoid being seen.

There are very few space games that are also able to do full-blown planet interactions well, but in Drox, a planet could be just another area, and could actually feel like a fully developed part of the game.

I like Bluddy's ideas -- landing on planets, taking more of a direct part in espionage, sabotage, etc. Possibly having the option to do your buying & selling in the "safety" of the planet's surface would help make up for the lack of a Pause function in multi-player.

What I'd really like to see are some aspects of Ascii Sector implemented. Not sure if this would fit well into Drox Operative itself, or if its really asking for a new game that is somewhat slower paced.

In addition to the space ship flight & combat, also have a character that can walk around inside your own ship and outside. Land on a planet, or dock with a space station, etc., leave your pilot's seat and walk through your ship to an exit, then walk through the space station or town to do business, get missions, get jumped by thugs occasionally and fight them off with your personal weapons, etc.

I first saw this in a game years ago that was called something like 'Black Sun'. After a space battle, if components of the ship were damaged you'd leave your pilot's seat and walk through the ship to repair or replace them.

After landing on a planet, the ship in that old game actually had a cargo module that could be detached from the ship and driven around through town to buy/sell cargo, or to deliver cargo to the secret colony that you were supporting. You could park the cargo module and get out to walk around, maybe go into a bar to look for contacts/missions, etc.

It doesn't really fit well into Drox Operative's fast-paced action, where planets can be destroyed so quickly. But imagine docking with that derelict ship and exploring it to try to find some useful parts. Or docking with an enemy ship, perhaps with the help of a tractor beam, and doing a hostile boarding to try to take over the ship intact.

[bong]

similar to mount and blade warband?

that would be an excellent addition to an expansion

maybe get a chance to put down that rebellion you just delivered 10 crates of non lethal weapons for.

a disadvantage would be the inevitable samey-ness youd get from such a dynamic universe.

maybe a sweetener for surface missions could be upgrades for already established weapons?

or perhaps lucrative loot drops?

anyway, i like the idea of surface missions

[alstein]

An increase in options and variety across the board.

Also, I think the level 25 bottleneck needs to be handled, right now the jump from 24 to 26 is massive. Very similar to Din's, where the game stops being as much fun around that level.

[Tyrax Lightning]

Perhaps the ability to Upgrade existing Components you have with the Bonuses YOU want on it, along with new types of Bonuses put in, like maybe a Bonus that Raises a Weapon's Minimum Damage Number... maybe it can be called "Weapon Efficiency"!

[Sedlex]

A complex "perk" system along the same lines as in Fallout, with a very wide range of passive skills to select every few levels based on the current race and raw (unmodified by crew/equipment) ship stats.

These should be thought of as simple fun, and not necessarily balanced against each other. In fact, I believe they should be marginal to promote experimentation.

I'm not even going to start sketching things out here, but here are a couple of (totally arbitrary) quick ideas to give an idea f the type of passive I'm talking about (I'm not even saying I'd like to see these specifically):

Hive mind:
Available at level 25 to Hive ships, no stat requirement. As long as all crew are Hive, ship gets a bonus to computers equal to twice the number of crew equipped.

Sniper:
Available at 100 tactics and 50 computers to Drakk and Brunt. The range of all laser weapons is increased by 50%.

Weapons hot:
Brunt at 50 engineering. Damage increased by something percent, but all weapons take damage at double the current rate for kinetics (or something along those lines).

Tactical rewiring:
Available at level 20 for Utopian, if the player has more points invested in computers than in tactics. Requirements to equip items relying on the tactics stat is reduced by (computers - tactics), and the power load of items relying on tactics is increased by (computers - tactics)%.

Federation:
Human, available at level 25 if the player has more diplomatic wins than other types. For each race a player is allied with on victory in a sector, player receives one crew member of that race in addition to any other prize.

Rock hard:
Lithosoid, level 50 or 100 structural. Lithosoid ships get a bonus of 10% to every resistance but lose 5% manoeuvrability for each equipped armor.

Scientist:
Cortex and Fringe at level 5. The probability of getting technology drops is dramatically increased, as well as the quality of the drops (one level above whatever would have dropped ordinarily).

Now think up as many of these as possible, and allow players to pick one every five levels. They don't need to be balanced, but they do need to be heavily skewed to make choosing them meaningful in some way.

[ilegal]

MOAR customisation, MOAR equipment, MOAR stuff to explore. i think this is the place where the game shines.

maybe it would be cool if CREW had seperate slots and crew members would be more customisable. also maybe making i.e drakk crew member unhappy by killing other drakk ships and planets.

maybe i would like to see mining in the expansion. more

a good inspiration for equipment could be EVE online. addition to fighter bays, the game could offer drone's. drones are much weaker than fighters or interceptors, but you could have more of them and they would be cheaper to deploy.

missle weapons could use some tweaks. maybe sepparating them to torpedo, rockets classes. becouse i find no difference in the rocket selection, all are slow and alike.

torpedo - much slower, less agile, but big damage;
rockets - much faster, more agile, less damage;
rocket salvo launcher - launcher multiple missles, super fast, super agile, low damage.

adding more encounters would also improve the game and replayability. like encountering drox operatives gone rogue. or independant colonies, whose fate is yet to be unknown and if delt with properly - decided by you. more annomalies, sector wide unique effects.

also it would be nice to join all of your sector you been in, into one huge galaxy. the effects of your earlier games could effect your newly created sectors. lets say you were waging war in the last three sectors agains Fringe and Cortex. they might dislike you more the new sector. the galaxy could have your drox operative head quarters, your tiny little base which could be improved, for generating stady income or having a nice vendor, using your gathered technology. a lab inside your tiny base, where you could do reasearch depending on gathered data on your adventures, using research data to do some kind of crafting, building something UNIQUE.

and offcourse - more ships! i dont think they are really hard to create, i would enjoy sketching few if needed or pich more ideas.

really i could and i would like to sketch a few designs for new ships, that would be great!

[Tyrax Lightning]

Ok, after learning a bit more about this game, I think we can use some more Crew Points too... maybe they can be rewarded for completion of strong quests... if not for completion of very difficult Sector Challenges?

[Siveria]

Hmm I'd like to see:
1: More monster ships

2: Better Music (I love the game but the music is pretty bad.. i'm sorry)

3: Monster ships being more.. well Monster ish, maybe semi-organic ships (think aramda for dreamcast)

4: Ability to play in a new game mode where Drox can colonize planets and such like the other races, When races go to war, I am usually the one that has to do everything since I cannot like, ask a race to join me in the fight.
4a: Insted of adding drox being able to colonize planets, allow them to ask a race they allied with to send ships to help you if you have that zones stargate open.

5: Have items say what tier they are before u loot them, like Ram Cannon II insted of just "Ram Cannon" when you have the text on.

6: Since its an expansion or dlc, add new races, for the player and enemy. Maybe allow 8-10 races to be in 1 map insted of 6 max. For people who really want a hectic game.

[Tyrax Lightning]

Originally Posted by Siveria

Hmm I'd like to see:
1: More monster ships

2: Better Music (I love the game but the music is pretty bad.. i'm sorry)

3: Monster ships being more.. well Monster-ish, maybe semi-organic ships (think armada for dreamcast)

4: Ability to play in a new game mode where Drox can colonize planets and such like the other races, When races go to war, I am usually the one that has to do everything since I cannot like, ask a race to join me in the fight.
4a: Instead of adding drox being able to colonize planets, allow them to ask a race they allied with to send ships to help you if you have that zones stargate open.

5: Have items say what tier they are before u loot them, like Ram Cannon II instead of just "Ram Cannon" when you have the text on.

6: Since its an expansion or dlc, add new races, for the player and enemy. Maybe allow 8-10 races to be in 1 map instead of 6 max. For people who really want a hectic game.

Odd, I like the Drox Music... though if new awesome BGMs show up, i'm not about to complain...

I dunno about us Drox 'colonizing' stuff for ourselves... then we gotta manage 'all those annoying people', which is specifically NOT stated in our Job Description, & I like that part of us Drox Operatives... Let the other Races do the screwing around with the annoying civilians.

I'm neutral toward 6, seems like we got enough Races already... though maybe it could be interesting being able to play as a Subrace, like a Fringe Rebel, or an AI... if this happens, we'll be needing a LOT more Character Ship Slots... even as is, I dunno how one is supposed to get all the 'reach lvl 25 as (Race)' Achievements with the limited amount of Character Slots as is...

I agree with & support the rest of the ideas here, especially 4a! It could be fun being able to ask for Ship Support from a Race to use up some of their Ships before I switch sides & turn on that Race afterwards... especially if I allied with that Race while they were strong, then find them losing ground & starting to get beaten up by someone else who's rising to power & showing more potential...


I managed to think of a new idea to add to my prior suggestions as well: Better & more informative Item Descriptions for Items, especially along the lines of 'Hits (x) number of times over its duration', 'Does not use Hit-Roll to determine if it hits', 'Does not answer to the enemy's Defense Stat', & the like...

[all_zebest]

As for me, I would say :
1/ better musics too
2/ an introductory text with original illustrations (one per race would be ideal),
3/ big portraits during dialogues, just like in most RPG: we need a little more emotion in Soldak games!
4/ some voices, maybe
5/ a new design for the ships
6/ more variety in space images and colors, just like in SPAZ