Feature Mechanic Suggestion: Mobile Comets

novapolaris

While working on one of my Foundry missions, I got an idea to potentially resolve the "mobile comet" dilemma.

Currently, objects like comets and asteroids can't be set to be mobile. Starships, however, can. They can be set on patrol routes and also be set as destructible. This is where my idea comes in.

To allow for mobile comets and asteroids, my suggestion is to create "comet" and "asteroid" skins for starships, with a new type of patrol route behavior where the "ship" will stick to the patrol route no matter what and ignore enemies. Even when being attacked.

This could also be used for orbiting satellites, to boot, so long as the necessary costumes are made available. This could have another variant of patrol route behavior where the ship(s) will stick to the route no matter what, but still fight back when attacked or their aggro is drawn.

paxfederatica

theoryfive wrote: »

To allow for mobile comets and asteroids, my suggestion is to create "comet" and "asteroid" skins for starships, with a new type of patrol route behavior where the "ship" will stick to the patrol route no matter what and ignore enemies. Even when being attacked.

Ships that don't fire back at the player? That screams exploitability to me, so I doubt that'll ever happen.

Also, this idea would not allow for a scenario like in "Night of the Comet" where you start out with one big comet and "destroy" it, only to have it break up into smaller fragments, and then to even smaller shards which can actually be destroyed. For something like that you'd need a whole new type of object.

novapolaris

paxfederatica wrote: »

Ships that don't fire back at the player? That screams exploitability to me, so I doubt that'll ever happen.

Also, this idea would not allow for a scenario like in "Night of the Comet" where you start out with one big comet and "destroy" it, only to have it break up into smaller fragments, and then to even smaller shards which can actually be destroyed. For something like that you'd need a whole new type of object.

Well, one way they could resolve the potential issue of exploitability (instead of not doing it) is to make "passive" versions give negligible to no rewards. The combatant ones would still have some kind of reward due to the fact that they'd still draw from regular NPC combat abilities.

As for the kind of asteroid/comet that you want, which subdivides when destroyed, it would require something different. But it still might be able to use the same mechanics as my suggestion. Probably some kind of chained enemy which acts like a "launch on death" carrier. Again, if it doesn't fight it probably would reward next to nothing.

adverbero

I'd say this idea has merrit, I have wanted to have orbiting Satellites and assteriods for a while now , in the past I've simply accepted they have to be geostationary, but a system to get moving asteroids opens up possibilities

Like saving a a planet from an asteriod on collision course


Also this is a bit of topic, But destructable statics would be nice, Like the Shipyards in patrol missions which you have to destroy, or ground consoles and doors that can be destroyed

novapolaris

adverbero wrote: »

I'd say this idea has merrit, I have wanted to have orbiting Satellites and assteriods for a while now , in the past I've simply accepted they have to be geostationary, but a system to get moving asteroids opens up possibilities

Like saving a a planet from an asteriod on collision course


Also this is a bit of topic, But destructable statics would be nice, Like the Shipyards in patrol missions which you have to destroy, or ground consoles and doors that can be destroyed

Asteroid collision aversion was one of the things I'd thought about when I came up with this, actually. This would allow for that, although it'd likely require a hidden NPC combat timer to set a collision failure timer.

Destructible objects could potentially be the type of "NPC" used for noncombatant moving objects. This means that if they were implemented they could also be used in a fixed location, depending on whether or not a patrol route is used. Either that or a new type of destructible object, whichever works out better.

adverbero

theoryfive wrote: »

Asteroid collision aversion was one of the things I'd thought about when I came up with this, actually. This would allow for that, although it'd likely require a hidden NPC combat timer to set a collision failure timer.

Destructible objects could potentially be the type of "NPC" used for noncombatant moving objects. This means that if they were implemented they could also be used in a fixed location, depending on whether or not a patrol route is used. Either that or a new type of destructible object, whichever works out better.

Any way we can get the feature I'm all for

novapolaris

I know Cryptic already uses destructible objects (dating back to CO), as well as enemies which continue on a flight path while ignoring combat (which is used in the Borg attack on Vega during the Federation tutorial).

I'm not sure how much work it would be to implement these objects, enemies, and behaviors into the Foundry, however. Just that it IS possible.