Ideas for Drox 2

[Bluddy]

- One of the things I notice in Drox 2 is that the light falloff seems very minor. Whether I'm right near the sun or at the edge of the system, the lighting on my ship is about the same. This is a shame and a missed opportunity -- it would be quite a neat effect if as you got closer to the sun you brightened up, and as you reached the outskirts of the system you became very dark. In Drox 1 somehow this seemed a lot more consistent, though I'm not sure if it was actually adjusting lighting based on distance to the sun.

- There are also gameplay ramifications here if you want to add them. Traveling close to the edge of the system could make you less likely to be spotted. Hiding behind the dark side of planets could do the same.

[Bluddy]

- The old races should have no extra animus towards the new ones. It's enough that they have different philosophies. Otherwise, you end up with the old races always at war against the new races, which isn't interesting.
- The old races had the advantage that they had unique identities, which we came to know. The new races are random, and as such, it's much harder to care about them. I think it's important to emphasize the collection of traits they have so as to give them more personality. It would help if the races constantly had little blurbs to say. It's particularly useful when you're in the relation menu screen: let them say something (as if we clicked on the talk button with a ship).
- One thing that would help with making these traits seem real is if the races talked about each other. Freedom-oriented races would make comments that the slavery-based races bother them etc. Rather than just having background relations decrease due to differing traits, let us hear the races speak about each other and how they like/dislike their philosophies.
- Is there an option to turn off new races for a sector? I'd love to have that for the classic race feel.

[KafkaExMachina]

First - I am absolutely loving the skill system update. It added more genuine difference between the races than I'd expected

- add some form of attribute based active skills to the bottom of the tree, possibly with race-dependent active. It shouldn't be more than one or two, but having a boost/ability based off of the pilot/crew "skill" rather than just equipment would be nice. This would also add the opportunity to attach racial skills to crew members. Even the robots.

- shuffle the attribute bonus tier requirements around a bit, perhaps making them start at 50, and then add an additional 10 attribute points needed for every tier increase (i.e. 50/110/180/250).

[Bluddy]

Some more ideas to differentiate Drox 2:

- Populations and ground combat: in Master of Orion, ground combat is a separate layer. Races could conquer each other, first destroying their ships and defense structures, and then conquering. Each planet could have both its population and its 'infrastructure' or 'bases'. Once the ships are destroyed and the infrastructure is as well, the planet needs to be conquered via armies transported on ships.
- The player cannot destroy a population completely except by accident or using a doomsday weapon: firing at a planet destroys only the infrastructure. Once the infrastructure is completely destroyed, the planet cannot produce anything, though some population remains.
- Races could then enslave the population left over by other races. Rebellions could happen far more often when a population is left by another race. Some races would annihilate the remaining population, and others would enslave it.
- Races would have different levels of proficiency at hand-to-hand combat, with the Brunt and similar races dominating.

- Race policies: it would be interesting if different races occasionally made decisions about policies other than just conquering planets and attacking races (they currently sort of do with building stations). These events would particularly make end-game (of sectors) interesting, sparking new quests from the Drox guild and from races.
- Holy crusade: a religious race could decide it had to conquer certain planets (especially ones previously owned), or decimate certain races.
- Evil empire: a militaristic xenophobic race, once powerful enough, could decide it wanted to eliminate all life in the universe.
- Secret weapon: a technologically advanced race, once threatened and weak, could try to build a secret weapon that destroyed planets.
- Slave gathering: a strong slave-oriented race would try to enslave most of the sector.

- Pollution: heavy industrialization could produce pollution on planets. Races need you to cart the pollution away. Pollution limits food growth and increases disease. Pollution could also cause planets to 'fight back' as in the game Alpha Centauri. Dryads (and other environmentalists) would particularly hate pollution and would like to enforce green limits in the sector.

- Federation policies: federations would have more meaning if they met and made decisions every certain amount of time. They could have a list of policy choices, such as food being provided by one member to another, or an embargo on a race, etc.

[KafkaExMachina]

Not sure if bug or suggestion: Some random races offer the "new crew" service that the Drakk do.

Since there aren't "new race" crew (that I know of), currently completing the quest doesn't drop a new crew member. How about letting the quest rewards be a crew member of the player's own race or a drone?

[Guardfather]

When exporting a ship's config/stats to an HTML file, current behavior seems to be overwriting the previous export.

What about creating a folder for such HTML files, and creating time-stamped and level-stamped HTML files? I think it would be cool to be able to easily take snapshots of a ship's progress over time, without having to repeatedly go back and rename the export file so it doesn't get overwritten by the next one.

[Bluddy]

Visually, I don't know what's planned, but the buttons of different sizes don't look good. The buttons look much better as they did in Drox 1, with a uniform size.

[Bluddy]

I love the planet screen. It seems like up and down don't move between the entries: I'd love to have that plus possibly page up and page down work.

A suggestion for filters: planets that would suit a certain race for it to settle on. i.e. you filter by Hive, for example, and see only the planets that Hive could live on.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

I love the planet screen. It seems like up and down don't move between the entries: I'd love to have that plus possibly page up and page down work.

A suggestion for filters: planets that would suit a certain race for it to settle on. i.e. you filter by Hive, for example, and see only the planets that Hive could live on.

Both of those sound like good ideas.

[Bluddy]

The nexus ships are a good opportunity to add a cool looking visual effect to buffed enemy ships in the vicinity. You could have an effect per buff type.