Ideas for Drox 2

[eidolad]

big up on that, though real-life bosses want the Core Job Done.

So to argue further for your idea: To help achieve the idea of "let me choose my fun": Perhaps "another Drox Operative" is also checking off stuff in the sector...if I go do my chosen fun first...then the other Operative will/has finished the rest out.

[Bluddy]

In order to make gamepad controls work well, there has to be a way to have a current button highlighted. Moving up/down/left/right would move to a different button in that direction, and pushing a chosen gamepad button should click the button. Not every button should follow this scheme: some buttons should not be part of the button group that can be selected. Others should be part of a different button group. For example, interacting with a shop should let you switch between button groups: one is the shopkeeper, and one is your inventory.

Inventory items should also be selectable like buttons. Having a UI button or inventory selected should show the tooltip for it.

[Jackrel]

Don't know if anyone has suggested this, but I've noticed with all of the new races any time I complete a quest or destroy an enemy faction I get blasted by every faction in the sector with thanks and taunts. I mean it is a really neat mechanic but I was wondering if the faction communications could be split into two categories, so like the taunts and thank yous get posted into the message log while any trade requests, favors or demands get posted into the current communication system.
Also, curious if anyone else is having "fun" with the way faction relations are all over the place in this one. Seems I start a sector out by buddying up to all the races I meet only for them to all hate me in the end because one guy meets and befriends his backwoods murder hobo neighbor who immediately declares war on me as soon as I encounter them... I mean, it is pretty disheartening when my closest allies who I've invested time into helping turn on me because they decide to be friends with some psycho with a shoot on site mentality. I really dig the idea of the random generated races but it seems to be a 50/50 chance they hate my scavenger face without any previous interaction with me and in spite of the good will I've garnered with their one friend.

[Jackrel]

Here is a little compilation of ideas I had that might be interesting to add in. Honestly most of these ideas are based on features from the other games in soldaks lineup. That said all of this is strictly my opinion, so hoping I don't piss anybody off.

1. Captains. So this idea is based on the thought that we are captain of our ships, maybe add a few selectable classes with passive skill trees and a captain level based in part on the way mutation and character level were handled in dins legacy. Captain experience could be gained from completing quests for a nominal amount, and for completing drox assignments for a larger amount. I say passive skills in the sense of being more commander type abilities that directly affect certain component types in the sense of the standard rpg character archetype system of damage dealer, tank, summoner, etc. These would be effects that stack on top of your race effects. More of a system to fine tune your build and balance out certain aspects that don't get much attention such as summons.

2. Crew personalities. In the drox games I find myself collecting a motley crew of varried races and somehow they all get along even though their racial factions are to put it mildly, commiting genocide against each other. Could be fun to have your crew get random personality traits that affect their disposition to one another and how effectively they work for you. Ya know, like they are people.

3. I've seen this one elsewhere in the thread, but I'd love to see the ability to scrap items down to base mats I can use to enhance or even just repair my gear and resurrect my crew. This one became real apparent after I'd accidently pissed off the entire sector and in trying to get the funds and goodwill rolling so I could convince them I wasn't a psycho, every component on my ship broke and I ended up giving up as I couldn't cripple my way off to any safe harbor for repairs as everyone in the sector decided my face was in need of punching. So please. The ability to repair at my spawn point would be soooo nice.

4. Another one I've seen posted in the thread that I thought I'd try my hand at suggesting a change to. Inventory. I'm honestly curious if the inventory system could be altered to behave sort of like the component slots. As in you start off with a handful of slots and maybe unlock more with ship upgrades. Maybe the current cargo bays could be reclassified as components of the light, medium and heavy variety? You know, for hoarding purposes.

5. Random mutations. I don't know that I'd call them mutations in this game. Maybe traits? But it would be neat to see dl's random chance to gain hatred for this or that enemy type, or even fear of the stuff that just exploded you and your ship a few times. Just an extra layer of fluff to help me connect with my little scav boat.

6. Technology. So, we explore around learning all sorts of technologies across the sector. But outside of selling the details to others to make it for us they don't seem to do anything. Maybe technology learned could be like a 1% per level bonus to using those technologies? Or maybe we can apply those schematics at a shipyard to alter our ships components?

7. Crew hapines. I actually have no idea what this does... Because I've never seen my crews morale drop below 30% so, maybe some tweaks to crew morale? Or somebody could explain it to me lol

8. Doomsday weapons. Can we get weapons that allow us to destroy planets completely? I mean like straight up death staring planets. Could set it up so it really bugs every race in the sector when you do it, but still. There is always one planet in a cluster that no matter how hard I try my vassals can't seem to colonize it and it turns into an endless fight to keep that one group of space crazies from moving in and causing all sorts of problems. Please. I want to blow those planets up and never see them again lol.

9. Item restrictions. Don't see as much in the way of level requirements on items, but it is still a thing and it kind of bugs me. Maybe go the way of Torchlight 2 where requirements work along the line of be this level or have this stat level to use.

10. Racial slots. So this one gets a little out in the woods. I have a love hate relationship with racial slots. I get they are supposed to make the races feel thematically different, but they feel a little well. Underwhelming. I love the idea of power power consumption on racial components but I wonder if that affect could just be attached to the normal component slots, or if more effects could be attached to the racial slots. Honestly I think I'd rather see the racial slots recycled into being specifically crew slots. Sort of like seats on your command bridge, you get more the higher tier ship you have to a max of say 4. I don't know, this one is honestly a personal gripe of mine. Since those slots end up being reserved to either one or two specific components that I may or may not care about using so yeah. I don't want to see the racial bonuses removed completely, but maybe add more items to the lists or just enhance the effects of those slots in some way.

Anyway. That's all I have for now. Love the game, this was just my personal opinions for a large part. Would love to hear others thoughts.

[Bluddy]

- Items that allow you to disguise your ship like one of the races (one item per race) for 5 minutes or so. This would allow you to get past races that hate you (assuming you look like their friend), and would allow you to destroy race ships and get hatred towards the race you look like. You could also blow up diplomats heading to important meetings (like peace meetings) with no repercussions for yourself, but framing another race.

[Evander]

How about going a different route?

Rather than iterate over Drox and its shortcomings, why not try something different?

I would like to point you Shadow to S.P.A.Z. 1 as an example.

This could be a Drox mothership with extendable modules and fighters and fleets, with tech research and upgrades, instead of a Diablo in space

Might be a good idea to drop/mine mostly resources and refine them into useful stuff for a change.

[Bluddy]

From discord:

- Suggestion based on Jackrel's point in #general: use the DL system for ships in Drox. All ships for all races could be assigned names for their captains. They could then talk with you, telling you about their day or their feelings about other ship captains or their race. They could have an attitude towards other ship captains or towards their race in general. They could have personal quests. And they could rebel against their race, sabotage it etc. It would make the game world feel more lived-in. A colony ship could be piloted by the same guy as it's used multiple times etc. Even though the races represent millions of people, the people you interact with don't have to be that many, giving you a distinct feel for them and creating new gameplay opportunities.

Bluddy: A race without money can't afford to pay its captains well, so they're easier to bribe...
Jackrel: yes
Bluddy:It would also be really sad if you put effort into a captain and then he died
Jackrel: It would yes
Bluddy: especially if he just got married and had kids :frowning:
TheLastShogun: Or was two days from retirement
Jackrel: XD not squidlore! He had a family, was putting his kids through college!
!! That would be a neat idea, say you buddy up to a captain and it nets you the option to use them as a political game piece but also gives you a direct line for aquiring goods and crew from that race
Bluddy: That's the kind of stuff that would distinguish Drox 2 from 1.
Jackrel: Like if you were friends with another captain he might give you a heads up of any crew looking to get out of their fleet

[Mithur]

Idea of how you can help rebels on planet, if you at war with race that owns it - you can give required item to a quest giver/smuggler rebel ship, and it will deliver it to a planet.

[Bluddy]

Some sound feedback:

- Playing with headphones is mostly a pleasure (particularly after removing the music for the monster races which both I find to be distasteful and which plays over the ambient soundtrack, but that's a matter of taste).
- Fading between the race music on the relations screen works great.
- The ambient soundtracks in general range from good to really excellent!
- When going from the game screen to the relations screen or map screen or pausing, the ambient music track pauses suddenly and abruptly, and it's jarring.
- Instead, the ambient music track could be faded out for the relations screen. For the map screen and for pausing, you can just keep the track going.
- The war declaration sound is extremely loud compared to other sounds and could really use toning down.
- It would be nice to have more idle sounds from the monsters that hinted about what they are. Talon could have more whale-like idle sounds, Legion could have computer noises, and Overlord could have zombie whispers and whines.

[kerzain]

Some Suggestions (well, maybe not suggestions so much as stuff I'd like to see):

• I'd like the ability to buy planet information from races. Maybe this wouldn't work out too well because the AI races could potentially have a hundred planets for sale, but man some of these sectors seem huge when I'm limping along and trying to find a safe haven. Even if the planets are limited to the race's own occupied planets, or even just the NEAREST undiscovered occupied planet, that would also work for me (to keep from overlapping with their ability to sell contact info for other factions or something). Or maybe I could gain access to this info when my status with them hits allied or something.
  
  
• I'm sure there are plans to flesh this out in later revisions, but the new planetary feature scans (the stuff that requires a 2/3rd/4th scan etc) aren't giving Legendary exploration points when scanning them (this might be intentional, no idea). The initial scan does, but the subsequent scans don't seem to actually help the player (unless the scan itself results in an item or cash drop of some sort, or (even better) contact with a new minor race.
  
  
• There might already be a way to do this and I haven't paid close enough attention, but I would like the ability to sell a stack of items all at once. This hasn't been an issue for me until I started getting huge stacks of certain supplies that planets will buy. It would save me 80-90 clicks at the store.
  
  
• Right now occupied planets seem to get completely obliterated in sectors with asteroid storms. The thing is, I don't think these storms ever seem to let up (if they do I haven't noticed). it makes it rough for fledgling races to get up and get out of there since they keep getting pummeled. Also, when starting a game using the Home Planet Only settlement option, the races that start in asteroid storms don't tend to make very far into the game (maybe half an hour). As a player, I'm not sure if there's anything I can do to promote their success or if I am supposed to just abandon them and find the next bigger fish to pal up with. I can manually defend their planet from asteroids, but that is just a temporary stop-gap solution since there always seems to be more coming.
  
  
• I wouldn't mind seeing some quests offered by friendly/treaty races to escort their colonizer ships. I'd like to know the ships destination, and have my choice of ships to escort. i understand that this might actually cause pages and pages of quest spam in larger games, so maybe there would be a way to narrow this down to specific types of escorts offered or something. All I know is that there are certain races I'd love to see flourish, but players don't have the time to wait around for a ship to build, load up, and start the move.
  
  
• I'm unclear on what all these different types of treaties do for me as a player. When it comes to stuff like vassals, I don't have any idea how I benefit from +25% research etc. Maybe that's just a bonus provided between AIs, but I feel like a lot of the treaty stuff is a little ambiguous at the moment.
  
  
• Sometimes I'll give a race a planet they're 100% compatible with, and it'll even have nice bonuses, and it's in a nearby system, but instead of settling that one they'll build a ship and send it off to some tiny moon somewhere in BFE. I know I can't control the races directly, but even if I try to never share sub-optimal info with them and only cherry pick the good stuff, a lot of time they just never seem to care about it. I'm not sure what all goes into their decision making when choosing a locale (nearby enemies?) but it's hard to keep giving them good info only to see them squander it.
  
  
• At the moment I don't see a reason to ever share contact info between races. At best maybe there's some trading behind the scenes that benefits them both, but at worst it penalizes me for helping one guy that another guy might suddenly have taken a disliking to for no good reason. But if they don't ever know about eachother I seem a lot freer to just do as I please without their opinions of eachother affecting their opinion of me.