Space Rangers HD: A War Apart Suggestion Thread

[Puce Moose]

I noticed this in the official FAQ for the upcoming Space Rangers HD game:

Q: Can we at least suggest few ideas for gameplay?
A: Of couse you can, but please note that we’re limited in matters of money and time, thus we will be unable to make everything you will request.

Since we know more about the scope of Space Rangers HD now (and know that it's not Space Rangers 3), it seemed like a good idea to have a new thread to keep suggestions now that we know that there aren't going to be any massive changes.

Remember, they state in the FAQ that there are *no plans* to add co-op or multiplayer of any kind. (To me, this is a positive thing, as it frees them up to focus more on new quests, story, equipment, etc., and not have to tinker with network code! So few quality single-player-only games get released any more that I think it's great to see they're focused on providing quality solo gaming!)

Here's a list of mine that I hope are feasible (in approximate order of declining feasibility)

1) Asteroid Expansion
I love the inclusion of sometimes getting paid/belittled for shooting asteroids. How about small other possibilities upon shooting an asteroid?
a) A small Dominator concealed within an asteroid; shooting it releases the dominator, and the player has a small fight on his or her hands.
b) More valuable minerals; the chance for gold/silver/etc. ore being released, which would sell for a lot more than standard minerals. These ores wouldn't need to appear on the trade screen (for simplicity's sake) - they could just be inventory items that could be sold (like quest items, etc.)
c) An asteroid might explode violently, dealing damage similar to a quark bomb. This would make the player think twice about shooting one very close to the ship, while adding some strategic possibilities to combat.

2) UI Reskin
I hope the opportunity exists to reskin the UI a bit; I've stared at that blue so often I'd love to see a more muted option. How about a nice muted black & grey skin? (You can click to see the full-size version; it's just a quick mock-up, so it's not been polished.) Allowing modification of the UI would be a nice thing, as I'm sure different color/brightness levels would appeal to different people.



3) More cohesion to the "space game" in the RTS/text adventures.
How about the possibility to discover artifacts/money/micromodules during some of the adventures? Perhaps a chance to buy one from a shady dealer in a text adventure. In the RTS battles, there might be some research outposts that, when captured in the game (for the first time that battle), yield a new micromodule/artifact/etc.

4) Orbital Defense Turrets
I'd love to be able to purchase (probably expensive) floating defense platforms to help deal with Dominator invasions. One per system could be installed, and they might take a while to complete (and be vulnerable during construction, and a priority target for Dominators). Once finished, they would be powerful anti-invasion platforms with high HP and powerful weapons.

5) More uniqueness between systems
Unique/Rare planet types/system events, to make exploring each system more rewarding. Perhaps derelict ships to find, unique cosmic entities (twin stars, planets that start an associated RTS battle/text adventure without being tied to any mission. "You see some previously uncharted ruins! Would you like to explore? ->Starts text adventure." The Dominators have invaded this planet! Would you like to try and eradicate them? ->Starts RTS battle.

6) Space Monsters!

I'd love to see some strange stellar species floating around out there that might try and attack other ships. Giant space worms, space amoeba, etc., that might show up and try to eat the dominators or start snacking on civilian ships/orbital installations. Kill one and you might find a powerful module/artifact/etc.

I have more ideas, but I thought I'd try to open with some of the more (hopefully) feasible ones. Please share yours!

[Tryan]

I would really want no time to be spent at all on the RTS portions of the game. Entire games are designed for RTSes and this is simply the weakest portion of SR.

[Zentay]

My suggestions

1) I don't like how the game can proceed on its own with fellow rangers and military taking sectors even without my input. This is true even at the highest difficulty setting (it just takes a while before the tech that allows this becomes available). So I would like to see a mode where other rangers and military ships cannot get strong enough to do this without player help.

2) I would like to see a bit more depth and variety in ship and weapon outfits. Active modules, secondary weapon systems, the usual stuff often found in space games.

[misahalfar]

noting the game is just fine :-p but just make it touch frïendy!!!

[ru_maniac]

Hello, I'm Yakov Uvarov, SNK's team lead.

- I really like the idea of spawning the dominator out of the annihilated asteroid. I'll ask coders to consider this option
- No, we won't repaint the interface, sorry
- AWA will have some unique quests related to story's fork, so I think it'll pass as "uniqueness"
- RTS part of the game will be slightly improved: it now supports pretty much everything that it did not have back in '04: AA and AF options, manual distance of view tweaking and such. At the moment we're trying to make user-friendly mechanism of controls remapping.
- Fellow rangers are in fact just like you. They can do pretty much everything except accepting text quest or saving the galaxy and finishing the game I see no reason why we should take away some of their freedoms
- We'll add some new equipment and brand-new ship hulls as well

I'd like to specifically say a few words about touch-controls and possible tablets support. Classic controls and Windows x86 version are our priority. There are though some offers coming our way about porting the game to mobile platforms, but don't get too excited, 'cause there's nothing concrete yet about it.

[braven25]

Better Difficulty Slider!!!


First off...
Difficult slider in SR2 is bit off, increasing dominator strength 1 step and reducing anyting else 1 step leads to a much harder game even tho the % slider is still 100% difficulty.

I feel upping the dom strength should have more impact.

Secondly...
The difference in difficultly seems extream, default dom setting is way to easy yet next step up seem to end up being overrun, and unless you manage to get good start the colition will be wiped out before your strong enough to defend them.

Suggestion...
3 Seperate Difficulty Slider for each Dominator race.
1 Slider for Collition Strength

Reasons...
1: This will make dom strength have 3x the impact on the difficulty slider.
2: Allows for more fine tuning the difficulty

eg 1: You could make Blazer and Terron harder difficulty, but make Kellar easier... overall the game will be harder but you only have 2 factions hammering away at collition rather than 3.

eg 2: If you want hard game but want collition to least hold onto the territory its won for more than 5 mins then you can ramp up all 3x Dom + Collition to Hardboiled this way dominators will be rock hard to fight but collition can just about hold there ground, ofc this also mean pirates should be afraid too.

eg 3: if you want a fairly normal difficulty game, but want to be more important part of the dominator fight, then you can leave Dom strength as normal and just make Collition weaker, so Dom are still manageable early on but need to pay more attention to there attacks, ofc pirates have easier time.

[SobeR]

For me it was really hard to make money just by trading in SR2. I'd like to see improvement in trading system!

[random50]

Galaxy development:

1) Decouple dominator and coalition development a little. It should be possible for one to overwhelm the other. Use donations by the player as a means by which they can strengthen the coalition.

2) Reduce reliance of coalition status on player wealth. Just because I have paid for the latest equipment doesn't mean every other new ship generated should have similar level tech. Again, player can donate if they want to share the wealth/strengthen coalition in the war.

3) It seems to be basically impossible for the coalition to lose. The dominators stop attacking when there's 3 or less systems remaining (once Keller is eliminated) While that's player friendly, it does make things feel a little empty since winning becomes just a matter of time.

User interface:
4) Having to unload the ship when you want to free up space for a trading run is tedious. Add an "unload cargo" shortcut (similar to the "load all" shortcut)

Custom ships/equipment
5) The ability to order equipment/ships at the appropriate bases/planets. The player pays a hefty premium upfront and has to wait some time for the equipment to be built (so incentive to protect the base from dom attacks). Equipment available and amount of the premium tied to current galaxy tech level.

Wingmen: these could be great, but at the moment they're not.
6) If the stop on dominators attacking when coalition is very small is removed, they would become almost essential to survival. This would greatly add to the challenge/fun IMO but...
7) On higher difficulties, wingmen's ships are too weak. Give the player the ability to pay for upgrades for their wingmen, especially the hulls (replacements would be even better). Also, make it easier to exchange equipment when you're giving them something better. (Dropping in space, waiting for them to pick up, then getting them to drop the extra is very annoying!)

[muffildy]

I would like to see either more skills, or for skills to be extended beyond current limits.
For example, i would love a skill that reduces damage equipment recieves in battle or allows the player to fix broken equipment once per week to 100%; end game can really suck when repairing your ship costs 300000 or more.

[cairn]

That's what this game is sorely missing in the RTS planetary battle element in the FPS control of a robot.

I cannot believe that there is no strafing and mouse-look options. We're still controlling these robots like a 90's FPS with vehicles. Mouse-look and A D strafing is pretty much standard by now.

C&C Renegade did vehicle control right. Admittedly, the default control of a vehicle must be changed to mouse controlling the turret, but when you do this, The mouse controls where you look, i.e. where the weapon points, and the keyboard controls where the wheels turn. This way you can attack enemies around you no matter which direction you're moving in and you can change direction in the middle of a fire fight without losing sight of you're target, you know, like the robots are always able to do when the player is not controlling them.

The C&C Renegade vehicle control is one way of doing it, then A and D would be turning keys like they are now, but the mouse would be able to rotate the body fully 360 degrees, and be able to look up fully vertical or whatever limitation you prefer.

Or the human FPS way would be to make the mouse turn the entire robot, not just the upper body, and have A and D as the strafe keys. Either way works for me, but there needs to be more mobility on controlling those robot bodies. If you don't want to do it the C&C Renegade vehicular control way, then at least allow for A and D to be the strafe keys for at least the hovering and legged robots.

Personally, I think that you should implement customization of controls for planetary battles, and let anyone decide whatever method of control they want for the robots in FPS view. I usually play it in First Person. In fact, I only recently even realized that if I zoom out a little in to third person it allows me to see my peripherals a lot easier so that I can attack those to my sharp right or left as I'm scurrying backwards. But what really frustrates me is how they can fire up and down, and I can't very well because the view doesn't really allow it unless things are positioned just right in third person view.