What potential features are you guys hoping to see in Career 2.0?

[mild atlas]

Adding a trade commodity is far from "bloat"

Expecally in a game where they is already a trade system and plans for a full live trade economy

[grave heath]

Hmm to be fair yeah, especially the resource system facilitates a ton of trade opportunities.

[mild atlas]

Simply just have the illegal goods be called just that, have a black market, have the open market tax the player a %of their trade depending on their relations too that faction, but on the black market remove that tax and trade it in for a "trade heat" or something where depending what and how much you sell on the black market will raise suspension to the local authorities, could then also have diffrent goods be co sided legal or illegal depending on the faction

[scarlet mural]

starsecotr xd

[mild atlas]

Nuuh

What we really need is Spice as a trade, legal or not doesn't matter

[lyric hornet]

If more vanilla resources are added, then the need for to adding a scroll bar is gonna increase even further (or it's gonna start hurting mod support (some mods also add resources))

[ebon hound]

Can be spice like star wars (drugs) or spice like the British trading (seasoning)

[mild atlas]

No spice as in Spice SMH

[low hill]

Spice is Spore™ main method of currency, with different colors representing different rarities and sectors buying for more or less depending on what they already have

In Mount&Blade the ressource you smuggle are raw ressources used for several industries (iron for the forge, leather for clothings, raisins for wine, ect)

Similar ideas would be neat to implement. Trading ressources does not always need to include drugs or weapons. We does not even need illegal items, the black market idea could be fufilled by having the items provenance be illegal instead

Such as Cabal not willing to import ressources from Monolith despite being produced in massive quantities and sold at a cheap price, for exemple

[shrewd herald]

Or, for instance, Monolith banning exports of high-quality processors to the Fringe Systems Resistance.

As a totally made-up example.

[real cipher]

I second this, adding some luxury items that act as cargo without a function, which pirates, smugglers and merchants can carry around.

This would add some interesting interactions to the game further down the line.

Some factions might deem certain goods illegal, without them being explicit, or place ban exports on them (Maybe with a higher likelihood and bias relative to the faction, like Monolith banning/favoring Tristeel, Sol Diamonds, Imperium Uranium etc etc).

Selling these items to other factions when the ban in the local sector is active will decrease reputation with that faction, but not necessaarily turn you into a criminal.

Patrol ships might require you to pay up a fee if they encounter you though with banned export items.

Also, unsure if possible but maybe adding some form of machinery or large-cargo that occupies more cargo slots. (Might set the stone in the future for drone bays, where we play tetris as some sort of mini game to fit as many cargo/drones as possible.)

[red wadi]

Well that makes sense

With career 2.0 there is economy, and there could be some commodities unrelated to shipbuilding (like avorion)

I think it would be interesting to make cloaked trading ships for sumggling

[molten light]

im hoping next update is 2.0 😔 (after melt)

[south latch]

The term “bloat” is overused in minimalist terms

[grave heath]

Cosmoteer is definitely not bloated and likely never will be, everything is there with intention and long term functionality, almost everything is useful to some extent. If you want to see a bloated game, look no further than Terraria (although I still love it).

[shrewd herald]

Oh, Terraria is exceptionally bloated, and has embraced it, and is better because of it.

[grave heath]

Can't disagree with that. Though the amount of gimmick things that if you get you go ''huh, cool'' and toss away forever is depressing.

[steady thicket]

Terraria is survivorship bias

[red wadi]

Yeah, now I can see how smuggling blends into career 2.0 gameplay

[shrewd herald]

Yeah, that is regrettable. Though I have friends who love some random items that I'd never even considered using!

[balmy quarry]

Cosmoteer is definitely not bloated and likely never will be
Challenge accepted.

[mild atlas]

Oh no WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NICK

[ebon hound]

lol

[mild atlas]

Wonderful, now Walt o's going to add diffent coloured parts but instead of it being like the lights where you chose the colour it's going to be individual parts

[ashen isle]

Dont forget to add 5 new surface cannons and 10 new deck cannon variants

[latent musk]

add a laser variant that fires 2 lasers but takes twice as long to fire

[mild atlas]

ah yes finally, we get MK 1-10 versions of every weapon with the only difference being stat changes and the ocational colour change

[ashen isle]

Maybe we could remove paint if we just added a version of every colour

[grave heath]

YES WALT! Only thing that chaingun needs is another gimmick!!

[steady thicket]

Do not google cosmoteer inflation worst mistake of my life

[real cipher]

ok but seriously, adding a shape selector like SWCD does for roof mounted weapons would be kinda cool to break shapes, you know? Just saying.

[sullen smelt]

Don't we already have people violently exploding into bloody pulp inside of burning spaceships screaming their lungs out in the process? I don't argue for neither, but tbh I'm unsure if we're not in 16+ already D:

[latent musk]

i dont think they are violently exploding

[latent musk]

no we need atleast 15 randomized roof texture variants for every single thing in the game along with atleast 13 more paint layers and also like 600 useless decals that are either inverted or rotated or mirrored variants of a already existing decal

[ashen isle]

Why are we not just using ai to generate more weapons?

[latent musk]

oh yeah that also works

[grave heath]

''asking chat gee pee tee to make cosmoteer MODULES for me!!1!''

[latent musk]

yeah!

[real cipher]

jokes on you, the decal bloat days are over in the new patch. At first it was hard to figure out but now it's a life saver

[latent musk]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/553917324340625426/1384207694973370588/discord-green-leaf.gif

omfg I KNOW

THATS WHY I CALLED THEM USELESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[inner token]

call up tri-tachyon

[nova badger]

I would like to see some sort of activity in systems outside of the one you are currently in

[stray wren]

wouldnt that count as faction warfare?

[inner token]

Doesn’t have to be, in Starsector you get occasional notifs of traders/smugglers moving important stuff around

[red wadi]

Faction combat, economy activity, bounty activity and so on?

[spice hound]

I would like to see more varied difficulty areas, especially further from the starting system. Last I checked, difficulties were largely centered on upper-intermediate difficulties, and all systems had a small range of different difficulties within them. I think systems on the far end of the galaxy being more varied (like seeing some 8-11 and 13-15 next to each other more often and a couple reaching into 6+ difficulty range) and each having a larger potential range of difficulty (ex. varied 7-12 and 10-15 areas along with usual 13-15 areas, maybe even a few single difficulty areas) would make things more interesting and varied in the mid-late game (which is the period where one would wander into these parts).

[golden pond]

buying escorts in high level sytems and then once you get into the high level you can get paid from doing escorts

[gray widget]

friendly ships that send mission advertisements while they are docked at space stations, in which you can check on which mission they are doing (procedurally generated bounty / mining / destroy station missions) and then choose to join them in exchange for looting rights and part of the commission

or simply more forms of "offline co-op" with your desired faction

[south latch]

Experimental weapons for reach respective faction

[serene cairn]

how about a simplification of the "build a predefined ship" process?

right now, if you have a saved ship design, you have to

-initiate the "create new ship" process
-open a menu
-select "paste existing blueprint"
-go to anothe rmenu of your existing ships
-select
-confirm

but when in Creative mode, you can simply go to your ship library and drag and Drop.

SUGGESTION:

in Career Mode, dragging and dropping a blueprint into the game automatically orders a construction of the whole thing. obvs still requires crew to do it and resources to build it. but it's way simpler... right now, deploying many little ships is a pain.

[latent musk]

you can just drag the ship.png in when you are in the ship building thing

[stiff geode]

more spinal weapons would be really neat

[bleak tapir]

Do you mean something like it’s the same modularity as the rail gun by for a different weapons type?

[grave heath]

I agree, I want to FAN something!

[grave heath]

Not necessarily modular, just something that has only one fixed firing angle, a line.

[bleak tapir]

What about a pac cannon? You could build modules inside your shop with a single exit and then fire a lightning bolt that does extreme damage to anything with batteries in it and little to anything without

[grave heath]

I've always wanted a chain lightning weapon that interracts with Cosmoteer's modular system, but overclocked ion beam kinda does that already so meh whatever

[bleak tapir]

For 2.0 has it been suggested that we ourselves can physically join a faction?

[spice tulip]

yea actually, and to possibly make your own faction

[ebon hound]

would be nice

[grave heath]

How would ''your own'' faction work?

I've seen this suggested so many times and it makes absolutely zero sense how that would function.

Hiring mercenaries sure, but your own faction?

[steady thicket]

people yearn for RTSs

[ashen isle]

Build trading stations and combat ships.
Combat other factions territory to expand your own.

[grave heath]

Alas. We will not get a Cosmoteer hearts of iron.

Hearts of Hyperium?

[low hill]

I don't mind no administrative division, I wish there was more incentivize towards commanding though

[grave heath]

Cosmoteer: Starship Architect And

[inner token]

as much as I love the meltdown update, this is how It feels waiting for career 2.0

[steady thicket]

Same

[fallow timber]

Hm? What do you mean?

[fallow magnet]

Probably something that pushes the player to coordinate multiple ships

[serene cairn]

A few mods come with minimal CoF weapons, and they can offer interesting challenges to make work.

[serene cairn]

My opinion is that all you need is some way to automate resource collection, or to automate trading.

You couod perhaps have a "merchant hub" technology that unlocks a function in the Hyperjump Beacon to set it to "broadcast merchant signal"

So a ship with it could attract merchants just like normal stations and automatically trade. You could earn something like 5% the value of exchanged items.

Its passive. It adds up.

Maybe it could require destroying other stations or military bases.

[eager saffron]

AI support for railfans, especially players' ships automatically selecting a target and fanning across it.

Maybe stealth options, e.g. concealing your ship from the enemy until you first fire upon them or get too close. Needs balancing of course so I'm thinking either make it super power consuming to do or make it punish having armor.

[ebon hound]

There are some ways to get ai to fan, but they tend to not actually help that much

[rapid kernel]

https://discordapp.com/channels/314103695568666625/1401430093850480691

[gray widget]

can we please get a top row for selecting all priorities in a tab?

I like to get granular with my crew roles and its painful every time

also folders for save games so we can organize and access multiple runs from the save/load menu

[lyric coyote]

if you right click on a priority you get more options

[mighty stump]

yeah, right clicking is very handy in this game

[gray widget]

wow

been playing for so long and never knew that context menu existed

ty

[balmy quarry]

Always keep an eye out for the right-click cursor! Lots of things you can right-click for advanced QoL features.

[ebon hound]

oh thats prity cool

that wouldhave saved so much time when i was making the crew

[waxen flume]

which reminds me, there's a bug I need to do some digging into, some of the new OC parts don't seem to get changed when you do a "Set all X priorities to Y"

[fallow timber]

mrt extenders and pods too

was just about to make a report for that

[grave heath]

You didn't know? It makes crew making so much easier 😉

[halcyon whale]

Seconding the desire for more fleet command gameplay. I'm not looking for Stellaris style galactic control, but I would really love the ability to have some basic fleet AI automate tasks like mining, patrolling, trading, etc.

Avorion is a similar game to Cosmoteer and a good model for doing simple fleet command in a streamlined (at least conceptually, I don't know if the code is efficient) fashion. Some examples:
—

• You can tell a mining ship to go mine a certain area and it will automatically harvest asteroids.
• You can command ships to escort other ships (kinda like fleet formation currently, but they will pilot around on their own). I think you can also assign patrol routes, but it's been a while since I played.
• They have a cool fleet excursion mechanic that happens on the galactic map, with simulated probabilites based on your ship statistics. A macro-level thing like that could be cool. Immersive enough without needing the resources to simulate on the sector level.

[grave heath]

Yeah that'd be nice.

What I personally want from Cosmoteer the most is a bit more immersion, something to detract me from just having the game run on 8x all the time... I think how far you can zoom out in career is quite excessive, maybe a sector minimap could replace that but the change might be too controversial so add "I hate immersion" option I guess.

[halcyon whale]

"I hate immersion" is a crazy name for that, lol 😂

[grave heath]

We already have I hate exploration, salvaging and construction 😉

[rare tendon]

Before we get fleet command we need ai that can properly react to multiple ships attacking it

i was able to pull out multiple times assistance of mining hauler to kill enemy through their back while they are too focused on main combat ship that can actually tank

But yeah, RTS style commands will be really nice, especially if there will be something like area reclaim/mining where ship actually moves between targets

[frail bear]

At a station it would be nice if you could buy maps that have asteroids with their respective resources marked in the map.

[south latch]

Subregions that are all just asteroids

[eager saffron]

you mean pain?

[frail bear]

I think they mean asteroid clusters

[half marsh]

More flexible progression. Right now it’s “blow up ships to blow up bigger ships” thanks to the fame mechanic. It would be nice if you could also progress through mechanics like asteroid mining, manufacturing, and arbitrage.

Also, link to top for mobile users

[grave heath]

Overall the exploration aspect should be reworked I think. The generation as is is quite stale as there are rarely a few anomalies, and flying around is brushed off by not only a lack of interesting things to stop by and look at, but by also the game giving you an option to fly on 8x speed, zoom out indefinitely and warp wherever you wish.

[inner token]

to add to this, stars with various populations (and more of them) would be nice. At the moment every star system is basically treated like a level for you to beat with ships in it. In many space games though, star systems have various degrees of population, some are abandoned or untouched. It would be sick as hell to visit abandoned systems honestly or blank ones

Also tbh, I don't think there's a problem with ship sizes being way more mixed in star systems as long as the bounties are still around that difficulty. Like it'd be kinda cool to take on a lv8 bounty in the first system or see a lv16 floating by defending a station

[spice hound]

A cool way of adding more life to Career systems could be the occasional organized combat/logistics/flagship fleet flying through by a faction. These fleets could be the ones that fight other factions, but it would be really cool to see a fleet of 4-10 ships of different sizes just passing by in a system. A really cool fleet to see would be a partially finished flagship being escorted across the system (imagine a lvl 18 ship being escorted by 14+ ships through a 10-12 system, or any difficulty, with escort ships at least the same level as the system)

[ebon hound]

that last part is what i hope will happen with the cosmoteers, in terms of tiers anyway

[inner token]

Yeah I feel like just a mix of ships would be fantastic. It also kinda makes no sense in its current state

like, why are all the capital ships only in these areas? Why can't anyone build anything bigger or smaller here? There are renegade bounties but that's ab it

[hasty lance]

having systems regenerate, change difficulty, or otherwise feel more alive and extend the game life, maybe some super difficult "boss fights" that could be massive ships or a large fleet of lv18 ships, various things like that, and some way the game could continue scaling to your fleet's cost even after you surpass the most expensive lv 18 ships

[acoustic raptor]

Hello Walter,

First of all, thank you again for this game, which I keep recommending and supporting everywhere.
Based on multiple cooperative experiences, both modded and vanilla (being a modder myself), I’d like to share some suggestions that, if integrated into the vanilla game, could give Cosmoteer a fresh boost:

1. Give Stations a Purpose

Allow us to designate a ship as a STATION or capture/build one.
A station would generate money and crew for every trade with NPC ships that visit.
It could also act as a local trading depot, creating extra profit.
Depending on diplomatic relations, NPC patrol ships could come to defend it.

2. Quality-of-Life Additions Inspired by Popular Mods

Add colored indicators for ores/minerals. The ore-coloring mod is one of the most downloaded QoL mods, and implementing a similar feature natively would bring huge value for little development effort.

3. Improve the Micro-Economy

Enable auto-mining within a designated area.
Allow programming automatic trade routes between ships and stations.
This would greatly ease solo play, where balancing both economic micromanagement and military control becomes overwhelming.

4. Optimize Late-Game CPU & Crew Load

Introduce a game option to reduce crew requirements and resource consumption in late-game stages, helping performance on larger fleets.
Examples:
Reduce reactor fuel consumption by X%
Increase the delay between energy drains by X%
Reduce required crew per room by X%
This would alleviate slowdown when managing fleets with 2000+ crew members.

5. Simple NPC Interactions to Reduce Loneliness

Allow us to recruit stranded NPC crew members drifting in space after their ship is destroyed.
Add the option to call an allied ship and pay for its escort services.

Thank you for reading, and above all, thank you for your continued passion and dedication in keeping this project alive.

[orchid mantle]

I’m sure I said it before but instance persistence. Persistence so friends can go to diferente systems. I understand the level of stress on the engine might be higher, I’m not sure on that. I’m equipped to make a dedicated server to try out the possibility.

[bleak adder]

Better ai, especially FOR the player

No more spawning "police" aka Civilian ships that actively dodge u but keep wanted going

No more spawning "police" aka Hunter ships that spawn randomly around player ships aka the big ole storage brick hidden in the gaseous clouds and instead pls focus the offending ship LMAO 🤣

[mighty stump]

those aren't police ships, they're civilian ships that belong to that faction

[bleak adder]

Also civilian ships shouldn't be able to keep wanted going by touching THE PLAYERS sight radius

[steady thicket]

The real issue is the wanted status having a duration

Civilian ships should still report your location and avoid you (tho that needs a little work), as that does make sense

[bleak adder]

Yes by randomly flying by and dodging arms range fine, but not by bouncing on my sight line while they can't even see me on radar ....

[steady thicket]

That's why I'm saying it needs a little work

It should still avoid you, but remember you are there, so it should take a detour

[bleak adder]

oohh ships being rebuild not having their ressources stolen by WIP ships

[serene cairn]

I think there should be paralel progress methods to "OONGA BOONGA MAKE BIG SHIP KILL BIGGER SHIP GET FAMOUS OONGA BBOONGA"

namely, there's a lot of little mechanics here and there that could pose interesting alternative shipbuilding challenges

let me give you an example

the Venera probes.

this is Venera 9. what makes it interesting? it was made as a probe to land on VENUS.

it had to be built accounting for absolutely insane levels of environmental hazards.

A system of circulating fluid was used to distribute the heat load. This system, plus pre-cooling prior to entry, permitted operation of the lander for 53 minutes after landing, and even though it didn't even last an hour it was considered a tremendous success.

we have SUNDIVING but the only incentive is to get materials we can also get elsewhere easily...

we have hazard nebulas but zero reason ever to go into them, as enemies avoid them too...

there could be ways to earn fame and money by running scientific missions to these horribly hostile environments where no sane ship would normally go.

there could be whole hazard starsystems dedicated to this.

I dunno.

maybe I just want to have a reason to build something that isn't a flying arsenal without feeling like it's a waste of time and resources?

[lyric coyote]

there are rare materials in ion storms iirc

[grave heath]

OMG Venera, I've watched so many documentaries on how the Soviets tamed the indomitable climate of Venus with this series ❤️ ⭐ 🛠️

Great parallel to Cosmoteer logistics and engineering. I agree with your point, Cosmo progression feels too linear.

[grave heath]

Even moreso, it could allow you to obtain more unique and rare modules once those get added.

Hey you know what would be cool as heck? If you could not get every type of blueprint from stations, and had to actively venture through ion clouds and other dangerous hazard locations (once those get added) to salvage rare scrap and obtain more high tier blueprints. Wouldn't it be cool too, if for example, you could only get the nuke launcher (and factory), you know, one of the most powerful weapons against AI, by venturing through Storm clouds in Imperium sectors? Further, Imperium could get you... This makes me realize just how classless Imperium is. Their only real gimmick is 'haha NUKES'

Same could be true for diving into the sun in Cabal sectors to retrieve EMP launcher and factory, diamond maker and overclocks for high tier energy weapons like the ion and tractor beam.

Monolith could harbour the blueprints for the all elusive railgun module and its overclock (by the way base railgun and extender blueprints should be SEPARATE! Railgun is TOO OVERPOWERED in career), together with most high tier factories, whilst IO would contain what you'd expect them too — vast majority of the high tier overclocks.

[waxen flume]

Idea: advertising. Not in-game ads, don't worry 🙂 - but the ability to pay a station lots of cash to send out a broadcast like "Come work on this super cool ship!" The cooler the ship and the more you pay, the more crew show up to be hired. Faction limitations should apply eg a faction with whom your relations aren't great will refuse to do that for you.
This may or may not have been inspired by the fact I just built a 504-crew monster of a ship and know that it's going to take quite a while for that many crew to show up at a single station... (so I also built a cattle barge, which I plan to send around various systems to hire people and ferry them back to the main fleet)

[spice hound]

Heat management could require sun diving (or paying the rare early Io station an egregious sum of credits) just to unlock, as it is probably the most effective and versatile way to skirt the fame progression

[shrewd herald]

The problem is, how would you sundive without heat management?

[spice hound]

do you need it now? it's been a while since I've done it

[shrewd herald]

I think the sun inflicts heat now, possibly in addition to normal damage.

[mighty stump]

you do indeed

[spice hound]

Alternatively, each faction could issue a difficult "special quest" (maybe including the rare resources needed for each) which would then allow the unlock of the blueprints. The "special quest" could also be fame/reputation locked (maybe a combination so that late game all blueprints can still be unlocked)

[mighty stump]

the sun applies heat instead of dealing damage directly to parts

and it does both damage and heat to shields

[spice hound]

so maybe the quest is to help tug a ship out of the sun, whether through sensor + tractor beam or a very short sundive

but not really deep either, and the ship has good enough shielding for a comfortable amount of time or something

The challenge would be to make it both plausible for casuals (and hopefully failable, maybe just through another quest) but also challenging. Closer to a puzzle than most of the game (kinda like faction base kills can feel when under-leveled or on par)

In regards automatic station trading, I think getting free profit is overpowered, but being able to use a station (that preferably doesn't count as much towards crew cap) to request resources/crew from trade ships, would be really nice for late game.
Potential components to this:

• "trading balance" basically an allocated amount of credits used to allow trade ships to trade, with a large amount encouraging more and larger trade ships to arrive
• "resource request" both a one-time and perpetual resource filling amount, preferably separate from the desired storage amounts
• resources traded at market rates with no tax (or at the same rate used for selling resources to stations if market rates are not added)
• by default should have far fewer ships than any built in station; maybe would increase with removal of a nearby station? Idea is to set this up, clear 20 minutes' worth of missions, come back and have the resources for another ship build that was setup earlier (at least without trading incentives)
• bonus: allow for a "advertise station" that occasionally makes pirates attack, attracts nearby existing pirates, but also greatly increases trade ships coming by

Crew Cap:
-maybe separate into player crew running the station, and interim crew that essentially acts as another resource
-interim crew can be hired, but otherwise only acts as storage/fire extinguisher/resource factory/manipulator beam/building/repairing/other non-combat items and logistics, and can be transferred around in much the same way as with a normal station. Probably create a built "interim station crew" role in the crew management tab for something like this
-player crew works like normal

[spice hound]

What about Cabal sending the player into the central Ion storm in a Supernova system to unlock Ion beams (or maybe just the prisms). Would be a fun nod to Sol being destroyed

[spice hound]

Regarding crew optimization, something that might be easier (or less intrusive for gameplay experience) to do would be an option to freeze all operators in their stations, and maybe another thing could be "stacking" all crew into pairs (twice the carrying capacity or speed, but half the numbers for each bunk. Maybe require full crew loadout to enable for ease of implementation)

[storm finch]

the number one thing I'd like from Career 2.0 is to have a more clear/obvious progression and end goal

[red wadi]

And hopefully not as linear as 'kill stronger enemies, build bigger ships, earn more fame'

[spice hound]

Maybe this could be helped with organized faction conflicts, like maybe participating in a 2-5 ship fleet invading a system or taking down a station from a different faction (the station could be some sort of main base, rather than just the ammunition depot)?

That way players could have the end goal of helping a faction take over the galaxy, or erradicating a faction by all possible means

[rocky dock]

Region specific materials, ship parts or exclusive blue-prints. It was very easy to complete my ship and there was no incentive to explore other regions other than for getting a new sort of challenge. Regions getting specific materials will make it so that you have to go to insert region A to get the materials to build a nuke or a weapon.
Region exclusive or faction exclusive blue prints will make it so you have to grind for reputation or do missions in order to gain access to high tier blue prints. This is because getting access to blue prints is very easy and cheap and will provide incentives to explore space stations/star systems for blue prints.

In short, incentives to explore the other regions.

[rocky dock]

Exploration or connecting with other factions will become a key feature to improving your ship and will create a more in-depth progression. Right now its just grind money to get better ships

[lyric hornet]

I've considered doing regional resources via modding, but the main issue with adding more resources is that the UI of the resources to the right is getting cluttered when using multiple mods at the same time that add new resources.

Unfortunately blueprints are not possible to lock by region but it would be something I'd like to see.

[indigo rose]

I'm really hoping that 'push stuff into the sun for free resources' gets fixed, the resource collector makes getting ship and station fragments out of the sun far too easy. Currently in career you can skip from a level 1-3 system to 10-12 to 16-18 just by pushing a station or two into the sun then building a bigger kite. Either doing that should trigger the station-owning faction into a rage, or ideally count as a war crime and everyone hates you now. Moving intersystem hyperdrive beacons shouldn't be possible at all IMO, that's just an infinite resource hack.

I do kind of like that pushing cargo ships into the sun works, it makes the "mining lasers only" variant of career much more possible. Albeit that is a silly variant.

I'd like more defenses around higher level bases. There's a couple of mods that add both more defending ships and more platforms, and those make the career game much more interesting.

Having a railspinner base could be a fun challenge, but I am also going to try a laser spinner - overclock small lasers+disruptors, set them to autofire, spin 🙂 I think it will be very silly but especially if something like the range extension experiment makes it into the release branch, those could be really annoying to attack. Possibly also really annoying to have in a system if the performance hit is too high though. Lots of laser pulses going everywhere might be pretty, but horrible to draw.

[mighty stump]

the current preview is planned to get a new Gravity Anchor part to lock stations in place and prevent them from being shoved

[bleak adder]

Is it planned to also anchor against rotation?

Hmm could be worked around anyway soo I guess not

Gave me a funny idea tho ....

[mighty stump]

iirc you can rotate around one

but if you have 2 or more each of them will be trying to stay locked to the same position so you can't rotate

[south latch]

Killing one with it gets you part of it

[small bison]

Why would you do that though if you don't like it? Like... its career mode, don't cheat yourself out of the experience of the progession.

[indigo rose]

I like the idea of consequences for doing it. The idea is that you don't get bulk resource injections for free, they come with bonus small resource injections in the form of surprising new enemies

[small bison]

I like that there is more than one way to advance in the game in career and while I wouldn't ever do what you described in a serious career play through I fear that putting in too many limits to try to constrain "proper play" is a waste of time and effort. People will always find their fun way to play.

what I find similarly distressing is that my ships, by the time I get to the mid game, are the size of the stations or larger.

[indigo rose]

I dunno, to me much of the fun is building a giant ship to kill everything. My play style is on the edge of what career mode is really designed around ('mining lasers only challenge' etc) so I'm slightly cautious about my suggestions. But I do think obvious bypasses like pushing stations into the sun shouldn't really be in the game. In terms of exploits that one is far more severe than "why everyone build rail kites"

[small bison]

there are rail kites in the in game enemies, so it seems on brand to make those... reverse thrust seems to be a key in a lot of my ships -- but I also like to get up close and push enemy ships from the sides as well

[lavish arrow]

Honestly I think it should be made harder. Not impossible

And if they notice. Then punishment time.

The value? A entire station of wealth

Even better if you sold it all hypercpols and then sunenize it

[steady thicket]

You can attack the station, nothing is stopping you from doing that

[lavish arrow]

Well duh. But if you move the station itself? Usually AI won’t notice that

My arguement is make them notice it halfway through going into the sun

Bexause well

https://youtu.be/UaUy5ZxGXJ4

That way, you could still complete it if you have a way of either going fest or if you have guards

[lyric coyote]

when docking gets added a towing mission would be neat

[mild atlas]

Don't even really need docking, a TB should do the trick

Just woukd be more tedious

That or pushing

[shrewd herald]

Or a structure cage. I've done that before.

[mild atlas]

Yea pushing

Docking would obviously be added later to make ot easier but don't see a reason to wait till then to add that type of mission

[shrewd herald]

I often pull using a structure cage; I hook onto the ship, then build a cage around it while it's immobilized.

[steady thicket]

I think a towing rope should be added for that, as I suggested previously, as a structure cage is immersion-breaking and tb costs too much to be used on most ships

[ebon hound]

hvae sugested grappling hooks before

[stray wren]

hello lovely people

[hasty lance]

some sort of mining ai would also be nice, since configurable ai is on the roadmap i hope mining ai comes with that, for example tell the ship "mine all asteroids in this region" and it go driving around to mine them instead of having to manually move it for every asteroid

[red wadi]

I worry that such automation features would encourage people to build way more ships than this game can computationally handle

Compared to avorion, this game has way more detailed simulation, so things have to happen at a smaller scale

[storm finch]

there's always crew limits for that

[hasty lance]

also the ability to have multiple teams in career mode between different players, and be able to sign a peace with other players in this mode, to be able to be competing against a friend in career instead of cooperating would be a nice change of pace and i think would be very little work for a lot of benefit :D

[kindred swallow]

|| https://starsector.fandom.com/wiki/Alpha_Site || link as reference for below discussion

soo this here is a spoiler for starsector, but yeah ||one of the mission chains for starsector involves jumping into a hidden system after going through enough of the questline. In the hidden system, we have an endgame boss-level difficulty ship that we can fight, as well as a well-hidden cache in the system.|| (edit: spoilerized spoiler; sorry folks!)

what if we had something similar for 2.0? a hidden system that is revealed upon completion of a quest chain, we could be rescuing VIPs, defeating a base cluster, or adding “emotional points” to the questline story through some events. Maybe the background planet explodes for some reason, all are open as possibilities. Perhaps monolith or imperium gets us investigating Io, and we either blow up the homeworld or side with Io to eliminate another faction (or its major hub). The choice gets us something story-wise, maybe one choice gets us a one-time free ship build for us (fully crewed too), or the other choice grants immunity to all environmental factors but the inner core of the sun, as well as a ton of creds. a few hidden caches and/or exploration sites can be nice within these hidden systems too.

and maybe a third choice brokers a peace but gives mediocre rewards, but massive faction points between all of them. that option also doesn’t make us completely hostile to a major power

[blissful haven]

Join any existing faction

[south latch]

Faction missions and maybe even story missions

[mystic wharf]

Recruiting faction ships based on faction reputation. Maybe a mercenary star system where you can go to recruit new ships and have them fight for you.

[gray widget]

Crew size uncoupled from reputation

[shrewd herald]

Reputation gained from mining and trading.
(Ah, idea; reputation is gained faster from selling raw resources, to prevent double-dipping from selling parts from destroyed ships. That would also offset the lower retail value of ores)

[knotty sinew]

an unfortunately massive crew overhaul to allow for multiple types and sub-allegiances

[latent musk]

along with this can we have racism

[bleak adder]

<@&340613895427325952> ?

[errant moss]

Not sure that's rule breaking but if it's supposed to be a joke I certainly don't find it amusing

So uh, please don't I guess

[ebon hound]

ironicly fringe probibly would somehow be the most and least racist

[grave heath]

Everybody hates the FSR

So I'd say that's technically racism.

Even though it's more like general xenophobia

[shrewd herald]

Is the FSR a race?

I had thought that the FSR was mostly a loose coalition of many different planets and societies, including rebels and outcasts from other factions, thus almost certainly including many cultures and races.

[minor leaf]

more faction to player politics (after road map phase 6)

sue for peace by paying em or by faver
buy or sell claimed systems or stations
hire some of their folks to help ya
call for reinforcements (if) ur inside of friendly teritory
ask em to attack some one

donate rescorses or supplies to a station in dire need or devestation
aliances obviusly
betrayals and back stabbs

ask station to sureander to (be claimed without further destruction) OR (pay tribute to yah)
this must include prisioners of war so we can market slavery
or organ harvesting/black market like in rimworld

maybe eaven the capture of VIPS like fleet commanders, politicians, generals or maybe eaven the emperor/leader(s) of a faction

[grave heath]

That's why said it's moreso xenophobia (discrimination against a general nation, even if part of a coalition)

idk the aztecs weren't a race either, a broad coalition with a ton of differing tribes, but it didn't stop the spaniards from discriminating against all of them lol

[red wadi]

I certainly don't want too much irl politics things in this game

Just general faction interactions. This will be enough.

[inner token]

Well I wouldn’t like real life politics, but more story depth would be greatly appreciated. In Starsector for example there is a ton of worldbuilding done for stations, ships, NPC interactions and storyline quests

There are a bunch of quests in Starsector that are story-based mostly and give you a glimpse into how the factions conduct themselves and their societies, and it’s super cool. For example there’s a Luddic Church mission where you go around the galaxy visiting luddic shrines

[languid ridge]

Supply and demand.
I WANT TO CRASH THE ECONOMY!!!

[grave heath]

Planned and on the roadmap pretty sure

[lavish arrow]

Anime.

[neat jungle]

something something get uaf dev

[inner token]

I remember trying out the uaf mod because I heard a lot about it and it left me wondering why someone would mod this kind of thing into starsector of all games

The terrible writing, questionable sounds & portraits and just everything about it made me feel more like a basement dweller than anything I’ve ever played. It was like my body was begging for fresh air. I don’t get the hype around it.

[next tinsel]

a way to not leave enemy crews to die in the cold vacuum of space

[grave heath]

Can collect them and sell to the station as prisonners of war to be trialled or re-educate them to become part of your crew.

That'd be fun and interesting if crew was a less expendable, more precious resource.

[next tinsel]

honestly I think it’s just needlessly grim to leave them floating around, I’m sure they’d be fine just being transported to the station as cargo

I’d even do it for free since they have no reason to fight me anymore if I save them and their main ship is dead

[shrewd herald]

Would you be fine with being transported to a station as cargo by people who just blew up your ship and killed a large number of your coworkers? I have a feeling that the crew members might resist. This could feed well into the eventual boarding update, though!

[languid ridge]

Better then dying in space

[next tinsel]

it's either that or float around until your jetpack runs out of fuel and either the slow creep of cold freezes you to death or you run out of oxygen

esp if there's a space geneva convention

hell, I'd even pay them or join their crew if they were willing to do all that

and from my observations, the survival rate is less than 5%

there's a very likely chance that no other pirate ship or neutral ship will even get close enough that you show up on scanners until you are a sad, deoxygenated meat popsicle

[shrewd herald]

Perhaps I'm simply a more vengeful person than normal? I'd probably gladly come aboard, then simply try to kill everyone on the ship from inside if I wasn't properly contained. I would not like to be hauled across the system then sold into technically-not-slavery!

[ornate axle]

More diplomacy interactions.
War between factions.
Dynamic supply and demand, blockades, shortages, and surpluses of the various goods.
Ability to build and staff your own stations, thus creating your own faction.

[serene pasture]

Reputation actually mattering

[inner token]

it's kinda funny how you can be "hostile" with a faction but you can still trade with them and go by patrols completely fine

[serene pasture]

those are mostly already present in the roadmap for Career 2.0 though

[inner token]

equally funny how being allied doesn't mean they will ever help you on your endeavors

[serene pasture]

to be fair, you are a random mercenary group that just happended to be on their sides more often than not

[inner token]

on the topic, it'd be nice if instead of reputation being points-based like it is now, it's percentage based, So, if you make a career out of killing pirates, but then decide to blow up one small station of the faction you work with, it's seen as an act of war and you drop to hostile even if you've had a good rep

[inner token]

yeah, but not being able to have escorts/reinforcements ever is quite sad :(

[serene pasture]

I agree that the damage to your reputation should be proportionnal to your current reputation, but going straight to hostile when you are basically a merc is not necessarilly logical

[inner token]

maybe not, but it shouldn't be so weight based like it is

it should be noted that you're just kind of an adventurer, you take on bounties but are never hired, so it's less of a merc situation in my eyes. And even then, an attack on an ally is a serious betrayal

tbf, Avorion also has a weight-based rep system, but you lose rep way faster from shooting a faction than you do by shooting their enemies

(this is because you can accidentally bump into a station and damage it if you aren't careful lol)

[serene pasture]

once there will be escorts missions and such, you WILL be contracted. And if you are a private military company, it's not betrayal since you weren't an ally by treaty in the first place

[inner token]

maybe the vocab should be updated if that's meant to be the case

because "ally" means way more than a good track record, it also means a partnership

[serene pasture]

and a partnership can be broken all of sudden, but it doesn't necessarily mean you'll have to become enemy all of the sudden. Just that the relation will become cold

[inner token]

tbf, it depends on the kind of betrayal it is

[serene pasture]

there could also be a system where if you do an act that is far too damaging to a faction (like destroying a base / station), you can't get above a certain level of reputation anymore with said faction. Or have said level's requirement increase by a lot each time you do that

[inner token]

like, yeah attacking military targets is shitty. But attacking civil targets probably should be seen as an act of war

[serene pasture]

let's stop here for now, we could make an entire channel just with this conversation ^^;

[inner token]

yeah, fair lol :P

[kindred swallow]

The ability to side with one faction for a playthrough, with personalized dialogues and questlines specific to that faction, along with faction perks. ie Fringe gives +20% crew limit, Sol makes ions more powerful, Io gives radiators +20% heat drain, Monolith gives +80% income, Imperium gives +10% crew speed

[serene pasture]

lol no

those bonuses are too insane

[south latch]

Would be better if they let you call in reinforcements from said faction

[rough sluice]

since nobody's mentioned it, it a basic b-word faction creator for you to dump custom ships in

something like one or two XML files like rimworld does it

only it has an ingame menu like the ship library where you can have settings on how their faction AI should act (agressive, traders, isolationist, etc.)

[inner token]

There is an example faction mod but more official support would indeed be nice

[cerulean citrus]

I hope to see emp rebalance yeeeeee

[inner token]

I get the sense that the UI for all of those faction settings would be way out of scope, but they could make factions more "modular" and easy to add to the game

[next tinsel]

the rules exist for a reason, everyone benefits if you lose gracefully, if you don't then the next time you lose you won't be saved

[shrewd herald]

It's getting a bit off topic, so I won't continue this further, but I would say there's a difference between "losing" and "having your friends murdered in front of you. then being shipped off into servitude".

[wooden thorn]

I don't know if it's been seen or considered, but I did notice this thread and would like to mention my deepest desire would be thus- #1029979464551108679 message

[south latch]

Crew of different factions have different buffs

Say fringe has faster repair and salvage speed ( includes mining beam) / or io uses fire extinguishers faster and is resistant to fire

Monolith can be default crew

Ties into choosing starting faction

[mild atlas]

If anything fringe should be basic and Monolith would be minning

[knotty sinew]

would also be cool to see allegiances come to effect, however weird

[south latch]

Pirates salvage more pirating

Though buffs and debuts for crew can be made

Also scenarios

[mild atlas]

Suppose but Monolith did start out as a minning org, plus Monolith having nothing despite being a major power while fringe having one but being a non-faction doesn't make much sense

Not all of fringe are pirates, there just the most pirate like

[south latch]

Well that does makes sense

[mild atlas]

Honest don't think any crew specific faction should get buffs if anything it should all be parts that you place

[knotty sinew]

one by itself wouldn't be an outlier, unless it had 10 to source faction that's being attacked, and 0 or -10 to you, but as many as 10 that had a difference of 5...

[south latch]

Say fringe has minor boarding buff

Mono gets a build salvage buff but slightly weaker in combat

[mild atlas]

Iirc there's a planned faction around boarding, or likely will be if I had to guess, I'd assume if there is the boarding faction will have boarding buffed crew

[south latch]

Different roles in crew make for better crew

A gunner can operate any other thing but at a lower efficiency

[mild atlas]

My biggest issue with faction specific crew buffs is when fighting those faction ships, you could have identical ships but because your ship doesn't have that crew your going to be at some kind of disadvantage and expecally to new players, that could confuse and push them away

[knotty sinew]

monolith would have a blatant hierarchy of job priorities, while imperium would have full equal-strength crew that are still above average

[south latch]

what about crew roles then

You get em from stations

[south latch]

Work bonus

Cabal be super willpower

Of god

Or imperium

[mild atlas]

If anything I think an "experience" system would do just fine, this way you could technically run into higher experienced low tier ships in higher tier areas

[south latch]

Crew dps

Xp

[knotty sinew]

usually have inability to give non-prisoner crew to enemy or something i dunno

[south latch]

Prisoners are bargaining chips

Maybe a brig for holding and transport of criminals

[knotty sinew]

currently, do crew lose oxygen when hit or do they instantly die?

[south latch]

You deliver them to another system

Crew will prob get up

Hp

[serene pasture]

I don't mean to break the mood, but crews are already costing a lot of resources to the game (in fact larger ships can encounter problems due to that already). I don't think adding traits to individual crews will help

[mild atlas]

individual skills, yea probably, but if it was a faction buff type thing where each crew from a diffrent faction gives a diffrent flat buff, it would be no diffrrent

[sharp elm]

Looking forward to more mission types, and perhaps even mission chains or long-term goals

Would personally love an escort or third-party defense type, but something like a mining rush or 'kill as many of these ships as you can in X time' could be interesting and reward ship design that breaks away from the classic 'long range kiter' and 'giant gun wall' archetypes

[steady thicket]

A pearl harbor mission where you are tasked with destroying a shipyard would be cool

[south latch]

Say they add something like automatons that can’t leave the ship

[serene pasture]

and what would happen when you purchase crew from monolith then imperium? They loose their trait? If you take the idea from above of having faction specific bonuses, what about those who don't want to start in a faction? Do faction have a penalty on top of bonuses as tradeoff so that normal crew are still interesting?

[south latch]

Well you need to befriend the other factions to be able to get crew from them

And fringe could just be normal crew

[mild atlas]

Your asking a lot of questions lol

[serene pasture]

Because if it's a trait to individual crew within a ship (even it it's related to the faction they come from) there are performance issues to consider, while if it is global there are balance issues and the question of players who want to play neutral

[mild atlas]

¿

[south latch]

How so

Crew A has a buff while crew B got a different buff

Boarding update fixing crew

[serene pasture]

I'll take the previous example given about faction bonuses to explain:

• Fringe gives +20% crew limit => crew limit is the main restriction in carreer. What to say more?
• Imperium gives +10% crew speed => higher crew speed is an insane bonus. It's simple, versatile, and can make a lot of setup work with less crew. Weaker than Fringe crew limit increase, but close behind.
• Sol makes ions more powerful => reserved to a single weapon, but once you unlock it, it can snowball to insanity: IB main weakness it the low damage per IB making it struggle against shield setups, and it's the weapon with the highest range outside from missiles and Rails. Worse than Imperium because it's far more specialised, but very strong nonetheless.
• Io gives radiators +20% heat drain => it's a reduction in CP and money cost in heat management (neither being relevant by late game) and a slight reduction in exposed area for radiators. Second worst bonus proposed here
• Monolith gives +80% income => Worst bonus proposed by far. Faster start, but rapidly become worse and worse until it become useless as you unlock factories.

now those are faction bonuses, and only 2 are related to crew, but you get my point.

Oh, and once boarding is here, both those proposed Fringe and Imperium bonuses will become even stronger as speed and crew size will be incredibly important both to execute and to defend against them, but whatever

[golden pond]

Modular factories

And or factory parts the boost factories

[south latch]

Sounds great but why io not getting crew extinguisher buff

Not really as notable as other buff

Monolith could get something like parts have 10% more hp

Due to them being able to refine materials more efficiently due to knowledge with mining

[noble totem]

Why not Monolith have a mining bonus?

[serene pasture]

those are examples given by someone else here (sorry about the ping Potato).
What I'm trying to explain is that it's hard to balance, especially if there are only positive. Asymmetric design is very hard to pull off properly in gaming because it is so hard to ballance, and sometime it feel like you are punished for choosing a faction
Some of the bonuses proposed are interesting but weak (Io proposition), while others are simply boring but strong (Fringe)
The problem I have is
-> if a is locked behind a faction choice, the problem that I describe will happen unless you also add demerits that compensate it (like Imperium having 10% higher crew speed and 15% more health but 20% lower crew limit, for instance). And once again, there is the question of the "vanilla" no faction players
-> if we get crew bonuses that depend on from which faction you recruit them, it's an additional burden in the calculations for the game, and as I said before we already have problems when crew reach certain sizes in the game

[kindred swallow]

no worries, I’m quite chipper that I’m used as an example

[serene pasture]

Thanks. I'm really interested in game designing in general, so I know that balance can be a nightmare sometime (hell, the Meltdown update is a good example of that) and the question accessibility has always been very important to me.

[south latch]

Make it so you can pick faction on start

Trl balanced

[serene pasture]

🤦 I'll repeat myself:

• if we give bonuses to factions, what about players who DON'T WANT to pick a faction? They get vanilla without bonuses?
• giving only bonuses will mean that it'll be very hard to balance. I don't think anyone want to feel punished for picking a faction they like because the bonus is worse than other factions (in the example given, picking Fringe or Imperium is clearly the better choice over Io or Monolith)
• giving demerits to compensate the bonuses could be a way to solve the 'vanilla' problem to an extent, and it give another tool to balance things, but even then it would be a hard task
  .
  But the most important part is...
• even putting all of those points aside, if we get crew bonuses that depend on from which faction you recruit them, it's an additional burden in the calculations for the game, and we ALREADY have problems with the game managing crew behavior when the crew and ships reach certain sizes inside any given ship, notably because of willingly imposed limit to avoid burdening the game with too much calculations

Basically the way crew behavior is calculated by the game would probably need a whole rework to make it consume less resources for it to be even conceivable without significantly increase the game's requirements. As such, at most I'd consider it a feature added on the long term, not the short term

[south latch]

Then different factions give crew different skins

So it’s noticeable but not impacting

Mono getting them star trek suits

Fringe gets normal clothes

Say jumpers or vests

[mild atlas]

Kinda hard to have diffrent shirts with 6 pixels to work with

[knotty sinew]

wings are much easier in this perspective easier but why would those exist??

[serene pasture]

I'm thinking about it now, but a while ago I proposed in ideas-and-feedback a possibility that could easily be implemented to differentiate the factions, which is to basically give 'Tiers' to purchasable ship technologies, requiring to reach a certain reputation level within a given faction to purchase the tech from them, and having the reputation requirement different depending of the faction.
So, basically something like that:

• some of the tech can be purchased to anyone at neutral reputation (Laser Blasters, Standard Canons, Small Hyperdrive...), but you can't purchase any tech to a faction when bellow neutral reputation
• Cabal unlock energy weapons earlier but ballistic ones later
• Monolith unlocking factories earlier but energy weapons later
• Io unlock heat tech earlier but unlock base tech slower
• Fringe unlock intermediate tech (Large Canons, Heavy Blasters, Large Shields...) relatively faster but advanced tech (Ion Prisms, Rails, Deck Canons...) slower
• I'm not sure about Imperium, but they unlock nuke launchers (and factories?) earlier than anyone else

[mild atlas]

Don't think tech should be locked but cheaper

[knotty sinew]

maaybe overclocks (non-ionian factions only supplying the ones they know about)

[mild atlas]

Could maybe have weird special "super weapons" that are multipart but definitely not the normal parts

[serene pasture]

honestly having rails and factories unlock early in the game break the balance pretty quickly right now
But aside from that the propositions are not exclusive

like having the reputation tech purchase cost reduction doubled for the favoured weapons of the faction (and their Oc?)

[serene pasture]

I think it's not a good idea. One of the core principles of Cosmoteer is to give to the player the freedom of building the ships the way they want. A faction specific "super-weapon" (aside from balancing problems) would be against that philosophy

[mild atlas]

Yea

[neat jungle]

how about some kind of ui to easily distribute newly bought/made ammo and hyperium among all my ships, playing with more than 3 ships is kind of really tedious as it is now, especially if theyre not all super unique
its even worse for replacing crew lost in battle

[rigid heath]

Being able to repair all selected ships at once

[minor leaf]

that would be nice

[rough sluice]

this has been probably said a billion times but GOODS! TRADEABLE COMMODITIES! stuff that isn't part of the shipbuilding aspect but justifies having huge cargo holds for hauling.
Oh and a smuggling system: cargo scanners, hidden compartments, a "going dark" function. that would be nice

[serene pasture]

there are mods for that (notably the space-farmer mod), and personally I ended up finding to be a nuisance more than anything when stations refused them because they where already full in their standard storage tile (but reserved ones where)
Reserving tiles to them would solve the problem for tradable resources, but it would reduce the available unreserved storage tiles for all of the others

[neat jungle]

something something starsector

the people yearn for space warcrimes

[minor leaf]

Confetti cannons on the new year

[south latch]

They should have made food be eaten by crew

[rapid kernel]

I'd love to find myself stranded in space with a full crew that needs food to function and my ship's new gaping hole of what was once a cargohold that got blown up by a stray nuke

[minor leaf]

Food could radically increase the dificulity tought

But u think there should be some ways to produce food /farming

.

And if corpses are an option.... lezgooo

[red wadi]

And ship / station parts that serve no combat functions, like habitats

[faint finch]

Small pre-built unmanned dronecraft that can be launched from drone factories

[bleak adder]

Boarding

[placid vale]

Hello @bleak adder, that suggestion is already on the Roadmap: http://roadmap.cosmoteer.net

[faint finch]

Not custom fighters, I meant simple drones like those in jani's shipyard

[mild atlas]

There will be prebuilt ones when drones come out

[grave heath]

Not related to the Career update and way more general, but I think little seasonal changes like the haloween and christmas in Terraria would make Cosmoteer a way more fun game to repeatedly come back to and be a nice addition overall.

[steady thicket]

A santa trading ship that would give out a few resources for free would be cool

[inner token]

that gives me an idea

[neat jungle]

silly idea regarding drones, make them actually designable miniature ships
where every piece fits on like half a tile so theyre super tiny and can have proper drone fights. or get hit by a regular cannon and just die because it pierces the entire thing

is this good? probably meh, but it would be really funny if theyre like starsector

[neat jungle]

oh here a feature suggestion thats good, sort the mod list by some sensible system rather than whaterver the fuck is going on now

[grave heath]

Event Horizon core

Also little minor unofficial updates in April Fools (like replacing every ship with Fanged Fighter for a day ) and Cosmoteer release anniversery specials would be nice

[faint finch]

That's exactly how fighters are planned to be implemented. Miniature ships on a smaller grid.

[neat jungle]

wait how are they going to exist in the actual world

are the literally just miniature ships with controls to match or AI, are they more like starsector with different behavior and the ability to phase through ships

and most importantly, can i configure normal weapons to shoot them? will there be more point defense options other than tiny PD and flak

[faint finch]

The roadmap calls for mini-grid sized fighters with their own building palette, that can be stored on-board a ship's hangars.

As for the ship controls, it is yet to be seen how it will work. But as a precursor, the current ship ai needs improvements and customisability, which they're working on.

Anything else is speculation; not even walt can tell you what or when more features will be added.

[noble totem]

Colorable lighting for all parts that have lights

eg I want to have cockpits where instead of the blue default lighting, I can select my own color for that

[gray widget]

The ability to exceed your crew limit but in exchange you have to pay wages out of your credits, and if you can't pay the wages you get 1 pay period before the excess crew "quit", either taking up space and ignoring their duties until paid or immediately leaving your crew as soon as they are able to exit to a nearby ship/station

[golden pond]

Sobot

[gray widget]

A Walt faction

[faint finch]

Carriers with runways would be great

[gray widget]

Would love me some carriers

[small bison]

Definitely need a cleanup mode to keep the game syncing fast

[scarlet mural]

"Commodities" item which is not used in ship construction but is consumed by crew every so often and can be traded for a large quantity of credits. Crew will quit and leave, or outright die if not fed

while its a bit by the book, i think some sort of pressure needs to be applied on the player during the career experience

[steady thicket]

A simple "I hate" setting would be ideal for this

[faint finch]

Having to have rations storages in every built in and player ship would be a pain

[plush robin]

making your own faction sounds fun. ye?

[languid ridge]

New modifiers (like difficulties or ´´I hate salvaging ´´)
for exemple
´´i hate long fights ´´
all weapons deal 5 times more damages and penetration and explosion radius, fire spreads 2 times faster, weapons range is 2 times smaller

[inner token]

if you're looking for this kind of thing I'd recommend the https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3234839745&searchtext=hypercrack

[scarlet mural]

hypercrack is super fun and stupid, however i think its also outdated

[inner token]

it might be, but as someone who's played a tournament with it it sure is fun and stupid lol

[south latch]

What it do

F33 fighter jet to show the enemy some freedom 🦅

[gray widget]

Walt faction?

[cerulean citrus]

Oh yeah could be good for a april fools or something, a walt faction with dev godness powers detaching the apocalypse and the end of the universe.

[gray widget]

What if Walt's just a cool guy and there's no cool guys left in this universe, so good people rally around him and try to help him "dev" the galaxy while followng his "code" (creed)

[ashen otter]

I'm sure there's been a billion requests for it, its the feature I'm most looking forward to.
But not just 'own faction', I don't know if anybody's played Mount and Blade, or the Diplomacy mod but.
Living world, other NPC's in your faction doing their own thing so it doesn't instantly collapse the second you stop fighting. Upgrades for areas fortification options, management empire wide of your holdings. Trade mattering, Stations being a source of ships for your faction, being able to invest in upgrades. Income rates and ship output tied to control of areas, diplomacy with the other factions. The whole 4x experience, not just 'its my faction, and now I do the exact same things I would if it wasn't mine. If I feed resources into my empire they should turn into NPCs that defend or raid for me, ect. If I'm at peace running missions I want to see my traders rolling up to others space stations, if I'm at war I want to see my NPC's out mixing it up. It should feel like I have an actual faction behind me, not just space I need to babysit.

[plush robin]

:0 i see

[gray widget]

It seems the general consensus is that the game world is not alive enough

[faint finch]

Walt said in #ask-walt that he won't turn cosmo into a 4x game; it's primarily a ship building and management sim.

[ashen otter]

There's degrees of 4x, from things like Sins to EU4.
But if you're familiar of my example of the Diplomacy mod for Mount and Blade, it doesn't change the base game, you still go out with your army and fight personally. It simply adds to the experience so that its not as repetitive, and gives you a reward and interaction medium outside the core loop of 'blow up enemy, loot corpse, upgrade with loot'. Now you've got something persistent other than yourself that reflects your efforts. We fly a ship out instead of a merc army, but its the same concept.
Phase 6 of the roadmap is already talking about faction vs faction conflict, and the ability to sign onto a faction. This is 90% of it already. Simply adding the ability for a player to found their own faction and management tools for it opens an entire extra aspect of play.

[serene pasture]

NPC ships & stations would all need to be reworked to be able to contain food and feed crew. If you make them hunger-free, then player have to deal with a problem they don't have.
Honestly, I feel like making mods capable of doing so would be a better idea than making it a vanilla feature (like that one mod that make reactor consume uranium).

[south latch]

Just make crew eat uranium

[ashen otter]

Well, techincally there's 20 million calories in a gram of uranium, so it wouldn't take much to feed em all.

But seriously, "Feed the crew" just feels like feature creep. I'm here to build ships and blow shit up. I don't care about that level of realism. I'm here for the pretty lights, not to manage a food plan.

[scarlet mural]

the point of career was always to provide a more immersive and interesting gameplay experience than the old bounty hunter mode. one of the key issues with the career experience currently is the lack of any sort of pressure or agency put on the player which makes the mode lack many types of problem solving and gameplay aspects that most other good space sim games universally have

if you want to solely build ships and blow them up, pvp multiplayer always exists and you would also likely be able to turn it off as all of these features have consistently been implemented as

[ashen otter]

I've actually been waiting for the Career 2.0 features since early access was a thing. Much like SPAZ introduced factions to expand beyond the 'blow up, upgrade, repeat' loop.

[scarlet mural]

what do you mean "able to contain food"? my whole suggestion was for them to be a cargo item that goes in storage. stations already have storage

[ashen otter]

I suppose that comes down to what kind of game experience you're looking to build. If you want FTL with custom ships then sure I guess make crew food, O2, and a bunch of other resources start mattering and take attention away from build/fight. If you want Space Pirates and Zombies, how the ship functions is more of an abstract, and we just build and go.

[scarlet mural]

the goal for career is for a more fleshed out space simulation experience

[ashen otter]

That is what I suggested as well.

I think there might be confusion between 'new features' and 'new busy work'. Making the ship hold and consume a new required resources is just some more spread sheets in space.
Adding a faction and methods to interact with it is entire new features.

[scarlet mural]

so why are you against crew consuming resources? its overall also really just not great for immersion that crew function infinitely with no input - while the implication that they can be bought for a flat rate and have no wage is kinda a darkly humorous implication of them being slaves, them consuming absolutely nothing is not really immersive

[scarlet mural]

there would be plenty of ways to specifically make it a very interactive feature. even looking at games like starsector, where gambits like blockading colonies to starve them out are an option, which this would facilitate on a direct level

with the dynamic economy implemented too, commodities would be an interesting economic resource

[ashen otter]

Realism is the first thing you sacrifce for fun. The crew needing to eat is realistic yes, but does making the player track that add value? Is anybody going to find that fun or interesting, or will it just be a chore to be done before you can get back to the part of the game you enjoy? Doomguy never stops to perform maintence on the guns despite tossing thousands of rounds downrange because taking time out for that is just stupid in an FPS.

[scarlet mural]

yes, there are an infinite number of interesting interactions and emergent features that this would obviously facilitate

[ashen otter]

I disagree.

[scarlet mural]

economic warfare, getting stranded in space, etc

its quite literally a mandatory feature for a dynamic economy

[ashen otter]

Its not remotely. We already have a multitude of resources and materials that could be interdicted. Crew doesn't magically make economic warfare a feature.

It could be a feature of, but it by it self does not enable it. So adding it only adds busy work for the player without new play options.

Its a space combat game, with design your own ships on the side. Factions expand on those themes by putting your combat and designs into context. So we've added to gameplay. This is a positive.
What we don't want are empty features that don't do anything but consume extra time before you get back to doing the fun parts.

Making ships travel much much slower would be 'realistic' but it'd also be boring as hell if it took all year to fly across a solar system, so we don't do that.

Once we have factions and an interlinked economy then something like raiding your neighbors should see their ship output affected negatively. Protect your allies to do the opposite. Now we've added impact to the combat so who and where you fight matters more than just 'did I win'. And affects the game state meaningfully. This expands play, but also crucially, it does it without burdening the player with extra tasks outside the gameplay loop.

[scarlet mural]

what? what are you even talking about?

[ashen otter]

It's called an example.
I am illustrating the point that 'realistic' is something that should be ignored in favor of enjoyable game play.

[gray widget]

Walt faction

[cerulean citrus]

Walt faction

[serene pasture]

• Many energy-based ship don't have storage in their design
• Other ships don't have spare room for food, as their ship is full of ammo/material. For many of them (especially in low tiers), removing ammo for food would reduce significantly their efficiency in combat as they'd end up out of ammo very fast
• The storages of military stations barelly have any spare room, as they are full of ammo, missiles and hyperium. This is the least problematic since you can just replace some of it with food
• Normal stations are already quick to fill with material when you start to sell things (like for instance the steel from a ship graveyard and such). Adding food would increase that problem

[serene pasture]

there is a huge difference between blowing up things in PvE and the much more competitive and harsh to newbies PvP.
While I can agree that there is a lack of pressure to force one to advance, some players want a more chill gameplay and it can be solved by adding other mechanics, like a timer when recieving a "Station Rescue" missions for instance

[mighty stump]

i don't think a constant time-based pressure in career is a great idea tbh

[serene pasture]

That and designing ships is a long process in the first place, so adding constant pressure on top of that...

I mean, even if we forget about the designing process, when I make my motherships/hoarding ships, it can take more than 20 minutes depending on how many crews and manipulator beams I have available in the area

[serene pasture]

I'd say it's a ship design game with combat ship being the main focus rather than saying that design is on the side. But aside from that, I agree with what you are saying.
Honestly, I don't think that Cosmoteer is the game you want to go with to add survival elements to the gameplay. There is already SOOOO much to think and take care off, I wouldn't want to add something like a food resource for crew to consume all for the sake of adding pressure.

[balmy quarry]

Yeah, that's the main reason why we don't have time-based crew payments right now. Cosmoteer needs to give players time to design and experiment with their ships.

[serene pasture]

If we really want to add tradeable resources for things other than ship and weapons, something like luxury goods that give advantage to stations would be a better option.
For instance, organic food attract crew-carrying ships that will send crew to it and take in the food, or luxury jewelry that attract rich merchant vessels that will give to the station rare items like processors and diamond while taking said jewelry and the excesses of common items.

[inner token]

it would be nice for there to be more commodities to trade that aren't necessarily related to ship construction, it could be a way to make freight missions more interesting/valuable

[serene pasture]

I've already explained here my PoV on that matter, which is that I fear that the sometime already lacking space in stations will become even more lacking
For a player like me that don't have a good PC, it is already a problem even after a few systems, as I can't allow myself to leave many resource asteroids and enemy scraps behind if I want to avoid lagging too much (by the time I reach mid-tier systems, the game is already running ~2x slower than on the first).
I often end up shooting ammo & missiles like a madman on empty space (or on Megaliths) just to not leave the trash from pirate stations behind without having to spend an eternity waiting to sell the resources I don't need to stations & merchant ships

Honestly, I feel like there is a serious need to rework the way data are stored in career for accessibility and late-game comfort.

[lyric coyote]

optional time based payments could fit well into a crew morale system

[steady thicket]

I think a better way to tie crew payments to time while ignoring the time spent building and painting would be to tie payment to actions you do every once in a while. My idea is making the crew take a cut from mission rewards

Of course that would not make sense with food

Maybe just making crew rest in their quarters and having an eating animation when outside of combat would satisfy at least a little bit of the wish, tho I do know that the main thing there is actually needing the resources

[inner token]

I actually really love the idea of giving your crew a cut of mission rewards, like a lil slider

similar to how "hobby" businesses are operated where everyone gets slices of the pie that's brought home

[serene pasture]

... so, you mean like if you have a fleet with a crew of 200 guys, even if not even half of them participated to a fight they all get paid for it?

[steady thicket]

Would be the simplest way to implement it, one could argue that the ones who fought took a bigger cut

[shrewd herald]

How about only the ships that dealt damage to, or were damaged by, the target get a cut?

[cerulean citrus]

walt faction

[ashen otter]

That just works out to a nerf in mission pay outs though. Again, not a game feature, just a punishment to the player.
If the game isn't going to be that detailed on resources and upkeep, we can just assume its abstracted. Does your crew get paid? Obviously, nobody works for free. Does the player need to be the one doing that? No, not really. Its just overhead that doesn't add to the game.

[inner token]

There would obviously be an incentive to pay the crew that would result in bonuses and whatnot, or even penalties

[ashen otter]

This still runs into 'busy work before we get back to the actual game.'
Is this going to be a fun feature? Are people going to go "I'm looking forward to paying my crew!" or are they going to go "Here's the tedious bit to deal with before I go back to having fun?"
More features not automatically better.

[inner token]

as someone who's played space haven, yes absolutely I enjoy thinking about crew and trying to get the most performance out of them possible!

it'd just likely be a slider somewhere in the mission UI, practically no work for the player, then the payment would have an effect

crew atm are robotic, soulless and are just task goblins. I'm not saying make space haven but I really enjoy space games the more they put emphasis on crew shenanigans

Full of Stars is a good mobile example

[ashen otter]

That's getting into different Genres. I play games like EU4, and Vicky, so yes lots and lots of details on my empire builder are good. But if I'm playing Doom, the maintenance cycle on my shotgun after 2000 rounds is useless busywork that distracts from the game.
The crew being soulless task goblins is not a problem because their role in the game is to limit ship size as you gain them as a resource. I'm not playing Sims4 over here, I don't need to care about keeping them happy and clean, or finding them a girlfriend.

[inner token]

Again, I'm not saying build Space Haven into Cosmoteer, I'd just like a little more emphasis on the crew

the slider is among 1,000 different ways you can put more emphasis on crew morale in Cosmoteer and honestly I love it. Cosmoteer isn't just a starship exploding game. Empire builders aren't simply war killing games either. There's stuff to manage on the backend, and if you handle it well you have an easier time on the front end

And, evident by the polling going on, people want more to do that simply explode spaceships, and I agree

[ashen otter]

I agree with more, I just want it to be ..... uhhh focused? I guess is the word.
I don't feel like adding crew sim elements is an improvement, its just a distraction.
I like the faction stuff cause its expands the core gameplay, it makes your fights and designs matter for more than just that one fight. So the gameplay is more impactful without adding things that distract from the fun parts but we opened up whole new methods for your choices to matter. That's great!
New modules are a good 'extra' detail because that's more options, allowing for differing designs. But they aren't forced on me either. If I'm not feeling 'missile boat' I don't use missiles. Conversely going "here, make sure this detail is balanced properly, its not optional" is just forcing me to set up one more detail before I go back to playing the game.

Crew as a faction wide resource has potential I think, how quickly a faction can expand, reinforce, or upgrade based on surplus crew faction wide? That ties back into 'choices matter' without being a distraction. That takes no more effort from a player than any other random resource you buy from an NPC, but raiding another faction with the aim of degrading crew replenishment changes the balance of power. It's another choice, without being a distraction.

[modern steeple]

I personally think if people really want those kinds of things, we have the modding community.

“Busywork” I mean

There’s nothing wrong with features like crew upkeep, But they definitely feel like outside the scope of the game as it currently stands.

we definitely do need some way of introducing logistical design challenges…

[cerulean citrus]

walt faction

[half marsh]

I know this comment will have 0 impact since directly clashes with one of Walt’s core loves of the game, but I need to get it off my chest.
I think I’d prefer if crew weren’t in the game.

• They’re laggy
• they’re ai is unintuitive (pre-tasking, task limit, and really dumb)
• roles and assignments are tedious unfun to set up
• the career 1.0 implementation uses them as a bottleneck and a tool to force people down a specific line of progression.
  Besides lag, I know this is moreso an issue with crew’s current implementation, but for me personally the easiest and best option would be to replace them altogether with pipes or conveyers.

[cerulean citrus]

Crew it's not laggy unless if 99999999999 crew which almost no

With my potato pc

Also about ai and roles, once you dominate them they become a fun thing to work with

Also dont expect everything working depending on the crew logistic's you might want to check too the placement of the things which it makes it

i dunno fun. Improving a desing until almost perfect.

¨¡!["/"/-!/"

I mean it becomes unfun when you're still trying roles and assignments and the ship doenst work, it already happened to me, but just then, i've starting to experiment with the placement of things or the idea in general

For example i've once done a mistake on elim, i wanted to do a tractor beam rail fan for pvp, I USED SMALL REACTOR OVERCLOACKED + oc capacitator

I thought they were gonna sustain with good crew logistic

But that was impossible

I've wasted hours of my life and getting angry when i just could use a medium reactor.

[burnt mauve]

Motherships. These can be found in level 18 zones, as mini bosses? 7m cap on credits and it is a bit like a pirate base, but a mothership. Escorts for then would be cool too. Adds some more chalenge to end game.

[serene pasture]

The crew AI being… limited is unavoidable. You can have more than 400 crews on a single ship, so having a complex AI is simply not a good idea, and simplicity often come with problems and dumb reactions to the environment.
The game could clearly benefit from a more in-depth explanation on how crew AI work, however… or rather, information learning should be reworked in general, and Tutorial&Tips in the Codex would be much more digest if informations where put in categories like « Crew », « Systems », « Damage, fire & heat » and so on.

[shrewd herald]

Why do you keep saying that?

I could've sworn I'd seen you say that in other places, at least.

[half marsh]

It’s laggy for me on my i7 with ~1000 crew
It’s not that I don’t understand how roles, assignments, and pre-tasking work; I just don’t find them fun to set up, even when I get it perfect on the first try.
I know these are fixable issues (except for lag, unless walt figures out how to run it on the gpu), but fixing them just seems like it’d be harder than replacing crew. I guess I just don’t see the value of crew as a feature.

[faint finch]

What about a mothership-sized carrier, throwing 30-40 fanged fighter sized drones at you in waves. Then there would be escorts for the carrier (battleships, destroyers etc)

[serene pasture]

1000 crew is a LOT on a single ship. If we look at the highest crew sized ship for each factions, the Atlas is at 484, Charybdis at 548, Arbiter at 636, Augustus at 640, and All for Now at 742, so even the most crewed ship in the game is FAR from having that many crew

[mild atlas]

Ships don't even have more then what 150 crew active at a time, if your running 1000 crew either you need to split your ship up into multiple, or simply improve on it

Removing crew outright also really is not the "simple" solution, your reworking the enter game

[cerulean citrus]

If you dont find them fun to set up it's beacuse you're missing something

forget it i think i understood now what do you mean

[gray widget]

I think I saw a mod once that let you place AI blocks in front of ship components, so you had a higher power tax but could assign your much needed crew to other activities, like restocking those batteries

Would be cool to see that in the game, even if it's really expensive or something

Requires uranium and lots of processors to create and repair

[serene pasture]

Well, I understand that some peoples don't like the logistic crew add to the game (I mean, the Cable Age mod exist for a reason), but I honestly find it fun as I'm someone who like overthinking about optimisation and such.

[half marsh]

I'm a simple guy, I like big ships. I'm just upset that crew are the limiting factor when it comes to lag.

[half marsh]

I wasn't thinking about the work to balance the meta or anything, I'm very much a career player. I tried making it clear that was was an issue specific to me, and I didn't make it into a suggestion for that reason.

since the topic was on issues with crew, I just thought I'd throw my personal opinion into the ring, even though I knew it won't get acted upon.

[ashen otter]

Its a space ship game.
Gotta go for the fuck off huge super cap at least once. It's mandatory.

[serene pasture]

? When it come to lag, space trash, asteroids and previous sectors are a much bigger factor than crew size

[neat jungle]

previous sectors ?

i always thought they dont do anything when youre gone, how do they lag

[mild atlas]

Not really lag issue with those, moreso the game remembers the debris left behind and iirc that's more of a load time taking a longer time issue then lag

[half marsh]

yeah originally I thought it was radiators, but then I did rigorous testing and I learned most of the lag was due to crew. In most cases, the rest of the lag is due to radiators and shields, since they have to check for surrounding blocks. inert ships barley cause any lag unless you use the huge ships mod and spam huge cubes of parts, but they do cause a TON of lag when loading, especially thermal parts. Debris also shouldn't be much of an issue if you make an effort to pick them up. Previous sectors are fully unloaded, so they take up as much processing power as your computer when it's unplugged.

[lavish arrow]

Boss music

[knotty sinew]

Pseudo-PvP battles in career (like Mount & Blade)

• Get tossed into several team battles with a random ship of progressively higher tier. It's possible you may be a missile kite while everyone else gets a railgun.
• ez credits if you just simply win the whole thing (harder than it sounds)

[knotty sinew]

you don't have to fully survive until the finals (but it will hurt if you get railsniped in the finals)

[brave bear]

it would add a lot for more civilian things and a civilian economy as a whole mostly large things that only make sense on a anchor.

could add something like a hotel room or lounge for wondering people to stay and possibly get hired.

large auto traders to sell things like ammo and or hypercristals or whatever at a set price that people will automatically buy if they want it at that price

[gray widget]

Station shipyards where you can see NPC ships upgrade their weapons, hull, cargo bays, entire ship designs, etc in real time

And NPC ships will actually save the money they earn from trading and looting in order to level up their ships

Once they improve to a certain point they teleport out to the next system and keep going

[neat jungle]

this seems like it would eat of a ton of performance just for being neat

[knotty sinew]

perhaps take a sliight cue from cosmoteer classic and have a planetary tractor beam for those? (cosmoteer classic backgrounds were weird, the planet would catch up to the center of screen)

[languid ridge]

femboy crew 🙂‍↕️

[gray widget]

W.A.L.T. faction

Walternate
Allied
Liberation
Taskforce

[glad sky]

a "railgun corner" that reduces the boost of the railgun segments behind it by 50%, and if you had 2 doing a 180 degree turn, it would do a -75% power, ect, so it can be possible to have sideways rails that dont get tunneled into instantly

[glad sky]

wouldnt this eventually cause an npc singularity at the hardest system?

[gray widget]

There would have to be system population caps to keep it from getting out of hand. I imagine there could be an array of ships that have moved on, and you'd have a chance of encountering them, but they wouldn't be always running around.

[gray widget]

pls Walt hear our allegiance

[cerulean citrus]

walt faction

[half marsh]

I um, I think we get it

[gray widget]

Clearly we haven't gotten it, since it hasn't been implemented yet

[half marsh]

joke suggestions don't usually get implemented :P

[cerulean citrus]

Not a joke, walt faction might be a cool implementation but i know it's not gonna be a priority. Anyways i'd like to see it after the early acces

[cerulean citrus]

Whats the point?

[half marsh]

you said it'd be for April fools, which to me seems like you consider it a joke

[cerulean citrus]

For april fools cuz i know it's not gonna be a priority to add.

[half marsh]

wait why should it be for April fools it its not a priority?

[cerulean citrus]

Special

Special feature for april fools

not a priority.

Something easy to implement

walt faction.

[half marsh]

just the part that confuses me is how an entire faction would be something "easy to implement"

[cerulean citrus]

Not hard.

You just put some few funny ship for the faction and a logo and kabom

[half marsh]

we fr?

[cerulean citrus]

it's your word against mine.

Unless if a considerable effort it's done for the walt faction ships that would take some more time but doenst matter a faction it's a quality funny implementation.

Also i've seen other people adding their faction mod on the career mode.

[gray widget]

It could be something as simple as a menu option which renames the Fringe Resistance to the Walternate Allied Liberation Taskforce. A tick box alone that tells the game to replace Fringe references with Walt references. Not too hard.

It's all strings anyway.

[cerulean citrus]

it had been proven normal people can add their own faction so proffesional progamer should NoT struggle.

[gray widget]

It's usually the case with modding that someone with 5 minutes of time on their hands can accomplish more than a dev would be willing to do in 20 years

That's not to say anything about Walt though

[cerulean citrus]

i misspelled

[gray widget]

Thinking more along the lines of Bethesda, Blizzard, etc

[half marsh]

I'm purely trying to convince you to stop suggesting a walt faction, since it's never going to get added. making an entire faction's worth of ships is - believe it or not - not easy. On top of that, making those ships would take away rom bugfixes for the current ships, as well as making more ships or the current factions. Keep in mind that walt would also have to pay the architects for these ships, which takes away funding from all other parts o development.
The modded factions have required a great deal of work to make, and if I were a modder I'd be pretty offended by the implication that if something was made in a mod, it's easy to implement.

[cerulean citrus]

It's gonna be funny

also it's for appril fools

Yeah and i dont care much if they dont add it, it had became a habit me to suggest it, cuz i find it funny.

April fools update might attract more people?

[half marsh]

renaming a faction to walt faction seems a lot more reasonable, and sounds like you should make that as a mod, since it's so easy.

[gray widget]

Giving up on the Walt faction means giving up on Walt. Walt is our Omnissiah, our God-Emperor, our Dev-King. Such a suggestion is not only heretical but also treacherous. I would suggest you reconsider your principles and align with the guiding principles of our one and only Walt, lest you be assigned to a re-education camp, or worse, deemed a consorter.

[cerulean citrus]

Main reason modded faction require work cuz it's bc they put verry much effort on their ships

[gray widget]

I, for one, am a staunch advocate for the Walt faction and such politics will never steer me from the One King.

[cerulean citrus]

Praise walt god.

Of course making a modded faction might take some coding skills but it's not a big deal

[cerulean citrus]

also you arent a modder.

[half marsh]

modders have historically been able to produce content faster that the game's dev team because they have a much lower bar for quality, optimization, and balance (the things which actually take the majority of development time in most cases). They are able to get away with this because mods are targeted to a much more specific audience, which gives them more leeway.

[half marsh]

I heard last time walt did an April fools update, it was not received well.

[gray widget]

Game devs aren't able to deliver content on time because they are required to work towards goals that specifically align with investors hitting profit margins, which means that the majority of game features that actually please audiences are forgotten, never developed, or given the minimum required attention to sell a minimum viable product

At least AAA ones

And in some cases it's so bad that things that would have taken a programmer 5 minutes to do are never done

Simply because addressing it on company time would lead to their termination

[cerulean citrus]

Depends on what that april fools update had

i mean it depends what did that appril fool update have

[half marsh]

I think you are making my case that this is a joke suggestion

[cerulean citrus]

Walt brings us joy

[gray widget]

Your suggestion is just FUD in the market of Walt, trying to decrease the equity of his loyalist's beliefs

Should change your name to BearBoy02, since you're pushing a bear market when we're Walt's staunch bulls

[half marsh]

nah I picked this name when I was 5 (on a different platform) and I've been rolling with it for over a decade now. I ain't gunna change it now lol

[half marsh]

yeah, 100%. He's a fun, down-to-earth guy, who makes one of my favorite games.

[cerulean citrus]

Mastermind of game desing

Even further.

[half marsh]

makes sense. He even taught game design at a collage before full-time dev.

[gray widget]

@balmy quarry Look at this man, trying to tell us that we're unworthy of a faction in your name. We are your generals, we make the Walternate Allied Liberation Taskforce whole. Be it the subjugation of the lightless void or the conquest of those who are drawn to the starlight like moths to a flame, we will ensure your throne is lined with all creation.

Tell him that his heresy is unjust. Let us rejoice in the light of your command!

[half marsh]

hi walt

[burnt fiber]

would part of career 2.0 be making what faction owns a solar system matter more? right now its not that big a deal who owns the system you are in, but I think itd be more fun if it mattered more.

[serene pasture]

I had an idea to both remove some weird crew behaviours that happen from time to time and optimization
From my understanding, right now assignment increase the priority of the assigned modules by 10. It doesn't change how crew behave overwise.
So here is my idea: crew assignment become more restrictive, as crew only check for the modules they have been assigned to.
If there are supply source(s) assigned to the module (like a capacitor to a group of rail accelerators or a missile factory for a launcher's storages, for instance), then they will only check for energy/ammo/missile from said supply source(s).
This way, it should reduce significantly the amount of things each individual crews have to check to determine their behavior when they are assigned.
What do you think?

[minor leaf]

Here's the point ➡️ ❌ ⬅️

The point is: a little bit to the right

[cerulean citrus]

[scarlet mural]

assigning a module makes crew ignore unrelated tasks

im not sure if im understanding you properly, but crew already behave like this

[serene pasture]

I'm pretty certain that assignment work by increasing the priority of crew on designated modules by 10, not by preventing them to check for other ship parts, and by increasing the priority of assigned crew over other crews for that module. Not by changing the behavioral calculation of crews.
Or at least it used to be like that, might be old information

[scarlet mural]

pretty sure its never been like that. assigning crew to a specific part increases their priority by 10 AND prevents them from unrelated tasks

[serene pasture]

1 - sometime they can still go for unrelated task (though it seem to be more of a bug)
2 - I'm talking about the behavioral functioning of crew inside the code, not how the crew behave in-game. In other word, I'm talking about optimizing the number of calculations the crew require when choosing to do or not a task. There would be no need to increase crew priorisation of the tasks from the assigned modules by 10 if they didn't check other parts of the ship

[mighty stump]

crew do fire extinguishers they aren't assigned to

other than that, yuuki is entirely correct

[serene pasture]

Once again, I'm not saying that's not how it work in practice (aside from bugs, and fire of course), but that's not how it work inside the code, as how the software calculate the crew behaviour inside the code. If it was, I see no reason for the system to add 10 to the priority of the assigned modules, as they would only check said modules in the first place.

[mighty stump]

the reason for that is to ensure that crew assigned to something are more likely to do that thing than crew not assigned to it

[brave bear]

a super expensive beam prism turret so the laser can go over blocks like a turret, it could be very big so its more likely to be seen on stations

auto tradeing so it's possible to have your own stataions

[half marsh]

a trl with no heat?

[brave bear]

what?

[half marsh]

I thought that was what you were talking about, but I wasn't sure

it sounds interesting, I like lasers

[brave bear]

what is trl?

[half marsh]

thermal resonance lance
the heat laser

[brave bear]

oh yea

like the prism thing that people use to aim the lazer, but bigger and it gos over other ship parts like the supper big cannion

[half marsh]

what would be the downsides of using it compared to a normal prism?

[brave bear]

1 size it should be very large (mostly seen on stations) 6x6 7x7 ...
2 heat ?
3 cost high cost

[half marsh]

actually, you just gave me the idea for a "periscope" part

[brave bear]

could lose damage for range or somehting

[brave bear]

are you a modder ?

[half marsh]

no, but I think I might suggest it

[brave bear]

this is the place to suggest it tho

[half marsh]

what aout #1019739575683399840?

[brave bear]

do you think the dev stll looks at this?

[brave bear]

oh yea

[half marsh]

yeah, I asked him and he said he skims it every work day

I paraphrasing tho

btw hi walt

[brave bear]

I mean I really like the idea of one or two supper weapons that only make sense on a station 90% of the time so even large ships have a harder time with stations. that way you really need a few ships to take one down. And what I REALLY want are player stations to gain a small passive income by auto trades or act as a base for factory's and storage.

making the factory building larger or at least the high end ones super big would poke people in that direction and be an easy way of giving stations an overwhelming mass/size that right now they lack

some sort of super big bulk storage would be super cool with this just saying.

If you like the idea of docks/shipbuilding part one way you could add it is by locking the really big things with that. But to be fair im not sure this would fit.

[serene pasture]

you are speaking of making Ion Core turreted roof-mounted. It would make traditional Ion Cores obsolete as their main downside is how they chain react once you get through the shielding protecting the barrel... which is no longer an issue if you can close it and thus can protect them with layers and layers of armour, potentially reinforced with small shields

also, Ion Cores are very large already, so the turret's being large too isn't much of a demerit in this case

[storm finch]

correct me if I'm wrong, but they can already be turreted by using a turreted prism at the end

[mighty stump]

they mean turreted as in roof mounted

[storm finch]

ahok

[brave bear]

this is exactly what I want from it, it's for stations not ships.
possibly reducing the damage by like 20% or 40% and making it genualy HUGE 8x8 10x10 with a TON of mass so if it was on a ship it would be hella slow

It should be overpowered but almost unusable by normal ships. only the largest and with a 20% debuff it would be more aggressive to just use the normal ones

if it's locked heavily behind tech and cost and even if you can get it your ship cant really support it then I think that would be cool and not make the Ion Core obsolete.

also parts of it could be inside and need power, so there's another negative.

[serene pasture]

I can already see Ion Core spinners with roof-mounted turrets who move around the map through hyperdrives

[grave heath]

This would actually go perfectly with the range rebalance experiment that aims to add an anchor object that makes ships much slower but doubles range (i.e. station mode), so having a roof prism that requires there to be the anchor placed om your ship could be awesome.

[grave heath]

That'd be a pvp meta I'd KILL for, revitalize the hyperdrives please 🥺

[lime kayak]

Asteroid bases/ship construction

• Find a small asteroid and mount a couple of thrusters, a cockpit and carve out some space for reactor, cargo and crew you have a relatively cheap base in an asteroid field that can slowly harvest the ore from the asteroid field.
• When we have carriers with fighters/drones they can house hangars.
• Increases the encounter variety within the game.

[glad sky]

A reinforcing function that requires steel and tristeel, that increases the health and penetration resistance by 50%, with the cost being a set amount per tile.

(or just the general concept)

[rapid kernel]

yeah, I want more options to reinforce sections besides ruining the ship's shape

maybe as an additional 'layer' on the build menu but instead of paint, we slap armor panels on

[cursive swan]

Questline that need you to build a ship for an npc on a station. You also get a certain amount of cash back.

Then he flys away. And roams around in the sector. Also doing trading, quests what ever.

Needs Painting!

Maybe 3 tiers or so in different sectors. At times you meet him again?

[pastel gale]

Whatever balance changes are needed to make fleet play more viable than 1 massive mega ship. Probably my biggest wish of anything lol

[neat jungle]

something along the lines of questlines, so it feels like im not existing in my own personal bubble as much

[full pecan]

Modularity. I want to assemble tools, factories, and engines based on my own ideas about design and practicality. For example, I want to assemble a cannon of my own design from ready-made parts. I want to build a factory that produces a new type of product from any combination of available resources, and the new product will be added to the list of available resources, which will make each game unique.

[neat jungle]

try being a modder

[glad sky]

So basically infinite craft but cosmoteer.

[half marsh]

ah yes, the new Cream Trek Wars Nuka Jet weapon

[serene pasture]

? If you play in sectors of around your rank, you have a large enough margin in crew-size to have multiple ships (apart maybe for the first 1 or 2 systems), and having at least 2 combat ships is, more often than not, stronger than having a single single powerful one. Especially against groups of fewer but larger ships that often result in being flanked.

Try having a fast support vessel with launchers & factories for ammunitions. Even at relatively low crew size, having a ship that can throw EMP at a target's engines (for instance) is surprisingly effective sometimes

[pastel gale]

I'm not saying they're useless, just that from a cost perspective, it always seems to be cheaper and more effective economically to have 1 large ship. Large armor blocks become a must at higher levels, and smaller ships you'd have in the first few systems become borderline useless, even in high numbers. There are exceptions, like emp, or overclocked electrobolts sometimes, but having a well co-ordinated fleet if smaller vessels is a challenge and I wish it was more viable

[serene pasture]

This is career. Crew and rare resources are the only costs you need to care about.
But aside from that, it's obvious that smaller crafts are less cost-effective when you look at game mechanic and certain modules. The cost of a bridge is much lower than the 20 cockpits that would be needed to get 1000CP, and a large reactor is only that of 3 small reactors, but if give a lot more than that. Of course these have their own drawbacks, but still, there is clearly a scalability mechanic that is present and do affect the balance.
Still, I'd argue that while in production cost a single vessel is more cost-effective over a fleet, I'd argue that it is far from the truth when it come to repair cost, as having a fleet allow for flanking maneuvers (among other things) that allow to significantly reduce the duration of fights and the risks taken by each ships. Even in multiplayer, while it is not common outside from domination (due to cost restrictions), it is not rare to see players bring multiple ships or a ship that separate into multiple ones in a fight, even during a tournament

[pastel gale]

I see what you're saying, you're not wrong. But with how much less survivable small ships are, it seems like every engagement you have to rebuild a whole ship at minimum (could be a skill issue, but still) and it seems to be more costly ber engagement than a large Frontline brawler that is designed to take all the punishment

[serene pasture]

Ah, so by fleet you mean swarms (by that I mean fleets composed only of small crafts), in which case I agree that it is not cost effective unless you mix larger craft in it or do something like a missile/rail swarm or a flack swarm.
Fleet can include larger craft or even have no small crafts at all. I tend to have one large ships with multiple medium sized ones around it rather than using scrub that can be one-volley-shot-ed by mid-game ships.
The problem is that the game reward either being durable enough or out-ranging your foe and staying a bay. It will be less of a problem once we can recruit crew on the field to compensate losses, but I understand where you are coming from.
I'd recommend mixing one larger ship in your fleet as to take the attention of your foes. When you do that, it allow to avoid smaller craft being focused-fired on, making it much safer for other ships. Using missiles &/or rails accompanied by PD &/or flacks work too, but I don't think that's the kind of play you want
Or you can wait for the drone update. It will still need a carrier-kind of large ships, but the combat will be done by a swarm and it should be much more cost effective than current swarm play if ballanced right.

[brave bear]

larger goals to work for other then bigger ship

[pastel gale]

Small to medium, but I always love building small, I find it more fun, but the gameplay options get limited for that pretty fast

There are definitely work around I'm playing with rn, but one day I hope :3

[queen jackal]

I wanna see the ability to make ur own factions

Overall factions are somewhat mid to me

While you can buy stuff and get missions from them thats pretty much it

I was thinking of the ability to become a part of any faction

And in exchange crew need less fame to hire, you get a paint scheme,more missions a special weapon

And if you decide to attack a faction you will eventually get targeted by civilian ships too

By attacking a faction you can also increase interest in pirates

Making them less hostile

[urban venture]

This might have already been said. But I would love to have some way to make a ship kinda do its own thing. Like how in campaign, there are ships that go out.. get resources then come back to the base to trade. Where instead, the player can unlock new crew autopilot abilities as they gain more fame. To allow them to give a task to a ship (like get iron) and have it go out, search for iron, then come back. And to have customization like setting if the ship attacks or flees when seeing an enemy ship, or to get iron by killing another ship. The 2nd feature is to be able to set up your own trade stations. So other ships come to yours to trade materials.

Here are more possible examples of "Autopilot ships". Defense, have a ship defend another ship in a more complex way. Including scouting out for other ships, orbiting the ship to defend. Always targeting a specific ship part to shoot. Things like that.\

[merry oak]

I’d like to feel like something actually depends on me. Not just fly, destroy, watch the numbers go up. But I also don’t want a scripted story. Sandbox is awesome.

1. Add people: portraits or animated heads for key admirals or fleet commanders, so we’re fighting people, not just ships. This would give enemies an identity.

2. Trade (routes and trade caravans), building bases and outposts, sending signals, electronic warfare, and hacking.

3. Everything must happen on the map. No mechanics like “your envoy will reach the destination in X days,” where a ship just disappears and reappears somewhere else after X days. The ship must actually travel across the map. It must be able to be attacked by nearby enemies, not just because it failed a bad random luck roll. Everything has to be on the map, nothing in the background.

4. The map must be very large or infinite. In the second case, I mean a dynamically generated map or the ability to jump to another galaxy (something like New Game+). It would be great if this happened directly in gameplay, not through a menu.

5. IMMERSION. Am I a soldier of an empire? A rebel faction? A mercenary? Or an evil invader? I want to feel it. I want options that support my choices. Point 1 and dialogues could play a big role here. World reactions like “forming a coalition against me” or parades in my honor, with ships flying in formation and “fireworks.” Anything that makes me feel engaged in my role.

[ancient marsh]

Bro used his free will. I support this kind of humor 🙏

[dawn onyx]

Bruv, what the czech flag doing there?

[ancient marsh]

Signature

[dawn onyx]

Wet bandits ahh xP

[ancient marsh]

Rather context for why I agree, but sure :P

Marv mentioned

[sick yarrow]

A truly dynamic galaxy

[sick yarrow]

Like X4

[half marsh]

sadly walt has said that is impossible do to performance limitations.

[serene pasture]

I can see it happening due to how the game engine seem to work ^^;

[plain bramble]

Have you guys ever seen FRED / FRED2? From FreeSpace / FreeSpace 2? It's basically a GUI editor for missions and campaigns that allows normal users to string together scripted language (programming almost) without having to learn to program. It's actually really cool. I haven't tinkered with modding Cosmoteer myself, but whatever the Cosmoteer devs have cooked up for themselves, if they share it, it will allow the community to increase replayability value, for free! (Yes I know modders who know how to edit text files can do this already, and for all I know, you guys already did this, but again, I haven't checked it out, I just know it's part of what keeps FreeSpace 2, released in 1999, relevant to this day).

[sick yarrow]

Feels bad man🥲

[half marsh]

Fr

[crude verge]

"Infinite" sources of resources other than traders
These would ideally be more "risky" to obtain than their "limited" counterparts

Examples could be meteor storms or pirates randomly appearing

[grave heath]

"I "like" quotation marks"

Jokes aside I agree

More ways to get respurces are a must

[sinful crescent]

the ability to be a taxi driver, building vessels for transporting passengers

[gray widget]

hell yeah dude

sign me up for lyftmoteer

load up an entire station's population into the waltmobile and fly them to the nearest pirate station for easy credits

[sinful crescent]

Pirate Mode 🙂 (this is a friends suggestion)

[half marsh]

isn't this already possible? Just attack everything you see

[sinful crescent]

sure u can attack things, but, hear me out... Pirate Mode

[half marsh]

it's just the part that confuses me is how Pirate Mode would be different from attacking everything you see. Could you please try explaining your suggestion a bit more?

[mild atlas]

Yea just saying "pirate mode" means nothing on its own

As Builder just said, that sounds like just flying around and making enemies of everyone

[fallow magnet]

Maybe being able to have meaningful interactions with pirates?

But that would only make them just like the other factions

[mild atlas]

Literally fringe is the "pirates but intractable" lol

Pirates as is right now are just targets to shoot

There not even their own unique ships, there just the faction ships but always hostile to you

[fallow magnet]

Please for the love of God elaborate

Trying to figure what the hell it means taking into account the current stuff and what could be reasonably added is impossible with no further description

[sinful crescent]

Well, building rep with the pirate bases that exist would be a must, quests from said bases, bounties on you? idk it was my friends suggestion, ill pick his brain and see if he can elaborate.

[mild atlas]

That's basically just siding with fringe

Pirates aren't even friendly with pirates lol

[fickle tapir]

1 million differnt guns

[void junco]

rescue ships for killed faction and civilian ships.

[burnt mauve]

More deck cannons, we need "Super deck cannons" (Yes i know there are mods for this)

[crude verge]

☹️

[frozen ridge]

Giant drills so ram ships can be more fun

[frozen ridge]

Would love more roof weapons, something smaller and more viable early game would be nice

Decks weapons can target other decks directly, only stopped by shields

[bleak tapir]

Can we get some kind of roof mounted laser weaponry other the the thermal lance?

[crude verge]

Mining Laser :trol:

[bleak tapir]

Not what I meant because mining laser is effectively a melee weapon

[crude verge]

Lmao i know

[slow crown]

How's it going?

[sick yarrow]

Dynamic solar systems, and configurable ship ai.

[winter birch]

New System Limiting your crew size instead of this arbitrary needing complete certain difficulty missions, also A Dynamic economy and being able to have your own trade hub that npc's can trade with, cause like I have 230k steel plates just in a ship and I can't sell it fast enough currently, it's just deadweight

[eager saffron]

The ability to create a station of your own

[distant gust]

#1494638322549788753 message i don't know if these ideas are good, but they might solve some issues with the current career

[half marsh]

btw walt reads all the suggestions anyway

[inland escarp]

Missions for raiding cargo ships of other factions.

[south latch]

Missions for disrupting station construction from another faction

[rough sluice]

so uh

what's the devvin' lookin' like

[raw iron]

The ability to make your own outpost and trade stations where other ships can visit to trade and resupply or even coordinate attacks on other factions. These stations could periodically get raided by enemy factions so you will have to defend them but ally factions would be able to help you out maybe even for a fee.

[rigid heath]

Big cannon

[kind sky]

That would be so nice. Specially because it would make nuke ships viable for Imperium followers, which is great, because that's the main way of warfare their faction uses and it's just not reliable on career mode...

[grave heath]

Nukes are actually pretty strong in Career since the AI isn't able to dodge, but having 'recommended' weapons for each faction 'path' would be great. Maybe they give you special unique blueprints after each level of friendship is reached, buffing the damage of certain weapons. For Fringe, it could be every weapon (except for stronger ones) for Cabal, blasters and ions, for monolith, cannons and missiles, imperium — nukes and the strongest weapons in the game (most specially nukes), IO — every overclocked weapon. It would once again incentivize replay value a lot.

Adding upon this, there could even be events where, in the case of a very terrific defeat or sabotage, a faction could demote you or banish you entirely, requiring your faction befriending journey to be started anew, with another faction. Maybe you could resign your post, losing your gained benefits but becoming a free star once again

I can imagine leading charges of large wars, and even superevents where entire factions are toppled

Or maybe I'm too Hearts of Iron pilled and think such mass geopolitic could even work in Cosmoteer

[kind sky]

Naturally, it is a very strong weapon. But it's hard to keep producing or buying it in career, and I guess that people want to fight as their faction does.
The idea of each faction requiring the player to use mostly one sort of weapon to swear allegiance* is not what I had in mind, but it is a good idea.

[kind sky]

Haha, maybe. I don't think that a faction "losing" as you described in a career save is going to be a thing, not at all. It would take a lot of diversity away from the gameplay whenever it happened, I believe.

[grave heath]

Agreed, it can be a pain to get in bulk, but the nuke factory makes it easy after you get your hands on it. I don't mean it would require the player to use one type of weapon, more that it'd be encouraged to base yoru ship off some.

[grave heath]

It'd be very very endgame thing though, maybe even the thing that ''finishes'' a career game, a final stage of the war to sweep the competition, after which you become ''legendary'' and the game ends.

[kind sky]

Sounds good.

[kind sky]

Personally, I didn't do well with the logistics of obtaining enough uranium to sustain a nuke ship in the endgame.
Obs: might be lowkey a skill issue

[grave heath]

I guess buying out all raw uranium from stations could work, and some of the outer asteroid belt rocks have a ton of uranium.

[grave heath]

Also depends on how many nukes you mean, a Voluntas level ship would absolutely eat through all that stock XD

[kind sky]

Yeah, and using mostly nukes as your main weapon consumes a lot of resources.
Exactly because of that, swearing allegiance to a faction which uses mostly nukes and being able to buy more of them would be really benefitial.

[kind sky]

I mean, consumes a lot of resources on a ship of that size

[inner token]

I’d like to add that while I haven’t worked on cosmoteer modding or anything, I do make a lotta games and diplomatic events/systems aren’t too much of a nightmare, I don’t think

All you need is each faction’s relationship with the other one and then increasing/decreasing the meter based off of conditions, like proximity to territory, general aggression, built in hatred etc

It’s not easy to make but like certainly not impossible, just take a look at the nexerelin mod for Starsector

Also, I don’t really like faction specific mechanics, because 1. it would kind of suck for things like reinforcements or unique fights to be locked behind a commission with a faction or something, and 2. It would make creating faction mods much more difficult as you’d have to create your own custom missions (although maybe this wouldn’t be too difficult..?)

[grave heath]

That sounds amazing!

And shifting borders and faction wars are indeed scheduled for career 2.0 I'm pretty sure, I'm just adding the concept.

[midnight kite]

A final boss

[urban venture]

d r o n e