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Ice clouds and hyper research stations

Ice clouds and hyper research stations

Think like Freelancer

Hi. Ironclad made a great job of adding anomolies and random stuff in space that makes the game more realistic. But somethings that they reeeally need are ice clouds, mining clouds, and wormholes (i'm talking random ones that are like in a sci-fi show that can fit a spaceship but glow like a vortex).

Ice clouds can be in between wormholes or even have its own sector. I picture it dark and blue, with shards of ice randomly placed and occaisional lightning scattering around making an eerie kind of feeling. make low visibility so battles can be suprising and intense. And the best part: hyper research stations. 1 giant one you can either build or inhabit (ancient race builds it and abandons, maybe?). You can equip it with weapons or not, but it can give you technology only you can have. Kind of like artifacts, but has a super technology your race can aquire. Like Immense commerce trading boosts or a mega capitol ship.

Mining clouds. I only say cloud because its just shaped like one. Just a bunch of mining asteroids peppered into fragments of asteroids. It can be divided in 2 were half of the mining stations are to one faction while the other side is for another. Its very dense and has like 7 or 8 stations BUT have it very difficult to defend. No structures, only ships and a lot of wormholes leading to it.

Wormholes. You don't know were they take you. They pop up for a minute and disapear. All you know is that you can send ships into it. It spits you into some random sector and you fight to keep it or die trying. Hopefully it will last long enough for you to retreat but sometimes...
12,384 views 47 replies
Reply #26 Top
eetmorsqrls yes, I do agree, but then again it is just us mostly speculating which has only minor effect on the game . . ("more... educated" possibly . . though TV shows, magazines, and the random URL do not count . . There is a rather unintuitive level in allot of fields that laymen have a real hard time with . . Hence all of the Flying boxes, perpetual motion engines, and cold fusion clames by savvy but still ignorant Laymen.)
SIN's is not required to give a deep story with a fully explained universe (think the level that Tolkien did with Lord of the rings) most writers do it on the fly and some write a “bible” to help guide story development and keep things more consistent. Games . . . well since the main product is the game and game play they normally focus on that, (an exception would be Starcraft - massive effort on story).
So except for main plot issues and needed game conventions Expect the “explanations” to most of the tech of SIN’s and most other games to be “made up as needed”.
Take tech explanations of star trek, they made a bible because they had different writers and it changed often. Most was added add-on because it was needed for a plot point . . over time allot of inconsistencies or conflicts ended up being generated. Now only die hard trekkers really understand all of the “workarounds and patches to the internal conflicts . . a bit of a mess.

Reply #27 Top
BUT, we have some smart people on these forums and I'm hoping that someone could come up with a neat theory and make it sound plausible, the devs seem to be really accomodating and might add it to the game.
I'm not saying that Sins HAS to have a plausible explanation for all the techs, but if something that wasnt cliche and was explained well was added to the game, it would make it more enjoyable.
Reply #28 Top
an exception would be Starcraft - massive effort on story


More like the exception is blizzard -- every game they do has a huge backstory, with rich and deep lore to go with it.

BUT, we have some smart people on these forums and I'm hoping that someone could come up with a neat theory and make it sound plausible, the devs seem to be really accomodating and might add it to the game.


Well, my fanfic is actually working on that to a degree...

"Station keeping" drives that hold a vessel in place relative to a grav well (and can stop a ship in motion). Rearward facing engines are just "radioactive waste ports" that spew the waste as an extra reaction drive (above and beyond the built in inertialess drive...), and a few other ideas.
Reply #29 Top
im sorry ron, i meant someone smart  

on a serious note, want any help with that? if you posted it somewhere you could probably get some really good feedback/ideas.
Reply #30 Top
well there will be phase gates that should do something similar to the wormhole idea, as for super ships, I don't think there should be any
Reply #31 Top
true, superships really make the game imbalanced. Even if it takes forever to build them, it's too hard to make them really balanced. better to focus on strategy than rushing the 'ultimate unit'
Reply #32 Top
"if you put engines on both ends then you never have to turn around. " random but a good point . . if these ships have a reaction drive then the thrust really needs to be vectored regardless of ship orientation IF orientation makes a difference . . remember there is NO reason space ships need to resemble navel ships in ANY way. The Starfurry from B5 and Gunstar from The Last Starfighter, and The firefly from the show Firefly where the best representation of a space going maneuverable ship using reaction drives.

some maneuvers that move space craft rarely do but should be common. True 3D maneuvering (there is no up or down, no need to bank "wings", no lift or air resistance - Space dogfights would have no resemblance to air dogfights), True strafing (keep direction constant but rotate to keep one orientation toward target.) , Rolling, spinning “in place” (relative movment remember ) , Turns off engines when not accelerating. Any real gravitational maneuver (orbits are always the same direction or geosynchronous, and easy to enter and leave) etc . . B5 does the best job here, Star wars the worse, Star Trek has black boxes to change the rules.
All rather fun to speculate on . . (the tech makes massive difference - but in short any resembalence to air and sea combat is suspect)
Reply #33 Top
hard to make a micro-less strategy game if you implement that though...
Reply #34 Top
wait do these ships have inertialess drives? or reactionless drives? or both? IF they do then they could do any maneuver is possible . . Normal Physics gets thrown right out. .
If reaction less drives . .they why do these ships have thrusters? No need.
If reaction drives . .you must throw matter out to move. The faster and more massive the matter the faster the ship can accelerate.
If inertia less drives . .well then things go rather strange . . Since rendering the ship Mass-less but (I would hope) still existing as matter . . . . again one of these sci-fi terms to allow plots to move along. (again that is fine) . . if you have no inertia then you could move at the speed of light with the smallest of pushes.

This as eetmorsqrls says is a good thing to nail down . . . as it could change the games look and feel.

Superships . . Bah . . too big a liability . . .our ability to destroy has far surpassed what matter can armor . . the new trick is not to get hit (or hit directly) Wolf packs of powerful but “smaller” ships are in the rise because armor is less a priority and firepower (longest range possible) is now most important . . now this could change or be totally different in a alternate fiction . . but unless something changes dramatically the single uber ship has gone. (all cool-neat-oh-keen prestige aside)

Fleets and overlapping ship/unit roles making a powerful cohesive group . . now that is power.
Reply #35 Top
as someone said in IRC, the supercarrier Nimitz is probably the ultimate weapon.
Reply #36 Top
Not with out it's Fleet it is not . . and simple bad weather could cripple it's offensive / defensive power. It needs it's fleet for protection, supply and support.
Again it is the fleet that is the power not the single ship. (that ship IS the center of that fleet though because planes with anti-ship missiles are extremely powerful and long range) Planes are the real power projector there) .
Reply #37 Top
true, i meant it as the nimitz and its aircraft. advances are constantly being made so that 'simple bad weather' has to be worse and worse for it to be unable to launch its planes. also, for weather to be bad enough to cripple its defensive ability, most things would be unable to attack it.
Reply #38 Top
I feel that surface vessels are sitting ducks. Whereas, an Ohio class SSBN is far more the ultimate weapon and feared to a greater extent as its location cannot be simply identified by radar.
Reply #39 Top
lol, lets not get into this discussion, or maybe someone can move it into an offtopic thingy?
Reply #40 Top
I like the idea of asteroid fields/ice fields/ext, spatial anomalies would add a bit more variation into the game, and variation is typically a good thing.
Mine-able asteroid/crystal/debris fields definitely have potential, I don't know how they would effect gameplay, however. I think that the best case scenario would be if they would provide a small (but noticeable) amount of income to whomever owned it/mined from it/had a mining installation near/in/on it. It would be a definite plus if they were shared or were very difficult to defend, as that would give players a place to play "king of the hill" in.
Reply #41 Top

im sorry ron, i meant someone smart  

on a serious note, want any help with that? if you posted it somewhere you could probably get some really good feedback/ideas.


Your dead meat. Dead meat.

I won't post a thing untill its actually half-way decent. Which means 'finishing' the text, then waiting a week or four so that the typos aren't "fresh" in my mind. Or, if individuals who are willing to deal with a rough draft (complete with idiotic typos, and any number of out and out mistakes) want it sooner, they can feel free to ask.

wait do these ships have inertialess drives? or reactionless drives? or both? IF they do then they could do any maneuver is possible . . Normal Physics gets thrown right out. .


I meant reactionless drives. Oooops. In my FanFic, I explain away the huge thrusters by saying the ships have radioactive waste to get rid of anyway, so why not get rid of it in a reaction drive (But the drives are still very stupid, yes)
Reply #42 Top
I think the people posting in this topic are getting... Off topic, this is about the idea of a sort of supership, and the idea of a more diverse space, as it is not empty.
Reply #43 Top
lol, i love idiotic typos, I really have nothing to do for a couple hours a day, so why not make fun... i mean... help you with your fanfic.

As to diguner, I think that the supership idea was discussed in full and the more diverse space idea has been talked about quite a bit.
Reply #44 Top

there isn't much you could use it for (yet), but still!

really, really fast broadband ?
Reply #45 Top
lol, until you start recieving messages before you send them... then we have a whole HHGTTG on our hands...
Reply #46 Top

really, really fast broadband ?


... Um, no. It'd reduce the latency, sure, but I doubt you're going to see an increase in bandwidth for a while. And the equipment required to maintain the split nature of the atomic particles is fairly bulky, I believe.
Reply #47 Top
Aright to wrap up my post and give myself an ounce of acknowledgement i meant the big mother ships are NOT for the TEC. They don't deserve it. Im talking the other races. The TEC armada cannot supply a mega-ship. If you look at their backround most of their ships were just converted into war machines. Their capitol ships are whimpy (at least, most of them) but they are capitol ships nonetheless. Don't give them an upgraded version of themselves. You'll e'm feel bad   

I think a great part of battles is to see an enemy capitol ship and divert most weapons to destroy it. The thrill of the chase is great. But to see an enemy armada with a giant alien mothership (ok, not giant, but like the one in the starcraft 2 gameplay video) supported by fighters and frigates... that would be awesome prey. Get a couple capitols to stun the beast and close in with kodiak cruisers with thrusters engaged. That would be.... i'm gonna say epic.

My research station popped up because I saw ice clouds in freelancer and I wanted it to sound appealing when I spoke of it.