The origin of a new wishlist

[jedidia]

Sure, the update’s only been out since yesterday, but why slack off on the brainstorming front?

My first idea was really more of a feasibility study than a new feature. I’ve seen some storms now, and I love them. The clouds rolling in covering the sky, the lightning in the distance (and sometimes not so distance), and I was starting to wonder how far you could push that fancy new cloud-tech.

What I imagine is a planet type that has 100% cloud coverage all the time, but where the clouds form downward pillars. Probably not all the way to the ground, but not too far off. It would probably take some time to come up with an algorithm that gives good shapes.

So what you’d end up with is clouds more as a “topological” feature of the planet. You can’t see the sky, but there’s this constantly shifting “landscape” of cloud pillars around and above you.

Now add tons of lightning, and a couple vlcanoes and copious burning ground… Damn it, now I want to see that planet! And I think they could totally pull that off with the tech they have now…

[sheralmyst]

Shooting stars, meteor showers now happen. From your ship you can easily track them and the ground lights up with a red glow just before impact. Easy enough to fly to the general area.
We also have this empty spot…
Would be nice if we could find the impact area and then scan for a very rare and valuable mineral, etc…that could be sold for a nice profit.

[LordMarkov]

With the addition of more variety and sandworms, I have only one thing left from on my original wishlist: an in-game villain .

However, a mulitool overhaul could be good. Adding new styles, new weapons (flamethrower, RPG), accessory components, and possibly moving scanners to a visor component.

[stryker99]

Initially, I balked at the villain idea, thinking we already have the Vy’keen as a race more than capable of war and violence. But with most star systems having pirates as our first encounter, why not have a pirate cabal with a single leader, as well as a number of lieutenants?

With this possibility, and for the peaceniks among us like me who don’t feel the need to kill everything in sight, how about a stun weapon enhancement? A stun beam like a Star Trek phaser would be a great addition which should satisfy the requirements of SOME of the hunt quests. Like, down a predator and take a pic of it.

I’m hoping as the Mercury Team get more capable in realizing their dreams, eventually they expand on the Commerce Tower idea to a small community or town with all the vendors and sellers which would gravitate to such a place. Not a big one at first, but a few buildings, even a food vendor.

In one of these updates, I want to see the option to modify our ships. We already have the capability to paint our freighters, and this should be expanded for our other ships. But I also want the option to alter the features on our ships, like wings, tail, engines, cockpit and other fuselage designs. What I ultimately want to see is a full blown shipwright, who will let us design our own fighters, shuttles etc, all the way up to frigates and a freighter. That shouldn’t be cheap, but not insanely expensive either. I’d also like to see ship designs expanded to match those shown in concept art. There were some great designs that never saw the light of day.

I’d also like to see the modification and painting idea extended to multitools. Bravo on allowing us to have up to three.

I want to see more customization with our environment suits. The NPCs we encounter often have some very handsome looking suits, and I’d like to have those options, as far as equipment and coloring.

Team Mercury needs to offer us PC people some love, because we can’t rotate our equipment and ships to look at them on all three axes in our equipment screens like our console friends can.

I’ll have to go back and look at my earlier wishlist and see what I posted there.

[temp]

First, thanks for Origin! I really like the adventure side of NMS where I have a reason to go to lots of planets.

I’m find it difficult to readily see items that have reduced in quantity. The Microprocessor is at max quantity while the Carbon Nanotubes are down by three. I think that it’s the shaded area over the quantity bar that’s obscuring the information.

[stryker99]

I’m definitely not a fan of that shadow over the inventory bars. I was going to mention that too.

I wish asteroid fields weren’t so darn… EVERYWHERE. And so close to planets.

On high threat Sentinel worlds, there either should be no settlements at all, or the people should be at war with the Sentinels if they decide to stay. That would be a good addition, help out the citizens in their plight. And some way to fix things so the Sentinels go back to normal. It should be seriously hard to figure out, not a simple matter of removing living goop from a hidden console. Eh, it’s an idea.

I’m seriously hoping that in one of these updates, there is a lore trail of some significance. Discovering some ancient secret, the trail of which spans thousands of light years. Maybe something to do with the Three Races, or the Travelers - we’re quite a mystery ourselves. Maybe something to do with the race which spawned the Sentinels… ATLAS…

Come on, Team Mercury, I’m hungry for some historical meat. Or hysterical.

[sheralmyst]

Asteroids have been a complaint for a really long time…

[Jupiter.blues]

1. I want more variety. Lol. More… MORE… MMMMOREEEE…

(Im good for now though, but in time, more will always be nice)

2. Still hoping for an enemy we can physically see, not just read about it.

3. A full ship overhaul. Not just exterior looks, but interiors too. Fully customizable is preferred. The current interior displays are a bit dull and it would be nice to be able to change the color of it, change what is displayed, show details that matter more. Also, we could use a HUD when we are flying in 3rd person. But if none of those things ever happen, then the one thing I would love is have 2 seater ships. Also, 3 seats and 4 seat ships too. Larger flyable ships that other players can walk into while you fly and they can jump out whenever they feel like it or take photos as you fly. A harpoon launcher would be a fun thing to play with too. Also, rockets that lock-on but do massive damage but fly slower to give other players/npc ships a chance to shake them off. That would encourage us to move around while dog fighting rather than just flying slow(or at a complete stop) and just unleashing a storm of laser fire. Its far too easy currently.

4. Also, procedural cities.

[stryker99]

I’m totally into that ship customization idea, and cities, mentioned it a few times so I hope it gets traction. Like swapping engines so I can have my “turkey feather” exhaust, different wings, different… heck, let me commission a shipwright to make me a ship to my design specs.

Us PC folk need some love, Team Mercury. I can’t see the entire interior of my cockpit, can’t rotate any of my stuff to admire it… give us a grab-and rotate feature, and a setting so we can see our cockpits completely for messages and stuff without changing the whole POV. Or just move the darn camera back when we get messages!

I had to get on because I came to a star system… WITH BLACK SPACE!! I can hardly believe how good it looks! Please, HG, change the code so that at least half the systems don’t look like we’re in an ocean of weird color. Some of that is okay, and keep some distant nebula that are also visible from planets, but I used a black space mod and I SERIOUSLY miss it. I’d also like to see a bit of Milky Way-like galactic arm stardust in the background. In fact, rather than a bare galactic center glaring at us, I’d like a star/nebula disc, and the alactic center just peeking above and below it. It can still glare at us some. And as clear as it is from space, it should be slightly visible on planets as well, as we see the Milky Way center and Magellanic Clouds down under.

Contrast is a little strong too. Could you tone that down just a scouche?

I know that I sound like a whiner sometimes, but I really do love the heck out of this world, and the software that lets me transport there,

[AdaRynin]

@Jupiter.blues

Still hoping for an enemy we can physically see, not just read about it.

Nothing ever happens in NMS, we read about everything, did you notice that…? A good choice from a programming point of view, but a lot of the original hype was people expecting to be able to see the animal and NPC behaviour actually acted out.

@sheralmyst

Asteroids have been a complaint for a really long time…

Yeah, breaks immersion a bit. Somebody claimed the asteroids need to be so dense, first, to prevent starships from getting stranded without fuel (no Fuel Rats to help out here); and second, to give our human brains some scale, otherwise we would not notice that we are moving.
Why not let fuelless players coast back slowly with some sort of “emergency solar power”? And why don’t other space games (ED) have the problem with players not perceiving motion?

@stryker99

I’m definitely not a fan of that shadow over the inventory bars.

+1 !

@Jupiter.blues

A full ship overhaul. Not just exterior looks, but interiors too.

And, what about being able to save a freighter interior like a base, and letting us select it again when buying a new freighter!

@Jupiter.blues

Also, procedural cities.

Yeah! They already managed freighter interiors, so, technically they can do it. The difference To cities is of course that explorable freighters have no windows (saves processing time not rendering the surrounding landscape!); and space scenes are never constrained by surrounding hills/valleys. I played games with procedural cities before and most common complaints are “Why is the city gate facing the mountain and not the open valley?” “Why did they block their own view?” “Why are there two cities offering the same service next to each other?” etc. Small common-sense details suddenly stand out like sore thumbs.

@Jupiter.blues

Also, 3 seats and 4 seat ships too. Larger flyable ships that other players can walk into while you fly and they can jump out whenever they feel like it or take photos as you fly.

That would be such a great co-op opportunity! In the beginning they had such problems to even handle showing fellow players in the same session (remember the glitches that they introduced as a workaround?)… I wonder whether it’s hard for them to build shared (synchronised) moving starships?

@stryker99

Like swapping engines so I can have my “turkey feather” exhaust, different wings, different… heck, let me commission a shipwright to make me a ship to my design specs.

Yeah, add some gameplay around it… E.g. let us collect individual pieces that we want as blueprints by scanning ships, have us gather materials, then find and hire an expert shipbuilder, …

@stryker99

black space mod and I SERIOUSLY miss it. I’d also like to see a bit of Milky Way-like galactic arm stardust in the background.

I’m the type of person who likes rainbow gradients on everything — and even I’m fed up with these clouds!
A galaxy arm only becomes visible if the galaxy is a flat disc… NMS seems to have round cluster galaxies instead? Aesthetically much less varied.

[jedidia]

@AdaRynin

Somebody claimed the asteroids need to be so dense, first, to prevent starships from getting stranded without fuel (no Fuel Rats to help out here); and second, to give our human brains some scale, otherwise we would not notice that we are moving.

The second reason is hogwash, we already have different visual effects to convey motion. The first is reasonable, but could be solved differently now that we have deep space encounters.

[Jupiter.blues]

I forgot to mention a few more regarding a ship overhaul:

Being able to buy ships AND individual parts at a special vendor that is NOT in the space station. The vendor would be at its own special location thats a large area rather than another small kiosk or some small window with an NPC behind it. It would have the ships visible like a car lot and various parts such as scanners, upgrades, etc.(as new 3D model assets) laying around instead of just a menu. Part type, quality, and price would vary based on the system’s economy as per usual.

Parts could be salvaged off of wrecked ships also but would need repairing if you choose to salvage it.

Being able to see the parts you want to purchse in 3D on a shelf or something rather than in a 2D menu for dramatic effect. Being able to remove the parts and place them anywhere as if they were base building parts so that you can build a cool ship hangar or install them on other ships. Being able to remove ship parts and swap them with others you already own from different ships so long as its from the same ship type(fighter, hauler, shuttle, etc.)

Visible shield effects. When hit, the invisible shield will light up to show that your shield successfully took the hit.

[sheralmyst]

So you want a used car dealership with a parts store…

[Jupiter.blues]

Well when you put it that way. Lol.

In my head I was imagining more like a ship hangar out of starwars.

[jedidia]

Basically, what I’d like to see in that regard is that the spare parts items be required to fix broken ship slots instead of the normal resources. Now you’re able to fix broken ships by canibalising other broken ships, resulting in a more dedicated “scavenger loop”. Of course, some additional means of getting scrap parts could make that richer.

Oh yes, and let us build the thing to break down ships on our freighter, preferably with an option to select the ship to break down instead of just assuming the current one. That’s more of a scavengers QOL improvement, though.

[Jupiter.blues]

I agree with that. Being able to select what to scrap would be great. The scrapping gameplay loop could be deeper and more engaging too.

[sheralmyst]

Well there are already Recovered Items being found. Many are tossed out bits of machinery, as if someone landed, did some repairs, then left their broken parts littering the ground. So, the ground work for this idea is already forming…perhaps more is coming.
Would be hilarious if these items could be refurbished and then would quit suddenly forcing an emergency landing or cause our lasers to work only intermittently in the middle of a pirate attack…would add a new depth.

[Jupiter.blues]

That would be hilarious. I like that. Refurbished tech has a chance to be defective.

Or at the very least, as you take hits without your shield on, random parts take damage, the damaged components start to have issues too untill repaired fully.

Other defects/issues with defective/damaged components:
Hyperdrive randomly engages, shooting you forward untill you turn it off or randomly disengage while in use.

Weapons getting locked/jammed, while in use.

The weapon barrels dont shoot strait and are a bit off to the side.

Landing gear fails and your ship lands roughly/takes off awkwardly/wobbles.

[sheralmyst]

@Jupiter.blues

Landing gear fails and your ship lands roughly/takes off awkwardly/wobbles

I think that already happens, at least in MP on the Anomaly

[Jupiter.blues]

Lol. That should be a feature lol.