1) Make Boarding more complex/less grindy.

Boarding ships right now is a great way to make money late game, as all the enemies you can board are worth at least 1 million dollars, which isn't chump change. However, Boarding itself is kind of...dull. It's just a case of 'did you bring enough guys', rather than the strategy of ship to ship combat, so I would suggest an upgrade to it.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

No really, hear me out. You enter a ship, no multiple parts to take, just one fight. In this fight you get a choice of fighting Offensively, Defensively, or Agilely, and the enemy gets the same. Offensive is beaten by Defensive, Defensive is beaten by Agility, and Agility is beaten by Offensive. Each crew member adds to each ability differently, with your crew having it's stats for the three sorts of battles displayed on the top of the screen, while the bottom displays the enemy stats.

If you win the RPS system, you do double damage, and enemy deals half damage. If you draw(Both pick same option), you each take normal for that stat, and if you lose, it's the opposite of winning, you take double damage, and deal half. This allows you to win simply by having a larger crew, but you can win with fewer casualties by playing smart, either attacking with something the enemy would be weak to, or instead, fighting with your weakest stat instead.

Now, I would see it as.

Crewman are balanced, giving one point each to the three types of attacks

Marines fight Defensively, always backing each other up, and so get three points for Defensive

Pirates are all about knowing where an enemy is weak and hitting them there, so Agility will be their stat, and they'll each donate three points to it.

Bots(Purchasable now), are more attack oriented, not designed for self preservation, just winning, so they get 3 points for Offensive.

Officers add a percentage upgrade to the points of the others.


2) Add more event types. At this point, all events are simply normal missions with some added flavor text. Good flavor don't get me wrong, but they could be more.

For instance, a defensive space fight. You're not allowed to take an opponent's shields down below a certain level, but instead have to survive until a set amount of turns so the real spaces forces can swoop and and catch them. Or just include some missions where you have to catch the enemy alive, thus boarding the ship. Of course, this would only be available if you have the skills/equips needed. Which brings me to my next point


3) Only require either the Equipment or the Skill, instead of both for the use of them. For instance, trades would only need boarding shuttles to board enemies, but bounty hunters, who already have the boarding skill, can instead have something else in that slot to help with battles. Similarly, spying is only doable as a smuggler right now, as far as I know(Even if I have equipment to spy, it still says I can't save the data that find) so instead, have it be that anyone can get the data, so long as they have spy sensors, but smugglers can get it without, allowing them to put something else there.



4) No duplicate skills on tree. All trees right now have at least 1 skill duplicated in them, at least one even has two. As of right now, I would mostly suggest that you should add either the building your own empire to other classes than the pirate, or more likely, take that out and just make that a default ability to all classes, and add mix up the skills a bit more with each class.



5) Communication on the sensors screen serves one purpose that I know of right now. Getting out of the starting system before you have a corvette. Other than that, it sometimes(Reads I've only had it happen about one time in thirty) leads to a map event(Lifepod, Ghostship, Treasure, or Data) appearing. So you need to expand this. My suggestion? Add a conversation minigame with ships. Several different ones, like one for allied merchants, one for hostile military, and one for pirates in general. In these you can either learn some interesting fluff about the universe, or get them to lower their guard, giving you a first strike, or even hire the ship as an escort, giving you the reenforcements ability instantly during the next fight.



6) Fleet battles have no purpose to the other ships. Seriously, there is no reason to leave any ships on your side alive right now, save just getting EXP and money from fighting all the battles yourself, which in the larger battles is a real chore. So instead, have the fleet battles give some bonus for leaving ships alive after the fight, either money given or just system influence gained. Or in fleet battles, the ships you have left are reenforcements. They're faster than normal(I.E. 2-3 turns instead of 6-8), and the more ships in the fleet, the stronger they are. However, this creates the dilemma of can you hold out until they arrive in every fight, or do you risk some extra guns and let them fight some battles for you?



7) All classes should have fleet command by default. This way any class can step into a war and just end it at any time. Replace it with another offensive power up in the trees were it exists instead. This is due to how annoying it can be to enter a war screen and see your fleet literally controls the map(You have a massive fleet compared to the enemy's few triangles or even just a space station). This way, once you've whittled them down, you can just take the system. However, make fleet command battles like this usable in defensive as well as offensive(You strike at an enemy command ship instead of a station in this case), and make them harder. I.E. unless you've taken out everything the enemy has in system, these fights will take a while. And like above, the reenforcements the enemy gets are strong in these sorts of fights.


That's all I've got so far, but I'll try to think of some more. What do you think nielsbaur and other users?

Thank you for your suggestion.

If you and the compuer both know your crews stats and the enemy crews stats, the RPS choices will be mathematically those who do the most damage and/or have less casualties. You will always be able to guess what your enemy will be doing and the other way around. That is if I don´t add some randomness to the computers choices, which again makes it pretty random.

I believe the logical advancement of the crew combat system would be to have a real turn-based boarding with each crew member (or squads) moving through the ship. With the current graphics this would be very difficult to achieve, but in a future sequel I might change to pixel art, which could make this do-able to some degree. But this is no promise and nothing is in work yet. It´s really difficult, because it would be literally a second game on top of the first one.

Regarding your skill suggestions: The idea was to have different professions with really different gameplay. Of course I could allow a fleet officer to have their own pirate empire, but then it would make no sense to play the pirate profession anymore. It´s a question though whether we need "skills" at all or whether everything is ship and equipment based like in Smugglers 1 - 3. This wouldn´t limit the complexity, but allow you to change your profession by simply getting a ship or equipment item that fits to your new wish of adventuring. I would really like to hear if anyone thinks "skills" are a must have for Smugglers.

I don't think the option to start your own empire for everyone, or command a fleet during war, would be that different than what you do now. It would still be hard for a trader to do the latter, but easier to fight wars in the former. I suggested in a previous topic that you change the bank system to just an invest system with two options, rather than a bond system.

The idea would be you can invest in military, which has the same effect as buying bonds. The other would be invest in infrastructure, which would have one of three effects. If you're in a system owned by someone other than you, it would raise the governor's opinion as well as adding items to the local shops, increasing their goods. If you're in a system you own a factory in, it would directly add to your factory's funds, allowing you to leave it with some surplus as you adventure around. Finally, if you own the system as part of your empire, it donates the money directly to the system treasury, allowing you to set a low tax rate, but not have to come back all the time to pay off debts.

As for boarding...that would work. I see no flaw in that plan other than it's probably gonna be a lot of work to balance that sort of system. Still, if you can do it, it would certainly be interesting. My only qualm would be, right now, as unbalanced as it is, boarding is pretty fast. In fact, that's one of the things that's good about this game, it doesn't slow itself down too much. Even planning where to trade is only a short look at the big map screen.

That's one of the reasons I also suggested a way to interact with system management screen without having to visit the governor. Getting the message of debt, or that people are starting to hate me, means a quick trip back, and then I might not make it, even if I start back as soon as I hear about the trouble. The two ways to fix that would be to have the message pop up sooner(I think you've got it set so we have 30 days or so to get back to the system, but due to the way the map works, 90 day s would be better) Still, even that would interrupt flow. My suggestion for this would be that you can access the system management screen from the big map of all the systems.

As for skills, right now I think they balance out where combat and trading(Your two ways of interacting with the world), are different for each class. The two mentioned above I just think would be more helpful if they were given to all classes, but I can see why you might not want to. However, I stand by my point of getting rid of duplicate skills. A few suggestions for things to put in the place of them.

Radiation Pulse: Basically like the Nuke Mine, it kills of crew of the other ship, but unlike the mine, does no damage to the shields, so it's more for say, a pirate or a bounty hunter than other classes.

Shield Cycling: Sort of an in battle version of the skill during fleet battles. In this case though, instead of losing crew, you lose time. Your Ship will be EMPed, and your dodge rate cut a bit. However, if you can survive, you regain all shields back, allowing you to fight fresh.

Time Dilation Cannon: Causes no damage, but it does lower enemy AP per round by either 1, 2, or 3 for a fixed number of rounds. Cuts off enemy options, while raising your ability to respond. As with EMP should have a chance to miss.

Evasive Pattern Alpha: Opposite of Maneuvers, lowers the damage of your enemy and yourself.

Ballistic Barrage: Late game skill. Sacrifices all remaining AP to do damage as well as EMP the other guy, with both damage and EMP chance raising based off remaining AP. However, it would have a chance of EMPing you as well, making it another gamble.



Now then, I want to reiterate point 3(Only require Skill or Equipment, not both to use abilities), 5(Expand the communication system), and 6(Give a benefit to leaving ships alive in fleet battles), as you didn't really address those with your response, and I'd like to know your thoughts on them.

Point 5 opens up more skill options as well, as you can add skills to increase likelihood of certain events, like say, one for a Bounty Hunter that makes people offer them escort jobs(Basically a single fight and then money based off who you were escorting), or one for a Smuggler where you can trade for illegal goods at a discount with some ships, or maybe a pirate could convince someone to surrender without a fight, getting you money for free, if you're intimidating enough.

3, 5 and 6 are very good suggestions that I intent to follow through. For #3 we have to see if this changes the balance, but I think not. Maybe it was too much requiring boarding shuttles and boarding skill (same for spying).

Furthermore you might be happy to know that I am right now testing the possibility to access the system control and fleet command (when you have your own empire) screens through the galaxy screen. Technically it´s done now, but I have to see if this changes the game balance.

What I urgently need would be ideas for new skills, new equipment (or ship specialities) and any ideas you have about those conversation mini games.

New skills I had those 4 above, I'll think on later, but as for the conversation minigame....

Include a new stat with each Class called Charisma, one that can raised, slightly, via a skill, but otherwise is mostly set in stone. The stat is the same with the classes in pairs, with Fleet Officer and Fleet Trader having the highest, Bounty Hunter and Free Trader having the second most, and Smuggler and Pirate having the least.

The idea is that this skill determines what options you get during communication. When you push the button, you get a screen similar to the one you get with your own fleet, with four buttons.

Chat: Similar to what's there right now, just chats with the other guy, giving you a chance to get a map event(Ghost Ship, Life Pod, Data, or Treasure), learn who you're at war with, or even get them to fight you, if you're talking to a pirate or someone you're at war with.

Offer Escort: Combat classes(Bounty Hunter, Fleet Officer and Pirate) can do this, and it starts a mission of sorts, where you escort the ship in question to a planet. Note, this can be the next planet over, or it can be a planet in another system entirely. The farther it is though, the more money you're offered. While escorting, your speed is slowed just a tiny bit, like maybe halved or so, and you have an increased change to run into pirates or enemy empire ships. Higher Charisma multiplies the money given.

Ask for Escort: The opposite, and useable by the Trader Classes(Fleet Trader, Free Trader, and Smuggler). You can get ships on your side as escort, and they are basically like Reenforcements are now, but are always on(I.E. are immediately there in battle). This costs a bit of money, and they only stay until you get to the next planet, with the longer you have a ship, the more money you pay them, however, they offer the ability to fight in larger battles, or to play pirate a little.

Intimidate: This is the game changer one, as it lets you do something new, win at combat without doing the combat. It starts a game of sorts where you have several bars moving up and down(Or left and right), with several small hit spaces you have to stop them on, to intimidate the other guy. Higher Charisma leads to an easier time here as it makes the hit area larger, and thus easier to hit. Make it...four bars, with each one next to the other, starting in a sequence rather than all at once. you have to hit at least 3 of them to win, though hitting four gives you a special option. If you can hit them, you get another set of choices.


Intimidate Success
Surrender Cargo: The basic, this one literally is just like winning a combat session, and gains you the prize in money as if you boarded their ship and stole their goods. This only earns you a small amount of EXP however, so it does have one disadvantage to combat.

Surrender Info: Gives you a choice of three advantages that are sort of like temporary enhancements. You can either get Star Charts, which double movement rate in the map as you now know the secret space lanes between worlds, Shield Data, which gives you a boost to your weapons as you can now set them to the frequency of enemy shields for a while, or Flight Manual which enhances your hit and/or dodge rate, as you learn how the other guy's going to move. These last a set number of turns/days in the main map, say 50 or so, but each successful Info grab, gives you 50 more, so if you want, you can grind a bit to make these advantages more or less permanent.

Surrender Ship: Literally gives you the ship, as if you had the Self Destruct Nullification skill that Bounty Hunters get, so you're not slowed by the other ship as much. This requires you hit all four bars however, and is thus, the hardest to get, but can get you a pretty hefty money bonus. It also doesn't count as a crime no matter who you do it to, as no captain is going to admit they lost their ship to you just because you're scary.

Intimidate Failure
Of course, with the good, comes the bad. You have to hit at least three bars to get any of the above, but if you miss two or more, you start combat with the other ship. Not normal combat however, as the other guy starts out pissed, so his weapons are more powerful, he gets the first hit instead of you, and he gains a +1 AP bonus per turn, making the combat far harder. Also, even if you win, he takes his cargo with him, and you gain only EXP for the fight. If you board him, he Self Destructs right away, meaning a successful board attempt just blows up the other ship(He's already at 25% shields, so it's not that powerful), and you are still denied any kind of prize.


At least, that's my suggestion. I admit, balance changes are needed, but I think you can see some ideas, and I'll share them whenever I can. For conversation skills:

Fearsome Reputation: Pirate Skill, starts with one bar already hit, so you only have to get two hits to win the intimidation minigame.

True Guardian: Fleet Officer Skill, During Escort missions you gain double the typical reward, as the people you escort trust you more.

Inspirational Words: Fleet Trader Skill, When you ask for escort, price of doing so is halved.

Vector Computation: Free Trader Skill, gives a damage boost to your escort, as you give them data on where to hit the enemy. Stacks with SOS Beacon's enhancement to damage.

Heroic Reputation: Bounty Hunter Skill, Halves the speed of the bars in the intimidation minigame, allowing you to it them easier.

Cargo Net Cannon: While your being escorted, you gain double the typical money reward from combat. This is because you now have time to calculate where the cargo with fly once the ship blows up.



And that's all I've got or now.

Good ideas. The mini-game (with the bars) will have to wait until the sequel though. I'll see about the conversation thing though.