Structures & Raid Fleet Expansion [Split from demo discussion]

[WarlordOfWildSpace]

So I have gone back to playing just the base demo and I am enjoying it immensely, but I have a couple thoughts/questions.

1: Are there any thoughts on other structures that could be built in orbit?  I only really need defensive platforms on my outer worlds and maybe one layer behind that just in case.  From a gameplay perspective it seems like there is so much that could be done with that.  One great example is the pirate stronghold that Lavira (is that her name?) allows you to build for Maldrood.  This addition is great, allowing me to pick which worlds I want to specialize as building pirate ships, it has pros and cons, etc... 

I made a thread a while back about an idea to have an orbital structure entitled "Salvage Operation"  which could just use a debris field or a debris field and background station for its appearance on a battle map.  This structure would either have a chance of spawning old-era vessels with a rarer chance of spawning a good vessel, or, it could serve like the pirate base and provide a requirement for the construction of older-era vessels, possibly freeing up some build roster space for some of the factions who have a more crowded roster.  The other space stations that come to mind are medical stations, which could provide a boost to defenders, and research stations which, at least for the IR, could spawn TIE Defenders in a defense, while maybe making TIE Defenders or other rare ships you may add in the future, buildable. 

2:  Love the random pirate attack mechanic, just wondering if it could be utilized to give a little more.  The first way that comes to mind would be to use it as a way to subtly add in the Hutts/Zann/Criminal organizations (Don't know if a fleet of actual pirate ships is a chance in the XML, but I have only seen Rebels, Empire and EotH).  Since there are so many criminal organizations in the SW universe, I would love to see actual pirate fleets pop in from time to time.  The second thing that might spice up the game some is adding space creatures as a chance encounter.  Some massive space creatures that come to mind are Space whales, Colossal Wasps, Duina... Space Dragons and Neebray mantas from clone wars.  I admit it would probably be a lot of work to implement this as a feature, and they wouldn't be a threat to the player really, but they are not triangles, the fleets aren't usually much of a threat anyways, and the variety and immersion it would add would be really neat.

3: You probably get this a lot, and have probably answered this point before, so I apologize, but since Kashykk is in a lot of GCs (I think) would it be possible to recruit wookies as the NR?  The unit already exists in game, even if the stats are purposefully low since its an indigenous unit.  Again, you have probably already given an answer to this, I just wanted to unleash wookies on the galaxy.

[Corey]

1: Are there any thoughts on other structures that could be built in orbit?  I only really need defensive platforms on my outer worlds and maybe one layer behind that just in case.  From a gameplay perspective it seems like there is so much that could be done with that.  One great example is the pirate stronghold that Lavira (is that her name?) allows you to build for Maldrood.  This addition is great, allowing me to pick which worlds I want to specialize as building pirate ships, it has pros and cons, etc... 

I made a thread a while back about an idea to have an orbital structure entitled "Salvage Operation"  which could just use a debris field or a debris field and background station for its appearance on a battle map.  This structure would either have a chance of spawning old-era vessels with a rarer chance of spawning a good vessel, or, it could serve like the pirate base and provide a requirement for the construction of older-era vessels, possibly freeing up some build roster space for some of the factions who have a more crowded roster.  The other space stations that come to mind are medical stations, which could provide a boost to defenders, and research stations which, at least for the IR, could spawn TIE Defenders in a defense, while maybe making TIE Defenders or other rare ships you may add in the future, buildable. 

There are other types of non-military structures being introduced. There's two we'd like to do at the moment. For one, the one which will definitely be in 2.2, it's an orbital trade post.

For the salvage operation idea, the reason we wouldn't wanna go with something like that is players typically would prefer to make their own fleets, especially if they're gonna be given a bunch of older, less useful ships. We'd then also have to make enough types of those units to be useful, and the most important part here is faction diversification- a lot of those older units in the Warlord rosters exist as a way to at least have some differences between them. If you remove those as buildable options and put them as a randomly spawning thing for everyone, we're back to square one on that and all the Warlords just revert to having the same core of Imperial units, especially since we'd then have to fill the gaps in the roster.

2:  Love the random pirate attack mechanic, just wondering if it could be utilized to give a little more.  The first way that comes to mind would be to use it as a way to subtly add in the Hutts/Zann/Criminal organizations (Don't know if a fleet of actual pirate ships is a chance in the XML, but I have only seen Rebels, Empire and EotH).  Since there are so many criminal organizations in the SW universe, I would love to see actual pirate fleets pop in from time to time.  The second thing that might spice up the game some is adding space creatures as a chance encounter.  Some massive space creatures that come to mind are Space whales, Colossal Wasps, Duina... Space Dragons and Neebray mantas from clone wars.  I admit it would probably be a lot of work to implement this as a feature, and they wouldn't be a threat to the player really, but they are not triangles, the fleets aren't usually much of a threat anyways, and the variety and immersion it would add would be really neat.

All existing faction sets are in the raid fleet rotation (EotH, NR, IR(divided into a few sets in 2.2), Hapes, Pentastar, Yevetha), we don't plan on expanding that beyond the factions available in other parts of the mod though. It's basically a question of resources and priorities, especially as other battle-styles are added in as well. As it is, there's about 8-10 different possible sets of raid fleet factions, with a 15-20% overall chance of it happening, so you're only looking at about 2% chance per group, roughly. You could play through multiple GCs and never come across that faction, and even if you did, still have to do that 2-3 times before coming across all the ships in that group.

3: You probably get this a lot, and have probably answered this point before, so I apologize, but since Kashykk is in a lot of GCs (I think) would it be possible to recruit wookies as the NR?  The unit already exists in game, even if the stats are purposefully low since its an indigenous unit.  Again, you have probably already given an answer to this, I just wanted to unleash wookies on the galaxy.

We'd like to eventually get some species diversification within NR squads if we can at some point, but we don't plan to make Wookiee squads or any other specific species a standalone thing.

[WarlordOfWildSpace]

There are other types of non-military structures being introduced. There's two we'd like to do at the moment. For one, the one which will definitely be in 2.2, it's an orbital trade post.

For the salvage operation idea, the reason we wouldn't wanna go with something like that is players typically would prefer to make their own fleets, especially if they're gonna be given a bunch of older, less useful ships. We'd then also have to make enough types of those units to be useful, and the most important part here is faction diversification- a lot of those older units in the Warlord rosters exist as a way to at least have some differences between them. If you remove those as buildable options and put them as a randomly spawning thing for everyone, we're back to square one on that and all the Warlords just revert to having the same core of Imperial units, especially since we'd then have to fill the gaps in the roster.

Ooh, I am excited to see orbital trade posts.  For the Salvage operation, I was not thinking of introducing ships not in a current faction's roster to them.  More as a means of explanation or splitting recruitment requirements.  That would admittedly, probably be more work than its worth. I was just trying to fill a void, but since an orbital trade post would fill that void the team is already way ahead of me.

All existing faction sets are in the raid fleet rotation (EotH, NR, IR(divided into a few sets in 2.2), Hapes, Pentastar, Yevetha), we don't plan on expanding that beyond the factions available in other parts of the mod though. It's basically a question of resources and priorities, especially as other battle-styles are added in as well. As it is, there's about 8-10 different possible sets of raid fleet factions, with a 15-20% overall chance of it happening, so you're only looking at about 2% chance per group, roughly. You could play through multiple GCs and never come across that faction, and even if you did, still have to do that 2-3 times before coming across all the ships in that group.

Fair enough.  I have seen all of those factions except Yevetha as raid fleets while playing the submod 'more submod' but not all of them in the Demo.  So if the Hutts, or Ssi-Ruuvi, or any other faction was added in 2.3 then their ships would naturally be included through their faction in raid fleet composition I assume.  Still would love to see space whales or something, but since it would basically just be environmental, its not likely to be something the mod team has time for.  Petroglyph or someone else should just hire you guys to spearhead a sequel.

We'd like to eventually get some species diversification within NR squads if we can at some point, but we don't plan to make Wookiee squads or any other specific species a standalone thing.

That will be really interesting and engaging to see in the future.