Hi Dark, I see your point, but I'm still not sure I'd want to introduce multiple classes into the game. For one thing it is several times more complex because i'd have to have multiple stat checks that boils down to if ship is class x do this and if ship is class y do that. Perhaps an idea for an update or something as that can get quite involved in terms of coding.
As for a mission builder like Lone Wolf its not a bad idea, but I really don't know how I would implament one. You know, I generally like using prerecorded speech, and in a case of Star Trek this is a case where prerecorded speech sounds better. I can make AT&T Crystal or one of the other voices sound something like the ship's computer which is exactly the kind of effect I want in a game like that. If so then you couldn't have a mission parcer as that would require Sapi speech, and I personally think having a mock Star Trek computer would sound better than a generic Sapi voice. The other major issue for me is the fact Sapi support isn't a cross-platform solution. In order to port said game to Linux or Mac OS is I'd have to spent x amount of time ripping out the Sapi support and replace it with the target platforms TTS services which increases production time and energy. Not only is this more time consuming I'm not sure it is worth the extra effort. What I mean by that is a couple of years back when I did my USA Games survey I specifically asked people about Sapi support etc. One of the things I discovered from that survey is that the majority of Windows users only have or use the default Sapi voices like Mike, Mary, or Sam which are in my opinion simply aweful. On Linux most just use the free ESpeak TTS engine or Festival because they are free. Again, they sound terrible compared to comercial TTS solutions for Linux. I realized since this was the case it would be better to prerecord the voices than depend on whatever voices may or may not be installed on the machine. Finally, there is the issue of the mission builder itself. Sure I could add scripting ability via Angelscript, Lua, etc, but then I would have to write a manual to tell people how to program the mission, and have to answer newby questions on how to use the mission builder. I don't know at this point if I want to go through all that work supporting third-party missions. Its something I'd have to think about before officially deciding one way or the other. Cheers! On 7/11/11, dark <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > there seems a very logical solution to this situation, namely, instead of > having the player select a ship, giving them a specific ship for a specific > mission. Afterall, starfleet are not idiots, and if some captain insists on > taking on a borg cube with an intrepid class ship for instance, they're > going to get told where to go. > > this could actually be a nice way of making mission difficuties variable. > > For instance, in some missions you get a sovereign class ship and battle > with the borg etc, or an intrepid class ship and are required to map out a > sector of space, or find a hiden targit in a short amount of time. > > However, for harder missions, unexpected circumstances could get in the way > and you'd find yourself in command of the wrong ship and need to wing > things. > > for instance look at the Uss voyager winding up in the gamma quadrent with > the borg, or some of the situations the enterprise from the original tng > series, (a galaxy class ship if I remember rightly, and thus one of the > larger, more armoured ships of the time though not up to the sovereign > class), Poor old Geordi seemed to be rejiggering the ship's sensors every > week to cope with some new alien tech or weerd situation. > that would imho also keep the game interesting, and let people create a > variety of missions and scenarios for it. > > Generally the more choice of starting factors a player has, the more even > the difficulty and other factors need to be to insure that it's always > possible, this is in fact why jason alan has just flat out said some > race/class combinations in entombed are simply not going to work, rather > than trying to make every possible set at least vaguely playable. > > An alternative is simply restricting choice, and if, as I hope a startrek > sim ala lone wolf would also have a mission creator, this would not be a > problem. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
