{%hackmd theme-dark %} # The Future of Shiptest - 8/28/2021 ## Short-term (Theme: Gameplay Loop) Recently a lot has been said about the lack of a "gameplay loop." While this term may not be fully accurate to what we're missing, it's close enough. We need more content to occupy people's minds, as well as solidify progression as well as bringing the round to a close. Examples: * **Outposts** - These are overmap objects that can be docked to or hailed remotely from a communications console. Their purpose is to serve as a shop of sorts, where you can buy and sell goods, tech, and even entire ships possibly. This will replace the old near-instantaneous selling pad/express cargo console dynamic of selling. * See [Outposts](/fnZbhV_LTrOgTyVNyTRV7A) for more details. * **Docking with other ships** - This feature should have been implemented long ago, but was put off indefinitely. This will allow ships to engage in trade without having to find a nearby planet to dock to. * Sidenote, this could also be accomplished by simply allowing ships to "dock" at any point in space, creating a small encounter with up to four docking ports that other ships could dock to, as well as allows for repairs/ship expansion. * **Research total overhaul** - The old RND system is a means to an end at best, and a total letdown at worst. It was built around one singular station, with an entire research laboratory built into it. We have neither one singular station/entity or any ship with a truly dedicated full RND setup. * Suggested ideas include having an eris(?)-like system of techs being design disks, which can be purchased for money, exchanged for research points, and other similar methods. * **Communications rework** - If you've ever played a round of shiptest on a ship that lacks a communications setup, you know how tedious station-bounced radios are. They're inconvenient and discourage communication, as well as make any communication that is done extremely hard to pick out of the echoes. While I do not believe that the same level of communications that normal station-based servers have should be added to every ship, *something* needs to be improved. * Ideas include simply allowing people to put station-bounced radios into their ear slot and being able to use it like a headset, adding a prefix that uses any radio in your pockets/hands/&c., and... there was a third one that I will put here when I remember * **`throw_atom_into_space()` rework** - A long time ago, if you stepped out into hyperspace from a shuttle, you would be thrown into a random space zlevel. When we removed all of the inaccessible linked space zlevels, there was nowhere for the objects to be thrown, so instead, everything was just qdeleted. This led to issues, as human mobs being deleted out of nowhere is not a good thing. Furthermore some items shouldn't just be roundremoved completely. * Many ideas have been suggested for this, foremost being that there should be a container for all "lost" items and mobs, which have a chance of being launched at a nearby ship, or being thrown (very, very injured, and possibly husked) onto a planet or energy signal (space ruin) encounter. * **Per-ship round objectives** - This should be simple but somewhat effective at shaping a round. These are goals for a ship's crew to accomplish before the end of the round. Think of it something like a station objective in old ss13, but hopefully much more integrated with the rest of the game. * Examples include "Have X credits or more in the ship's bank account," "Have X [material] on the ship," "Explore X (optional: type of planet) planets," "Have X rare fauna on the ship at roundend," and many more similar objectives. * **Job rework** - The station jobs that were inherited from normal space station 13 just do not work. We need to make a much more condensed and ship-specific lineup of crew members, many of which will represent entire departments instead of being doubly specialized. * See [Shiptest Role Layout Proposal](/080Zz12iTR6vTeEbiuvvIg) for one possible lineup that I made a while ago. (Subject to change) ## Long-term * **Ship-to-ship combat** - The big thing that everyone has been asking for since the very day Shiptest started. This is somewhat complicated, as even really basic mechanics will end up likely being the foundation which the rest of the system lies upon. It relies heavily on the overmap's mechanics, which at this point are somewhat in flux and could change drastically in a short period of time. * **Tractor beams** - The ability to halt and then dock with ships that don't want to or simply can't stop moving. This is useful for all sorts of purposes, from piracy to anti-piracy to search and rescue. Very important. * **General weaponry** - Mostly self-explanatory. * **Shield/integrity de-abstraction** - This really should happen no matter what the progress on ship to ship is. The old integrity system is completely arbitrary and ***cannot*** be increased as the only action that did it previously (docking with the station and waiting) is impossible. This can be accomplished with a machine in the ship, getting a read on the overall integrity of the ship's tiles, or similar. * **Overmap rework** - Our old overmap system, while it functions well enough, is rather uninteresting and is usually treated as just a means to get to another actually interesting part of the game. Events are easy to avoid, solar systems are generally uninteresting, and movement gives barely any feedback. * We aim to have an overmap system that has orbital mechanics, creating dynamic and hopefully good-looking solar systems, with events that may be hard to dodge. Additionally, there shouldbe more things to see, and do on the overmap, like passive mining, gas extraction, orbital surveying, aforementioned ship to ship combat, and much more. * **Out-of-repo maps system** - This is not really a gameplay feature, but is a hopefully large QOL improvement for mappers/coders. It allows a seperate repo for maps to be added, which will be updated whenever the server restarts, allowing for maps to be added much quicker and easier than it currently is. * This also allows for the appointment of dedicated map-tainers, who have write perms to the map repository but not the main repo. Code maintainers will have to worry a lot less about merging/testmerging maps. * Will require a dedicated CI system to ensure that maps don't go out of date, and if they do, that they don't show up in-game. * Can also include ruin maps, possibly * **Factions** - Factions are a concept that have been discussed and suggested on many ss13 servers, but I think we have a really unique opportunity to frame them in a way that complements the somewhat independent nature of ships. Note, we want to avoid hard-locking ships to specific factions, both as in maps and in-game ship crews. This is because it kind of muddies the very independent nature I just mentioned. * See [Paperwork and Passports: Reputation](/RmHYB1hERLiOPmjSEyyN_Q) for further details. * **Hediff medical** - The old medical system is non-engaging and very shallow in complexity yet hard to understand. To fix this, we can look to a game that has an in-depth yet intricate medical system, Rimworld. Their system of "health differences" or "hediffs" consists of an empty slate meaning the person is functioning at normal capacity, and anything shown is a deviation from this. Examples include cuts, bruises, bites, gunshot wounds, etc. This will replace the completely arbitrary "damage type" system ## Recurring * **Ruins** - There simply is no way we will be able to hold interest with the short list of ruins that we have. We need to both step up production of ruins if possible, as well as look into dynamic/procedural generation of ruins at runtime. We can look to PowerfulBacon's supercruise for inspiration on the latter. * **Planet types** - Planets, at this point, are basically a map generator with a list of ruins and an icon. It's really simple to add new planets, and doing so will likely increase the diversity of the overmap. * See [Planetary Ideasguying](/Zh3IvL2JQwmTXx66mpgsPw) for suggested ideas.