Mission One - or how start a new game

[nicolasc]

Without having the FPS to introduce the character, or do any big interactions - I some what thought, that for the beginning the player starts directly in the cockpit getting instruction how to behave... but read for yourself.

Instructor: OK, listen up Hotshot!
I know this is not your first time in space but the UEA has some regulation about who is allowed to fly a ship. And it is my job to get you through this instruction...
Most controls should be familiar form the cargo hauler you normally fly.

The T-205 {need a better name} is a light escort ship, designed for simple protection and patrol duty like we are doing here. It's a small and agile ship, and in the hand of skilled pilot a deadly weapon - but you have heard that all before.
Lets try some basic maneuvers: yaw... pitch... roll... excellent.
full speed... full stop... try the afterburner (it wont work, if you a not moving... )
Very good...

One of the disadvantages of having a light ship as the T-205 is that they don't have the heavy shield generators of a transport. But its speed and manoeuverability makes more than up for it.
To demonstrate you the effect of the shield being hit, I'll fire a few round on you. don't worry your shield can handle it...
You should have seen some changes on your shield indicator... And as we speak the shield already recharging.

The T-205 comes with equipped 2 Sunray lasers. Laser a are - who guessed otherwise - energy based weapons. And with the power of the installed reactor they have almost unlimited ammo. Well almost, because the capacitor can only store a limited amount of energy, and the weapons tend to drain it much faster than the reactor can charge it.
And now to the fun part. Gun training. I friend of mine works at the local space trace recycling plant and I could convince him to drop us some old satellites that we can use for target practice.
Select one satellites, align your ship and squeeze the trigger.
Kaboom... marvelous. Now the other two...

In addition we have T-205 equipped with 2 Slingshot Missiles. Use them wisely, as compare to the lasers, those cannot be replaced during combat. But the can easily be bought a you local equipments dealer.
I'll talk you through a missile launch... Opposed to the lasers, missiles need to lock on a target, before that can be fired. Select me as target, and align your ship. You'll notice a white circling ring around me, that is the targeting device trying to lock on, once it turns red, it means that you have a lock... perfect. next part is obvious, squeeze the trigger to fire the missile. {If the Player tries to do he'll get buzzing sound, indicating that it is not possible...}

I see, we are running out of time, and we have a convoy to catch. The rendezvous point is not far from here, but we might wanna our cruise engines... attach yourselves to my wing...

that sum up the introduction/tutorial part...

What do you think?

cheers
nico

[beni]

First of all, I admire that you tried to write such a thing. But there are some things which I do not understand.

• Why is a transport pilot suddenly in the situation to have to fly the escort ship? Did he do this by his own will or was he forced to climb into that cockpit? I expect the reasons for his career change to be explained later on..
• Why does the UEA has to get some satellites from the friend of some instructor? Shouldn't the UEA be able to provide her own test targets? Why does the instructor from the united forces of the big nations rely on some outsider?
• Couldn't we use the shield as alien technology? I think I was writing about that stuff in the technology pages also the shield distributor could be a upgrade of the shields.
  The shields could get obtained later in the game, when better protection is necessary.
• Also couldn't we then also rely on projectile weapons only and use laser technology only against the shields coming later in the game? This is not that much of a problem though.

Well that's the first few things which came to my mind. I'll gladly discuss this. My points are, that we, firstly, want to get the player to learn of the universe slowly and secondly do not want the humans to be a superior race, but a race that has to defend and survive with great struggle and needs alien technology to get around.
btw. I also intend to discuss hyper space.. I'm not sure if we should give the humans that much of technology in the beginning.

[nicolasc]

Yeah, I know it is a little incomplete...
I came up with the idea during a chat with BadElvis. I like your story beginning, but I think we cannot use most parts - or at least not that detailed as is like - without a FPS support. Instead of a long introduction - who am I? What Am I? where am I? - I thought a direct start into a mission - sort of throwing the Player into the cold water - would be nice.

I thought, we discussed that entry at least once... Player is a transport pilot for some shipping firm. Another day, another delivery need to be made - standard formation: 4 transport, some escort - and 2 of the fighter/escort pilots called in sick, and instead of dropping the job they - management, boss whoever - decide that the Player you jump in as a replacement escort pilot.

Why does the UEA has to get some satellites from the friend of some instructor? Shouldn't the UEA be able to provide her own test targets? Why does the instructor from the united forces of the big nations rely on some outsider?

Well, who said that the instructor is from the UEA... (though without my explanation one could think it. ) The Instructor is the leader of the escort group, who got the enjoyable job of giving the player some flying lessons.
Though primary military institution, the UEA also regulates any armed ships and their pilots that are used thought the system.
The idea was to through around with some names, in a way that the Player has heard them, without really explaining what is going on...
The satellites are just a deal under the hand... (Space around earth got a little full, so the started to collect and recycle those old satellites. And well, some just fell of the transport, and got shot into little pieces.)

Couldn't we use the shield as alien technology? I think I was writing about that stuff in the technology pages also the shield distributor could be a upgrade of the shields.
The shields could get obtained later in the game, when better protection is necessary.
Also couldn't we then also rely on projectile weapons only and use laser technology only against the shields coming later in the game? This is not that much of a problem though.

All discussible...
It might be me, and wanting a Freelancer like feeling...
Or that you are at the beginning of a game, not only do your weapons barely any damage, you hit almost nothing, and then you even have to worry about ammunition.

About shields: Have you ever thought, of what would happen if a tiny pebble (1/10mm diameter) hit your ship a 10km/s... it perforates the hull. And they even say that space is empty. Well there is an awful lot of space for those little buggers.. (yea, I know the got some satellites to Pluto and further on) - [don't take me too serious]
I don't say that they need to be powerful, but the should provide some basic protection...

This is a first answer and as always it is just an idea.

cheers
nico

[beni]

Yeah, I know it is a little incomplete...
I came up with the idea during a chat with BadElvis. I like your story beginning, but I think we cannot use most parts - or at least not that detailed as is like - without a FPS support. Instead of a long introduction - who am I? What Am I? where am I? - I thought a direct start into a mission - sort of throwing the Player into the cold water - would be nice.

I see. That's basically a good idea. Let the player start on a running train (using the train as a metaphor for the story), but give him a good grip, meaning that you have to make sure he keeps following the story. So my suggestion was, to really start with little functionality but get the action going anyways.

Well, who said that the instructor is from the UEA... (though without my explanation one could think it. ) The Instructor is the leader of the escort group, who got the enjoyable job of giving the player some flying lessons.
Though primary military institution, the UEA also regulates any armed ships and their pilots that are used thought the system.
The idea was to through around with some names, in a way that the Player has heard them, without really explaining what is going on...

Okay, this seems okay to me. From what I understood, the player was part of the UEA and so is the instructor. The hint that one can buy missiles from a local dealer is also not military like.
Of course when the instructor just gives a briefing for the mission and you get to know the basic flying of the fighter and is not from the military itself I do not complain. I really like it in this case.

All discussible...
It might be me, and wanting a Freelancer like feeling...
Or that you are at the beginning of a game, not only do your weapons barely any damage, you hit almost nothing, and then you even have to worry about ammunition.

Good point and this is something I'm not yet sure how to solve this or how to defend my point.

About shields: Have you ever thought, of what would happen if a tiny pebble (1/10mm diameter) hit your ship a 10km/s... it perforates the hull. And they even say that space is empty. Well there is an awful lot of space for those little buggers.. (yea, I know the got some satellites to Pluto and further on) - [don't take me to serious]
I don't say that they need to be powerful, but the should provide some basic protection...

A lot of movies and games work without shields.
Take Babylon 5: As for now I've never seen a shield. In Freespace, the enemy had shields, which was really frustrating. It was really cool to have a later tutorial to learn about the shields installed on your ship. And even then it was only for the little ships. Cruisers were too big for shields.
Battlestar Galactica never had shields either.
The hull could be enough protection for starters, but I agree that we can discuss technology again.

[nicolasc]

I sometimes need 2 tries to tell what I meant to tell...

I see the main problem if we go too "low tech" that it will be difficult to keep a certain level of realism - and I am in favor of some realism (too much makes it unplayable, or boring)

A lot of movies and games work without shields. <snip>

Fair enough... The advantage in Freespace was, that you were a military pilot, and they had a need for shields, so the entire fleet/fighter squd was equipped. In Orxonox I see because you are supposed to be a "civilian" pilot, you have not the privilege/right to have access to shields...

Another idea - also how to introduce orx: using it as a regenerating hull armor (B5 (whitestar ships and vorlons) and Seaquest use that idea, but it would we very powerful)

cheers
nico

[BadElvis]

I think, this is a great start that doesn't bother with much details and brings the player more or less directly into action.
Concerning the instructor, I also think it should be an UEA employee or this tutorial should be programmed into the ship, since it only takes 5 minutes or so.
At the mom, the light escort ship is equipped with 2 Sunray (cool Name!) lasers and no missiles, but this can change of course. Also, it doesn't have any shield generators yet.

I think nicolasc also meant, that humans don't have hyper drive technology but they can stop the weapon system so that all the available energy is used for the engines, which is then called cruise mode.

I hope your DM-exam didn't have to suffer while you wrote this nice piece of story...

Greetings!

[nicolasc]

Concerning the instructor, I also think it should be an UEA employee or this tutorial should be programmed into the ship, since it only takes 5 minutes or so.

Debatable...
And I like the idea, of having it programmed into the ships computer - this would also give you an explanation why I can be skipped. (I hate force tutorials at the beginning.)

I think nicolasc also meant, that humas dont have hyper drive technology but they can stop the weapon system so that all the available energy is used for the engines, which is then called cruise mode.

x3n and I discussed, how to create a universe, which is realistically large - the opposite of marble sized planets in Freelancer - and some simple possibility to travel long distances without having to wait all day... The solution was to create 2 types of engines: While the cruise-engines are used for local cruising - flying around the planet in 5(?) minutes, going for a little trip to the moon in 15(?) minutes - the hyperspace engine is used to travel "large" distances in a reasonable time, mainly used to travel from only PoI (Point of Interest) to the next - i.e Earth to Jupiter in 5 minutes.
Sure, I do have any problem with just using time lapse, but I was thinking of multiplayer mode with some autonomy - i.e coop mode in smaller groups, think MMORPG - and there time lapse is not really possible...
But again, this is my opinion on how Orxonox should be...

I hope your DM-exam didn't have to suffer while you wrote this nice piece of story...

you mean this piece of joke we had today... naw, was flawless - well almost.

cheers
nico