Idea: Space Station Mode

[Kestral B]

[wall of text]

That sounds really cool actually, but it loses the really awesome thing about the OP: that almost no code changes (if any) would be needed to implement it.
What you're describing would take a massive amount of code work, creating whole new systems for managing multiple ships simultaneously, etc, etc.

[Oichean]

So, So, SO much yes! Modders have done amazing things with more complicated games, i'm sure SOMEONE will take a look at this.
For now i'll just waste all my fuel and float about.

[godzilla200000]

If it does get made and its one where you start as space station there should be an easter egg event involving the kestral.

[Justin]

Interesting idea. Sounds cool.

However I think it'd be sad to lose the 'choice' of deciding where to go and only have a wait button to get the next prescribed event. Maybe you'd have to give the feeling of choice another way, i.e. a more complicated version of whether or not you have the distress beacon turned on. Some way of influencing which events would come.

Maybe you'd also just need to make events come based on time, not 'wait cycles' since you're no longer jumping from place to place. So potentially you could be having a fight with a rebel, you put up your distress beacon, and at some point another event triggers where some other ship comes to help. Which means multi-ship combat. And also repairing maybe needs to be a considerably slower process so that you're trying to get your weapons online hoping another ship doesn't jump nearby. And probably the ability to add rooms (rather than just add systems to specific rooms).
So... basically it sounds like a totally separate game, haha. Sounds awesome though.

NOTE: I'm not saying that we'll work on something like this or not, I just like joining in on theoretical gameplay design discussions.

[TheMadnils]

an addition to my original post. When you send two ships to gather allies and technology, you should start like in the campaign, only with two ships. the sectors would be random, but the eight would be the homeworld of the species. in the speciffic homeworld, you earn the trust of the species in speciffic events. for example, to get the mantis to help you, you would have to win a fighting tournament, for the slugs, you would need to outsmart them somehow and so on.

[TheMadnils]

you wold usually only move one ship at the time, they could even be in diffrent sectors. they would share their scrap supply, but not the other resources. If you meet in one sector, you would be able to exchange crew, supplies, wheapons etc.. if one ship dies, its lost, if you were in the same galaxy, there would be an event where you gather the ships remainings. If both ships die, you failed to earn the species trust and you won't be able to get their boni or hire their species. Also, you should only use the kestrals for basedefense, the federationcruisers would be searching for the scientists that invented the artillery beam. for the support ships i mentioned, there should only be six, not twenty. You would be able to buy stuff like cloaking for them and programm your own ai for them. there would be some presets, like a boarder strategy and so on, but you will have the option to decide completly on your own, if you take the time, for example when to cloak, when to shoot, what to do if systems get dameged and so on. you could save these strategies and build identical ships next time, wich would use the same ai.

[TheMadnils]

you would be able to pause the game within your kestrelfights to see what the ships are doing and possibly changing thefe strategy. this would add a completly new layer of multitasking. i forgot to mention that the basedefense happens evry time you leave a sector with your explorationteam. if one ship reaches the longrangebeacon first, it would be frozen there until the other one reaches it too or dies. this would stretch FTL into an multihour expetince without ever getting boring. what do you think about this idea?

[Spleenling]

Well there could be more than just random encounters maybe you also have to make sure your crew has food (Instead of fuel) with a larger vessel you might have much more repairs to make.
and maybe taking a long time there might be maintenance required on the station.
also some systems might be split 4 separate life support systems serving 4 sector of the station if one goes down you could re-task others but have less oxygen across the station.
there is a lot of potential here