Near Incoherent Ramble About An Unfeasible Multiplayer Mode

[JimBadger]

I love this game. Please excuse the gushy, mushy thought-splurge that now follows. I could neither contain it, nor explain it any more than I have done:

Oh, and also apologies if none of this is new. I've posted excitedly before reading anything. I know, that makes me a Bad Person.

Are there plans for multiplayer? I'd love to dice it up with another human player; trying to take out his hull while the *bleep* boards me and starts trashing my weapons room.

I'm seeing a huge online game where hundreds of players start in "the sector one layer", which is the outside ring of a massive, "universe" with 8 layers. So, there are, say 500 sector ones, then 300 sector twos, and so on, down to a single sector 8.

Each sector is like a single player sector map, only slightly larger and the exit is always in the middle. X number of players start at random points around the edges of this sector. And then, off they go...get to the end of that sector, helping or hindering each other whenever they meet at a system. Jump to the next sector, meeting the survivors of the sectors adjacent to yours, who are also advancing to the next sector, which dovetails into your new one. There'd be more than one of the X players in your own sector getting through, too, of course.

The idea needs work though, because how would you stop people just racing ahead through the sectors, just to be the first to get through to sector 8 to face....umm, yeah, I also need an "end game" scenario! Co-op boss battle? Elimination tournament between the first ship to arrive from each of the sector 7s? Something cooler than that, that I haven't thought of yet?

But, what about having a quiet moment to work on your ship after a battle, if there's no pause? What's to stop another player jumping into your current jump point and trashing you? That can be explained away through any number of hand-wavy reasons, just so as not to spoil gameplay. Maybe after a fight you go into a pre-warp bubble outside of space time, so you can't be touched by another passerby until you're ready. Or maybe it's just brutal, and if you get attacked while you're not ready, tough shit. Fight/flight/explode; the choice is yours! ("Stop exploding you cowards!")

I would also like an expansion to the single player where you can a) fight against multiple enemy ships at once. b) control multiple ships (build up a mini fleet, basically). c) Control *bleeping* massive ships, with loads more components and crew. d) Co-op control of said massive ships. e) No, I'll stop for now...

FTL is just the sort of game I wished I'd made, and resembles numerous game ideas I've had over the years that have been birthed and finally drowned in the bubbling pool that is my mind.

And breathe....

No, wait....Hmm, how would you deal with people camping "spawn" points in, say, sector 2? Maybe you'd still have to use the Rebel fleet mechanism. Keep moving, or the rebels will sweep up everybody. (The rebs simply come in from all sides of the sector, now. Now that the exit is in the middle.)