Post by stormprooter on Jan 7, 2014 10:15:39 GMT
The Pathway to Trade Lane Attacks
In the original ELITE, one of the signature features of the gameplay was that you could never be certain that your run from the hyperspace beacon to the space station would be easy and without incident. Even in the most civilised Corporate State there was always the chance that some unscrupulous pirate gang would want to fry your ship and take your precious cargo. This was achieved by said pirates 'mass-locking' your ship, preventing it from using the jump drive, and more or less forcing you to defend yourself.
In Freelancer: Mostly Harmless, these gameplay mechanisms are simply not available, we have jump gates to pass between star systems, and trade lanes to quickly move around within each system.
However, the Freelancer game engine does provide a gameplay mechanism where trade lane travel can be disrupted, and the player will be attacked by the bad guys.
The Freelancer mechanism depends upon something called ‘Patrol Paths’, these are already implemented for the Police, you may have seen them patrolling around the space stations, waiting to stop and inspect you for any contraband, and also to enforce the law so civilians may go about their lawful business in peace. Implementing patrol paths for pirates presents a few more problems, as pirate patrol paths have a few dependencies which are not yet implemented.
A pirate patrol path must start and end at either a pirate base or a jump hole. We have jump holes, but no pirate bases. I can add pirate bases, but these really should be somewhat hidden or obscured, this is best done by putting them in asteroid/debris fields, with some extra hazards such as volatile gas pockets and mines. I do not have asteroid/debris fields in the mod as yet. Adding asteroid/debris fields then also opens up the possibility of adding mineable areas and hidden wrecks containing lovely loot. Also, adding pirate bases open up a future development to allow the player to become ‘friendly’ with the pirate factions, and become an outlaw themselves.
So this is the plan for the next phase of development:
1. Add Asteroid/Debris Fields
2. Add Pirate bases within these fields
3. Create pirate patrols out of these bases, which will include trade lane attack paths
In the original ELITE, one of the signature features of the gameplay was that you could never be certain that your run from the hyperspace beacon to the space station would be easy and without incident. Even in the most civilised Corporate State there was always the chance that some unscrupulous pirate gang would want to fry your ship and take your precious cargo. This was achieved by said pirates 'mass-locking' your ship, preventing it from using the jump drive, and more or less forcing you to defend yourself.
In Freelancer: Mostly Harmless, these gameplay mechanisms are simply not available, we have jump gates to pass between star systems, and trade lanes to quickly move around within each system.
However, the Freelancer game engine does provide a gameplay mechanism where trade lane travel can be disrupted, and the player will be attacked by the bad guys.
The Freelancer mechanism depends upon something called ‘Patrol Paths’, these are already implemented for the Police, you may have seen them patrolling around the space stations, waiting to stop and inspect you for any contraband, and also to enforce the law so civilians may go about their lawful business in peace. Implementing patrol paths for pirates presents a few more problems, as pirate patrol paths have a few dependencies which are not yet implemented.
A pirate patrol path must start and end at either a pirate base or a jump hole. We have jump holes, but no pirate bases. I can add pirate bases, but these really should be somewhat hidden or obscured, this is best done by putting them in asteroid/debris fields, with some extra hazards such as volatile gas pockets and mines. I do not have asteroid/debris fields in the mod as yet. Adding asteroid/debris fields then also opens up the possibility of adding mineable areas and hidden wrecks containing lovely loot. Also, adding pirate bases open up a future development to allow the player to become ‘friendly’ with the pirate factions, and become an outlaw themselves.
So this is the plan for the next phase of development:
1. Add Asteroid/Debris Fields
2. Add Pirate bases within these fields
3. Create pirate patrols out of these bases, which will include trade lane attack paths