Notes on ships :

when on a major storyline, playing as part of a races military, ship outfits are fixed. can only be modified in certain ways, choosable by selecting a specific 'refit package'

armament will be 'broadside' based. frontal / dorsal / ventral / rear armament will be limited.

missiles will be primary weapons, with long to medium ranges. energy weapons will be secondary and very short ranged.

all warships will carry small craft. mostly pinnaces , larger vessels will also carry shuttles. there will be NO fighters. pinnaces will be combat capable, but only against other pinnaces, using them against warships will not be feasible. shuttles will essentially be escape craft.

as in SFA, if your ship is destroyed while you're on a major storyline, you get offered a new command at 0 cost, but with a reputation penalty. if your reputation falls too low, you get put through a court martial , done as a purely text mission. your choice of response when offered them will determine whether or not you get offered another command or whether it's essentially 'game over'.

Q-Ships will be present on convoy missions after a certain date. Q-Ship armament will vary, but will not be less than equivalent to a battlecruiser class warship, and not greater than that of a dreadnaught class warship. shields and maneuverability thereof will NOT be equal to said warship classes, but WILL be greater than that of the merchant vessel they're pretending to be. one optional mission string will involve taking command of a Q-Ship and performing convoy defense duties.

all vessels will essentially be inertialess to represent the impeller drive system, and to incorporate the necessity for deceleration times

after acheiving Commander rank, crew selection will be an option. ( obvious limits apply, crew must be junior in rank to player, dependent on availability in outfitters, etc.)

while there will be no fighters, later on in the game time line, a Light Attack Craft Carrier will become available.

LAC's will perform a similar role to fighters, inasmuch as a swarm of LAC's will be capable of taking out some capital ships, and acting as part of a defensive screen. LAC on LAC combat will be possible, but their stats will in no way resemble what is classically considered to be a fighter.

LAC's will have correspondingly low armour and shield values, and will have VERY limited magazines, to represent each launcher essentially being a preloaded 'box' launcher ( akin to that used in, say, patriot missile batteries, but held internally). their missiles will be .. more powerful than expected, but as stated, in short supply. hence the necessity for swarm tactics.

later in the game, more advanced LAC's will be 'developed' with better missiles, and  some variants with energy weapons.




notes on the galaxy :


galaxy will be split into 'sectors' , and travel between sectors will be possible only by means of 'nodes'. representative of sectors of the galaxy being unexplored. access to nodes will be controlled by passes. (without the pass, if you get too close to the node, orbital forts will destroy the players ship, so, theoretically possible to evade defense and use the node, but very, very difficut to acheive )

each major race will have a main storyline, several minor storylines which work into it ( but some of which will be mutually exclusive, and may determine the path of the main one) some 'main' storylines will be unavoidable when offered ( representative of specific events ). there 'will' be pirates, with their own storylines, but that'll be a series of minor storylines which continue onwards, while events continues to happen around the player, without player intervention. it won't be a major storyline, in that the players actions won't have a noticeable effect on the game 'universe', but will be of comparable 'length' to a main storyline.

three major races.

1.) alliance style race, composed of multiple subraces working towards common goals. ( think rebel alliance from star wars, but without the 'rebel' status ) , focused on preventing race 2 from absorbing them.

2.) monolithic race , large unweildy government, focused on territorial expansion, very imperial mindset.

3.) somewhere inbetween the two, unweildy government, but composed of multiple races, only really interested in maintaining the status quo ante.

none of the races will be human.


notes on missions :



each race will have its own ' home sector' of the galaxy, which will largely remain uninvolved in the main storylines. (some recruitment missions may be available there, and some of the covert missions will require travel to them ), but most of the storyline will take part in a central 'shared' area, generally composed of 'neutral' systems to begin with. as the timeline moves onwards, and the conflict advances , minor skirmishes will begin to take place, and systems will begin to join the 'alliance' race, while some other systems are taken over by the monolithic race. the third race will have minor expansion into the area, but very minor compared to the two 'combatant' races, and will not... directly become involved in the conflict (their missions will mostly be covert, landing troops to prevent other races developing technologies, or pretending to be pirates to ambush convoys, or 'sub contracting' their military to neutral systems to help stem advances , and suchlike )

'most' systems will have somewhere to land, whether it be a planet or a 'waystation' type thing. there 'will' be empty systems out there though, and at times, chains of them, not always located where you'd expect them, so anyone exploring would be well advised to ensure they have 'some means of fuel regeneration. (there'll be reactors, and solar panels, as always, but solar panels will be EXCEPTIONALLY slow at recharging your fuel.)

some missions will be of the 'behind enemy lines' variety, of which some will be 'surprise assault' variety, some will be 'scouting', some will be 'covert insertion', and some will be outright 'take control of system' missions. frequency of these types of missions will be dependent on which main storyline you're on. won't be present on pirate storylines.


notes on trading :

some commodities will be shared between the races. some will be race specific. some perishable, some not. values of commodities will vary along with cron events in the storylines, to reflect, for example, the need for technological parts during fleet buildups, the desire for food on blockaded planets, etc.

certain race specific commodities will be illegal for another race. penalties will vary between drop in legal status, and being declared an enemy of the state.

pirates will be able to trade in illegal commodities, and also to participate in the 'galactic slave trade', which is illegal for ALL races. being caught shipping slaves will set a bit to declare the player to be an enemy to all non pirate governments, an will result in them being attacked on sight by all non pirate warship AI'd vessels.