Good question!szaumix wrote: ↑Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:22 pmCholmondely, has this thread come up with the kinds of ideas you were looking for? I value the idea of exploration really highly, as well as non-linear things to do. It's one of my main attractions to this game -- very much more so than combat and generalized action which in any case is invariably too easy no matter how much I tweak for difficulty.
I suspect that there are two main schools of thought exemplifed in this thread.
1) The radical rejig
- create new galaxies using the Oolite game engine (as per Cim's AltMap).
- create an invasion of Thargoids in some of the Eight where the immediate F6 screen electronic maps are rendered out of date, and a new Dark Age is ushered in.
2) Faffing at the fringes
- rejig things so that some become more rare, or are restricted to, say, just the one galaxy (eg Redspear's lasers or Switeck's orbital stations), thus introducing elements of exploration.
- create a number of unique experiences in various of the galaxies which cry out for exploration (eg a revamped Lave.oxp, TOGY, Tianve Pulsar, etc.)
I hope that that is a fair summary.
As an ignoramus of the Dark Arts, I suspect that I might be able to do something with 1b. But I've not really penetrated beyond Galaxy 1 so far (lousy combat skills), hence I feel no immediate urge. Maybe we could introduce some new maps for Oolite which combined with ZeroMap (for instance) would provide a much more explorational environment which could then be adumbrated with relevant oxp's. I do think that that would be the easiest to manage.
Edited to add: We Ooliters are very lucky that various people have added things to the game which make many of these possibilities much easier to realise. Cim's scenarios, A_C_'s graphics, the absolutely amazing collection of .oxp's...
