Forums » Suggestions
Screen dumps, 3rd party music, and whatever else I can think of :)
I'll start off by saying that I have no idea how easy or difficult implementing these suggestions would be, but I'm just throwing them out.
Screen Dumps: I use a Mac, and putting the screen dumps in into the Vendetta package is about as unintuitive as you can get. Especially since OS 10.3.5's standard search feature doesn't seem especially interested in looking within packages to find files. Perhaps a option in the preferences menu to establish a save path to wherever you want your dumps to go.
3rd Party Music: I listen to iTunes while playing Vendetta and it's an occasional annoyance that I can't at the very least advance to the next or previous track. It'd be neat if you could link to major 3rd party music players (iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc) and maybe /itunes next_track or something.
IRC Active Players: Maybe have the server update IRC a bit more frequently. It doesn't need to check every minute, but maybe whenever a player logs on or logs off, IRC makes a note of it. Last night, when I logged on, IRC said that there were 3 Serco online, but someone said that the webpage said that there were 4 Serco. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I would have thought that the two would match.
Automatic Repair Device: A pass that you buy that automatically repairs all the damage that you can afford, upon landing at a station. I frequently forget to repair my ship when I'm thinking of other things, so I waste time returning to the entry dock. This is especially bad if someone with malicious intent were waiting for me to exit, so if you had to pay for an item that automatically repairs you, that's one less thing you'd have to think about. You still need to pay for your repairs (when repairs aren't free anymore), but this is kinda like the auto-refueller in Escape Velocity - you still have to pay for your fuel - but you don't need to think about it anymore.
Convoy Escorts: Aside from the problems already mentioned, I think instead of being TyCorp Assaults and Fennus R-18 Guardians, it'd be cool if the escorts flew standard (and nation specific) ships. Maybe (but not limited to) two Vultures and a Prometheus armed with random combinations of mid and high level energy (Phased Blaster, Tachyon Blaster, etc), projectile (flechette, railgun, gatling) and missile weapons. Of course, if the ship has multiple ports, and receives a multiple energy weapon loadout, it'll take a homogenous higher level loadout. For instance, say one of the Vultures gets a Tachyon II and an Ion II in the random pick. It would take two Tachyon IIs instead of having to deal with such an odd loadout. Okay, so this would be pretty tough to implement, but it'd make it easier for player escorts to blend into the bots and make them harder for the potential raider to pick out visually.
Station Interface: I've thought this ever since it was implemented, but I think it's rather clumsy that to load your bought weapons on your ship, and to group them, takes two different menus. I think it'd be better if they were put under one menu. I can think of one good way, and I've mentioned it before. This time, however, I'll post a series of rough concept images.
http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/vendetta_img/loadout.jpg
http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/vendetta_img/cargo.jpg
You simply drag items from the left-hand list to the location on the schematic to load it on your ship. From there, you can click on the location and then add to the group. To unload the weapon, you drag it off of the schematic and drop it on the station where you want it to go. If you are not at that particular station at the time, it will unload the weapon automatically when you arrive at that station.
Because I displaced the cargo unloading, I've created a new cargo menu. It removes cargo items from the weapon and battery buy list, and puts them in the new cargo menu. You can buy, sell, load, and unload cargo all from a single menu.
In my mind, this is far more intuitive, and would be faster and easier for (especially beginner) players to master.
That's all I have for now, but that's enough, isn't it? I hope at least some good will come of these suggestions.
Screen Dumps: I use a Mac, and putting the screen dumps in into the Vendetta package is about as unintuitive as you can get. Especially since OS 10.3.5's standard search feature doesn't seem especially interested in looking within packages to find files. Perhaps a option in the preferences menu to establish a save path to wherever you want your dumps to go.
3rd Party Music: I listen to iTunes while playing Vendetta and it's an occasional annoyance that I can't at the very least advance to the next or previous track. It'd be neat if you could link to major 3rd party music players (iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc) and maybe /itunes next_track or something.
IRC Active Players: Maybe have the server update IRC a bit more frequently. It doesn't need to check every minute, but maybe whenever a player logs on or logs off, IRC makes a note of it. Last night, when I logged on, IRC said that there were 3 Serco online, but someone said that the webpage said that there were 4 Serco. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I would have thought that the two would match.
Automatic Repair Device: A pass that you buy that automatically repairs all the damage that you can afford, upon landing at a station. I frequently forget to repair my ship when I'm thinking of other things, so I waste time returning to the entry dock. This is especially bad if someone with malicious intent were waiting for me to exit, so if you had to pay for an item that automatically repairs you, that's one less thing you'd have to think about. You still need to pay for your repairs (when repairs aren't free anymore), but this is kinda like the auto-refueller in Escape Velocity - you still have to pay for your fuel - but you don't need to think about it anymore.
Convoy Escorts: Aside from the problems already mentioned, I think instead of being TyCorp Assaults and Fennus R-18 Guardians, it'd be cool if the escorts flew standard (and nation specific) ships. Maybe (but not limited to) two Vultures and a Prometheus armed with random combinations of mid and high level energy (Phased Blaster, Tachyon Blaster, etc), projectile (flechette, railgun, gatling) and missile weapons. Of course, if the ship has multiple ports, and receives a multiple energy weapon loadout, it'll take a homogenous higher level loadout. For instance, say one of the Vultures gets a Tachyon II and an Ion II in the random pick. It would take two Tachyon IIs instead of having to deal with such an odd loadout. Okay, so this would be pretty tough to implement, but it'd make it easier for player escorts to blend into the bots and make them harder for the potential raider to pick out visually.
Station Interface: I've thought this ever since it was implemented, but I think it's rather clumsy that to load your bought weapons on your ship, and to group them, takes two different menus. I think it'd be better if they were put under one menu. I can think of one good way, and I've mentioned it before. This time, however, I'll post a series of rough concept images.
http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/vendetta_img/loadout.jpg
http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/vendetta_img/cargo.jpg
You simply drag items from the left-hand list to the location on the schematic to load it on your ship. From there, you can click on the location and then add to the group. To unload the weapon, you drag it off of the schematic and drop it on the station where you want it to go. If you are not at that particular station at the time, it will unload the weapon automatically when you arrive at that station.
Because I displaced the cargo unloading, I've created a new cargo menu. It removes cargo items from the weapon and battery buy list, and puts them in the new cargo menu. You can buy, sell, load, and unload cargo all from a single menu.
In my mind, this is far more intuitive, and would be faster and easier for (especially beginner) players to master.
That's all I have for now, but that's enough, isn't it? I hope at least some good will come of these suggestions.
well I'll fill in the IRC thing...
IRC is a player created and maintained addition to vendetta, It reads the active players from the list on this very site, but has been requested to only check every 10 minutes.
hmmm iTunes connection...
I can think of a way to do it, but I'll leave it up to someone else. ;)
-Cam-
IRC is a player created and maintained addition to vendetta, It reads the active players from the list on this very site, but has been requested to only check every 10 minutes.
hmmm iTunes connection...
I can think of a way to do it, but I'll leave it up to someone else. ;)
-Cam-
We wanted to avoid drag-n-drop but it looks like that was a bad decision.
Perhaps have both options.
raybondo: doesn't HAVE to be drag-n-drop. Just seemed kinda "neato." Selecting the weapon and then the port, and pressing a "load" button" is fine too, but I just wanted to try to clean it up a bit by reducing the number of buttons on the screen.