although this is a space sim, sector after sector is filled with astorids for us to kill bots around an what not. What if some sectors were based around a large moon or part of a planet that you would fight around. Or maybe a large moon that had a cave network though it that you would fly though an fight bots in. Anything to add something different then the same old sector with your white, blue, or brown astroids floating around. Maybe even some sectors stations would be down on the planet. So you have to fly down to the plaet to dock, an leave the plaet an go back out into space to jump into a different sector.

Also for the bots, maybe their could be areas that the bots spawn from their own type of capital ships or space stations of their own. And for a group mission your group has to take out the bot capital ship or space station. Witch wouldn't be ease. You have to fight the bots protecting the station wile tryign to do a massave ammount of damage to the station or ship witch could have its own defences. But then everyone in the group would gain a very large plus to combat, light and heavy weapons. These missions would spawn a ship or station in a empty sector of space. When you take the mission it would tell you what sector it is in. It would only say spawned for an hour so that ppl dont keep takeing mission after mission just to spawn these things everywhere. But if the station or ship is under attack from the group it would not despawn. So if it takes players a really long time for to do what it takes to kill the station or ship, it doesn't dissapear right before their pay off. Also if you are not a member of a group that takes the mission, another player or gropu wouldn't get the plus to combat, light an heavy weapons if they come along an kill the station. Or steal the kill of the station or ship from the group that started the mission.

This would add something for the groups to do other then killing bots one by one.

{FRG} TyGeR

There are problems of scale involved. Do you have any idea of how big a planet is?

We've actually had asteroids in the past that were big enough to have cavern complexes inside. In fact, there once was (and maybe there still is) an asteroid that contained a secret station inside it.

In the past we've had stations that had something like interiors. We've also had 'racetrack' tunnels that you could fly inside. Some of the more mazelike 'racetracks' had a feel very much like Descent. In other words, some of the tools for developing something like what you want are already there.

But if afraid that basically everything in space is going to boil down to different shaped and colored lumps floating in space. Even a large moon (and I've been wanting a system for texturing multi-kilometer 'moons' for some time) is ultimately just a big lump in space, whether its 1000m across or 30000m across.

As for the rest of it, I imagine its coming. But ultimately, even complex missions involving combat with multiple foes and capital ships boils down to killing bots one by one. The only thing that ever disguises that fact is a story which attributes signifigance to bots and lumps of rock and makes you forget that basically all of these things are the same.

TyGeR, well you could go hunt down and kill Hive Queens.

I wouldnt mind a game that offered an atmospheric descent.. infact i recall a game that was based around it in some for or another.. I never picked it up though so im not sure as to the ins and outs.. this engine has quite some potential, the size would be sustantialy increased by adding something of that magnitude.. BUT not totaly out of the question either.. An expansion pack maybe ? I doubt the game could scale seamlessly through the scale involved but going from a space view scale to a surface scale view could be as simple as what loading a new sector is now.

New phsyics would have to be created and put into play.. if you desend wrong you could burn.. would be cool and would take a good bit of practice, a steady hand, and a keen visual sense of your console read outs.. maybe more content past that could be added to make a descent worth it... the possabilies are endless..

Maybe one day computers will be able to handle Accurate reduring of such concepts seamlessly.. thats a day i look foward to.. but one step at a time :)

TS-Midnight: I suspect that a single person game could handle the problems of scale quite easily by setting the coordinate system's center to be that of the player's ship. But a multiplayer game has the additional problem that it must keep track of the position everyone in the sector, and to do this with precision requires that the distance between them never be too great.