G'day, and a wall of assorted suggestions + questions

[Darkmega]

Hey all. I've been following Particle fleet for a decent while, watching all of virgil's vids on his youtube, and since lately once they all started coming out, been getting my PF video fixes off Shadeofdead and the others who post often. :P Figured I'd finally join up after just watching around and say g'day and stuff, then start throwing ideas at you all. So, here I am, name's Darkmega, pleased to meet you all. :D

So first up, a little thing I remember mentioned in someones video was about energy mines prioritizing sending energy, and when they're having a hard time sending energy it not taking secondary energy out of things like tankers and microtankers, and that someone had to move their ship out of energy range so that it could instead get it's energy from a tanker which still had full reserves and wasn't sending it's storage excess out.
So I figured I'd bring that up, would you be able to make it so that you can somehow have a small entry box on ship selections and type in a number in this box and when a ship has a higher number on it than another it will prioritize getting energy from mines, and if mines reach the maximum energy they can send or you simply don't have enough stored to meet requirements a way to set units with ports and energy storage to be told to disperse energy even to things within power zones to help add to the supply.

There was also an old thing in one of virgil's old videos where he got a ship to pick up a ship part for an MK7 and then he was able to place it on a ship, which is probably the bignose now which comes with it pre-equipped, but is that still a possibility? Cause I figured it'd be a cool thing for maps to have the ability to say find reactors or ports lying around like literal wreckage that the crew talk about in the story missions and actually scavenge up bits off the asteroids and place them on ships that are predesigned with the ability to place new equipment on them, and the ship remembers if it had that by default or not and the part gets jettisoned like an amp gem does when it blows. Or was that ability/way of getting tech removed for specific (design) reasons and left with static ships and finding whole ship schematics as it is now for a reason?

Final suggestiony question, I was wondering if people can make/edit the HQ ship for missions so to "play as another corporation" with a better or different ship. Since I remember an old screenshot, possibly one of virgils where he had the HQ2 on the bottom of a list in the ship editor that is used as Varro's capital ship in the prologue cinematic, and I'd probably enjoy the ability of being able to do that myself.

Now one questionquestion. When the steam version is properly out will the "corporation in the game" thing be a buying option or is that on the side straight to virgil? and could there be a soundtrack or something to get? cause for a few days I've been humming that really cool violiny bit that comes on in the middle of the second song that plays and it's just stuck in my head, so I want it. :V

then just one last thing that isn't a suggestion... But when I was on facebook and searched particle fleet the first thing that came up was a post about there being a version of particle fleet uploaded on skidrow and stuff for download, and I had come across it once at another time when google searching particle fleet. So it seems one of the beta testers went and did you guys dirty a while ago. Although it's obviously not up to date as the beta is like 22 or something now from the changelog virgil does, but I just wanted to mention it, to see the reaction since there was a post I saw about someone suggesting protections to block that kind of thing but looks like too late. :V

anyway, thanks for reading. now, lets discuss! ...or something. :)

[knucracker]

Couple things real fast (it's crunch time, so my time is limited this week).

I don't know if the CITG will go live on the 29th or not.  Probably not, we will see.  It will come soon after if not.  There will be a package that includes a CITG key, the soundtrack, and probably scans of my developer notes.  It will all be in a package and sold as an addon.  Nothing required to play the game of course, just something extra for anyone who wants those things and wants to show some extra support.

As for the pirated version...yes, one of the 'press' people did a bad thing (and yes, I know which one).  That said, there are also fake versions floating around that are just malware.  Even some of the leaked versions piggy-back malware.  So for anyone reading this, do yourself a favor and steer clear if you see something like that.  The pirated versions of any game usually come with more than you bargain for.

[Darkmega]

Roger that. Thanks a plenty for the quick reply. Here's hoping for an awesome launch. :D

[Relli]

To add my voice to the mix, and to make sure it doesn't get lost in the wall of text, I am MASSIVELY excited about the idea of making a customizable HQ ship. Those who love overpowered ships can go crazy (within limits, perhaps), but it also allows you to weaken the HQ instead. Or simply tweak it to, as was mentioned, resemble the headquarters of a different company. Perhaps one of lesser means, or with a specific design. There's so much you can do with it.
One thing does come to mind...what if the HQ has no Lathe? You wouldn't be able to claim any energy mines to begin your fleet. I suppose one possible alternative would be to give your HQ a port so that it can build a lathe on its own, but it might be simpler just to lock the HQ so that it requires a Lathe. Even though it'd be cool to disclude one...
And lastly, what of the size of the...."HQ Module", for lack of a better term? The large blue portion that serves as a kill-zone. Would that be modifiable as well, or would allowing it to shrink down be perhaps too overpowered? Though I'd guess there are plenty other ways to make things overpowered, so what's the harm in allowing one more? (And that's not rhetorical. That's just for you to decide while considering the idea)
This ended up being a wall of text of its own, but there're my thoughts on this idea. I think it would be amazing, plain and simple. I want to design a Solaris HQ of my very own :)
(Oh, and they should be rename-able!)

[Darkmega]

To add my voice to the mix, and to make sure it doesn't get lost in the wall of text, I am MASSIVELY excited about the idea of making a customizable HQ ship. Those who love overpowered ships can go crazy (within limits, perhaps), but it also allows you to weaken the HQ instead. Or simply tweak it to, as was mentioned, resemble the headquarters of a different company. Perhaps one of lesser means, or with a specific design. There's so much you can do with it.
One thing does come to mind...what if the HQ has no Lathe? You wouldn't be able to claim any energy mines to begin your fleet. I suppose one possible alternative would be to give your HQ a port so that it can build a lathe on its own, but it might be simpler just to lock the HQ so that it requires a Lathe. Even though it'd be cool to disclude one...
And lastly, what of the size of the...."HQ Module", for lack of a better term? The large blue portion that serves as a kill-zone. Would that be modifiable as well, or would allowing it to shrink down be perhaps too overpowered? Though I'd guess there are plenty other ways to make things overpowered, so what's the harm in allowing one more? (And that's not rhetorical. That's just for you to decide while considering the idea)
This ended up being a wall of text of its own, but there're my thoughts on this idea. I think it would be amazing, plain and simple. I want to design a Solaris HQ of my very own :)
(Oh, and they should be rename-able!)

Barely a wall of text compared to what I end up putting out on forums when I get excited about making ideas, but yes, all this, yes. A port or a lathe should be a requirement. It'd be pretty cool to make a HQ thats more like a small fighter of some kind but is highly microable. But then since it's the HQ it'd have that blue extension on it which sorta limits you to making a small capital ship rather than something thats say more like a large fighter instead.

But then again, it could be made proportional to the ship up to a certain point? so ships smaller than the normal HQ if the ship is marked as HQ the bridge area would be reduced in size to fit inside the ship. but of course, up for debate. I'd also guess that the HQ always spawns with full energy and due to reactors it has enough to keep itself going for long times without being in zones being able to make it a tanker rather than a lathe could be a cool alternate start, for say a corporation that uses mostly small agile attack ships with really cheap "lathe drones" and stuff that has not much survivability.