How would you prefer starship rooms worked?
Each ship will be able to have up to X rooms, with X determined by the size of the ship's superstructure.
The question I have is whether you'd prefer to be able to fully re-describe both the room title and the room description, which will surely lead to some completely insane ship interiors, or would whether you'd prefer to have some semblance of sanity enforced via room titles that can't be changed.
So, for instance, in the first case you could create, "A lava-filled skull" as the room title, and then describe the room however you want.
In the second-case, you'd choose from a wide selection of room types, like galley, bedroom, engine room, cargo hold, etc, and the room title would always remain that. "The Engine Room of the HMS Puffenstuff," for instance, though you'd then be able to describe the room however you want.
The main implications are whether we'd reference room names on a ship when telling you where another player is or not. In the case of fully free-form rooms, we probably wouldn't, because "Bob is in a lava-filled skull aboard the Panda Express" is not sci-fi sounding.
The question I have is whether you'd prefer to be able to fully re-describe both the room title and the room description, which will surely lead to some completely insane ship interiors, or would whether you'd prefer to have some semblance of sanity enforced via room titles that can't be changed.
So, for instance, in the first case you could create, "A lava-filled skull" as the room title, and then describe the room however you want.
In the second-case, you'd choose from a wide selection of room types, like galley, bedroom, engine room, cargo hold, etc, and the room title would always remain that. "The Engine Room of the HMS Puffenstuff," for instance, though you'd then be able to describe the room however you want.
The main implications are whether we'd reference room names on a ship when telling you where another player is or not. In the case of fully free-form rooms, we probably wouldn't, because "Bob is in a lava-filled skull aboard the Panda Express" is not sci-fi sounding.
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Also, it'd allow for cool room nicknames. Why would I want my galley room to be called the galley room when I could call it the Peanut Galley.
For example, will there be ship boarding? If so, that would reinforce my vote for fixed room names as I would prefer not to deal with someone naming their rooms in such a way that I have no idea where I am on the ship (it's a good idea, but I'm not convinced it would make for fun/fair gameplay). On the other hand, if no one will ever see the inside of my ship except me, it might make more sense to have free form room names after all.
Just some thoughts I had on this! For now, fixed room names FTW!
Jin
VOTE FOR STARMOURN
if there's no kittens in space
I'm going on a rampage
TectonToday at 2:17 PM
They're called w'hoorn, Groot
sets out a saucer of milk
Just to combat the blank rooms where people don't have an idea yet or don't want to personally describe every room.
Also, I guess I wonder if fixed titles might lend themselves to some more interesting ship mechanics.
Not sure if it's planned/possible, but I'd like to see free-form titles and descriptions in a 'holo-deck' style section of the ship. Probably some issues to work around there, but it would be nice to have a free-flowing creative area even within the confines of a fixed-title system.
For example, when you enter a dinner room, the first thing you notice is that it is a room with a table and chairs and, after 1 or 2 seconds, you realize it's a dinner room.
Of course, i could be wrong.
(I would go with fixed titles but with a customisation option to add adjectives and descriptors that can be added. So while it's always "an engine room" it could also be made to be "a steaming engine room" or "an engine room filled with clutter". This would allow customization so it's not the same thing with every ship, has a layer of consistency for combat (since every room will have a fixed portion of the name that can't be changed or hidden), and also ensures that the ship names aren't ridiculous.
It would require a little more infrastructure for admin at the beginning, but much less than having to approve customize names each time. Additionally, only a small pool of options could be available in the beginning and be expanded much more later on. The options could also be made different for different models or types of ships or required to be unlocked through other options (like titles). Special room descriptors could also be sold for credits for those who like to show off their wealth.
The idea from this comes from title tokens in Imperian and some (but less) from ship buckets in Achaea)
Engine Rooms, Life Support, etc are all likely things our characters could identify. (Like... in Star Trek you look for the warp core and a bunch of workstations)
Wow. That's a throwback.
H.R Pufnstuf
All for fixed room titles. Not supporting fixed room layouts or descriptions. I don't want my engine room next to my galley.
Should the game go the fixed room titles route, will there be starship restrooms? Sci-fi is seriously lacking in fully functional restrooms. I'm not convinced that people of the future are poop-free. (Star Trek gets a pass... transporter technology and such.)
Cause like you can still go pretty out there and potentially non-scifi with that.
"An engine room composed of ever burning magma"
"Within an engine of ever-flowing crystal"
"A secluded dining area within an endless forest"
Similarly, I don't personally think that it's a massive stifle on creativity if the room title is limited.
It's just a bit more specific in the title and you can go as creative as you like with the description within that bound.
Like the above three random examples you could describe if you wanted but their names would just be "The engine room of the x", "The engine of the x", and "A dining area of the x"
Of course, later on I'd expect we'd potentially see specific player housing which would be even more free-form.
here is the quote
So going crazy with the room description has no impact on other players in either option.
Again, I really don't think it diminishes the creative freedom of the individuals unless they are hoping to describe things that are really outside the guidelines of "a spaceship"
You need to pick a room type for every room and you can choose to have a descriptor before it.
So they'd fall into:
(The/A/An) <descriptor> <room type> of {the} <Ship name>
The room types would be stuff like: Engine Room, Cockpit, Bridge, Bathroom, Crew Quarters, etc, etc
While the descriptors are stuff like: Decheeran, Elagnite, Dominion Styled, Ascendancy themed, Gaudy, Gilt, Scungy, Trashed, etc, etc
As Groot noted, could even make them unlockables. The "Opulent" descriptor could be an achievement unlock for money earned through trading.
A "War room" might unlock from pvp achievements.
edit: Oooh, maybe even some class-based ones, like a B.E.A.S.T engineering bay or something.