First, I'm going to try looking at the interplanetary warp thing. The problem is, like, I /don't/ want vex to become the Epic of Deep Space where most of the time is spent flying from planet to planet, simply because planets are where most of the action is. There is 0 reason why the player should spend any real amount of time in space, well except perhaps to give a feel for continuity and depth. But that doesn't need to take very long.
@p
There are two ways, I can either upgrade the current system so space travel is faster, or I could look at a system "'jump" drive. This would just be an instant jump from point to point, perhaps engaged when you get a certain distance. It would merge well with the inter-system warp, i.e., it would use the same gfx/etc.
@p
The other way is to speed up the current space warping so it's faster. This actually gets kind of problematic for various physics reasons. Mainly it's kind of hard to handle the speedup/slowdown stuff properly. But at any rate, I do have an idea here as well.
@p
It's also crucial that the interplanetary ships follow the same pattern as the player ship for navigation, so the universe is consistent. But it's important enough that even if I have to rework some of the ship AI, it's maybe worth it. I suppose there are reasons for both solutions. Right now I am leaning to actually upgrading the current space warping.
@p
The other thing I'm going to work on is the banking system. When you go to buy a ship, you don't need the money (they are super expensive) though you can make a direct purchase if you wish. What you really need is financing. Then you will be billed every month. Unable to make your monthly payment? Then you lose the vehicle.
2005-01-06