The Aurora and Building Story into the Game Mechanics
Frraksurred
USA Join Date: 2015-04-04 Member: 202960Members
USA Join Date: 2015-04-04 Member: 202960Members
If you crash landed on an alien planet, what would be the first thing you'd feel compelled to do? I mean after you tend to the immediate need for food, water and shelter, what would be the next thing on your mind? If it were me it would be "Am I the only survivor? I need to find out and let somebody know I'm still alive down here so I can get back to civilization!"
Seriously, think about what a stranded survivor's train of thought would be after being traumatically ripped from all that was familiar to them. It's not going to be "look at this beautiful planet", not right away anyway. It's going to be the world they've spent their entire lives in up till now; all the people they knew, people they just saw mere hours or days ago. Mentally our focus would be getting back to what is familiar, to "home". I see us tending to our immediate needs and then getting serious about finding a way to broadcast an SOS and figure out a way off the planet. The most obvious thing to come to mind after this thought is the Aurora and all the information and tech she holds. This would set in motion several tasks that would involve getting to specific areas of the Aurora. Areas that we know contain specific tech we can use to build the things we're going to need to achieve our goals, and hopefully some answers as to what the heck happened along the way. Tech can be things like a transmitter, signal booster and satellite dish capable of broadcasting an SOS progressively further, until we find life. This could be chapter one, if you will, of a story that both gives purpose to the things we do, and reason to explore any area the Devs might want to point us towards. The first story focused mission would be lead into by the game very early. The rest wouldn't be forced on you, but like most open world games, they would contain the most desirable items and answers.
The Aurora
Personally I think the Aurora needs to become a much bigger part of the game. Without taking away from the rest of the world, a place where much of the tech, and answers to whatever mystery knocked us out of the sky, can be gradually plundered. Exploration of this ship would start small, but grow to be nearly as big as the world itself. This would give the game a dual playground, so when we got tired of one world, we can go explore a completely contrasting one. Not to mention it would literally double the gameplay opportunities.
In short I want to be able to progressively go explore the Aurora, both in a drawn out story facet, and a casual exploration facet. The bulk of the ship would be explorable in general, but in stages. Perhaps most of it starts flooded, or contaminated in radiation too intense for your suit. Little by little you can restore power and pump out / decontaminate these areas (or both to mix it up). We can start with incidental areas like personal quarters, rec rooms, mess hall, small security check points, but also introductory areas to each of the major divisions (Engineering, R&D, etc). So basically, when I'm tired of swimming around the ocean and want to explore something different, I can go rummage through the bowels of the ship to see what trinkets I can scrounge up, or what secrets I can uncover. Some key areas of the ship would be reserved for story missions however. These areas would be the heart of each major division and would go beyond the incidental areas, be much more involved, and dive deeper into what was going on in the different divisions (some as expected, others housing deep secrets). Story related tech would be found at the fruition of each of these missions; major tech such as a Satellite, System AI, the Cyclops (or a major upgrade to it), the largest base expansion room and much of its related tech (more on that in this thread). Maybe these divisions would fall into four different pillars: Communications (Command Center, Security & Broadcasting), Engineering (Tech & Vehicle Crafting, Storage, Vehicle bays), R&D (Lab, Medbay, Ethology = Animal Capture & Study, Farming, Terraforming) and lastly Living Quarters (Bunk rooms, Captains Quarters, Mess Hall, Locker rooms / Wetrooms). We can explore the major areas in tiers, starting with intro areas providing needed and incidental tech / story and eventually unlocking expanded, industrial level tech and advanced story once in the "heart" of a department. Not everything would be on the ship, much we would still find littered around the seabed, and occasionally we will go hunting for something on the Aurora and discover that part of the ship is no longer there, it is laying at the bottom of the ocean some where. We might find a hint to it's location however, so we don't have to search aimlessly.
I understand I am asking for a fully realized story and detailed ship. No small undertaking. For me however, this seems like the most practical way to flesh out the story, and it would add an immense amount to the gameplay. Give me your thoughts, does this sound worthwhile, or is it too much to ask. Thanks for your input.
Seriously, think about what a stranded survivor's train of thought would be after being traumatically ripped from all that was familiar to them. It's not going to be "look at this beautiful planet", not right away anyway. It's going to be the world they've spent their entire lives in up till now; all the people they knew, people they just saw mere hours or days ago. Mentally our focus would be getting back to what is familiar, to "home". I see us tending to our immediate needs and then getting serious about finding a way to broadcast an SOS and figure out a way off the planet. The most obvious thing to come to mind after this thought is the Aurora and all the information and tech she holds. This would set in motion several tasks that would involve getting to specific areas of the Aurora. Areas that we know contain specific tech we can use to build the things we're going to need to achieve our goals, and hopefully some answers as to what the heck happened along the way. Tech can be things like a transmitter, signal booster and satellite dish capable of broadcasting an SOS progressively further, until we find life. This could be chapter one, if you will, of a story that both gives purpose to the things we do, and reason to explore any area the Devs might want to point us towards. The first story focused mission would be lead into by the game very early. The rest wouldn't be forced on you, but like most open world games, they would contain the most desirable items and answers.
The Aurora
Personally I think the Aurora needs to become a much bigger part of the game. Without taking away from the rest of the world, a place where much of the tech, and answers to whatever mystery knocked us out of the sky, can be gradually plundered. Exploration of this ship would start small, but grow to be nearly as big as the world itself. This would give the game a dual playground, so when we got tired of one world, we can go explore a completely contrasting one. Not to mention it would literally double the gameplay opportunities.
- First trip to the Aurora has already been covered, in practice, that is to repair whatever is causing the radiation leak and stabilize the Aurora. However reworked to be more fleshed out and story related then it currently is. Ideally it would involve more peripheral stops along the way, such as a Security checkpoint with some interesting snippets of things that happened during the crash, maybe the quarters of a buddy we glimpsed jump into a different lifepod during the Intro. I could find a memento to take back with me for inspiration to try and find them (finding his/her lifepod could become an optional sidequest that potentially opens up a personal story). Finding the Scanner and something to scan so as to teach me the core game mechanic of scanning to acquire Blueprints. Getting the idea? Something to keep it interesting, teach me, and lead me into the story. After repairing the damage, maybe we could notice a part of the ship we used to work in has been torn away and likely rests at the bottom of the sea. We could find a signal to a communicator everyone used to use, and track it to the general area.... teaching us to explore the world to find pieces of wreckage.
- Second we would decide to search a Communications room in the Aurora to find a Transmitter. But to do that we would need to find an Engineering room where we could get emergency power restored to that area of the ship. The bulk of Engineering would be unreachable at this point, so we can use it for other story missions later. To make the mission more than just "go here, do this" we could implement some path-finding puzzles, story tidbits off the beaten path, find some cursory tech to scan along the way, and most important: teasers that point to things to come. For example: a Rec Room with furniture to scan and a mess of files on the floor with info that so and so has an Access Badge to the Central Control Room. You don't know you need this yet, but will be reminded when it becomes appropriate.
Anyway, once we find the Engineering room in question, we discover that, though damaged, we should be able to power small sections of the ship for nominal amounts of time. We can return to this room to reroute to other areas in the future. Once that is accomplished we make our way to the Communications room, maybe have to swim through an underwater section and face off against our first Stalker before we've had a chance to craft any weapons. All we have is a couple flares, which we throw at him to scare him off long enough to escape. Once we get to our destination we find a Transmitter to scan, and a damaged Stasis Rifle, which we use on the Stalker on the way out. It will break after two successful uses, but we can keep it as a fragment to scan later (teaching us to scan fragments! Isn't that useful! lol). KEY MECHANIC: At the destination of these types of missions you always find one major, story progressing, piece of tech. On the way there sprinkle in other Blueprints, let's say two incidentals and one medium tech. Example: a chair, a light and one of the Generators if in an Engineering area. - Return to "base" and set about building your Transmitter. All the usual resource collecting applies here, no need to complicate it further.
- Once it's built, have some form of payoff, like a story pusher or tech location hint, but also use it to set up your next "story" type mission. Such as still needing a Satellite blueprint, but initially you'll only find an Antenna that you can use from base, to sub & outposts. After that you discover you need access codes or an algorithm so your broadcast will be recognized. These lead you back to the Aurora, where you don't find it, but discover the location of the person who had them and their escape pod. You follow the signal to a damaged pod and your next hint, which leads you to one of the abandoned bases and perhaps a corpse. On a PDA you find info that explains their demise and the location of some edible plant-life they found, adds some misc blueprints, and your access codes. If you look past the surface however, you find a journal from the person most considered the ship idiot. He was always going on about other dimensions and quantum frequencies hidden in a signal or some such. You never paid much attention to the crazy fool, but now you think he may have been on to something that, among other things, could help you get off the planet. But you only have pieces, you need more. Starting to get the idea yet?
In short I want to be able to progressively go explore the Aurora, both in a drawn out story facet, and a casual exploration facet. The bulk of the ship would be explorable in general, but in stages. Perhaps most of it starts flooded, or contaminated in radiation too intense for your suit. Little by little you can restore power and pump out / decontaminate these areas (or both to mix it up). We can start with incidental areas like personal quarters, rec rooms, mess hall, small security check points, but also introductory areas to each of the major divisions (Engineering, R&D, etc). So basically, when I'm tired of swimming around the ocean and want to explore something different, I can go rummage through the bowels of the ship to see what trinkets I can scrounge up, or what secrets I can uncover. Some key areas of the ship would be reserved for story missions however. These areas would be the heart of each major division and would go beyond the incidental areas, be much more involved, and dive deeper into what was going on in the different divisions (some as expected, others housing deep secrets). Story related tech would be found at the fruition of each of these missions; major tech such as a Satellite, System AI, the Cyclops (or a major upgrade to it), the largest base expansion room and much of its related tech (more on that in this thread). Maybe these divisions would fall into four different pillars: Communications (Command Center, Security & Broadcasting), Engineering (Tech & Vehicle Crafting, Storage, Vehicle bays), R&D (Lab, Medbay, Ethology = Animal Capture & Study, Farming, Terraforming) and lastly Living Quarters (Bunk rooms, Captains Quarters, Mess Hall, Locker rooms / Wetrooms). We can explore the major areas in tiers, starting with intro areas providing needed and incidental tech / story and eventually unlocking expanded, industrial level tech and advanced story once in the "heart" of a department. Not everything would be on the ship, much we would still find littered around the seabed, and occasionally we will go hunting for something on the Aurora and discover that part of the ship is no longer there, it is laying at the bottom of the ocean some where. We might find a hint to it's location however, so we don't have to search aimlessly.
I understand I am asking for a fully realized story and detailed ship. No small undertaking. For me however, this seems like the most practical way to flesh out the story, and it would add an immense amount to the gameplay. Give me your thoughts, does this sound worthwhile, or is it too much to ask. Thanks for your input.