Story and game ideas

This is an archived page! This page is very old and the content is not up to date. Not everything (if any) which is written here will be in the final game!

This is a collection of all ideas, we ever had for Orxonox. Well there are more in your head and if you remember them: please write them down here (comments by the developers are in brackets):

Story

• more StoryIdeas
• Some mission snippets

Gameplay

General

• there will be missions where you control a big-ueber "flying-fortress"-style space ship. It's very heavy and therefore hard to control
• For some ships there are gun turrets that can turn all around their axis to shoot in any direction. Motions are controlled via mouse movement.
• There is a ship manager: A ship has a certain amount of slots, the nearer they are to the ships-main-reactor, the more energy they have. This way you can route your weapons and shields to these slots depending on the mission you are flying: sometimes you need speed, so you connect the engines nearer to the reactor, sometimes you will only want to shoot, sometimes you want to strengthen your shields… all depends on your setup. Setup can be changed on flight.
• As a module you can also buy a radar that will display the enemies in your HUD and facilitate aiming through automatic selection.
• In network play, one player can control the gun turret the other the ship or something like this.
• There is a autopilot mode for the space ship. In this mode the ship will just follow the track.
• The track is dynamical: following the end-boss or a monster…
• There are screens, monitors in the HUD, video transmissions, radar images etc.
• There is a mode, where you run through a ground level as a person, 3D first person shooter like. (well what?)
• In the big "star destroyer"/"corvette" like space ships, you can have a tractor beam to capture alien ships, or just some old style slings and rods to fetch enemy spacecrafts.
• Nonstop action is fun for a while but often is major boredom
• In some sequences you are fighting together with other warriors/ships against an ueber enemy, that can't be defeated… its pointless but it's the last chance for mankind…
• You always have the choice of staying in a world and finding out if the aliens are enemies/friends or jumping away and looking for another challenges.
• There will be a choice to decide for which party to play (good/evil evil/good)
• The story will cross several times so you will have some battlegrounds that you will once see from side and win and then from the other side and probably loose .
• Play some maps multiple times with diffrent outgoings.

Control

• Keyboard and Mouse / Gamepad with analog-stick (and backpedals)
• Effects like in tuxracer: the perspective moves with the player-ship: up/down. effect of losing groud under your feet
• Doom Modus: Flying through canals with a viewpoint from behind
• On the ship there are some guns that can be controlled via mouse: manually aiming. These guns are bought or can be gotten through power-ups (see below - these guns are scavenged from the noxons and may fall off if hit)
• There will be a Rouge Squadron like control. To make the control simpler, and aiming faster: There is a possibility to turn the space-ship right away about 180°. So you dont have to first win distance turn around and attack again. Its just like in the Babylon5 movies.

Features

• Physical engine, real lighting
• Team-play: Play with teammates, over network or via internet
• Don't make the simulation too realistic, no more than it actually needs to be for the game.
• You can dock with a buggy, a boat or a little satellite so you can play together on one computer.
• Is a ion impulsor thruster faster than a fusion tube thruster? Power-ups and their values are clear to the player. They are what they seem (size and price are according to their abilities).
• The option to run away if you get beaten up too badly (provided that your maneuvering thrusters are faster than the enemy's)!

Equipment

• a base currency, can be energy or metal/orx, that can be used to upgrade ship or to buy anything in a shop (orx does somehow not make too much sense, as we are at war with them!?!)
• shop to buy new weapons, armor, shields, radar

Modes

• different gamemodes: exploration and combat - to mix the story up a little and give the player control over the storyline to make the player the forge of his own will.

Grafics

• Weather influences: Fog, rain, wind (physical world)

Leveldesign

• Multiple ways through the world (fork/join), multiple story lines
• Path decides the way through the level, and the player may choose between different ones.
• Every choice has to have consequences in the further story development, otherwhise, there is no drama.

NPCs

Enemies

• Overkill NPC AI (sure - they are infaliable machines!!)
• Dynamical viewpoint
• different alien races have different tactics, and their spaceships have different vulnerabilities (this idea goes along nicely with the noxons)

Bosses

• Aquire boss abilities after killing them
• Overkill endboss

Player: ourShip and its Guns

• Expandable spacecraft: Updates, upgrades, addons… much more (these should be glued or molten to the wings, they should emphasize low tech)
• Chargeable shots: Overload leads to explosion (nice idea, fits well with the "low tech humans" style)
• Spacecraft transformation: As seen on the Transformers (not very much into the style; could be realised by noxons changing the ship!?!)
• animated/moving stuff on the ships like radar/sensor clusters that get in/out. A little sense for details. (definitly! The more parts of the ship move, the better → see "homeworld")

FirstPerson-Guns

• Weapons out of Orx