Satellites ~ Something to aim for?
Kodasa
New Zealand Join Date: 2015-04-17 Member: 203545Members
New Zealand Join Date: 2015-04-17 Member: 203545Members
In my thread of Questions regarding planned exposition/development, I mentioned weather and currents right towards the end there. This got me to thinking about a cool mechanic that could be added into the game, and could potentially play a myriad of different roles.
The reason I mentioned them at all is because of the immense utility they could have, and conceivably using parts from the Aurora it would be possible to create much smaller space faring vehicles, even if they only made it as far as a degrading low orbit, so that you got several scans. The lower tier satellites would not last long however the end game or higher tier satellites could be built of bigger, better things and therefore last for longer with perhaps a few being permanent options.
At first you might ask yourself, why satellites? What purpose would they serve to me, the intrepid ocean explorer of the depths. Well, just imagine the amount of utility you could get from various satellite types. For example.
You could:
~ Attach a camera to a satellite, and shoot it off into orbit, and then use that camera to monitor the movement of weather patterns and/or ocean currents around your general area.
~ Attach a thermal imaging module to your satellite, and either receive a small real time feed on your HUD displaying a certain radius around you, or periodic images from a computer screen in your Base or Cyclops, that would show the sea creatures and their current locations, allowing you to study and monitor the movement of sea creatures. This could also tie into a radar type interface that shows active life in a radius around the character, perhaps requiring an active thermal imaging satellite.
~ Attach what is essentially a large fabricator to a satellite, deploy it, and then create an entire base hologram, and order the satellite to construct it for you.
~ Create large solar panels for your satellite and place a fabricator of some sort inside of it, then when deployed it periodically drops full power cells at a specified location, allowing for some form of actual power generation (Of course you could just use solar panels on a base but I like the idea of receiving power from space.)
My final thought:
~ Attach a large transmitter to your satellite and send out a distress call. This could tie into several possible things, none of which result in rescue. For example. Space faring Scavengers or even a whole new alien race may pick up the beacon, and come to the planet in search of you, they'll have some fantastic loot aboard their ship and so gaining access should be a priority for you. Through exposition it would be explained they keep the keys to the ship on them, so you can't fly away in their ship, they would carry lethal weapons and be an actual threat to you. Of course since you would not have your own lethal weapons and conveniently can't find one of theirs, you'd have no way to kill them, however you could distract them, or perhaps turn the creatures of the planet against them.
Another event that could occur is a rescue ship coming to save you, and as it enters the atmosphere the same "Mysterious Energy Pulse" that brought down the Aurora, will decimate their ship and sent scrap metal and other resources showering all over the map. This could have its own random tie in, where after the first initial lifeboat, the ships they send start to get larger, until you could end up with a second Aurora sized crash site, this one a battleship of the royal fleet sunk into the deepest, darkest depths. Exploring it could be less like the exploded bits of the Aurora, and more like when humans first explored the Titanic, you know, wrecked yet eerily still in large pieces, allowing you to actually swim through the interior, the loot and such here would be the absolute best in the game.
Just food for thought, I was initially going to add this into the questions thread but I feared I might text wall like this and the questions thread was already quite large.
The reason I mentioned them at all is because of the immense utility they could have, and conceivably using parts from the Aurora it would be possible to create much smaller space faring vehicles, even if they only made it as far as a degrading low orbit, so that you got several scans. The lower tier satellites would not last long however the end game or higher tier satellites could be built of bigger, better things and therefore last for longer with perhaps a few being permanent options.
At first you might ask yourself, why satellites? What purpose would they serve to me, the intrepid ocean explorer of the depths. Well, just imagine the amount of utility you could get from various satellite types. For example.
You could:
~ Attach a camera to a satellite, and shoot it off into orbit, and then use that camera to monitor the movement of weather patterns and/or ocean currents around your general area.
~ Attach a thermal imaging module to your satellite, and either receive a small real time feed on your HUD displaying a certain radius around you, or periodic images from a computer screen in your Base or Cyclops, that would show the sea creatures and their current locations, allowing you to study and monitor the movement of sea creatures. This could also tie into a radar type interface that shows active life in a radius around the character, perhaps requiring an active thermal imaging satellite.
~ Attach what is essentially a large fabricator to a satellite, deploy it, and then create an entire base hologram, and order the satellite to construct it for you.
~ Create large solar panels for your satellite and place a fabricator of some sort inside of it, then when deployed it periodically drops full power cells at a specified location, allowing for some form of actual power generation (Of course you could just use solar panels on a base but I like the idea of receiving power from space.)
My final thought:
~ Attach a large transmitter to your satellite and send out a distress call. This could tie into several possible things, none of which result in rescue. For example. Space faring Scavengers or even a whole new alien race may pick up the beacon, and come to the planet in search of you, they'll have some fantastic loot aboard their ship and so gaining access should be a priority for you. Through exposition it would be explained they keep the keys to the ship on them, so you can't fly away in their ship, they would carry lethal weapons and be an actual threat to you. Of course since you would not have your own lethal weapons and conveniently can't find one of theirs, you'd have no way to kill them, however you could distract them, or perhaps turn the creatures of the planet against them.
Another event that could occur is a rescue ship coming to save you, and as it enters the atmosphere the same "Mysterious Energy Pulse" that brought down the Aurora, will decimate their ship and sent scrap metal and other resources showering all over the map. This could have its own random tie in, where after the first initial lifeboat, the ships they send start to get larger, until you could end up with a second Aurora sized crash site, this one a battleship of the royal fleet sunk into the deepest, darkest depths. Exploring it could be less like the exploded bits of the Aurora, and more like when humans first explored the Titanic, you know, wrecked yet eerily still in large pieces, allowing you to actually swim through the interior, the loot and such here would be the absolute best in the game.
Just food for thought, I was initially going to add this into the questions thread but I feared I might text wall like this and the questions thread was already quite large.
Comments
I like the idea of monitoring weather, unfortunately, most of the game takes place beneath the waves where these impacts would be negligible. Would definitely be cool to have some tie ins to the Cyclops monitoring stations of some sort though.
These small cube sats were what I was thinking, they would not be large satellites. Just small vehicles with a big booster to get them up out of the atmosphere. Or perhaps even using a grav sphere with reversed polarity to push them up into orbit. They would be small things, not large enough for a man to fit inside of.
The weather monitoring would have some use in the sense that weather should be DEVASTATING if not avoided. Rain tears up silt from the sea bed in the shallows, obstructing vision and making it hard to see, turning the water a murky brown. Massive cyclones, howling winds, 20 - 30 meter tidal swells, lightning strikes etc. The planet is a large, 99.9% ocean planet, therefore there is a LOT of water evaporating into the atmosphere every day, this would create a very humid area and the uniform surface of the ocean basically makes the planet one big flat plain on which immense storms with potential energy hundreds or even thousands of times that of storms in the worst places on earth.
The game takes place below the ocean, but this would be an incentive to be smart about base construction, and inspire people to explore beyond the shallows, as the surface/shallows would be a very dangerous place to be during a massive storm. Hence the idea of weather monitoring to see when large storm cells are moving towards your general location etc. Allowing you to become a meteoroligist if you so please. It could also tie into that little personal helper voice you get.
"Warning, category 5 cyclone approaching, impact in 5 minutes, recommend immediate descent to safe depths." With a small red arrow on your hud pointing in the direction it's coming from.
I imagine you would be able to see something like this growing ever larger from that direction:
Satellite monitoring would also allow you to know when the storm has passed and it's safe to come out etc.
This...this is a must. And your right. A Oceanic world with enough heat and energy from the sun to have a ecosphere with such a massive ocean surface would result in extremely powerful storms, more so then a cat 5, but very possibly something nearly cataclysmic. Further, the thermometer shows the waters to be unusually warm, which only exacerbates the chances of such storms.
Well exactly, everything I've ever been taught about the formation of storms, specifically cyclones is to look for:
~ High humidity
~ Flat terrain (In the case of the ocean, it's a flat surface)
~ Warm temperatures, hence the amount of tropical cyclones
So I would imagine the possibility for some absolutely huge storms that would be cataclysmic by earth standards.
Definitely an awesome idea. :d but for the sake of gameplay, they shouldn't make these storms as big as they would be realistically
as "extremely powerful storms, more so then a cat 5, but very possibly something nearly cataclysmic" wouldn't be a great game experience XD.
or, they could make such storms very rare, so when it does happen the player - "well shit, i better get ready! things are gunna get real!"