Wing Commander in the modern age

Interesting how "RPG" elements are loot and upgrades, not class and characters and story. That's a fact of what has become the term. Nothing to do with the old Pen & Paper RPG I used to play.
 
RC1207 said:
Interesting how "RPG" elements are loot and upgrades, not class and characters and story. That's a fact of what has become the term. Nothing to do with the old Pen & Paper RPG I used to play.
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Loot and decision making was always part of RPGs. Having squad mates level up is quite to the core mechanics. But applying the same to a player character when a Space fighter sim is at the core, character building gets a bit problematic - or would you like to have character traits determine wheter you can steer your craft?
 
I would think that traits would count as a "bonus" to your flying stats--e.g. you gain a few percent to your turn rate or gun damage/recharge rate or your shield recharge rate.
 
Ijuin said:
I would think that traits would count as a "bonus" to your flying stats--e.g. you gain a few percent to your turn rate or gun damage/recharge rate or your shield recharge rate.
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I really don't see this making sense without the idea of upgrades... why would a standardized fighter change over the course of the game? Maybe it works from a gameplay point of view... but it just doesn't make sense in the real world.

It would have to stick to things like response time and perception... number of bogeys you can track at once or something. Otherwise you pretty much are forced to put in upgrades etc.

There could be equipment slots... where you choose radar sheild type armor thickness etc which would all affect your speed and recharge rates etc.. and each mission you could choose depending on what your preference is or objectives... But you already get some of that anyway with having different kinds of fighters.

Stuff like personality traits could be good in a priv style game for convincing NPCs to leave you alone or to drop their cargo.
 
Ijuin said:
I would think that traits would count as a "bonus" to your flying stats--e.g. you gain a few percent to your turn rate or gun damage/recharge rate or your shield recharge rate.
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AD said:
I really don't see this making sense without the idea of upgrades... why would a standardized fighter change over the course of the game? Maybe it works from a gameplay point of view... but it just doesn't make sense in the real world.
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If I may chime in here...this is the sort of thing I'm dealing with in the pencil-and-paper Wing Commander Role-Playing Game system I'm currently building. Not really much difference between a computer RPG and a pnp RPG, aside from the fact that it's the computer rolling the dice (there's also the action element, of course, and the fact that a computer can keep track and implement all of the rules - which cannot always be said for a human GM).

The way I have things set up for WCRPG, the character's skill stats affect the complexity of the maneuvers they can accomplish, the accuracy of their shooting (reflected in the number of "refires" that hit the target), and so on. The fighters themselves don't change (though there are rules for modifying vehicles, it's not the pilot who would be making mods). The system itself uses the character's skill score on a d% (i.e. hundred-sided die) roll to determine success or failure in checks, with the score acting as the chance of success.
 
I always thought that the 'level up' part of a space sim would be to do with your military rank - the higher the rank, the more advanced fighter you get to fly. That might be a 'variant' based system, where each variant has different armor, shield & gun specs - and you get to choose the appropriate variant for the job (heavy armor/shield for capship engagements; lighter & more agile for patrols etc.) as opposed to getting just one standard craft in the beginning. That, and later getting to choose which craft to fly (where earlier it is dictated to you). Kind of sounds like the variants in Arena, doesn't it?

The difficulty would be tying into the storyline, and balancing the combat, so that it didn't just become like Privateer 2 (where getting more advanced craft just ramps up enemy difficulty - making it pointless to have anything but the cheapest, most basic craft & weapons).
 
the only thing that'd really make sense realistically is if 'upgrading' just meant that once you get sufficient status or rank, you could customize the appearance of your fighter.. or if you are manfred von blair, you can choose the three winged fokker.
 
NinjaLA said:
...or if you are manfred von blair, you can choose the three-winged fokker.
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A Scimitar? ba-dum-boom. ;)

(Yeah, even I thought that was a poor attempt at humor, but at least I made the attempt).

Never liked systems based on levels much. Always seemed a bit unrealistic; yes, a character should learn and grow as time goes on, as they save fair monsters-in-distress from horrible flesh-eating princesses, but not that much.
 
Growing you character like in Tie fighter? All you got was a weird tattoo at the end if I'm correct...
 
Well Star Wolves has the level up system that somewhat works, but its not my favorite. Honestly i think the cybernetic implants are the way to go, like System Shock 2 or Deus Ex style. Only factor being that you body can take so much modding before it starts to reject the implants.
As to bringing Wing Commander to the modern age, I just don't see it happening. I hope I might be mistaken, but EA hasn't shown any interest in space sims besides Arena. And Im not sure what was the reasons that it turned out as it did, but its more of spinoff like Academy or Armada. Right now AAA titles seem to be the center of EAs attention, so any hope for Chris starting a Kickstarter?
 
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