Unstable Space Delay and Factions

Hi Team,

Ever since the faction relation thread, Jesse and I have been discussing what changes we can make to improve that side of the game. We both agree that something needs to be done. And we would rather it happened sooner than later.

On the other hand, we are very nearly ready to start testing on the Unstable Space release. Most of the features are working. There is only polishing and play balance issues remaining.

What we are considering is delaying the release of US by another month (from end of April to end of May).

The features that we would like to add are to basically "move up" a few of the traffic features into the US release. The main problem of improving the reputation code is poor ability to track the players actions. It is much easier with our own custom traffic scripts.

So we are proposing is to remove all the PS traffic from the game. We would add back only 2 new scripts
1. A cargo ship with escorts that carried pods between the pod spewer equipped stations.
2. Station guards that will attack hostile ships that move near the stations.

This will leave the cluster feeling pretty empty. In some sense, we would be taking a half step backwards, so that later we could take two steps forwards.

What we lose is a "feeling" of lots of traffic, what we would gain is a much more balanced play experience. And we lay a foundation for the Traffic release.

Also included in this "extension" would be reputation code that tracks player kills. It would change to hostile slower. And it would slowly fade over time.

The current plan would also block a player who has made recient attacks from purchasing reputation increases from the victimized faction.

Also included would be a handful of balance changes. We would be shrinking the number of unique ships to just a handful for this release. But it is really needed to make the game playable.

Ok. This is what I would like to do. Any strong feelings one way or the other?

I have been travelling around in the alpha builds, and I have to say that it is a welcome relief to not see a constant stream of traffic wherever I go. Being able to pass through quiet Lpoints and into quiet space beyond brings back a sense of scale.
I also always felt that there was just too much traffic in EoC. So thinning it out a little doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

41 days remain for the trailer, which is very tight. I would welcome the extention just in case I miss my deadline.

I'd love to see this trailer appear on Cinematech ( www.g4tv.com/cinematech/index.html ). This would dramatically increase the awareness of TS. However, given the changes listed above, it might be a good idea to wait until the game becomes more 'completed'... perhaps not this release but the next one.

Yes, it will really just be a "mod" until all the traffic is replaced.