Dogfights

As I mentioned in the last update – I’ve added a bunch of instant action scenarios. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time but didn’t have quite concrete direction in my mind. Via talking to players the idea crystallized – dogfights.

I hear feedback that some prefer the RTS aspect, or that they prefer the “first person” aspect, but don’t get a chance to pilot ships due to needing to be in tactical mode. My response is – play how you enjoy the game – not how you perceive it to be most efficient. This I believe that players are often “guilty” of doing and I have to admit that I do this too. In Void Destroyer I say that It is ok if some of your ships die – you can re-build them, that’s the great thing about games, no one is getting hurt.

I happen to think that Void Destroyer has the best space combat around – this might be a bit on the crazy side (considering my non-existent team and budget), but I truly believe it, though I admit that I probably brain washed myself over the years. This feedback is often on my mind and I think it is a waste for players not to get a healthy dose of this aspect of the game. So I decided to do a very simple thing – give players a quick and easy way to enjoy dogfights in Void Destroyer via instant action scenarios.

I believe I mentioned this before – the beauty of instant action scenarios is that they can be exactly configured – and I as the designer can know exactly what the player will have and what the player will face. Versus – in the “story” mode of Void Destroyer – the player is free to decide on their fleet and can lose and gain ships along the way depending on the fortunes of battle. So it is a great thing that both of these design choices are present in the project.

So these new instant action scenarios lean heavily towards ship to ship combat – especially fighters. For example – in one of the earlier ones your task is to protect the command ship – Wardrum. In the “story” mode of the game – this would be much harder to pull off – because the player can simply fly the Wardrum out of danger. But here the player can only pilot fighters, the Wardrum stays put and isn’t something that can be manipulated. The loss of player control gives me greater options – and gives the player a more focused experience, so the player can enjoy dogfights without having to worry about fleets.

Other cool aspects, one of them is that via contorting the player and enemy ships – some of the factions that don’t have larger class ships – aren’t push overs – now that the player doesn’t have a swarm of frigates in the fight.

Another great aspect is that I can be a bit more brutal – for example I can swarm the command ship with (many more) hull crushing drones – because the scenario is optional and not required to continue on the story of the game. Beating it can be its own reward – a source of pride – and the player is allowed to continue playing the scenario even if the command ship is destroyed – something that would usually result in the game being over in the “story” mode. The player can still enjoy the ship to ship combat until either all enemies, or all friendly ships are no more.