I finally got this into a "playable" state. It is now on the workshop, currently only available for Ningues but I should be able to translate it to the other three starts once I'm more confident that it's a decent setup. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935186846 Please let me know if there's any problems with it and also what kind of improvements might be made. (I mean simple stuff, I'm not creating missions or tutorials or that sort of thing. I just want an alternate start for the vanilla game.) Also if anyone wants to use this as a base to make your own custom scenario, by all means go for it.
Been watching your videos on this and it seems interesting way to start the game. Have to try it out.
I really like this idea, however is this going to be something that could be done as a start for mp / coop servers. Trying to think how it could be done so that there is a ship there to use if you are the second person to join.
Very nice idea! Especially the start explosion could be greatly supported by the PDA Maybe you can combine the start story (Aliens manipulated the base to explode) with the planet and have couple of flying lading pads on the planet (damaged). Back in the days starting pads for humans. Ah, many ideas jumping in my head - a lot of things possible for sure. RexXxuS
I was unable to find a way to make a message appear the instant you spawn, to give you instructions. Is there a way to do this? One of the other things I wanted to try was having space drones nearby, they would start shooting at whatever is there, adding some chaos. Or even a "freighter" that helps blow the crap out of the CV/Base you're escaping from. I think it could really be fleshed out to make a very rich backstory. You start out in space aboard a functioning MS Titan, but it is being shot down as you spawn in. You have to make your way to the landing bay to survive! As you are running through the ship, various explosions destroy parts of the ship behind you. (Think Indiana Jones and that huge rolling stone chasing him out of the caverns.) If you don't hurry you get caught by the explosions and you're killed. You have just enough time to run across the whole ship, get into the SV, fuel it up (too bad you cannot specify it to start with some small amount of fuel, or can you?) and take off. It would be great if you had enough fuel to reach the upper atmo and steer toward a landing spot, but you otherwise are forced to crash land. I could also make it a working SV but it partially self-destructs on a timer to force you to crash. The thing I need most to make that happen is a full MS Titan (or working version of the crashed ship found on the planet you're going to) that I would have permission to use for the scenario. Maybe even a larger SV instead of the escape pod... the SV would then be almost completely destroyed (by exploding blocks), leaving you with the cockpit, fuel tank, generator and constructor, and a few blocks.
Yeah I think that's going to be tricky and I'm not sure it's possible at this time. It would be especially weird if you're flying up to space in your SV on day 4, and there's your ship/base brand new again and another player flying away from it in an SV just like yours. LOL. I guess a different backstory would be need for nonsynchronized MP starts. Maybe you're escaping from a space prison. You start aboard an alien base (ADM so it's nondestructible by older more powerful players) and you are able to go through a hole in the wall to get out of your cell, sneak past a bunch of aliens through ventilation shafts to get to the escape pod, and steal it. Could even have turrets placed to shoot at you and the SV as you make your escape. After you hit atmo parts self-destruct (again with exploding blocks on a timer.) I guess the aliens got in more hits than you thought.
I thought I do this quick for you > subscribed to your scenario but got a CoQ by selecting it. :| No files are in the Content/Scenarios folder either. Very weird - created a ticket. But yeah, you can do this in your PDA.yaml/.csv with the preamble tag. Just checkout Dawn of Galaxy for example to have a reference. With it you can even pimp your start to a bit more intuitive ways. Not everyone knows the Jetpack thing or why / how they should fill the SV. With the PDA you could also push messages along the way to the player how many seconds he has left till the station explodes... Yeah exactly... if you play the Alien Runner Mission in Dawn of Galaxy I wanted to create this "run from explosion" thing (mixed with gravity shifts) But yeah... warning: as soon as you dive into all of the scenario things you can get lost quite fast and later you see that 3 months are passed by RexXxuS
I am not the only one who misses our poor crashed SV escape pod --- great idea to bring back old game start. i was inspired by it so i'm working on one like that start ...
I know what you mean. I remember a time I spent doing level editing and modding and that sort of stuff. It flew by. I call it "my 20's."