recently i dove into the dialogue+pda system and it is quite fun. there are a few things i always wanted to do and now can and some that simply met the limitations of the game and are not possible even with my current (limited) understanding of the pda/dialogue system. i am not very far into the topic and there are still a lot of things to try, do and discover. But even at this early point there are two major functions this system is completly missing. it is not that they are not there in another form, they simply do not exist. these two are: -remove objects -move objects from a to b that these two things are not part of the dialogue/pda system is a shame, to put it into mild words. how they are not part of the game after the many years is beyond me. i remember some while ago when pda and/or dialogue got changes/addtions there was the notion that the system is now super capable of doing cool stuff - well it is not. sorry eleon, but to be blunt the dialogue/pda system in the current state is decent at best from my understanding. the game has a main questline that is a somewhat "space opera"-style story to it, but the pda/dialogue system simply can not deliver on it. NPCs are not moving and being removed via explosions (a workaround*). there are zero epic space battles that you witness as the player. no scripted scenes that engage the player, because it can not be shown with the pda/dialogue in the current state. *yes OPV's can be removed via this too. accounting for an explosion everytime is simply bad for the story. there could be some running gag there yes (fleets warping in to help you to get blown up everytime they try to leave), but still does not changes the facts that the system is not there to support the function. just for a secound imagine a space battle, a mysterious fleets helping at the last chance, then them warping out when the job is done. Or you arrive at a battle scene, npc's running around franticly in a station srcambling to make a defense, you meet the commander to help and so on. Or being send on some stealth missions(scripted movemnt can do these to a degree). Or tormenting poor players with escort quests . All these things could happen, but are not currently. My suggestions for improvement: (Add these as an option in "OnActivatePlayfieldOps". Again i am not very far into pda/dialogue maybe there is another/better place for these, but to my current understanding this would be the place.) -remove OPV option to warp out, with or without warp effect option to just explode [overall very similar how the spawn in function is currently set up] -remove entity/NPCs option to kill NPC (set health to zero, so body stays) option to simply remove/delete NPC (just like destroy console command, could have a warp effect too, but not needed it could be combined with decals to make NPC vanish in smoke, have warp/teleport effects etc) option to change faction, aka set to hostile for player so he has to kill him or is killed by NPCs (set/change faction is already a console command) option to set target (exactly like the OPC spawn option, let NPC shoot at sth specific) -move entity (for OPV+NPC) option to move to point B option to force move to point B (ignores enemies just moves to point, does not stray from route aka not attack for NPC's or attack move, for OPVs turrets would still shoot obviously, but ship would fly straight.) (one major thing that would improve both of the above options would be a "set speed" function/field, make ships speed up, npc move faster etc., leave empty for default speed/movement value) [there could be more options/functions here like a force animation/crouch, follow or protect command, a direct line/Straight option, rotate NPCs in directions, force NPC's postion (make them look at a certain point), but all that could be somewhat done with move and if the entity would still attack stuff while moving and would face in the moving direction if moved, which obviously it should. so move for a small amount would rotate/face things and you could overall script a follow/protect quest type thing. a force animation would be the only thing hard to do, since you would have to bring the npc in the postion to do the action.] if these options alone would be added we could do scripted scenes. it would improve immersion a great deal, because things could actually happen (aka move). it would be a massive improvement to the game. otherwise keep up the great work Eleon, love the game. excited to see what the next year brings us (there is obviously more that can be improved on the pda/dialogue system. these above are simply things i am sure of are missing and would benefit all quests and the game in general. when i have done more quests i am sure other things to improve on will be clearer.)
You make some good suggestions and some I've shared before as well. I would love even some of these! In addition to what you said, we should have the ability to spawn bases as well. Currently you can spawn a BA blueprint as an OPV but it will still be a patrol vessel and will actually start moving if you leave render range even though it has no thrusters. The ability to regenerate a POI via the PDA, this would allow for multiplayer missions that could make sure that the next player can do them without having to wait for the POI to regenerate on its own. There are more functions available in the dialogue via the modding API. For example you can change the faction of a base or replace one block with another but it's limited and can be inconsistent between singleplayer and multiplayer. It also requires writing C# code which is something I have yet to get into myself.
PDA and Dialog system also lack of logging. So creator can't check logs and fix things that not work. For example: Recently with scenario update I had to run pda readdata to update PDA in my save. And I lost all PDA progress. And I have no clue and scenario author also have no clue why it happened.
