That's great! However will this map be part of your personal UI that you can reference on the fly (pinning strategic points) or will this map interface exist on the ship itself or both?
Not sure if the map will be in the ship, but this is a neat idea that lots of people like. My concern, is that I would want that map to have at least all the features of your regular UI map - be as functional. Not sure neither about how often you will go back to your ship - the gameflow is still a bit blurry at the moment with many new design elements modifying it. I don't want to put important features only on the Ship's Map if you go to on ship only a few times during your play session (well if you only need these important features a few times during your play session then it might fit). Something is sure, if they would be the same thing, then we might not need them both. But I kind of start seeing lots of interesting and neat features about a Shared Map, where everybody can interact on (was there a game that allowed that? I think I have seen this somewhere). So, not sure about a Ship map but investigating that feature (References and ideas are welcomed )
One little idea, make the ship map bigger, or the regular map smaller. A SL on the ground would see his current AO and surrounding territories, but he wouldn't be able to see the whole battlefield. The SF Leader could/would then be in his cruiser, overlooking the whole battlefield and setting new AOs for the separate Squads.
will you be able to in some point of the campaigns (at the end) be able to board enemy ships and make your way to the bridge or the reactor rooms and set charges to win the campaign? for example the chaos win the campaign on the ground and then they get to choose a ship to assault and maybe get bonus if they complete some objectives in time or the defending faction gets a bonus if they defend successfully
I think they are trying to prevent PC ship destruction, however making a NPC capitol ship destructible would be AWESOME!!!
I'd love to see the ship map have commander tools. See Natural Selection 2, in particular. A map that organizes the units and squads under their command, though with "fog of war" over a certain distance from your friendly units. From this orbital map, a commander can deploy base upgrades, requisition heavy troop supports like tanks, dreadnoughts and walkers, and obviously do all the normal waypoint and objectives command management for their strike-force troops. It's a detached position used only for big, overarching battle management - most commanders will stay on the ground, giving personal orders. But it's really important to have at least one or two guys at the very top doing the high level work, and that that job isn't completely miserable. Leading in most MMOs is like herding cats over a microphone, whereas leading in any RTS or other strategy game is obviously very smooth and intuitive. The difference is all in the interface, and a powerful suite of commander tools in an orbital ship would go a long way toward bridging that game gap.
I agree with luciasar, even though he's a filthy xeno. The map(in my head its a projected 3-D Hologram) on the cruiser should have tools that you don't have on the ground( drawing/marking arrows and other symbols like a more grimdark white-board for football strategies/plays) So a Strike force Captain can draw out the battle plans before his squads deploy and while in battle they can all(or maybe squad leaders) can check the map on their HUDs. This would also allow the Captain to easily use whatever abilities he has(bombardment, gas, radar sweeps etc) while directing battle from above. And! A great idea would be if in the map room(or next to it) was the Captains personal teleporter(for him and his retinue) so at the crux of battle, the Captain can teleport to an exact location that he marked on the map(a beacon that needs to be placed maybe?) with reinforcements(termies/possesed/mega nobs/banshees) directly into the fray(and maybe unlike drop pods, teleporting is instant and accurate) and finish the fight/turn the tide.
Can we have some sort of recreational activity inside our ships? For example shooting ranges, sparring arenas and other nifty things, because sometimes (god only knows why) i like to mellow by mellowing in a video game, when i was bored in world of warcraft, i would duel/shoot dummies, wander around and explore, why? Because i can Similar deal with SWTOR!
Adding to this a race track where you can "duel" anyone in races, Derbies and more. Although that is a bit off topic....
