Hello Everyone,
I have been thinking about a really useful addition to the game. Now, please hear me out. I realize that the game is nowhere near the finished product, but I'll have to say, it feels like it will be AMAZING. Now onto my suggestion:
There would be a button near the copy/paste, delete, etc. buttons, and it would look like a stopwatch, called “crew pathing”. When you click it, it will go into AI pathing mode. In this mode, the player can click in a square of a ship to select that point as point A. Then, they can select another square as point B. Once this is done, at the bottom of the screen it will say “estimated travel time: (blank) seconds”. This will be the estimated travel time for a single person to get from point A to point B. Now, the player can also shift-click to add additional points to the ship (sort of like the waypoint system) and the computer would tell them:
Estimated travel time from A to B: (blank) seconds
Estimated travel time from B to C: (blank) seconds
Total travel time: (blank) seconds
Now, when you give the computer waypoints, it will draw a red and green line between them. This is where a crew member would walk if it was getting from point to point. The red line is the fastest current route. The green line is the fastest route if you add doors, so where there could be a door and there isn't, it goes straight through. Then the player can click that wall to add a door there.
I understand that this is a big addition, and that someone could a achieve the same result by watching the movements of the crew, but it would be very useful to find out, say, how far the cannons are from the ammo, or how far the shields are from the reactors. Or even how long it would take one crewmember to go from the quarters to the reactor to the shield to the ammo supply to the cannon. If this gets added, I am going to be ecstatic. Cosmoteer is quickly climbing to the top of my favorite games list, as I absolutely love the concept. This feature would improve the game so much, but I understand if it is a lot to add. If you have read to here, thank you so much! Good luck on Cosmoteer, and PEACE!
Edit: it would also be nice to have the ability to surrender for a large sum of money, which would make the other ship retreat out of combat distance.