[BusNicke]

Hello there,
I just wanna come and contribute with some thoughts about mainly Helm.

First off I just love everything you post, all is going in the exactly right kind of progress for this game and
I get more and more excitet to play this for every new post I see.

I myself has played games like Artemis and my role is Helm so I havn't had that much opinions yet since nothing has really been revealed for that role.
This post will mainly be about piloting and give my idea for a fun piloting experiance.

Questions:
Will there be HOTAS support (really want to play this with my hotas setup )?
Will I be able to do a "Crazy Ivan" from firefly?
Will I be able to turn of initial dampners to be able to rotate the ship while it still moves in the same direction as before?

My thoughts and rambling:
I do enjoy the thought of autodocking like in Star Trek and it seems like a basic thing for the future, but i would love to be able to have to manually dock to a
damaged ship to rescue survivors while tactict and engineering is trying to fend of the enemies in the heat of the battle to then undock and jump away as quickly as
possible.
The Autodocking in artemis is a bit to simple. I would love it to be like:
Helm - requesting docking
Space station - docking request granted
Helm - thrusters at 10%
tactics - deactivating shields for tractor beam
Helm - activating tractor beam beacon
helm - thrusters at 0 power
helm - activating landing gear
tactics - shutting down engines
helm - activating extention bridge for boarding
and so on. (Would love to be able to flip a couple of switches in the right order to activate and deactivate the flight of the ship)
I would love to have a procedure for docking. nothing that is way to easy, you have to actually pay attention when docking.
And manual docking would be very cool to first find the docking gate of the ship/station, align to it, then activating docking engines so that the ships pivot
point is the docking gate and get a view from the docking gate to do small adjustments while getting closer (and "hard mode", trying to do this when the damaged ship
is still floating and spinning(Interstellar)).

I would love to se the calculated trajectory of the ship at all time when flying(on the map), so to se where I will end up if I continue in the direction and speed I have,
and taken into account gravitation from planets, suns and black holes.
So that I can do a calculated slingshot around planets and such to gain extra speed and to enter orbit (kind of like in Kerbal Space Program) so that tactical and
engineering can send down crew for equipments and resources on the planet.

One, in my oppinion, very important thing about destruction and combat in all space games is that ships shoudn't just explode when down on 0 health.
I would much rather se it as a "dead in the water" kinda detail, so when you down an enemy, its not like "bam" its gone. More like, "Bam! they are no longer any threat".
That way you can also get a very fun and panicy part of the game when the crews ship is dead in the water, and everyone has to really work fast and hard to survive.
Engineering is trying to get power to jump engine with rewireing and using every bit of power he can find.
Helm is trying to plot a course for a jump.
Tactical is trying to fend of boarding parties from enemies.
Captain is trying to give orders while everyone is shouting.
Then jump away from danger while the enemy ship is still shooting and boarding and then try to make it to the closest spacestation in one-ish piece.

All these features are ofcourse just me dreaming away, but i hope they will at least inspire 
Keep up the awesome work.
Thanks for reading and have a lovely day.

[Mark]

Hey BusNicke,

Love the post!

I'm really tired now so I will wait until tomorrow to write my thoughts.

[Mark]

Thanks man.

I know I've said this before but the support I get from you guys means a lot to me.

I'm not ready to go into detail about helm, there are still many things with it that I have to nail down, but I'll do what I can to answer your questions.


Will there be HOTAS support (really want to play this with my hotas setup )?
Yes! I have a Saitek X52 and have used it in-game.
 

Will I be able to do a "Crazy Ivan" from firefly?
Reversing one engine to turn is currently possible, but venting gas which can then be ignited is not.


Will I be able to turn of initial dampers to be able to rotate the ship while it still moves in the same direction as before?
Absolutely.


All of the auto-docking questions/suggestions.
There is no auto-docking in UoN, for two reasons. Firstly there is no tractor beam, so the station cannot grab you from a distance and bring you in. Second there the ship's computers cannot be interfaced with remotely, it is too big a risk (from hackers). To dock helm needs to switch thrusters from hot to cold (cold thrusters provide less thrust, but hot thrusters can cause damage), turn off shields if they are on, and position the ship so that the station's docking clamp can grab it. Tactical or Engineering will need to power off any weapon systems, this is a standard security requirement.

Docking is not always required, some things can be done using shuttles.

Ships cannot dock with other ships (there may be one or two exceptions). Any transfers between ships will be done via shuttle.


I would love to see the calculated trajectory of the ship at all time when flying(on the map), so to see where I will end up if I continue in the direction and speed I have.
This is something I will have, but it can be shown on screen (it is toggle-able) and not on the map.

So that I can do a calculated slingshot around planets and such to gain extra speed and to enter orbit (kind of like in Kerbal Space Program) so that tactical and engineering can send down crew for equipments and resources on the planet.
I am afraid that I will not have orbital mechanics in the game, it is simply outside of the scope as developing that functionality would be very intensive/expensive.

One, in my opinion, very important thing about destruction and combat in all space games is that ships shouldn't just explode when down on 0 health.
Ships are destroyed if their hull integrity goes to 0, but in most cases the ship will be disabled well before that ever happens. UoN has an instability system, where instability in systems and the ship's power core can build up over time (either from overheating or from taking damage). Instability can cause "instability events" when systems are operated/used, which is anything from malfunctions and overloads to fires to explosions. So you don't just go from working to no working, there's an interesting ride along the way.

Just to be clear, there are no offensive boarding parties in UoN at this time. Operatives, our away teams, are for other (mostly covert) activities. They are something like the CIA or Seal Team Six.


Thanks so much for your questions, they have gotten me thinking a lot more about helm.

[BusNicke]

Cheers, love the answers!
I'm looking forward for this flying experience =)
Really feels like you have thought everything through!

[BusNicke]

Just remembered another question.

Will there be any way that you can connect tablet devices to show information on and interact with?
Would love to be able to have the map and plot course on my android tablet, och just have it to show part om information like shield integrity or speed and directions or such? Just have more screens with more buttons and info (the more the merrier!) =)