[Ikeprof]

I will cease my posting marathon immediately after this post (it was a long dull day at work and they now block any site that has "game" associated to it through some monitoring software).

I would propose that storms have edges.

No really, that's it..simply edges to them...as in an outer edge, visible just as a storm on earth as it comes across the landscape, rather than an all or nothing sector wide event. Not that a storm couldn't encompass an entire sector but rather it doesn't have to.

Something to create almost a landscape itself as one travels through a sector.

Imagine a desperate pilot, his ship weaving and jinxing as he leans foward to coax more speed out of his taxed engines as his pursuers slowly gain on him. He activates his in flight map and notices that the connecting sector has a storm brewing near the nearby gate. Exhausting his last bit of AB fuel, he burns towards the gate and jumps with his attackers close behind.

Rolling his ship 45 degrees clockwise, he pitches up and makes a beeline towards the boiling rolling currents of a shield storm as delicate lightning traces it's inner turmoil. His viewports go electric blue as the storm swallows his craft whole. Relying only on his inertial navigation he plots a course through the storm to the exit gate and parks his craft, blind to what is outside the storm but safe for the moment.

Space is and should be vast, open and barren...yet that is somewhat boring to a degree. By having "microbursts" work their way through a sector, it adds an almost landscape effect that battle fleets could use as part of their strategy. Storms could range in power from minor weak storms that are 1/4 a sector in size to full blown "get the heck out of here now or die" events that cut huge swaths across the TRI map.

This would also add more of a "moving" dynamic to those whom equip fuel scoops and attempt to harvest the storms themselves for their precious resources. Chasing the edge of a moving storm AND watching the map for roids as visibility would be poor would keep me on the edge of my seat.


A "weather alert" system could advise when true "life threatening" storms are about and give a predictive path/sector charting.

Ok..no more posts for the day..thanks for listening.

[Radi]

hehe.....next post will be probly by biteme telling his "love" for storms.

[RIDIC]

I love this idea, I always thought it was weird that one sector would be full blown storm and next one clear as day. I can only think of 2 storms I was ever in, one in unreg on cargo run, and the other in Quant Core sector while I was trying to dock (I splashed that Truck on the station BTW.) Are they still so uncommon?

[Raz]

Well, Nebulas are MASSIVE. It kinda made sense for it to be just huge.

Either way, edges would be fine and cool, as long as it matched how it was drifting and it was still big

I really liked how the storms looked and 'felt' in the original, though. The lack of sight, seeing only the blinking lights in the distance, etc, gave you a feeling much like what a ship's captain seeing a lighthouse in the fog must have felt like.

[alphabet]

I would go one step further and say some storms should have bucketing effects, like flying through turbulence.

There should also be nebulas that you can enter as well.

[biteme]

I totaly love storms!!