Thoughts on a sequel
After finishing the campaign I started killing Xenocs in Colorado by camping outside their base. I even took on some bountyhunters until I became neutral with the rogues and the hackers. Then I went to Mactan Base and bought a dromedary and ran cardamine from Mactan to Manhatten for a while until I had almost 2 mill. credits. I took this money to buy a sabre and then I went to Crete to get my boat outfitted. After that I went home and last night I landed in Manhattan ready to try new things (though I know them all by now). I decided to look at my status and I saw that I'd played 23 hours total! That's not a good value for money in my book. I can allready feel myself getting bored with this (otherwise great) game.
This leads me to make some suggestions:
1) Make the campaign last longer, maybe by forcing some time to pass between "official" misisons. Since I made a killing early on by smuggling I never had to wait between missions after level 4!
2) It's too easy to smuggle - just ignore the hail and keep moving. The same goes for piracy. Maybe police should be able to shut down your engines? This would be annoying, but fair. The jettison-screen should have a (short) timer after which the opponent assumes non-compliance.
3) Make prices dynamic! This would be soo cool. It's funny that Manhattan can keep up the high price on cardamine after I've ferried load after load of the stuff there. Prices should slowly go up (not infinitely) until you (or others?) bring a load, and then they should drop some. Supply and demand would ensure that you have to keep on the lookout for good deals. It would make for a killer info to be bought at bars ("I heard that Freeport 4 is starving for consumer goods".
typos - doh
Edited by - Magraev on 09-04-2003 12:54:17