Bay 12 Games Forum

Me while still learning Space Empires: "Oh, that's odd.  My passenger transports have the 'eject cargo' button enabled.  But there's no way, when I'm in the middle of deep space, that they would allow...ah, they allowed it.  Oopsie."

That was real tactic to depopulate planets that you couldn't hold. 

Capture / trade / espionage one you cant keep?  Going to lose it to an enemy fleet or to a rebellion?  Need to prevent your methane breathers from falling into the filthy oxygenoid's hands?  You can't directly fire on your own worlds, but one cargo bay in orbit lets you depopulate untold billions in a single turn...

(me posting this from my phone would have been seen as pretty magical a thousand years ago. I'd have to explain that I was conferring to a group of dwarven wizards or something. You know you are).

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But the concepts learnt, the worldviews, and the sheer ability to communicate could spark off thought processes that wouldn't otherwise be accessible without mobile internet that's easily useable.

sure, and I can see all that.  But I can't see it leaving anything as recognizable as human behind.  at least not recognizable as human society.

They'll posit that people can control time and energy and matter on a fine enough scale to produce these discrete effects, but the best use is to train special operators to  blast mutants with it? 

People are giving it more thought than the authors did, in the effort to justify it.  The authors just thought, "Hey, lets have a character that can move things with their mind and cast fireballs!" and so they put that stuff in.

You point to the iphone as disruptive and inconceivable by previous generations -- and truely enough.  And so there will well be further inconceivable advances.  Of course there will!  But what are they going to disrupt?  what will change on a broader scale about how we communicate and interact as a society?

It isnt just the psi... There is atomic level nano fabrication available, and the best use of it is to make fizzy drinks and bullets?  Really?

For some more positive examples of games done well, take a look at Iron Seed -- a ship full of uploaded minds, and you have to keep them sane by pressing the reset switch on them every so often and restoring to the last known good backup.  Or even Cortex Command, tele-operated drones fighting proxy wars for disembodied brains.

Or even something like Darwinia.  Sure, it is a cutsey Tron spinoff, but its just the sort of thing that could be plausible.  Virtual worlds within virtual worlds, evolving on their own without any concept of what is going on outside.

Perhaps wide-spread space travel and regular low-g exposure could be another triggering factor

in NC.0079, maybe...

When did this thread turn into nerds sperging out about science fiction?

About one page back. 

Since there's no SS3 yet, or any solid news about what it might hypothetically contain, feel free to sperge on about whatever tangentially related topic you like.

I could see hackers being sort of psionic characters in some distant future,

the 'Mindjammer' tabletop RPG is a pretty good example of this -- ubiquitous networking, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and nanotech.  It's basically Banks 'Culture' setting with the serial numbers filed off.

Hacking is more like spell casting, as human brains and artificial minds interact with the network as naturally as breathing.

As with any transhuman sort of sci-fi, the only reason you have anything as recognizable as human is by plot fiat. 

And when you start talking about tech that can negate entropy, create reactionles energy, negate mass, etc.. you're talking about civilization transforming things.  trivial planet killers, the end of energy economies, etc.

Psionics have been in SS1

There was? 

Do you have an example?  I just reviewed a 'creature list' and didnt see anything psionic on there, and don't remember anything from the game. 

I'm super curious now, I can almost remember something in the game with mental projection powers with some sort of blueish attack, but that might just be the power of suggestion at work.

I backed Underworld purely on a "thanks for the memories" trip, with not much hope for the actual game

I like the cut of your jib.  I'm totally behind a Spector SS sequel, sight unseen, for similar reasons.

push the envelope further, just like they used to do with every LGS release

They really did.  Underworld broke the mold.  I had already played too much Dune 2 and Warcraft to enjoy C&C, but I appreciate that it took the formula in a fresh direction with much cleaner technology.  Thief, amazing.  Tera Nova:SFC was one of the most awesome little under appreciated gems.

Everything they made, really did push the envelope further.

I almost hope they decide to do something totally fresh, not resembling the previous games at all.  Flip it on its head, and do something like Endgame:Singularity where you play from the machine's point of view. 

They could pull whatever crazy stunt they wanted, and I'd buy the game because they've got the credibility and have earned the right to take a moonshot.

This sounds like Sentient

So it was!  wow, I might have to find a way to try to play the finished game.  Psygnosis was one of my favorite studios.  I just found a manual with a credits page, and nope -- no relation to the LGS guys at all.

Gosh, makes me want to play Brataccas or something...

I'm actually hoping they leave Psi out of the third one.  Leave that stuff for the fantasy games.

Does anyone remember a sci-fi game the Looking Glass Studios guys were working on after System Shock 1?

It was a "social" type game, where you were on a ship falling into the sun, and had to talk to the other passengers on the ship to find out what was going on and what to do about it.  I think reading their facial expressions to know how to interact with them was supposed to be a big part of the game.

Dont know if it ever got published, but they released a demo on one of the demo CDs that got distributed with game magazines back then...