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IMO, the JTL portion of the game could be one of its best parts if more attention was put on the realism of space and spaceships. Some things I would really like to see are:

• Exploration experience
  This would mean a redesign of the zones to some extent where random planets and systems could be explored in an instanced sort of way.
  


• Hyperspatial Control
  You could enter your own hyperspacial coordinates into the system and see where you ended up. You could get the coordinates of a friend in need and hyperspace to that location, with significant risk of course. You would need skill in hyperspacial math to do this. You would need charts, calculators, etc.
  


• `Active' cockpits
  It would be great if, beyond screen shake, we could have more realism in the cockpits, smoke, buzzing alarms, gauges and buttons and such. The onscreen gauges are great, but we're buying these cool new ships they should be more than just a different external look, a painted on cockpit and different abilities.
  


• More in space conflict.
  You should be able to loot things fromfreighters, or any ship really. There should be a lot more going on up there than there is. More imperial patrols, rebel patrols, random fights breaking out. If you go to the aid of a rebel shuttle under attack by an imperial ace, that ace should become a nemesis towards you and begin showing up in places you take missions at - you should gain repuation, etc.

I have more ideas just not now.

I would also like to see damage taken from colliding with asteroids, i think it would be cool to loose enemies in the asteroid fields like in thefilms. Good or bad idea?

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RorZorron wrote:
I would also like to see damage taken from colliding with asteroids, i think it would be cool to loose enemies in the asteroid fields like in the films. Good or bad idea?

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As was discussed in another thread on the subject, asteroid location is client-side. If they were to actually try to have server-side tracking of the asteroids in order to assign collision damage, it would seriously lag up the game. Not worth the trade off.

When you say that hyperspace coordinate plotting would require calculators and graphs and things, do you mean the player would need to do this? Because, and I really really try to be positive with all ideas, this would be bad. Some people, I know, are good with math and enjoy it - however, many people, myself included, do not. Using in-game onboard computers to plot hyperspace routes I would be happy with, but I would not enjoy a game forcing me to do mathematics in order to access some of its features.

Other then that, I do like your ideas, especially the more interactive cockpits. I, for one, would love to actually see my character's hands gripping the flight stick and manipulating controls as I fly. Also, I would glady give up the current radar and comm systems for one that was integrated with the actual cockpit - even better, as you take damage it could be knocked out, forcing you to "fly blind."

I've played Falcon 4, worked through the very fat manual, and dozens of website to learn how to fly it. The point being, I wouldn't mind JTL turning realistic.

But, the devs have stated that JTL is targetted at a wide audience. It's just an arcade style space shooter with some sim features. The more realistic it gets the smaller the target audience will be. The ideas are good, they just won't be implemented. The best you can hope for is a new Lucasarts sim.