Okay, so I did a search for 'ship' and there was a lot to sort though. I tried. I like the idea of solar sails on some ships. This would go beyond the basic "I like pirate ships, can you make us pirate ships?" idea by introducing a Terry Brooks or Treasure Planet-esque feel to them. This would be better than a traditional galleon because it would be able to fly, not just tread water. A smaller sloop version would be pretty cool too. Other people have posted about zeppelins and airship type vehicles; maybe this could just be a retexture of something like that, keeping the same controls & physics, but appearing different, and requiring different items to construct?
Interested in the solar sails. I remember something similar in old Space Empires V. If I recall, it was a component that you could add to your ships to provide a movement bonus. This might be something you could do here, and make it an upgrade that grants a bonus to fuel efficiency. Maybe dependent on how many suns are in a system.
I like the idea of the inclusion of solar sails, but I just don't see what their purpose would be in the game. It wouldn't be of any use for FTL travel though, and I'm not sold on the efficiency concept [see spoiler]. As the ship is travelling faster than light-speed, I don't see using cosmic radiation [which travels just below light-speed] as a viable method of propulsion during FTL. It couldn't even be used as a method of getting up to near-light-speed, as a sail of any reasonable size would take years to reach speeds that could be useful for interstellar travel. As for the inclusion of varying efficiencies... It would be a pain to set such a variable for each solar system, but it should be dependent on the collective intensity of radiation given out by all the stars in a solar system, not the flat number of stars. Also because the maximum number of stars in a solar system that would actually have anything worth visiting would be 3 stars, as the gravitational pulls in a system with more would be too disruptive to form planets. Even with three stars the habitable zone is tiny at best, probably nonexistent, so really we'd basically be talking one or two-starred systems. Erm, and also once you got any decent distance away from the system you'd be relying on interstellar "winds" of radiation, which aren't dependent on specific systems.
I guess the scenario I had in mind for this was more along the lines of Jonesy's addition about fuel efficiencies and speed bonuses. The purpose of solar sails wouldn't be to replace the main ships, but would be to add a different planet-side method of travel. Say that your mech or vehicle wasn't quite at the Mr. Fusion stage of technology, and you are exploring terrain without easy access to conventional fuels. A craft equipped with solar sails would be capable of traversing the world without such issues as "ran out of alien-dinosaur fuel. Again." Perhaps a drawback of solar sails would be that they don't work at night. I have no idea how complicated the fuel system in-game will be. Maybe all mechs and higher tier machines won't need fuel at all. If I were a programmer and worried about things that might frustrate players, I would be temped to say mechs have whatever technology they need to be self-sustaining. Anyways, the purpose of solar sails would be to provide an additional source of energy for planet-side vessels (anything that is functionally a hovercraft/airship). And also to aesthetically appeal to anyone wishing to role-play a futuristic 17th century society (so steampunk hipsters I guess?)
Treasure Planet like? Thank God for Childhood. Now I am going to go watch some Treasure Planet/ Titan A.E again for memories.
Unfortunately, there doesn't actually seem to be any planet-side travel at all, and not much "solar-system-side travel". It could be used for the planet to planet travel we've seen is possible in gameplay so far. While current solar sails would be hilariously/disastrously inefficient for this kind of short distance planet hopping, one could do a bit of hand-waving and say that "future-tech" allows us to make sails with a fantastic collection-power to weight ratio. I think it's main use in such a scenario would be efficiency, as I imagine by the time a player is able to construct a solar sail to add to their ship, they'll already have more fuel than they know what to do with, and then use propulsion as a backup. All that said, it's worth bearing in mind that, come public release of beta later today, we might find there are more ways to use your spaceship than just planet to planet and star to star, giving solar sails a place in the game.
