Thanks for your reply mosgrom. I can understand some players like it the way it is but gamers cover a wide spectrum now adays (im in my 40s) and younger players no doubt like quick reflexes games etc and there were times i played last night having quick reflexes would of helped. But yeah much less of those birds on starter planet (or even starter system) would be a good idea. What about there is some addons for your ship/taxi you can purchase- where these birds are deflected away from you via rapid release of compressed air from all sides of ship via a hotkey (rmb or/ spacebar) this potentially could deflect 2 birds if they are close enough. You could have a blur outline around the ship when using this. But this device uses compressed air and will need to be refilled (im not sure if there is a fuel/refuel mechanic in the game) but if so where we get fuel is where we could top up our gas tanks. Perhaps this also could be used to brake very quickly from 3 - 0 in half a second- even if traveling fast but uses up more compressed gas (spacebar + w for front) is used to only have the gas fire out the front of the ship . This idea could also branch out into combat (i recall reading there is combat in the game but the game is not combat heavy) but imagine there is some yahoos or drunks who like to/ ram taxis in the game- and you can deflect their attacks with this compressed air mechanic (3 successful consecutive deflects will have the yahoo give up and go away or the first time)- this could be a rare event anyway, but just an idea how the compressed air idea could have more purpose. I dont know if you ever will have ground side locations in the future, but this compress air could make the taxi into a hovercraft as well like on water. But i know i am going a bit over board with ideas here lol (excuse the pun).
If you do not like my compressed-air deflect hostiles idea (one might think in the gameworld someone would try to invent something to counter those birds) another idea could be the player can dive under the bird (if in time) or up and over the bird this which only lasts for several seconds until the taxi returns to flight altitude again (player can still turn the whole time though). Also being able to go up briefly before returning back to the normal flight level this could be handy to fly over buildings where you might have auto-landing on but want to avoid. This mechanic could have other uses in the game in the future, such as Air-racing. Player could buy or hire a racing ship (a taxi driver has to have recreation lol) and there could be a track with hoops that ship has to fly through and sometimes over- a simple colored racing line that can show where dipping is required and going over (this might be too hard to implement but ideas cost nothing). This could be like a rally- as in one competitor at a time and fastest time (you are not racing others at the same time and space) so it will be somewhat skill based being able to turn and use the throttle (although throttle control might have to be more fluid in the game) - maybe controller support in the future. Perhaps some tracks will have a leaderboard that shows other players rankings. But anyway i am getting off tangent here. I was just pointing out these two ideas that could have other purposes in the game. But the other secondary purposes would be further down the list of ideas naturally. Still these might be redundant ideas as there could be higher priority ideas to work towards which i understand, i am just put ideas out there for consideration.
Will it be possible later on to buy faster taxis? either they travel faster and turn faster or you can only have 1 type (turn faster or go faster)?
I will try adding more armor to my taxi, thanks for the idea (i didnt know i could).