Well, I would not like a futuristic game, where you can magically multiply your shots. In my opinion a sci-fi stetting should have higher standards regarding realism then a fantasy setting.
I guess finding enough powers to generate diverse charate builds can be a problem.
I would prefer powers like:
Spray'n'Pray: Conelike area damage for automatic weapons
Spot Weakness: From time to time a "weakness mark" appears on an enemy and disapperears after a short period of time, shooting this enemy leads to extra damage or something like that.

Along with some passive weapon skills you should get some nice selection of possible char builds.
I would like to see powers that are at least "action-movie-realistic".

Item requirements should be some kind of DRM-scheme, doing some subquest(can be even simple ones like in Fate) for some corporate suit and he will grant you licences for using their hardware- if you can find or afford it.

You might want to look into http://www.restricted-area.net/ a futuristic diablo clone. When I played it, it was kinda bugridden - including major showstoppers like monster level scaling producing unbeatable boss enemys.

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Original post by mctb32 Space Hack ( http://spacehack.rebelmind.com/en/main ) is a Diablo clone in Sci-Fi theme released somewhere around middle 2005.

I remember reading up on this game and then this thread reminded me of it right off the bat.

Not saying that you shouldn't go on with the project, sounds fun. In fact I'm actually in the process of "mind digesting" an idea of my own but in a more modern environment.

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Original post by Nostyle Well, I would not like a futuristic game, where you can magically multiply your shots. In my opinion a sci-fi stetting should have higher standards regarding realism then a fantasy setting.[...]

Science fiction is as much fantasy as anything Tolken has written. If a flux capacitor can travel through time, and tachyon emitters can be powerful beam weapons, I don't see what stops a weapon from being modified to shoot multiple projectiles. Of course, unless it's reactor/battery/etc is designed for that, you can't do it constantly or it might overload the weapon (causing X seconds before it can be fired again, maybe a big explosion, etc)

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[...]I would prefer powers like: Spray'n'Pray: Conelike area damage for automatic weapons Spot Weakness: From time to time a "weakness mark" appears on an enemy and disapperears after a short period of time, shooting this enemy leads to extra damage or something like that. Along with some passive weapon skills you should get some nice selection of possible char builds. I would like to see powers that are at least "action-movie-realistic".[...]

List any you can think of. That is part of the purpose of this thread =-)

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[...]Item requirements should be some kind of DRM-scheme, doing some subquest(can be even simple ones like in Fate) for some corporate suit and he will grant you licences for using their hardware- if you can find or afford it.[...]

This sounds too 'now' for my tastes. Also, my idea is that most of the technology you recover would be from the aliens themselves.
I was thinking that one passive ability might be 'salvage', which helps you 'find' more items by being better able to recover whatever technology survived the firefight, and an active ability 'Field Engineering' that lets you 'identify' unknown technology. The reason 'identify' is marked off is that it wouldn't be like diablo where an item is fixed in type and you're merely discovering what it is - there would be some interface for picking what you want and some chance you'd get that or something similar (because you're not picking up COTS technology, you're rigging up whatever parts you can find to do your bidding).
In addition to that, as an extension to the 'energy as ammo', I was thinking that maybe each part has an energy requirement and the suit would have to have enough to power whatever you use. Most instant-use (vs always-on) items would have some kind of reservoir that they would charge when not in use, and when used power would come from there (ie a 'clip' for weapons, shields only protect so much depending on capacitor, etc) and it would charge from the suit power supply when not full. This way weapons and shields could have HUGE energy constraints that can't be met by the suit's power supply but you can still use them as long as you make sure you're out of sight a second or two after every few shots. Different weapon types will of course have different requirements, and your basic blaster won't take any extra energy while a multishot plasma cannon might take so much that, while recharging, the rest of your items are inactive. "Self-Powered" or "Low-Power Use" could be 'magic' item attributes that can really help out for the big guns.

There could also be other concerns, such as the standard strength attribute. Power armor multiplies strength, but with an increase in lifting power comes a corresponding increase in weight. A BFG sure is nice and effective, but it also weighs 3 tons (plus 1 more for the optional gun-powering fusion reactor). Of course, it would only apply to logically large equipment - a basic shield belt would not have a strength requirement, but larger weapons (more modifiers) and better suit modules (extra power generation, advanced multi-layer shields etc) might have some. Combining this with the bidirectional scaling, there won't be things requiring str scores from 5 to 100 in steps of 5 - I'm thinking I'd like to keep all attributes in a 1-10 range.

Another concern might be parts available - perhaps most advanced items (multiple modifiers) come through some kind of crafting system, and you just aren't likely to get high-power parts (think gems/runes/jewels in diablo 2) until you get to the later floors of the 'inverted tower'.

Really, this isn't meant to be exactly a diablo clone - I'm just using diablo as a base because it has many elements I want. Think of this more like "diablo meets the arcade" with elements from games like scrolling shoot-em-ups and beat-em-ups to make it faster and less cRPG-centric.

Hmmm...futuristic Diablo clone...sounds like a game i recently played called Restricted Area.

Ever play Crusader? It might be a good alternate starting point.

I've not read the entire thread, but I didn't see this mentioned.

Sniper rifles are cool. But they don't work very well in a 2d top-view kinda game like Diablo. Unless you can go slowmo, perhaps. Any good solutions to this?

Secondly, you should try Crimsonland and.... some other game I can't remember the name of. :) Alien Attack or something like that.