Play By Web : Starfury!
 

So, I have this idea. It's probably not an original idea, but I can't remember anyone doing it before if it's been talked about. I could setup a multiplayer scenario on PBW where each player is in control of just a ship instead of an empire. You'd need some sort of moon base just to keep in contact, but that's no problem. We'd need some sort of non-player empire controlled by a game master. All the players would keep a military alliance with the galactic empire, which would allow them to refuel their ship at Imperial bases. Then you'd be flying around the quadrant doing stuff. We could give you cargo to transport from place to place to earn a living. The empire could give bounties for pirates killed etc. Maybe have some weak AI races for the pirates, or just other players. Over time you could upgrade your ship or buy additional ones.

I see no technical reason why this wouldn't work. Anyone have any thoughts, or see any problems I might be missing? Does it sound interesting?

Geoschmo

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

That indeed sounds interesting. The map should be quite small though, to ensure every player has something to do each turn except clicking "end turn".

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Sounds great here's one player *rises one finger*

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Come, join. We will discuss things further here in this thread, but the more people that join the game the more likely I am to remain motivated enough to actually get it off the ground. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Here's a link:
PBW: Starfury!

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Sounds interesting indeed!. Would there be missions like in Star Fury too? I guess the NP-Empire would hand those out. With only one moon base, how would maintenance affect things? What sort of mod changes would need to be implemented? if any..

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

hmmm here are some questions:
how will we pay maintenance cost of our ship?, and what happens with the trading generated by allies?

Should we use some roleplaying mod?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

It sounds kind of borning to me Geo. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Sorry, I think it is a great idea, but just not my cup of tea.

I really wish Starfury would have been MP. That would have been a hell of a fun game more so than it was.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

I'd like to see how this goes; I've already put in a request to join; You all should do the same too, if only to make Geo work his head off. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Yay, questions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Here is what I am thinking, but bear in mind nothing is set in stone till the game starts.

Maintenance. Yes, it would be an issue, by design. I will have to play around with some testing, but I am leaning towards having your base empire resource generation give you just enough to cover the maint on the bare bones ship that you get at game startup. The more advanced your ship gets, or the more ships you get, the more it will cost in maint, and the more you'll have to do to keep up with it. But I will make it so you have some chance of advancing in the game without getting choked to death paying your bills, that doesn't sound like fun. I merely want it to be one small part of the overall strategy.

Treaties with other players will give you some resources. But your empire resource generation will be so small (And all the other players too), that even 20% of that isn't going to be very much. You might make enough to support a couple extra frigates, but it's not like you are going to get rich off it.

I think it very likely that a mod will be needed for this. Mainly because I want to include stuff like a little captain avatar for all of you, pasengers, special cargo, etc. A lot of ideas will come fomr the various "Role play" mod ideas we kicked around on the forum months ago.

Missions, yes. Some things I can think would make good missions:

Go to system X and hunt down pirate raider.
Ferry Ambasador Zed to conference on Omnicron Prime.
Take medical supplies to stop plauge outbreak.
Escort colony ship travelling through dangerous par tof the quadrant.
Explore systems and sell star charts to Galactic Imperium.

All kinds of stuff really. These are just some ideas for start.

Boring AT? Well, it probably won't be for everyone, but I hope it's not boring. That's ok. I hope it becomes a popular way to play so someone else will run a game or two and I can try it out as a player. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

If I understand it, then someone has to be the "dungeon master", right?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Yes. That'd be me in this case. It sounds like a lot of work, and it defenitly is more work then the average hosting job. But I have some ideas on how to streamline things so that it shouldn't be any more work then the average PBW game would be for me if I was a player. And perhaps it might even be less since mostly it will be communicating with the players. Won't have to worry much about building an empire in the conventional sense, and not going to have humungous fleets to manage.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

I suppose I'm asking dumb questions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif, but how would a person get paid? And would it be full-tech or some way to research stuff?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Wouldn't be any need for research I don't think. The normal game you research so you can get better tech to put on your ships. In this case you progress to better tech and better ships by earning resources other ways and then buying the tech you want. I'll probably make it high tech just to make things easier on my self as game host, but you won't have access to the high tech stuff right off the bat. Even if you had the tech you couldn't build or afford it.

You'd get paid by the Imperium when you completed the task for which you agreed to perform. Specifics would depend on the job, but it would be either a gift or a trade of some kind.

I'm also thinking some sort of general trade goods could be fudged which could be bought and sold anywhere, but at different prices in different places. Think of pretty much any of your typical space trader games. I'd be doing that part manually for the most part, but with some sort of spreadsheet I think I can make it fairly painless on my end.

A lot of out of game email communication would happen during turns with the actual swaps going on through the in-game siplomacy screens. Actually I could keep a lot of the money changing out of game entirely, some sort of galactic bank account. You'd just withdraw enough each turn to keep your in game operating expenses where you need them.

Admitadly that's the least developed part of the idea at this point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Ok, well we've got a few people signed up already. Something I've noticed, a lot of have chosen names that appear to be ship names. That's ok, you can name your "empire" whatever you want, and your PBW player name doesn't even have to match your actual player name in game. Remeber though that through the course of the game you will probably have more then one ship. Often more then one at a time, at the least you'll go through susecsive ships as you advance. Of course you can always name your ships USS Enterprise if you want, but if you use different names through the game it's might be confusing if your "empire" name in game is USS Enterprise.

You could use a company name if you want too role play some sort of trade guild. Or the name of your main character maybe. It's up to you. Whatever you choose we'll all be able to sort it out I'm sure. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

I decided to have my "empire" be my "emperor's" leader ship name, I'll probably have support craft, or stuff.
[insert shruging motion here]

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

OK, I'll give it a go.

(Yes, I know I have no imagination http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif)

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

I think we should start with nothing, if posible, (or something that can self destruct if not) and the DM could "gift" each of us with our ship, then, we only have that ship, with no need of researching any tech.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Shadowstar has created a wonderful experiance called StarScape. In that game, he acts as a GM and has developed some very impressive ways of handling Game Master issues during a game. I'm sure he'd have oodles of suggestions and comments on GM'ing a Starfury game.

In fact, that gives me an idea for a suggestion for SEV...
(heads off the to SEV suggestion post...)

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Will our ships have extra supplies or more efficient engines? You can not explore very much of the galaxy with starting supply levels...

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Maybe he intends on us being on friendly terms with the "imperium" (he said something about being able to refuel below) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

That depends on how much he intends to do to set up the Imperium... and how many AI empires will there be?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Maybe we'll get starmaps of known Imperium locations. And compute necessary supply needs (read: retrofit, perhaps) to do missions.

It's all new to me, so I'm just guessing.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

I am leaning towards no AI empires at this point. I am just thinking there will be too much that would go wrong with the AI to try and trust them. It would require me to break one of my own rules about playing multiple empires in a game, but well... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm thinking the Imperium race, a pirate race, and a civilian race. The civilian race will just be unarmed transport ships flying around. Basically targets for the pirates and players that wish to go bad. I am doing that so the players can prey on the civilians if they choose without nessecarily breaking their treaty with the Imperium. I intend to role play things so as long as an Imperium ship doesn't actually see you attacking a civilian you won't definetly be tagged as a pirate. You'll have to attack an Imperium vessel (suicide) or be really blantant about attacking civilians. Just remember pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Of course attacking pirates will be encouraged, and attacking other players will be tolerated, unless they happen to be carrying cargo/passengers that are important to the Imperium.

Refueling will be done at the Imperium planets. You will have a military alliance with them at first. As long as you keep that you will be able to refuel. You could also buy solar cells or quontum generators.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Any particular goal/winning conditions involved in the game? Or is it much like D&D (where character growth and development is the satisfaction)?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

When do you plan to start this, and will we need to upload any special empire files and whatnot?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Are you talking about setting up an SE IV game as a Starfury scenario? I don't see how you could make Starfury a multiplayer game... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Narf is in.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Yes, exactly. A Space Empires IV PBW game setup as a scenario modeled after Starfury. With differences of course, but as close as we can make it.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Just as a thought...
I imagine that you could have a Temp or Guest GM come in for special missions as an AI race. Then there would be an actual human that we would have to 'compete' against to complete a mission. That would involve some planning, obviously, and willing Guest GM's. But it would be a cool feature.

Are you protecting the caravan from a stupid AI, or a cunning human player...?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Ok, to do this right is going to require a lot of out of game communication. I'm thinking either a whole lot of emails (yeech) or some kind of forum. Since neither the Shrapnel forum or the PBW game forum is very condusive to organization, I'm setting up a metagame site with a forum. Fyron has graciously offered me the use of a subdomain for this purpose.

Check out The SE4 Play By Web Starfury Game site at http://starfury.spaceempires.net

There's not much there now, just a shell. I think it will let you go ahead and sign up for the forum if you want. Or I may have to do some more configuring on that first. Not sure yet. Please use the same login that you use on PBW. This site and forum will be open to interested non-players as well. Using this forum we should be able to keep all our communication organized so nothing gets lost. At least that's the plan. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Lot of trouble to do this sort of thing...would be nice if it could catch some more interest. alarikf (or however one spells it) would seem to like this sort of thing.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

OK, so I applied to join..

What kind of empire file will we be uploading? and how do you create an empire in Starfury? Will this be in the "mod?"

Turin

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

BTW.... kuddos to Richard and Mindi for how well the new board features work!

D'ya think they can fix the "dinosaur" that is the PBW Boards Geo?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Sounds like great fun, and I'm tempted. However I'm also notoriously unreliable when it comes to PBW. I could probably keep a commitment to uploading a turn every 48h. How fast will this game run? How many players?

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Hi,

Okay you got me interested........
I signed up already, So we will see where this ends.

BTW. Must give Atrocities some credit: It might become very boring, but I like the idea very much. So give it a try........

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Not sure how much time it would take to do a turn like this. Actually, as far as doing turns goes, you won't have many ships and only 1 colony, so it can't be TOO bad (smile). There would probably be some time taken to corresponding and such but I expect it to take much less time than a regular game.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Ok, just to be totally clear, this is Starfury only in name. It doesn't use the Starfury game at all. You don't even have to have Starfury. I could have just as easily called this PBW Privateer, or PBW Elite, but I'm a unapologetic shill for all things Malfador. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

This is SE4, played on PBW. You have to have SE4 and a userid on PBW to play. The empire you create and upload is made in SE4. But hold off on that for now. This is probably going to be a mod game and all the parameters haven't been finalized yet, so rather then all of you end up having to reload your empire file, just wait for now.

It may be a couple weeks before we get started. This game is going to have more then the average Game Owner workload for me so I need some time to set everything up.

They don't have anything to do with the PBW Boards. That would be me or Tesco. Unfortunatly the PBW board is heavily integrated with the rest of the PBW code so it will be difficult to upgrade without a total redesign of PBW. That is in the works, but probably won't happen till SE5 comes out.

48 hours would be the absolute longest I'd want the turns to go on this. I'd prefer 24hours really. As Slynky says this will probably take less game time then the typical PBW game for the players. If people are having to wait 2 days between turns that take 5-10 minutes to play, they are going to lose interest.

If this concept works like I hope it does and I can streamline the game owner workload, it's possible that other games like this will happen and maybe some of those will be ones with longer turn durations.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Geo I am in.

I would rather help you with the game.

Or if not then a player

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

LOL, I figured you'd want to be in, Simon (one way or the other) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Sounds intriguing. I'll give it a go.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

I've had a weird idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif . Don't now if anyone has ever played Savage: battle for Newearth, well, this game is a hibrid between first person shooter and real time strategy, where one player of each team has a warcraft like view and interface the others have a half-life like view, acting as the "grunts" (or as the workers if needed). There, the "commanding" players couldn't produce fighting units, only workers, and the fps players were there only to fight, following the commanding player orders. The commanding player researched tech for the players to use in better weapons and items to defeat the other team. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../firedevil.gif

My idea is to have several "full" playing players, and some others with only ships at their orders, acting like fleets captains for the "full" players. Why to have fleet captains? because the max ship (and also the units) number is limited to 20 or 30 (sugestions are wellcome) per player and with the bases sy and the colony ships (and the promise of not bulding war ships) "full" players will have their max ships fulfilled, relying in them the political[, intelligence] and researching affairs as the fleet upgrading, as well as giving their captains the right orders. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Imagine communicating with your fleets at half speed as you do in a normal game, with possibilities of dissobedience and treachery in a roleplay (wich Savage lacked) atmosfere. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon02.gif[/img]

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Sounds a bit like Play By Committee... ever heard of that?
www.invirtuo.cc/se4
I think you need a guest account to see anything, or something...

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Never heard about that. By the way, what was the link for? you know, is the site of the designer of pbw, but i cann't see further.

[edit]hehe, google is God, you meant http://invirtuo.cc/se4/index.php[/edit]

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Withdrawing from the game. Multiplayer with subterfuge, as I have been reminded, is not my cup of tea.

Good luck to the others! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Subterfuge? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Anyway, I haven't forgotten about this guys. I planned on having some stuff done on the server this past weekend so I could concentrate more time to getting the PBW starfury game setup. Unfortunatly things didn't go as smoothly as I hoped, so my time table was set back a bit. Bear with me.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

/me goes to a stream, crouches on all fours and begins trying to bat fish out of the water.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

Thank you Narf for being a bear with me. Not exactly what I meant, but it'll do. As long as you don't try to bare, everything should be allright. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

There is no need to haste, geo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, take your time

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

/me ambles over to a blackberry bush and begins picking and eating berry's.

Re: Play By Web : Starfury!
 

I have decided to give this one a go. It seems it will be well handled and I like the idea.

Ticon Corp. ready for first mission, SIR!!!