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High level design thoughts
How do people want this game to work?
Do you want vast empires spanning dozens or hundreds of stars? Do you want smaller empires, with planet-by-planet control of every part of a solar system? Should battles be mostly small actions (~10 vessels per side?) or large ones, with fleets of cruisers and hordes of fighters? For that matter, have the developers already made any of these decisions? I for one would like to know. |
Re: High level design thoughts
Hi Greg!
I would like to see smaller empires with the option to control a lot of things and grand space battles with vast amounts of ships. Both extremes of the options you gave really. |
Re: High level design thoughts
Personally I would prefer smaller empires of no more than a dozen to 20 or so star systems each (total amount per galaxy maybe less than 200 or upto 150) with many planets and detailed variety of star systems (ie binary stars, blue supergiants or red dwarfs each reflecting the kind of planets it would support. Ie red drawfs would harbour a scarce amount of planets <hence resources> whereas Yellow Orange type G stars would be abundant in resources and planets being that they have a higher metallicity. And please a realistic variety of moons for gas giants).
The problem with having 100s of stars controlled by computers or human players is that it becomes wholly repetitive and forgettable. I say this because I have played so many 4X Space conquest games and the latest I saw being Lost Empire Immortals and Armada 2526. I prefer each star system has their own unique feel and character with localised (outside immediate star system) anomolies like comets, kuipers belts, nebulas or black holes. Making planet conquest a completely immersive experience. At the moment there are so few games that balance all the above out. I never saw the appeal of a strategy game featuring near infinite star systems, because the ones that tackle this rarely come on top, like Lost Empire Immortals, and Spores space stage really got tedious as well. Apparently Distant Worlds is the only one out there that tried the big numbers star system approach and claims to manage it ok. But I am yet to play it and give my honest opinion. They say its automated, but who knows if this works well. Otherwise the only other 4X Space Strategy game that has my attention is Sword of the Stars II, I never completely gave the 1st one a chance to grow on me. But the sequel promises to introduce complex many planet star systems, with detailed terrain and points of interest (comets to name a few as mentioned in the official game interview)... and that got my attention. But its a wait and see for now. |
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SotS 2? Hmm, have to keep an eye on that one :)
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I've become rather enamored of mobile facilities. I'd like to see those in this game.
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1. I want to be able to chose whether i want to have great galaxy or small. What i often miss lately, is that the Explore part is too most of the time too short. I want to be able to have up to 50 turns without meeting an alien species (at least a major actor) and having to focus on exploration with events on planets.
2. Same. I would like to see most battles with around 10 Large Battleships (with up to 30 escorts and hundreds of fighters). In a game, battles with more than 10 large Battleships should be really rare. Also the bigger the map, the more important are Battleships so the decision on where to send them should be very strategic. |
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I would like to see a flexible, mod-able game engine. Most of the discussions I've seen in the SL forums have been about things that mods could cover. I'd rather have the game developers focus on developing the game engine instead of a mod to play on it, so I'll focus on basic engine points.
I want a sensible learning curve. If it's too shallow, the game isn't much fun, and will have little replay value. The other extreme would be Dwarven Fortress, where you literally have no idea what you're doing unless you can get someone who knows the game to guide you through the first 1000 hours of gameplay. The learning curve will be heavily affected by... 1. A sensible UI. SE4 is a decent, but not exemplar, example of a good UI. It has it's weak points (getting your ships to do what you wanted them to, in particular), but it got the job done with a minimum of hassles. I really hope the developers learned a lesson from SE5's UI in what NOT to do. Click-fests are not welcome, and 10 layer deep menus are not fun. (note that some exaggeration was used here. :P ) Commands and game information needs to be easily accessible, no more than 3 clicks away for all but the most obscure reports. If it takes me more than 2 seconds to get to any but the most trivial report or command, then the UI is a failure in my eyes. Oh, and by the way, Hot Keys are no substitute for a mouse. For reference, turn your mother loose on Dwarven Fortress. She won't get anywhere, most likely. Point and click is a must. Without it, most people who try the game will find it to difficult, and SL will never target a core audience larger than the Spreadsheets-In-Space crowd. Now, I'm not saying that Hot Keys are bad; in fact they should definitely be included. They are far faster than the 2 seconds per command a mouse can make. I'm just saying that WITHOUT a good implentation of the I/O method 99.9999999% of your market is comfortable with, this game will never be the true successor to SE4 it can be. 2. Subtly deep, WELL DOCUMENTED game mechanics capable of supporting user defined variables. The beginning player stumbling through their first game should be able to discern, for example, the basics of how combat functions. As the player becomes more skilled, subtleties in strategy will develop, and the mechanics need to be deep enough to let the player stretch down into them. They will, however, need to know how the game mechanics work for them to do this effectively. To make an exceptional mod, the modder will need to understand EXACTLY how the game goes through it's mechanics, step by step. All the knowledge that had to be experimentally derived from SE4, like the steps in a combat turn, how movement was executed, etc. should be provided to the player. The mechanics should be very deep, though. Take Dwarven Fortress or Dominions 3, for example. There are all sorts of things going on under the surface, things that the player has no direct control over, but can sometimes indirectly affect. For example, in Dominions each unit had, what, 15 or 20 individual stats, affecting everything from movement speed to stamina to damage dealt. Lots of variables interacting with each other under the surface creates a realistic world feel. Mods would be responsible for shaping how that world feels, likely using variables that the Modder creates, but the engine needs to be capable of supporting all those different variables. 3. A powerful, sane scripting language. See SE5 for the powerful aspect but look elsewhere for the sanity (or so I've heard). A videogame is just another way to tell a story, and if you want that story to be an interesting one, you'll need plot points. These could be anything from "your ship entered a forbidden area, unleashing a horde of space monsters into your core systems", to "every system has been seen by at least one race, so now the Warp Points shall start opening and closing at random intervals". If the modder isn't able to change the environment in interesting ways mid-game, then gameplay will become somewhat linear, which isn't nearly as fun. Ok, I think that's enough to chew on for now. :) |
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Yes, I would like to keep battles on a small to moderate scale too - not sure where the other developers stand on this, but that's my preference! Fleets of 100 dreadnoughts are just silly... If you need 100 of 'em to make a fleet, they're not really dreadnoughts, are they? :P
With that in mind, I think we'll be going for a mechanic where you can design a ship of any arbitrary size, so if your opponent has 100 so-called "dreadnoughts" in his fleet, there's nothing stopping you from upping the ante with a fleet of ten super-dreadnoughts! :D We are definitely learning from SE5... the game is completely 2D (apart from perhaps some parallax scrolling backgrounds, but hey, they had those in the Sega Genesis days!), and when we get to implementing a ship design screen, we are NOT going to use slots - just lists of components like SE3 or SE4! So adding 100 of the same component would probably be as simple as picking a component, clicking "add", and adjusting the quantity installed! Not sure what exactly you mean by "user defined variables", but we are using a reasonably sane scripting language, namely IronPython. Right now the galaxy generation is done by a script, so it would be very simple to adjust in any way! Also, it's looking like achievements (e.g. technology) will be at least partly script-based, so I imagine that would fit in to your "space monster" scenario - instead of an achievement which triggers when you reach 100 research accumulated in Physics and causes you to gain Physics Tech Level 1, have an "achievement" which triggers when your ship enters the forbidden nebula, and causes a bunch of monsters to spawn! Speaking of tech, we've got some interesting ideas on how to do research... think of "research points" and "engineering points", where the former is used to discover new techs, and the latter is used to improve old techs (though you might be able to funnel your RP into engineering if you really want to improve that one old tech!) RP would be produced primarily by research labs, but EP would be produced by building and maintaining things. So you build a laser cannon, that might earn you 5 EP toward lasers, and each turn your laser remains in working condition, you gain another 1 EP toward lasers. Then these EP might be spent toward new laser prototypes (say, a laser with 20% more damage). if you have RP, though, you can spend them toward laser theory (which would reduce the EP cost of any future laser prototypes). This last part isn't quite so certain yet, but if it works the way I'm hoping, you'll be able to create new laser components up to a certain level (say, 2 attributes improved by 1 level each, or 1 attribute improved 2 levels) cheaper than investing in laser theory, but if you want the really fancy stuff, it would be more economical (assuming you have RP to spare) to invest in theory first before building the prototype! (Keep in mind this tech stuff is still up in the air at the moment - I just thought I'd post it here to see what folks think before we go down any particular path with it!) So yes, that does mean you could potentially create your own variants of components in-game... create a laser with +2 on the damage slider and call it a High Energy Laser, create a laser with +2 on miniaturization and -2 on damage and call it a Point Defense Laser :) I hope this doesn't seem too confusing... that's part of the reason for the Engineering Points being required to create new variants - it's not just for realism, but also for keeping a player's choices on the ship design screen within reason! If you could create new variants of components for every single ship design willy-nilly, then that would make ship design take FOREVER! |
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I really like the Engineering Points idea. It fits in very well with the "lots of things going on under the surface; things that can only be affected indirectly". It also sounds like it will mix well with the directly affected Research Points. Basic stuff should be directly affected, but the under the surface stuff shouldn't be. :)
Ships of any arbitrary size, eh? That sounds difficult to balance. I'm assuming there will be maintenance/supply/other penalties against bigger ships, that research can reduce/eliminate... |
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Hi guys, I just found out about this game and I'm looking forward to it.
A few things I'd like to see: 1. Huge galaxy with tons of planets as long as there are tools to automate things like building and population migration. I like games that can go on for weeks! 2. Limited range on ships, getting into deep space should be expensive and time consuming. 3. A feature I know I've always wanted was the ability to divide my empire up into named regions of stars and be able to set certain regions to focus on research, ship building, etc.... It might also be useful if a war is going badly to be able to easily order the population of 20 planets to evacuate alpha region and move to the gamma region to avoid getting slaughtered. 4. Near unlimited ship sizes, but costs, upkeep, and build time should increase exponentially to size. I like the idea of big battle ships and carriers being very valuable and strategic assets that are very time consuming and expensive to replace. 5. A setting to drastically increase research and ship construction time. I like a long slow build up to a massive confrontation. In most 4x games, it just seems like by the time you have designed and deployed a couple ships with the latest tech, you have already developed 2 or 3 more tech levels or components. Then you are back designing and refitting ships that are just a few turns old. I'd just like the age of lasers to last for a good long time before the next major weapons development. 6. Ship crews gaining experience in battle Those are the major items I would like to see and I can't wait to see how this game turns out. |
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As long as you can change ANYTHING, meaning number of planet types, number of atmospheres, speeds of seekers/boarding parties, adding more resource types, players will come up with very interesting mods. Just give them as many options and tools as possible.
I do like a great level of detail and underlying rules that players can learn and understand. About ship sizes; if you can build any size ships, keep in mind that there should still be classes of ships for players to make all those hansom models. Decent AI is also a must. I prefer to play against people, but learning the game still needs a good AI. |
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I don't want to have to buy a whole new computer just to play the game. NO super-duper fancy graphics, please. If I can play SEV on my computer as it is, I don't want to upgrade it (and since I have a laptop, I don't know how I can even do that) to play this game. I know some people are all about getting the latest and greatest graphics card, but just keep the graphics manageable.
And no RTS! I want to enjoy the game. That's what I like about turn based games. It gives me a chance to think without having to react to whatever the other guys are doing. Keep it turn-based, and I'll be happy. And make sure it can be modded. That's why I like SEV. Although I don't have the time or the skills to modify the game, I enjoy others' efforts to do so. As long as it has the above elements, and not costs too much, I can't wait to play this game. |
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Don't worry gregebowman, as long as I'm here to direct art for SL you won't get any super duper fancy graphics :) My aim is SEV in 2D with more emphasis on effects, or you can imagine it as a mixture of Gratuitous Space Empires and Weird Worlds.
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Ahem... I mean Gratuitous Space Battles ...
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Although that does sound like a great game title, now you mention it :)
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Turn based is the way to do it if there are huge handicaps on gfx. And especially since I doubt a realtime effort with such a small budget will be upto speed. No disrespect at the wonderful creative team here. But I just want this game to be done sufficient justice.
However if this game will have a minimalist approach to realtime combat and gfx, then at least an engaging multiplanet micromanagement system that is fun and rewarding would be a nice bonus. I hope it turns out to be at least half as fun as I am wishing it to be. And can we have some little fun trivia facts thrown into the game for star/planet/other celestial terrain in its descriptions ala Weird Worlds. I find it refreshing and adding of some fun fictional backstories to make up for other contraints. I remember playing Elite and First Encounters, and just spending hours reading the star maps and bulletin boards that showcased the latest happenings in the Elite universe. |
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I like the idea of flavour text. Also some weird and wonderful tech that you can only get by finding it rather than researching from the standard tech tree. Anyone remember the mystery traders in Stars!?
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Heh, yeah, we've been working on technology lately, and one of the things that each technology can have (in addition to tech prerequsites, of course!) is scripted requirements... I imagine most techs wouldn't have any of these, but imagine something like "you can't research black-hole cannons, no matter how much Physics tech you have, until you have sent a ship with a science lab component within 1 AU of a black hole"! ;)
Also, the way we're doing techs, you don't so much have "levels" as you just have points accumulated in various areas, with techs and components and buildings and the like branching off at various point values, say, 500 pts in Physics might unlock Lasers. Another thing that techs (and anything else you can unlock, such as components or buildings) may have is "visibility requirements" - this would be especially useful for mods with randomized tech trees! E.g. you might know from the data files that getting lasers requires 500 to 1000 points in Physics - but how much exactly? You might not know until you reach, say, 250 points, and you see how much work is really ahead! As for flavor text, that really depends on how much time we have to write that stuff! |
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Was the flavour text in Elite procedurally generated somehow?
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I find it interesting to have a point value system for science and other tech or ship/building components. Am I to assume Star Legacy will have a similar customisation screen available ala GSB for ship design and components? It would certainly open up a slew of possibilities.
Speaking of possibilities. I liked Armada 2526's ability to overtake colonies from other races and still be able to exploit the former alien populace for colonisation purposes. This being that if player X (say human) overtook player Y's colony (say aquatic) then the former Y populated planet would still have Y race inhabitants. They would keep on growing in population size under the current growth rate applicable to the planets favourability of that race. And race X would steadily grow too as time wore on. However it would be possible to migrate some colonists across to say a waterworld, and choose between which populace you would want to inhabit said new water planet. This would allow the player to pick the better suited species under his dominion to grow his empire further. So in essence players could own several worlds with captured populaces from other races. The only setback would be higher incidents of civil unrest versus your own native species doing the planet colonisation. This could also be a nice incentive for wanting to capture or make 1st contact with non space faring NPC worlds. They would provide a source of species diversity for future colonists in environments that are not friendly to your natives, without the drawbacks of civil unrest from former captured enemy colonies. This is one of the few gameplay concepts that Armada 2526 seemed sensible in portraying. It also added abit of welcome diversity to the game itself. |
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As to EdKolis' tech tree uncertanty - The only way that I could see this as being important is if it changes with each game. Otherwise, after the first play, we will know what is required to get the next discovery (whether they are called levels or not, it appears to come to the same result).
I think it would be cool to have a tech tree that is different each time we play - some races find certain discoveries easier than others in the play of a game. Might make for interesting tech trading or espionage opportunites. There was a paper and pencil game back in the 70s or 80s that had a randomization factor in the results. Sometimes you would get a specific tech for your efforts, and sometimes you get the shaft.:doh: |
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Perhaps if the multiplier is randomized. For example, your low/medium/high tech cost games have multipliers of 1, 2, and 4 to your "base" tech costs. Instead, make them a random number within a range. An example would be 0.80-1.20, 1.60-2.40, and 3.40-4.60. Then if I chose a low tech game, the computer picks a random number (1.12) and all your base costs are multiplied by 1.12 THIS time. The next time you play a low tech cost game, the random multiplier might be 0.94, and research would progress a little more than one sixth faster than it did the first game.
Lets look at another example: a high tech cost game. The first game could have a random multiplier of 3.53, and the second could be 4.51. In that example, tech gains in the second game would come about 1/3 slower than in the first game. I would suggest making those randomization ranges moddable, as well. |
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I agree everybody should be able to research a techs basics but the further along you go the more chance it should have to diversify or just plain fail like real life. Gave some ways to diversify the tech tree before stoping the boredom of same old tactics. Tech trading & certainly pilfering could have 2 levels, learn the tech or get a boost in time & success for reverse engineering when you get your mitts on one. Getting your hands on a tech way in advance of where you are there should be a good chance you cant figure it out till further along even if you got the plans. Building a car would be a chalenge if you just invented the wheel after all we havent figured out the anti gravity drive from the Roswell crash yet:rolleyes: |
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I would love the option to scale up into huge arenas - I do like the longer games too.
I would love to see some sort of leader system. Not like MOO2, more like Hearts of Iron. Basically just a database of names and they are assigned to every division built, every ship etc. Each leader has some form of Skill, experience and Rank. Same as ship experience each captain can gain until he reaches next level(skill increase) or if you chose to promote him, trade it in for Rank (Higher Rank means they can control more units, Captain controls 1 ship, whereas an admiral can control 30 ships for example, exceeding it would be detrimental). The Skill could be used for a combat modifier (especially in autoresolving). On creating fleets and auto-assigning available personnel, it may be worth promoting an experienced captain, maybe I have a favourite heh. I think this adds very much to flavour, we can leave it to do its own thing but we can delve into it to tinker with some of the whos-who in your army/navy. Furthermore, possibilities of extending this go into news/flavour reports naming the individuals, or events - for example royalty of your empire joining the navy forcing you to not needlessly expend that fleet in your next foolish venture. If you have a leader Rank = maximum number of ships controlled value then tech options to expand this number become a bit more desirable (ship datalink/neural links techs etc). Surrender may require you to hand over specific admirals etc etc ..maybe getting a wee bit too much now for something already in production but the base idea alone would add some nice flavour. :) |
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Do you mean scaling up as in Spore? That sounded like a really interesting idea, but I never actually played the game.
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If it was my comment your referring to Gregstrom, I was thinking more along the lines of having the option to play on a huge map, or a wee map.
But then a couple days ago I stumbled across Aurora, and i'm blown away by just how amazingly detailed it is. It been described as the Dwarf Fortress of 4x and its true i'm loving it so far. Its incredibly difficult to get to grips with but persevering is paying off, if you haven't heard of it then i highly suggest you take a look. In Aurora it seems you can scale up the map as you go along, spawn new enemies and increase the map size on the go. It seems to work well with that and its an option i hadn't really considered myself. I think that to have scaling up you would be better off in a SE/Starfire/Aurora method of space travel - systems linked by warp points and all interstellar travel is via these, I'm not sure if this is the road your taking (or something along the lines of lost empires/Distant worlds that simulates the entire galaxy and you travel by more conventional means, you see all the stars at the start and you can get there (eventually). I'd prefer the SE way tbh, also id prefer that we don't get to see what links where and all the systems laid out on the map at the start etc - adds to the sense of exploration - I could go on but probably it's better in a seperate post). Banging on again about the officers post I made above, Aurora also has a well developed officer system (very much as I suggested above, only with the additions of traits and bonuses, also Officer roles for civilian, army, navy and special project teams (not quite sure what they do yet). The thing that stands out the most tho is your promoting or watching getting promoted) officers and governers of your own race, unlike the very similar moo system where its a mash of weird races turning up on your doorstep offering their services (its so deep he even has a political system in there to simulate useless officers with good political contacts getting promoted above better officers without the political clout). |
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Ah, Aurora. Have you tried uninstalling it yet? Here's a hint: you can't. At least, not by any method _I_ can find...
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If so & you have an aftermarket program to keep your system running efficently try it they are often better than what comes as standard. Try cleaning the registery first if it does not show. Otherwise do the following 1) Use a registery cleaner CCleaner is quick & free so download & clean the registry. 2) Use windows explorer or whatever you use & navigate to the folder you installed it in, delete it & all its contents. Check first if it looks like it saves games in there if not or unsure also go to the following & check for. C:\Users\Default\Saved Game & the same for your user name i.e. C:\Users\USER NAME(S)\Saved Game 3) Delete any shortcuts to in start menu or icon on your desktop. 4) Now clean the registry again. Note when you clean the registry always keep doing till it finds nothing clearing stuff on the first pass often uncovers more errors. Thats it there might be a couple of librays left on your system but no need to worry. Whenever you uninstall anything you should always at the minimum check its folder & shortcuts are gone & then clean the registry most stuff does not uninstall fully. |
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That's the best way to do it Imp! :up:
Some Virus programs come with an uninstaller too! You can try using that. |
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Is trolling really necessary?
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While making it open and moddable goes without saying, I would caution against releasing something largely dependent on the mod community to 'finish the project'. I beta tested Star Rulers recently...a lot of really cool stuff under the hood including some of the things others are talking about here .....like ship design of any size along with some other novel ideas. However, the game just didn't feel complete to me and since I am not a modder, I never purchased it.
The concept of the huge universe versus increased detail at the solar system level really makes no difference to me. At the end of the day you will be trying to strike the right level of 'things to control' and 'things to manage'. In my mind what is important is how the user manages the empire ... whatever that may consist of. So many games seem to fail on this point, while the kings of the genre have done a good job in this area. Though not perfect, Gal Civ2 and Sword of The Stars have done a good job in this area. An out of genre example of a decent management interface is Dominions 3. Star Rulers provides a rich and detailed empire...it simply forgot to code a good interface.. I think this is an important point because if its difficult to get to where you need to be issue builds, orders, etc... you lose potential market right up front no matter how cool things are 'under the hood'. On Tech, I like the idea of RP and EP. It's along the lines of what Hearts of Iron 3 did with it practical knowledge versus theoretical knowledge. It makes sense. That coupled with a somewhat randomized tech tree works for me. I liked what Sword of the Stars did. Here you have all races being able to research basic tech, but as you go up a particular tree you have a percentage chance of being able to research the next item in the tree....each races percentage chance is different. So Race 1 may have a 90% chance of getting the next level in a tree, while race 2 may only have a 40% chance. So though you have a general path that works better for your race, each game is different because you might not get that whiz bang tech you depend on. I also like the idea of a series of techs that are outside a standard tree but may discovered randomly under certain conditions...kind of an unplanned breakthrough. On combat .... I am torn. Regardless of which way you go, it has got be physics based combat where ship components, placement, and overall design become meaningful. I like the concept of Gratuitous Space Battles where you setup AI and the fleets fight it out, but it might not work well for a large scale empire game where you have tons of fleets to manage. Unless....interfaces for putting together AI 'scripts' and attaching them to ships and fleets was easy. Barring that, the turn based strategy and real time combat of Sword of the Stars is a winner in my book. On ship design .... I love it and look for this to be a well thought out and unique experience that results in lots of meaningful variation. While I would like to see the emphasis on ship building and combat, you might give some thought to have some rare strategic resources that are only found in certain systems and required to build certain components or perhaps even to allow discovery of certain techs.. I find many games in the genre, though they have different resource levels and possibly vary in how easy to colonize, look pretty much the same once terraformed and industrialized. I like the concept of somewhat unique systems where controlling that system .... and the SPICE it produces :) becomes a key system to fight over. On officers and leaders ... They seem better suited for colony and system management than as fleet commanders. While we can all appreciate having a James T Kirk, how much impact will the man have on future space battles which will effectively be fought by computers and systems. Maybe the Fleet AI Programmer gains in level and can code more advanaced routines? Anyway, my 2 cents...Good luck lads! |
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Cosian has brought up a good point. Don't be like Aaron and ship the game with only a half thought out mod as your "stock" game. A quick and dirty way to get a semi well-balanced mod might be to mimic one (or even *gasp* a FEW) of the strong mods out there right now in the SE universe. HOPEFULLY, it would just be a matter of a few quick conversions to SL's unit measurements, and a few beta tests to yield a decent "stock".
As for the leaders, that is kind of a neat idea. Don't just have Combat leaders. Have a mine boss that increases a planets resource production by a couple of %, or an Albert Einstein that boosts research on a planet by a couple of %. a few points, though.
I'm not personally a fan of the "rare resource" paradigm. |
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I've been away for a while her I am again.
I've tried to give these musings a little structure but really they are just popping out of my head. Thinking about high game design I guess first and foremost what I like to see is there is NO perfect path to power. That is there should be multiples strategies involving economics, race design, research, military power (possibly more). Economies - These could be a pure resource model, measured in cash resources and minerals mined. Could be an information economy, players can gain resources by trading information on other empires or technology? Race Design - Definitely customising a players race is a must, things like Temperature, Gravity, Radiation, Atmosphere preference etc. Are important, does the race trade off research capabilities for economic growth? Or does the player go for a race that can live on a wide number of worlds but has slow population growth? The possibilities should be many but again their shouldn't be one perfect solution. Research - I'd like to some sort of tech tree, also I'd like to tech trading between species...either through trade or conquest. Military Combat - I think battles should not be realtime...or if they are groups of ships should be issued orders/tactics before the battle commences. Again tactics should have some bearing on the outcome of a battle. Technology combined with tactics should give victory, but there should be some cross over. Smart tactics and average tech should be a match for dumb tactics and slightly better tech. If you want more examples I go into detail but then it wouldn't be high level. Personally I think crew experience would count for very little in space combat, especially if your turn cycle is yearly the average crew turnover would be every 4 - 5 years. But really I don't care so long as it doesn't become a crutch for poor player tactics. Ship Design - One my personal bugbears is classifying ships. We all fall back to wet water navy designations (I'm guilty of it too). Really, why is a destroyer called a destroyer...because wet water times it was designed for torpedo runs against Battleships. Cruisers were built to deal with the destroyers etc etc What I would love to see is a modular system (a friend of mine and I designed one as a pen and paper test bed). But bascially each HULL is a collection of boxes the players clip together in a designer, each box can contain ship items. Obviously the more boxes you need the bigger the ships become. It's a simple idea that could yield complex outcomes and total player flexibility, with players coming up with designs (and counter designs) that the developers didn't forsee. Anyway enough ranting, I'm sure you guys will develop a great game. Here's hoping. |
Re: High level design thoughts
I'll touch on ship design... Yeah, I always wanted to have a "Lego-ships" or "Tetris-ships" game, but that would probably be a bit involved for a 4X... For a tactics game along the lines of Begin, Vectac, or even Gratuitous Space Battles that would be awesome though! ;)
What we're doing with ship design is basically a simple list of components, sort of like Space Empires IV... We MIGHT have "component layers" a la SE3; I'm not sure about that at the moment... or we might be able to implement something akin to "layers" in a more flexible way using something like SE4's mount system - say, a component with an "Exterior Mount" might have 10x the chance to be hit when the ship is damaged, while a component with a "Core Mount" might have one-tenth the normal chance, or something... One game I really want to try sometime is Star Ruler, though... I've heard that that game has an interesting ship design system - from what I can tell, it's sort of like the "layer mount" system I described above, only instead of discrete "layers" or "mounts", you just drag the components around, and the ones in front are more likely to get hit when your ship gets hit from the front, and the ones on the outside are more likely to get hit in general, etc. Never played the game though, so I'l just guessing based on screenshots and what I've heard! But it sounds an awful lot like what SE5's system would be like if it were done RIGHT! ;) Oh, right, no arbitrary hullsize limits! Make a ship with 1000 missile launchers if you want - just, how are you going to move that ship around? You'll need a LOT of engines! Check out the latest beta version of Gritty Galaxy Mod for SE5 if you want to see that sort of system finagled into the mechanics of SE5 - it's made by SJ, who's one of the team members for SL ;) Oh, I guess one other area I could tell you about is combat... We've had all sorts of ideas about combat, but I think the one that we're sort of leaning towards is automated combat which is continuous with the normal spacetime continuum. By this I mean that battles will be autoresolved (like GSB, or multiplayer SE5) and you'll get a replay on your turn - but instead of ships being effectively "teleported to an arena" like in many other games, they actually engage in combat in the same spacetime as other objects, and if other ships happen to intercept, then they will be drawn into combat as well! Hmm, research... We're going for a "continuous" tech tree, much along the lines of the continuous combat system. This means that instead of having "levels" of some tech, you instead just have "points accumulated", and various items like components are unlocked at various points along the way - say, Laser Guns might require 100 points into Physics, or something! The advantage here is that you can have auto-upgrading designs with formulas: if you have 150 points into Physics, then that next laser you build will be somewhat better than the laser you built when lasers were brand new, and you don't even have to "upgrade" your design to higher-level components - the game will just grab the "current" laser stats and apply them to your ship! Trading tech is rather cheesy, at least in the minds of many of the SL developers... both from a gameplay perspective (cookie cutter empires/designs) and from a realism perspective (yeah, let's analyze that alien bugazoid thingy we've never seen before) so its effect will likely be minimized, at least in the stock game... Well, looks like I wrote about more topics than I'd originally intended! :) |
Re: High level design thoughts
Hello!
This is my first post on the forum, and I came here actually to talk specifically about this topic! I am an avid player of Dominions 3, and most strategy games, and I decided to do a search for a "Dominions 3 space game." Someone mentioned somewhere in the interwebs about Star Legacy being a project in development by Shrapnel, so I checked this discussion group out. I have some suggestions, and I am on lunch break, so I will have to come back to this thread with an edit or a reply in a couple of hours when I have some time to compose my thoughts. I may be walking in a completely different direction than most people, but this is a wish list so I am going to do just that :D Seeya all in a couple of hours! |
Re: High level design thoughts
So, in reference to my post above, here is my actual post with actual thoughts!
Space fiction vs. space science I haven't seen many games in the vein of Emperor of the Fading Suns in quite some time. Maybe I'm ignorant of the games out there like it, but for those of you who aren't aware EoFS is a PC strategy game from the 90's. It has a bizarre baroque and dark-aged flavored sci-fi setting, and was nominally about playing a faction in a shattered empire seeking to control a galactic throne. I see this more as a "space fiction" game based on the flavor and tone, whereas most games I have played recently (and this is just my feeling) tend to be more "space science." There is more focus on ship building, and less about the flavor of the universe. I've played Sword of the Stars, Space Empires, Armada, Hegemonia, Galactic Civ 2, MOO2, Homeworld series, Gratuitous Space Battles and even Sins of a Solar Empire and I think by and large a lot of them have some focus more on building large fleets, sliding sliders around for perfect economies on mostly cut and copy worlds, and usually have some sort of combat system simulating realistic space battles. Not all of them have it, but there is a general theme around those things. There are elements of all of these games I like, but I started to think about what I wanted in a game derived from Dominions 3. I want the fiction. Dominions 3 is wildly creative and I am hoping for a space themed game very similar to it. The idea of creating a race and developing some sort of customized planetary theme is vastly interesting, and less so than landing on some "suitable habitable" planet just to have another place to build more ships or crank research. I am unaware, as of yet, of a sci-fi strategy game that does just that, but there are a fair number of fantasy themed games that handle it more intensely. Stylistics are a big thing I think with a game, especially sci-fi. I think offering different looks and flavors would be a huge bonus to the game's appeal. Most space games tend to have an almost cookie-cutter modern sci-fi look to them, but I enjoy the mixture of Gothic architecture with space ships, or perhaps a sleek retro-Golden Age rocket feel. That is part of that fiction element that I mentioned. I tend to play a game like Dominions 3 because of the ridiculous stories that come with creating a god and slotting him into a race. It's much more of an "RPG" take to things, but with a larger than life scaling that you just don't get with an RPG. If a space game worked in those elements I think it would be really unique in the milieu of 4X's. Combat! The above being said as to the stylistic elements that are interesting, combat is the next big thing. I would say that out of the games I've played, Hegemonia was the most interesting. The development of crew, the hiring of special characters to man the ships, and the targetable areas of the ship were all pretty fascinating. I prefer turn-based over RTS, and I think Dominions 3 is a pretty good model for where a space based game could go. Setting up your fleets intimately might be more interesting in a space game provided there is not a unit overload. I am in favor of fewer ships, but the mention of scalability is appropriate I think, with possibly massive space battles and intimate smaller ones represented in the game. I'll branch out to something like the Warhammer 40K universe with its massive Gothic battleships when I think of the sort of combat that would be interesting. To have titanic battleships with hundreds of thousands of people on them floating about doing port side barrages: that's interesting stuff I think. Then there's another portion that often gets left out: planetary invasions. To have the invasions actually play a factor in the combat system would be pretty fun as well. Maybe you play a race that specializes in guerilla take-overs of planets, sneaking a ship onto the surface so that commandos can run wild. Or maybe you're just about brute force, or incredible defense on a barricaded planet. Planetary combat should be interesting, involved, and as much of a part of the game as anything else. Maybe it could even take into account that worlds are big places and that a planet could have more than one faction on it battling it out on different continents (assuming there are only so many habitable worlds out there, therefore making every habitable planet a thing to covet). Hope this was helpful, and maybe could offer some additional perspective! Excited to see what comes of this in any case since I love Shrapnel Games :D |
Re: High level design thoughts
Very well said sir, I think you are onto something by mentioning more attention to the fiction and resilience of a good story as well as an RPG element to the game universe.
I too am not swayed so heavily into playing cookie cutter 4X space games. They all seem so tedious in the long run. There is no real purpose to any of it after a while. And you nailed it with your description of cut and paste worlds. I am a big supporter of having each world quite unique in its own right, a world can share many similarities to others, but must have some uniqueness in order for a player not to become bored. My suggestion is to offer a multi-tiered system of planet resources, some being uniquely able to be utilised by certain races. There needs to be alot of flavour text style descriptions to each planet... maybe a little history on each system to get the player inspired to discovering more worlds in the Star Legacy Universe. Ultimately I am still hoping for an extensive solar system UI, that makes just looking at your empire a wholly immersive and satisfying experience. I liked Hegemonia's way of displaying worlds... I think Armada was very lazy in this regard. And Sins just focuses on combat, so its not a good example either. To have worlds that have realistic star classifications and orbits, has not been done properly since God knows when. Even Spore is a poor mans version, of what could be. I think so far Nexus Jupiter Incident offers the most accurate stellar and planet cartology. For now I wait with bated breath for the next Sword of the Stars, which boasts extensive solar system terrain for micromanagement and waging interesting battles in. |
Re: High level design thoughts
I agree, Empire of the Fading Suns was one of the greatest Wargames ever on the PC along with Moo2 and SEIV.
It had the focus on planetary developement AND planetary combat, while space combat was just abstract. And it had absolutely no real time element which I prefer. I am wondering why noone has programmed a modern remake of this cult game. Regarding using "naval classes" (destroyer, frigate etc., intestingly the designer only use the names to differentiate sizes, but not the operational task of these naval classes. It would be interesting to see a game where destroyers are built to attack the space equivalent of a submarine and escorts are really built to protect space freighters) instead of just a sandbox construction system with unlimited hulls, I would prefer the latter. In contrary to some opinions here, I dont think that such a construction system is "too much" for a 4x game. Its quite the opposite. 4x games are the only games which unlimited hull construction instead of the old boring naval classes would be a great enhancement. IMO, the greater problem is to develope good game rules for such a modular high end system and maybe this is the real reason why noone dares to bother with it. While the majority of resources in capital and manpower concentrates on programming the game (and grafics), IMO only a small part of the resources are used for developing and playtesting good game rules. In most boardgames good, elegant rules are a must. Not so in the world of computer games. Only very few PC games are good enough to be convincing in programming AND game rule design. EotfS was definately one of them. ATM I am not very convinced of the "Star Legacy" game project. IMO there are too many people involved in the creation which dont mind producing a RT game, pausable RT game or one of those boring "battle watching" pseudo-games like "Gratitious Space..." whatever. (if I want to observe a space battle I am watching Babylon 5) Instead of concentrating to recreate classical true mechanism like those we find in SEIV and MOO2, GC2 or CIV, we probably will see another clone of the newer generation of so called "4x games" like Sword of the Stars, SEV, Distant Worlds, Armada 2526 or another one of those uninspiring turnbased/realtime hybrids. |
Re: High level design thoughts
New poster here (lorq13 pointed me onto this place), and I have to say that some of there ideas are rather interesting, particularly the stuff about technology. Now I have a few ideas of my own regarding technology:
Specialisation In most games, the price-per-level of a technology increases as the level does, but this runs contrary to how life actually works, so what I'd like to see is that various technologies start off expensive, but get cheaper with each level, maybe a 20% price drop for easy 10% for medium, and no drop for hard. Uncertainty Now I can't say I like tech-levels overmuch, but they are convenient. Now the issue here is that in most games levels have set costs, which I also don't like, so I'd like to propose that we ditch fixed levels and come up with a sort of chance thing, where you can see the resources you need to give for a 50% chance of getting the next level, but you can invest as little or as much as you want, with the chances being: - less than the 50% price - 0.5*3)(x^2) [half the 3rd root of the square of the value] - more than the 50% price - 1-0.5*3)((1/x)^2) [1 less half the 3rd root of the inverse-square of the value] This gives a ~19.8% chance for an input of 1/4 the 50% value, a ~31.4% chance for an input of half the 50% value, a ~68.5% chance for an input of twice the 50% value, and an ~80.2% chance for an input of 4 times the 50% value. There'd also have to be a per-unrequited-turn method of shortening the odds, but I'm not sure how to go about that yet. |
Re: High level design thoughts
Re: Specialisation.
I'm not sure tech levels decrease in cost in RL. Maybe in relative cost, but probably not in absolute terms. Did creating the steam engine cost more money than the jet engine? I suspect not. As a % of GDP, maybe steam cost more. One of the reason tech costs grow in games is to (partiually) balance out economic growth, so you have to keep allocating roughly the same percentage of your nation's resources to keep up a similar rate of research. Re: Uncertainty. I quite liked the MOO/MOO2 uncertainty factor. You paid the list price and had a small chance of working out the tech, then the odds of discovery increased with further investment. It was better for SP than MP though, as the luck factor could really mess you up. |
Re: High level design thoughts
Okay, this isn't my idea, it belongs to a friend over on spaceempires.net who's having trouble with activating his account here and asked me if I could post it for him.
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Re: High level design thoughts
Infrastructure upgrade costs? MOO1 had those.
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Re: High level design thoughts
Actually, a better analogy would be the fact that in 1900 cars were powered by batteries or steam as often as petrol.
In a more general sense, he'd like to see a tech-tree where there are, in some cases, two or more competing technologies covering a single area (propulsion for example could be provided either by a fast-but-inefficient engine, or a slow-but-efficient one, or a fast-and-efficient-but-expensive-and-delicate one). |
Re: High level design thoughts
A lot of games with component level ship design have some of that. Stars! had nice efficient slower engines coexisting with fast thirsty ones.
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Re: High level design thoughts
Oh right. Most of my experience is with the Space-Empires line, which doesn't have such, beyond perhaps weapons, although I suppose with the modifiability of the game...
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Re: High level design thoughts
Ah, seems I misunderstood.
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Re: High level design thoughts
I like that idea, as it adds to strategic choices in the game. Perhaps the choices should be something in the line of 'I can research this weapon tech at the expense of closing this area of stardrive research'. That way it's harder to min/max than a choice between two different guns.
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Re: High level design thoughts
Ideally, nearly every tech, in some small way, would effect nearly every other tech.
I know that this is a hell of a lot of work to do at this late stage and may well need mass reconstruction of the tech tree/s and total re-balancing so you don't need to work your socks off trying to fulfil the concept. Had I known of this sooner I would have posted and it would have saved you a very large amount of work (depending on how far you actually are). Anyway, I am very pleased that you like the idea. Good luck and thank you, Dan. |
Re: High level design thoughts
By the way, I'm not part of the dev team. I just like discussing the game.
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