Welcome Star Legacy Development Group!

[Louist]

Engines as weapons are very cool if rarely used.

[Edi]

Oh, the Star Frontiers reference gives me quite enough of a date, but it is because I am so intimately familiar with that.

Oh, the glorious battles we had, I still remember many of them now, 18 years later, and how the GM was fit to chew the hex map and the tabletop for good measure when his best laid plans disintegrated under the withering hail of one in a million shots worthy of Luke Skywalker's trench run...

[MarcoPolo]

I think the game combat system can be 2D and a half :P and still be quite gratuitous. You need only look at "gratuitous space battles" to see an example of 2D space battles done correctly and still with a sense of grandour and epicness. I challenge anyone to say this 2D combat wouldnt enrich the gaming experience enough for this game.

The battle arenas or battlefields could reflect some of the landscapes or solar system conditions found in each users territory (eg nebulas, asteroid field, gas giants) All this could throw in conditions such as reduced speed, or debris field damage or sheilds being inoperable making armoured ships more valuable in such scenarios. The possibilities are endless.

I would also encourage a grading system of resources were each solar system would have either an abundance or ore or gas minerals depending on how many terrestrial or jovian planets it had. Also developing a solid infrastructure in your home solar system before venturing off into space should be the early focus of each player, (this being developing better technologies for resource collecting and colonisation, where the player could experience its own growing pains when colonising its own solar system)

Id like to see tech levels visible on a planetary scale. By this i mean its possible to visit a planet were all the inhabitants are still pre space faring, this could throw up interesting govt options which would align the player with good or evil politics. It could mean that a player would decide to either protect non-space faring nations without interference, trade with them raw materials in exchange for your technology and ultimately become a member world of your empire or exploit them(slavery) or annihilate them for colonisation(genocide)

Also having varying tech levels when doing a planet scan, would allow the player to decide on a wealth of new diplomatic options that would otherwise been only the same old boring good vs evil ones. Also if a player gets into the habit of just taking over planetary systems like games in the past, it quickly becomes a race for resources in the most uncreative way. This way a player can still gain other things, like favour amongst the other races when trading or negotiating treaties or border disputes, going by the way its handles its politics in the past with small nations or even non space faring worlds.

Just one of my many ideas for this game:P

Sorry for the longwinded descriptions.

[Alikiwi]

GSB, already looked at that. Certainly nice graphics but at least we will be able to control our ships and move them as we see fit. They will also be able to retreat if thats necessary

Quote : Also developing a solid infrastructure in your home solar system before venturing off into space should be the early focus of each player,

Thats a player choice (certainly not mine :-) ) and the player/s will have plenty of choices. The idea of finding primitive (pre space flight) races has also been considered, and hopefully will happen.

A far greater flexibility in treaties is also expected and hopefully when you ask an AI for help, you will actually get it! The ability to steal enemy suplies from their ships is an uncomfirmed rumour

[Timstone]

Alikiwi:
Hehehe... you've spilled some beans mate. Care to share more?

[Xrati]

The ability to steal enemy suplies from their ships is an uncomfirmed rumour

Not everything of one race would be usable by another. That should be a very limited option.

[Atrocities]

Is there anything I can do to help out?

[Alikiwi]

Just a quick reply, as my question got buried. Yes temperature and gravity may be factored in but we dismissed Radiation as just not necessary and adding too much complexity to it, given numreous other factors being comsidered.
Whilst there will be 'generic' research, factors etc. across the board, there will also be trait and/or race specific things included in the stock game. Remember we will have at least one race that is Nomadic, ie, lives in space not on planets.
Having medical fields that vary due to each and every planet type (likely to be hundreds) is just not practical. Instead of one entry in a file, you'd need hundreds and then you'd need the coding to match it
But there will be virus weapons and infectious weapons....(No, not me, I didn't say that!)

At low levels, a bioweapon should only kill a single species.

Hm, thats a very interesting idea. But then if theres 15 races (which is expected), then you'd need 15 weapons! That's actually doable but I have my doubts I'd get permission, but I'll try.

For Atrocities mate, yes any HELP would be appreciated! I'll email you shortly

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally Posted by Alikiwi

Just a quick reply, as my question got buried. Yes temperature and gravity may be factored in but we dismissed Radiation as just not necessary and adding too much complexity to it, given numreous other factors being comsidered.
Whilst there will be 'generic' research, factors etc. across the board, there will also be trait and/or race specific things included in the stock game. Remember we will have at least one race that is Nomadic, ie, lives in space not on planets.
Having medical fields that vary due to each and every planet type (likely to be hundreds) is just not practical. Instead of one entry in a file, you'd need hundreds and then you'd need the coding to match it
But there will be virus weapons and infectious weapons....(No, not me, I didn't say that!)

Hm, thats a very interesting idea. But then if theres 15 races (which is expected), then you'd need 15 weapons! That's actually doable but I have my doubts I'd get permission, but I'll try.

Not planet type, species. Each species in the game should have a unique biological ID. What's complicated about that? All you need is a bitfield, code it as a hexidecimal number and it can be put into a text configuration file. Yes, you would need to research medical tech specific to a given race in order to cure their plagues, and yes you would have to research a specific weapon then load that specific weapon to attack a specific race. That's called realism! It might be complicated to setup but no more so than many other options in the game. Using it should not be complicated at all.

But then upgrading your ships should not be complicated either. One of the biggest failings of all 4X games I know of has been the cruddy interface. SE III was actually pretty good for the options it had available. But MM got intimidated by people saying "spreadsheets in space" and started trying to make the games 'look cool' instead of play well. I hope there will not be any ambition to 'look cool' and people will just make the game easy to use -- meaning use well known GUI conventions without trying to jazz them up and make them 'unique'.

How about drop down boxes for all those bioweapon options? As I recall there is an ability in SE5 to make stellar manipulations devices repairable only by spaceyards. (Or was that not actually implemented?) The same thing could be done for the bioweapon options. You can build a launcher into your design and then only set them at a spaceyard. This would keep you from having to refit every time you wanted to use a different weapon, and would be useful for more than bioweapons! With this ability you could finally separate missile launcher tech from missile warhead tech. Launchers could have improvements in speed or capacity or launcher size, warheads in damage amount and/or type. Install a given launcher and then you can select your missile type when a spaceyard is present.

[MarcoPolo]

@Alikiwi...Yeh too much complexity is not necessary, its only worth integrating into the gameplay if it adds a level of detail and realism that can enhance the game experience and gameplay options.

@Baron... Alot of science fiction series come up with fantastic technologies and plotlines on how it would impact a society and what the implications of it would be as a whole. One of my favourites being the Xindi species in Star Trek Enterprise. The Xindi consisted of 6 sentient species all evolving on one planet hellbent on destroying earth. They spanned from Reptile, Insectoid, Aquatic/whale, Mammalian/yeti type, a 2nd reptilian race and an extinct avian race that was always referred to as the tragedy to the terrible legacy to the infighting many centuries ago. I to this day dont know why it was taken off the air, since every Star Trek series was flawless in their appeal. And STE was no exception, it was fresh, about the pioneering days of Starfleet and was still done with much creativity and imagination. I only regret it wasnt allowed to run its full course of 7 seasons and was ended abruptly at season 4. I have since not seen any series compare in its attention to detail and story execution. Not Stargate, Battlestar or the new V series, although they have their own styles and narratives. Its nothing compared to ST. Im hoping Star Legacy will be the flagship and example of games to come of this genre.