posted
I'm not sure Stars! is a decade old now -- if it is, I'm showing my age -- but I feel compelled to point out that by no means are most games over ten years old available legally for free.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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http://www.starsfaq.com/rgcsfaq.htm "Stars! is an Advanced Interstellar Strategy Game and a member of 4x genre (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) of PC games. It was written by Jeff Johnson and Jeff McBride with help from Jeffrey Krauss (collectively known as the Jeffs). It was originally written in 1995 and is still as fun to play now as it ever was."
I know most people didn't discover it until the late '90s, though, when the 2.0 versions started coming out.
And regarding info to play it, you should be able to find a demo of the game easily that will support play for a certain number of turns. I think serial numbers are available for a small nominal fee, check that FAQ I linked to.
I still play it from time to time- the urges come in waves every year or so. PBEM games can take a loooong time to play out though.
Posts: 2 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Another thing I would like in the game are real convoys.
Think about it in most games the whole trading system is kinda invisible with in some games a limited ability to interfear with it. What I suggest in my game is to have the actual ships moving around transfering the goods thus anyone can within their line of sight see the ships and interact with it. From commiting acts of piracy of making first contact if you've met this empir eonly for the first time.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Indeed-- one of the things I liked about RoN was that the caravans were actually visbile, and could be attacked for profit. In this case, I suppose you'd be able to salvage whatever you wanted from the cargo (as well as the ship itself).
If you have physical convoys, obviously you'll also need trade routes: say, you don't want to fly directly between two worlds, because Emperor Whatshisface of Wherever controls it, or pirates will almost certainly attack (sorta like the Kadeshi in Homeworld, heh). You'd have to plot courses through other people's territory and perhaps pay whatever taxes they desire. Trying to find the safest, fastest trade route could add another level of micromanagement however; maybe a lot of it could be automatic.
posted
Excellent! Though piracy is something that I want to happen (AI at first but gradually replaced by Human pirates) The convoy system I'm thinking of is to have ship A leave New Boston shipyards, travels across 2 star systems to Neo Hiroshima Shipyards (I'm thinking of some kind of random name generator to name your shipyards (as well as the option to just name them yourself) based somewhat on your empire + planetary names) Ship A enters shipyard unloads cargo loads new cargo generates X% "profit" in IGC (INter Galactic Currency or blah blah blah) then travels back to your shipyard and does this in a loop. the actual docking/undocking should be visible as well.
Now currency... *evil laugh* I want each user to name THEIR OWN currency or use an already availiable one (still thinking about this) which will have a default value that could fluctulate based on your economy in relative to other players. For example your currnecy could become worthless say you were mauled in some major war since the economic intecaters would reveal this. (war loans unpayed, inflation, demobilized unemployed soldiers, GW Bush mentioned "economy" and "ethics" in the same sentence etc etc.)
This should add an extra economic stimuls making the game far more "complex" per say and in deph not just making it another game of global (or in this case galactic) domination but adding far more feel and colour to it then to any other previous game of the RTS Space empire strategy genre.
Anyone have any comments of feed back?
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Sid, I think your currency idea is seriously, seriously flawed; it adds complexity without adding fun. If you have the value of goods fluctuate according to supply and demand, and require that some of those goods actually be used to maintain a planet and/or a military infrastructure, you'll have as much economy as you need -- and already a more detailed economy than almost any other space combat game out there.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Sid, a dynamic economy based on supply and demand is a far better idea. Think of the fun that can be had for all when some ulta rare resource is discovered and the race to control it. Plus I'd have a barter system. Say 560 X for 306 Y.
Posts: 796 | Registered: Mar 2005
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"Or should there be every element on the periodic table?"
*whispers* Sid. Game.
In an ideal game economy, you would have only those resources that could be combined to make useful things for planetary and/or military development. This way, resources would be in actual demand and could therefore command actual prices.
I'd go with: Food - Needed to maintain population levels Water - Needed to maintain population levels Metal - Needed for production Minerals - Needed for production Fuel - Needed for production Luxuries - Increase population loyalty, reproductive rate
You could also have planetary installations -- perhaps as part of a research tree -- which convert these back and forth. Water and fuel, for example, could produce food at a hydroponic facility. A solar panel (produced with minerals and metals) could produce fuel. A hydroelectric plant could turn water into fuel.
And if you want more granularity, you could introduce refined goods -- i.e. goods produced at planetary factories made out of combinations of these basic resources, which are themselves used to produce things. Examples might include robotics (2 metal, 1 mineral, 1 fuel), medicine (2 mineral, 1 food, 1 water), starship shield generators (1 metal, 3 fuel), soma (2 water, 3 luxuries), and so forth. Obviously, when building a ship, you would be required to use up shield generators if you wanted your ship to have them.
If you wanted to incorporate a fully-functional economy AND flexible ship design, you could permit the development of improved goods -- like, say, a Shield Generator Mark III, which requires 3 metal and 9 fuel and takes more time to make. Each ship design would then have to take into account the entire supply chain.
And if you REALLY want to make it complex, put an upper limit on the number of production facilities any planet can have based on its population. (I would suggest, if you do this, that Robots -- produced using robotics goods -- count towards population totals, as they'd be able to join the labor force.)
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Now I wonder if I should keep on throwing ideas or if I should keep trying to prod you into giving ideas cause this is pretty good.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Now, here's a major issue with what we've come up with so far:
In a game that's driven so strongly by mathematics, there will always be an "optimal" configuration. And players will figure out that configuration very quickly, if the Player's Guide doesn't just give it away in the first place. (In other words, players will discover that a cheap frigate with four powerful lasers can be built from 4 Starship Parts and 8 Combat Lasers, and will quickly come up with patterns to crank those ships out in numbers.)
If you don't want this sort of thing happening -- and fairness compels me to point out that if you try to prevent this sort of thing, this game will be remarkably unpopular in Korea, where that kind of "strategy" is considered gaming -- you're going to need to find ways to limit material production AND set up realistic economic scarcity. One of the best ways to do this is to have only a few sources of each type of supply available in the early game. But if you do this, the game also becomes susceptible to rush and/or disruption tactics, which kind of defeats the point of all this deep strategic stuff.
It's because I haven't found an answer to this problem that I haven't tried to design this game myself.
The issue is this: the more complex you make the economy, the less strategic the battles will be. It's the single biggest flaw of a RTS. It's actually the reason people keep coming up with MMORTS ideas in which a commander runs the economy while grunts handle the battles.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Which somewhat what I'm aiming for, but only in terms of being an options say:
There are 2 version of the game availiable, the first is the Empire building and Ship combat thing in one where you can manage your empire but can also just forgoe it and concentrate on commanding ships for other people. And a second much cheap version for people who just want to blow up ships.
Now I have a question whats keep nations in REAL life from building say 300 heavy cruisers?
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Sid, managing an economy is a game in and of itself. There's a reason that bureaucracy exists in the real world: one person cannot effectively and efficiently control every element of government. If you want space piracy, create a game where you plunder ships. You could even have boardings and stuff where you do a little FPS action, but a game where you commit piracy AND micromanage the economy of an entire planet (or group of planets) is incredibly rediculous- not to mention all of the other crap that you want to toss in there. I'm totally with KoM on this- start small.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Not quite an economy, but it is a program that lets you play the stock market with pretend money. It's a good thing for people who want to try a self-directed brokerage account out for a spin without actually losing any money in the process. It's also a game for a lot of people in the investment industry. It's kind of fun to try and play with options and short selling and all that kind of cowboy market trick stuff.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Interesting. But I think with the proper amount of experiance, money, and determination a game of the scope I'm thinking of is possible esp with computers advancing as they are. I dont plan on making NOW but later on, I'm hoping to get the concept done however and essentially recruiting Hatrack to bounce my ideas off of.
The grpahics I intead to be moderate most likely Homeworld style, the game will be single server so like Eve you could theotecally travel from point A to point B without having to load a new zone. A tough challenge considering the massivness I want to have, I forsee possibly dozens of bugs and technical problems but I hope that they'll be solvable by the time I get to it.
Now back ot the economy, I'm bouncing ideas off of a close friend of mine about how to manage this, essentially whats forming in my dark and twisted mind is that no workers or stuff just build the nessasary structures on a planet that automaticcaly harvets it according to how much man power you have on that planet and etc.
Now back to the who fleet strat thing, I'm making it a goal now to ensure that no body will figure some uber combination that trumps all others. Like each ship class should have its own IMHO certain advantages and disadvantages attaached to it defualtly that makes sure that there isn't some uber combination that ruins your evening.
So, until I get more ideas for the economy lets go back to ships. I'll come around with a basic overview soon.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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"But I think with the proper amount of experiance, money, and determination a game of the scope I'm thinking of is possible esp with computers advancing as they are."
The problem isn't the computer, Sid. The problem is the human brain.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Have you considered a, uh, "price-flucuation-system-thingie" similar to the one used in RoN? Maybe the "standard" cost of certain goods would vary inversely wouth the amount available (supply and demand, as Wowbagger suggested).
quote:Now I have a question whats keep nations in REAL life from building say 300 heavy cruisers?
Resources, and population limits. Remember that every ship must be crewed, have fuel, and food (Hopefully, you won't have to manage such things in this game; a "ship cap" that increases with population should suffice). Maybe a player could get around that by "hiring" mercenary fleets to do his dirty work.
quote:Now back to the who fleet strat thing, I'm making it a goal now to ensure that no body will figure some uber combination that trumps all others. Like each ship class should have its own IMHO certain advantages and disadvantages attaached to it defualtly that makes sure that there isn't some uber combination that ruins your evening.
And for ship strategy: my rule is Rock, Paper, Scissors. Don't have super-ships, and give everything a weakness. Homeworld is a good example; to simplify: strikcraft (fighters, bombers, and corvettes) were killed easily by frigates, frigates could be destroyed by capital ships, but capital ships didn't have a lot of small weapons so were susceptible to attack by strikecraft. Players should be forced to use many different types of units (variation is the key to survival). But remember, the goal is to keep it simple.
To add another dimension of gameplay, players could customize their fleets. Many civ-building games have system where you are given a set number of points so that you can improve certain classes of units. For instance, a person who likes using fighters could give all his fighters have a 20% speed bonus.
--j_k
[ May 25, 2005, 11:38 PM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
Posts: 3617 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Dozens of bugs? Dozens? Sid, trust me on this, it is not possible to make a Tetris clone without getting hundreds of bugs. In fact, from what you are saying, you probably couldn't make Hello World without several dozen bugs. In short, you have no idea what you're talking about. Moreover, as long as you don't, you won't get the programmers or artists you need to work with you on this. Go program Tetris, or Pong, or something reasonable like that - with extra bells and whistles, if you like. Then come back and prune down your ideas a bit, once you have a better understanding of what a computer can and cannot do.
Take a look at the link I gave you, and take especial note of what happens to newbies with Grand Ideas : They not only get flamed, they get zero help, because - guess what - people with experience have Big Ideas too, and why should they work on your dream when they can work on their own? To make this work, you need experience, and that means drudgery to get it. I am not being sarcastic when I suggest you clone Tetris; I mean that as helpful advice. Learn Python, learn C++, learn Java, but don't post any more on this until you have moved electrons about in a pattern that makes a game. Dream big dreams, by all means, but take practical steps to support them. Ideas are nothing; coding is everything.
You must crawl before you can walk; and you do not dream of walking, but of flying with eagles.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
ARGH! I know I know, I'ld be optimistic that I can make this within 10 years. As for ship classes I'm thinking osmewhat Hoemworldish. Fighter craft, corvettes, frigates, destoryers, cruiusers, battleships, carriers.
I've been thinking specifically what there advantages disadvantages are, but if anyuone have any ideas I'ld be grateful. I can't say how thankful I am for all the feedback ESPECIALLY from KoM
Carries a large assortment of fighter class ships essentially small light fast attack ships meant to attack larger slower moving ships. Carriers can travel FTL* with other capitol ships armed with light weaponry to defend itself somewhat against enemy fighters. Carriers are large vessels that can carry troops and supplies as well as fighters.
Battleships:
Slow moving, have long range and are good versus other capitol ships and stationary targets but also rather slow to aim (depending on thje weapon system). Battleships while well armoured are nevertheless vulnerable to the fast moving Corvettes and Fighters.
Cruisers: While faster moving then the battleship is still rather slow moving but is more of a smaller version of the battleship but better armed then the destoryer serves an escort as well as independant attack and defence roles. Good aginst destroyers but also have a disadvantage against fighters though they are better equipped then the battleship to deal with them.
Destoryers: Cheap to make, but weak in most combat situations good for Anti Fighter and pretty much all escort roles, good against Corvettes, and most small craft excellent for piracy and fast strike roles especially if supported by Cruisers equipped for fast attacks.
Corvettes: Small fast ships designed for many varied roles not meant for line battles but rather for scouting and support missions such as mine laying, scouting, patrolling, anti fighter, and others.
Fighters: Think Star Furies, ships of either Scout, Torpeedo Bomber and Interceptor roles. The bombers are to attack slow moving ships and fighters to escort them. The scouts would be fighters equipped for long range deep probing missions for intelligence gathering.
Essentially in Rock-Paper-Scissorz mode. (-> means good vs) CC->BB BB->CA/DD CA->DD DD->VET/FIGHTER VET->FIGHTER FIGHT->BB/CA
Course remember that these arent just ships that can be built willy nilly, how you customize your ships is up to you but of course there would be certain limitation like # of hard poitns soft points, power core, certain things like hull might be constant.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
The thing about the carrier is that this was a choice on my part to simulate the most realistic ship combat theotetically possible by leaving the game open in my opinion leaves the best possibility to the players coming up wiht strategies and solutions that Admirals in real life never came up with. Such as the ability for a player to forgoe alot of stuff in order to have room on a battle ship to possess and launch fighters. Just a thought...
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
fugu is saying that your space combat will be 3D right up to the point where you figure out that this doesn't actually add anything to the game, while making interface and AI much more difficult.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Making space combat even vaguely realistic in anything beyond some sort of spacefighter pilot sim would be as technically difficult as it was impossible to play.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Okay, I'll put more though into it. Though I am hoping that being in a 3D space I am hoping that depth can be added to the game wihtout having to become generic.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
... Well Sid, I have finally got around to reading what you have posted here...
Now just a few thoughts...
Ships. You want them customizable yet you’re limiting them to rock/paper/scissor thing. I say ships should be much more like they are in EVE-Online, where one can fit various things on to the ships. Such as taking a battleship hull, and instead of putting heavy weapons on it put a bunch of smaller, faster tracking guns to deal with fighters. Same for the ECM, and ECCM. Make a model that does all those but at greatly reduced efficiency Granted with customizable ships you might not have a ships that truly fit into the destroy / cruiser / battleship roles. For example, take a BS hull that you have designed using you current tech level (higher level tech should allow for more customization in your ship build) and put several small and medium guns on it a fill the rest with hangers and you got your self a carrier. So Instead of just being limited to carriers must be like this... u can do what u want. Using the same thing u could make some hit and run carriers. Small ships might not be able to jump, so they would depend on frigate sized carrier which could hold lets say 3-4 fighters. (ok sizes maybe off but you know what I am getting at.) Then just make a bunch of small task forces of these and go raiding. Using a single large carrier though nice, would be expensive and high priority target. Using a bunch of these small carriers thou, consume more resources would be more effective. Also I noticed you saying BS would be slow. Why? It is space. Things work a bit differently up there. A bigger engine means you would be moving faster. Big ships most likely have bigger engines... more maneuverable small ships most likely but not faster... but then again this is one rule I could careless about. I am just saying that you should keep your ideas open, and not think in naval terms. Space would be a cross between naval and air combat... but with its own twist. Economy. I really like a vast, player driven market economy. Take the economy in EVE (a space mmorpg) it had a GREAT player driven market economy that works really well. If something similar was implemented, it would be great. Thou a tad bit more complex would be nice. Some things were over simplified... Anyhow I just rambling here.... anyhow enough for now...
Posts: 1 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
BTW I'm currently working on a website + forum so that eventually when I have a bunch of peopel coming up with concept drawings and what not we can have a single place to talk about it rathern then a single thread.
Posts: 1567 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Somewhere along the line, Sid, you're going to have to figure out that people play games to have fun and realism is not necessarily enjoyable.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Indeed. One of the things you might want to learn is that, if your thread has you has the only poster four times in a row, and you have eighteen out of thirty-nine posts on the last page, people have lost interest and it's time to let that thread die.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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