Did you read the original post? It clearly states at the start of each game players are allotted "tonage" to build units. The subsequent posts then talk about how to determine when everyone is ready. So clearly the building is done at the start each time.

Why did you take away from your precious time to insult me? Anonymously at that. I don''t know what a twitch gamer is and I''m sure you would refer to card games like Magic or Muds as superior to any retail released game, but that is you. I''m not you and I''m not anyone else in here. If you guys want to design games that are appealing to you or the very small masses that still enjoy text based games then more power to you.

Well I guess I''ll pride myself on breaking the barrier of this website not being driven or represented by gamers like myself and claim to be the first of my kind. Can''t wait for more posts.

It sounds good in theory - I''m all for anything that lets you customize and so on. The one concern I would have would be the pre-game setup as StinkyPants stated, but I also have a solution to help you out if you agree that it is as much as a problem as I see it to be.

Problem:
People aren''t going to wait for someone to spend 10 minutes to make a sweet starting fleet. On top of that, I can see people just dropping from the game for fun to piss people off or on accident, and that''s 5 minutes of planning just wasted.

Solution:
Whether it be through a seperate App or through a menu in the game itself, allow the players to pre-create fleets on thier own time. It would be like preparing decks in Magic. Nobody would go to a Magic the Gathering "match" and watch the other player assemble thier deck from thousands of cards... You pre-create your "starter" fleet and ship designs, and then simply choose which to use at game-time. The game starts right off, you have some fun, people get a good impression of your game

quote:

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Original post by stinkypants Why did you take away from your precious time to insult me?

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Your views seem to represent the antithesis of what many of us are striving for, that is to stop the blatant cheapness and shallowness of strategy games and to choose gameplay over graphics, also, I'm human, so there it is.

EDIT: No flaming on this forum thank you. - Sandman


[edited by - Sandman on February 27, 2003 6:14:44 AM]

Sound like a pretty good idea to me. Anyway perhaps since the ships will be done per game then at least some starting time limit should be set. Although it might be hard to balence, I think what might also be an idea is that after a team has used a specific tonnage then he can see what the opponents are building but can''t undo his builds. I dunno anyway just be sure to make the game easily changable because it will certainly need adjustmens.

Yeah you could have the option of letting a player who is already done to look at the other person for amusement but it still seems flawed. It''s like opening a new console game or PC game and reading all the documentation before playing rather than just installing and playing it and learn as you go. Why not make it more like Sacrifice? Where you could play a single-player campaign with one race or side and the ships you use to beat the campaign could be brought to multiplayer. That way it''s preset but at the same time you''re allowed total free use to play with them. It''d be the equivalent of building a mech or one of those toy Gundam things and specializing it and what not and then taking it into battle. Wins could give you more tonnage to add on after the game.

Yeah you could have the option of letting a player who is already done to look at the other person for amusement but it still seems flawed. It''s like opening a new console game or PC game and reading all the documentation before playing rather than just installing and playing it and learn as you go. Why not make it more like Sacrifice? Where you could play a single-player campaign with one race or side and the ships you use to beat the campaign could be brought to multiplayer. That way it''s preset but at the same time you''re allowed total free use to play with them. It''d be the equivalent of building a mech or one of those toy Gundam things and specializing it and what not and then taking it into battle. Wins could give you more tonnage to add on after the game.

stinkypants:

I see where you are coming from, the ship design stage acts as a barrier to the action. I''m not so sure this is necessarily a big problem though, for the following reasons:

1. Once you actually get into the game, you already have your army - there is none of the build up common to resource based army building RTS games. You can get straight into the action from there.

2. You could easily place a time limit on the building phase.

3. Presumably, players would still be able to chat during the building phase. So even if they are getting bored, they can let their opponent know.

4. If the player can ''save'' his own ship designs, he could avoid reinventing the wheel - once a ship has proven itself he could save the design and resuse it in future battles. Coupled with the fact that he''s already said he will provide some of-the-shelf designs, ship design really shouldn''t be too longwinded a process. As a possible interesting twist, it might be possible to capture enemy ships and reverse engineer them....

I think Impossible''s suggestion regarding obstacles is a very good one:

quote:

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It would be cool if they could fly over and under obstacles with the risk of crashing if they don''t slow down. You could incorporate some interesting asteroid field battles complete with ships crashing into asteroids and fighters trying to outmanuever each other.

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Barriers in space are very unrealistic. Something like the above would be great, and would serve as some incentive to make smaller, more maneuverable ships.

~CGameProgrammer( );
DevImg.net - Post screenshots, comment on others.

I''ve been designing and coding a similar kind of game for 6 (is it that much already, huh) months.

My games idea is similar to Star Control 2''s Hyper Melee, but more ships, bigger fleets, bigger space :D And of course graphical improvements.

I have already many of the supporting subsystems done for the game, and I''m currently working on object-manager class.

You were asking is your idea any good and here are my insights:
1. 2D space is a _lot_ more simple to implement than 3D
2. If you are indie-developer and working mostly alone, this project is even possible to finish, which is quite important.
3. gameplay is simple and easy to get in touch with, which makes game fun and entertaining if everything else is done right.

Don''t be afraid of the work you still have, I recommend you go to articles section and read Chriss Hargroves - Code on the Cob - articles through. From there I got the starting point and the work flow.

If you need any help, suggestions or support of any kind (not monetary tho :D ) feel free to write me: vmatikai@tols17.oulu.fi

"Please don''t ask me what the score is - I’m not even sure what game we''re playing."
- Ashleigh Brillian

I want to say thanks to everyone that took the time to read and post their opinion.

Sabbac