... orginally titled "Sims-style gameplay without pee management..." I want to use the meter idea that the Sims and Space Colony have, but it doesn't work to manage the socialization or bathroom habits of crew members. ("Mr. Worf, I think you should use the restroom now..." ) The meters are just timers which make you move a character to a location. Each meter must continuously fall, and something bad must happen when it does. Rather than doing this for people, though, imagine this: You have N number of crew. There are X workstations, Y panels and Z equipment areas spread out on the map of the ship or base. Each crewmember has a meter, which is their duty cycle, but this can be extended indefinitely. The NPC also DOES have a sleep meter, but rather than falling asleep they start making progressively worse mistakes once it runs out. (NPCs also have Morale, which I've decided should drop over the course of days; they also have skills that must be tested against equipment.) Workstations, panels and equipment areas relate to functions of the ship or base. The NPCs naturally move back and forth to them, but like with the Sims, the player can always do a better job by installing stations near other stations, and putting compatible personnel together. Generic Meters: A base or ship has these Power Production - This is made up of one control station, a couple of support stations, and various conduits and pieces of equipment. At zero, reserve power (if any) kicks in until exhausted. Reactor Stability - This is made of 1 to 3 workstations (depending on size). At zero, reactor takes progressive damage. After a long while, it either shuts down, leaks or begins meltdown. Environmental Regulation - This has one control station and various pieces of equipment that feed atmosphere reserves and control the environment. At zero, areas of the base or ship become progressively hot or cold; and atmosphere either becomes progressively toxic or less. The effect spreads and dilutes through open doors. Any NPCs in the region suffer status effects such as morale loss, impairment or unconsciousness. Maintenence - All parts of a ship or base, interior or exterior, degrade with use. The total maintenence shows on a bar, and the most pressing maintenece shows on a smaller bar overlaid over the main bar. Each of these areas requires a skill test. If the NPC fails a skill test a number of times (3?) then an Engineering Challenge occurs(see below) The "Make Travel Interesting Meters:" Traveling in empty space where there are no enemies or trade opportunities is boring. This aims to fix that. Like with Star Trek, there is one drive for in-system FTL (impulse) and another for interstellar FTL (warp). In-sys Drive: Field Stability - Requires two workstations configured to "Stability" (a floating icon). At zero, ship drops out of FTL and takes several game seconds while "field emitters are realigned." Field Integrity - Requires one workstation configured to "Integrity." At zero, hull begins to take mild damage from interstellar gas and dust and random damage from micrometeorite impacts. Field Symmetry - Requires one workstation configured to "Symmetry" and 2 - 8 nodes (depending on ship size) checked by engineers. At zero, ship begins to slew left or right and crewmembers report morale reducing status effects (headaches, nausea) due to unsafe FTL field projection Drive Alignment - Always dropping due to gravitational shifts. Requires one engineering station configured to "Efficiency" and a skill test at two random panels on ship. At zero, drive begins to degrade progressively. Local In-sys FTL Optimizations These are strictly optional bonuses. The meter charges up to a max for each moment that the NPC works at workstation set to the optimization, then falls once the program is executed. The premise is that the in-sys drive is optimized based on "shifting quantum gravitational topology." (space is moving) Velocity Boost: Accelerates ship 1.5x speed Fuel Economy: Saves 25% fuel Silence Signature: Reduces FTL drive emissions by -33% These shake up management of the ship and add risk of switching stations to the dropping meters FTL Superstring Singularity Drive This drive hurls the ship along superstrings to different stars. The ship generates a "microverse" from a singularity, a bubble of reality enclosing the ship, and uses superstrings to propel the resulting bubble. The gameplay here is intended for players to manage a crew without any external interruptions. How hectic the gameplay gets depends on the route traveled, with some routes being more hazardous, and the velocity. The meters here correspond to events. There events are "Particle Breach" and "Intrusion Eyes." Particle Breach: Strange matter from the primordial universe can leak into the ship at any given point. It begins to spread once it breaks through the SS Drive's microverse. Think of it like a water leak on a submarine. It must be sealed and contained to reclaim the area. It goes away automatically when jump ends. Intrusion Eyes: These are gateways where nasties called Siegers (monsters) emerge on deck. They occur randomly while traveling certain sectors. The Intrusion Eye can be large or tiny, allowing correspondingly-sized "phased protomatter" creatures to infiltrate. They must be internally scanned or encountered before they open (indicated by a gauge timer icon over them). SSD Meters Internal Scan Charge - Internal scan can be done which reveals Particle Breaches and Intrusion Eyes. Targets a limited area of the ship, with size depending on quality of gear bought. After used, must recharge. Last, but not least... Engineering Challenges Critical combat hits, strenuous navigation, dangerous FTL travel and normal wear & tear cause things on the ship break down. Each point of breakdown on the map is either happening or impending. Impending areas are highlighted with a flashing timer gauge and the effect that will happen when it runs out. Repair Plasma Conduit (random point on ship): Conduit will radiate a sphere of electrical interference, burning heat and/or radiation if not repaired in time. Align Plasma Conduit (random point on ship): Conduit will cause power loss to systems it is connected to if not successfully aligned. Stabelize Hull (random point on ship): A section of hull will take damage if not stabelized with tools and equipment. Prevent Cascade: N panels and pieces of equipment must have successful skill tests performed on them or a system (shields, weapons, drive) will go temporarily offline, possibly causing damage to equipment. Repair Equipment - Damage control teams must successfully repair equipment at a point, possibly turning off linked equipment in order to not be injured by power flowing through conduits Okay, as usually, long, but I'd like to know what you think. The ship management is done in addition to management of crew, where morale is now to be managed over the course of many game days or weeks rather than hourly, as was planned. It may be possible that this would be waaaay too overwhelming. Players are expected to handle this while travelling from point to point, exploring, trading, fighting and stealthing. They may have a mission they're on and/or a crew that can mutiny if mismanaged. What I'm trying to do is make routine activities more interesting. Many large, open ended worlds don't do this, leading to a constant desire for teleporting in order to get to the action (Morrowind and X2-The Threat are perfect examples of this, where travel wouldn't be so agrivating if there were some game to play along the way). EDIT: Formatting goofs, spelling -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership... [edited by - wavinator on March 31, 2004 2:41:23 PM]

Very cool idea. As long as the players don''t have everything hit them all at once (one or two things at any given time, "at first"), and there''s a help window that says how to fix what, and an objective panel, it''d be an interesting sim. Do repairs always either work or fail when the test is finished or do they rattle along with a minor failure and then go down worse?
Not sure if it''d be enough for a game in itself. Would post more but pressed for time.
-"Sta7ic" Matt

man i want to play your game, wavinator...

quote: Original post by Wavinator
Workstations, panels and equipment areas relate to functions of the ship or base. The NPCs naturally move back and forth to them, but like with the Sims, the player can always do a better job by installing stations near other stations, and putting compatible personnel together.

Can you build backup and reducenent systems? So for instance if I need two workstations to control the ships reactor and I build a third, does that third automatically become a backup station that an npc uses if one of two primary ones go offline? Or can only build two.

quote:
Generic Meters: A base or ship has these
Power Production - This is made up of one control station, a couple of support stations, and various conduits and pieces of equipment. At zero, reserve power (if any) kicks in until exhausted.

What are the effects of reserve or no power? Do system go offline and leave the ship dead in the water? If that happens is there a way to restore power or do I have to wait and hope for a rescue? Also can I control the power distrubtion? Say to lower power to nonessential systems in order to conserve power, or to divert additional power to combat systems in battle?

quote:
Reactor Stability - This is made of 1 to 3 workstations (depending on size). At zero, reactor takes progressive damage. After a long while, it either shuts down, leaks or begins meltdown.

Perhaps reactor instablites could effect power generation or distrbution? So if the reactors normal output is 100 TW, at 80% stability the power generated ranges from 80-120 TW. The additonal power would damage transmission circutes that wheren't expecting an overload.

quote:
Environmental Regulation - This has one control station and various pieces of equipment that feed atmosphere reserves and control the environment. At zero, areas of the base or ship become progressively hot or cold; and atmosphere either becomes progressively toxic or less. The effect spreads and dilutes through open doors. Any NPCs in the region suffer status effects such as morale loss, impairment or unconsciousness.

Perhaps these effects should start taking place at around 25% rather then 0. When it reaches 0 the would mean there is no environmental control and that section is essentially exposed to space, any crewmember caught in such a location would only be able to survie for a few minutes without prober equipemt.

quote:
Maintenence - All parts of a ship or base, interior or exterior, degrade with use. The total maintenence shows on a bar, and the most pressing maintenece shows on a smaller bar overlaid over the main bar.

Will I be able to see a detailed break down? Say an engineering map of the ship where the all the componets are color coded based on their health. So that I can prefrom preventitive maintence? Such as I notice that enviroment controls in crew section 3, are at 50% so I dispactch a repair crew to that reapir that system.

quote:
Each of these areas requires a skill test. If the NPC fails a skill test a number of times (3?) then an Engineering Challenge occurs(see below)

For skill tests, I think that something based the shadowrun system would work well for you. How it works is that for each skill point you have in a given skill you get to roll a die, a skill test has a target numer and a success threshold. So If the npc has 4 in engineering and the target number is 5 with a threshold of 2, The npc rolls 4 dice, get 5,6,3 and 5. Meaning 3 success since they only needed 2 they succed at the task. It might also be good to have varying levels of success. So for instance the enviroment system is at 50% if the threshold was 3, getting 3 success would amount to 'emergancy repairs' which perhaps restores 10% to current health and sets the max repair level to 60%. Meaning no further repairs are possible without replacement parts. For each 2 additonal successes you roll scale up the success. So 5 successes could mean 'repaired', restoring 25% health and setting the max repair state to 75%, at 7 success that could be consider 'rebuilt' restoring the system to 100% and raising the maxium repairs to 100%.

This could work well also if you have second hand parts, so the old reactor you bought at a salvage yard, might only by 63% maxium repair level. However your master engineer can spend a few hours with his universal tool kit and have the reactor working like new.

quote:
Local In-sys FTL Optimizations
These are strictly optional bonuses. The meter charges up to a max for each moment that the NPC works at workstation set to the optimization, then falls once the program is executed. The premise is that the in-sys drive is optimized based on "shifting quantum gravitational topology." (space is moving)
Velocity Boost: Accelerates ship 1.5x speed
Fuel Economy: Saves 25% fuel
Silence Signature: Reduces FTL drive emissions by -33%
These shake up management of the ship and add risk of switching stations to the dropping meters

Again varying levels of success might be better the then fixed values.

quote:
FTL Superstring Singularity Drive
This drive hurls the ship along superstrings to different stars. The ship generates a "microverse" from a singularity, a bubble of reality enclosing the ship, and uses superstrings to propel the resulting bubble.

I assume the same optimizaitons are available for warp as are available for impulse? Or does it have its own set?

quote:
Engineering Challenges
Critical combat hits, strenuous navigation, dangerous FTL travel and normal wear & tear cause things on the ship break down. Each point of breakdown on the map is either happening or impending. Impending areas are highlighted with a flashing timer gauge and the effect that will happen when it runs out.

Repair Plasma Conduit (random point on ship): Conduit will radiate a sphere of electrical interference, burning heat and/or radiation if not repaired in time.
Align Plasma Conduit (random point on ship): Conduit will cause power loss to systems it is connected to if not successfully aligned.
Stabelize Hull (random point on ship): A section of hull will take damage if not stabelized with tools and equipment.
Prevent Cascade: N panels and pieces of equipment must have successful skill tests performed on them or a system (shields, weapons, drive) will go temporarily offline, possibly causing damage to equipment.
Repair Equipment - Damage control teams must successfully repair equipment at a point, possibly turning off linked equipment in order to not be injured by power flowing through conduits

What happens if those challenges are failed or the timer runs out? Does the not repairing the Plasma Conduit cause it explode injuring nearby crewmember and systems?

One final thing that I think would be very interesting and work well is the startrek flash of inspiration idea. You are in a battle the enemy lasers are penterating the shields, suddenly your chief engineer comes up with the idea to repolerize the shields and shunt extra power from the engines into the shield emitters, and if it works, it should relect the enemy lasers back at them. But it you'll only be able to maintain the modification for a few minutes at best and its going to but a lot of strain on the power transfer systems, so should we do it captain?




-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project: Ambitions Slave


[edited by - TechnoGoth on March 31, 2004 5:12:38 PM]

Another well-thought-out and innovative system model from Wavinator. You might just be on the way to making teh best gayme evar.

I''m looking forward to your response to Technogoth''s post, but in the meantime, I am wondering just how large your crew will be in this sort of situation, and how it will be organized. You''ve obviously got a crew of engineers and computer experts rolling around, and their individual skills will be relevant, but with a basic understanding of this system and your equally impressive loyalty system and the sanity system and the psionics system and who knows what other incredible game elements you''ve got cooking in that noggin of yours, how will the player keep up?

Setting duty schedules and shift rosters and the like would be a real chore with a few dozen crew members. Will any aspect of this system be automated? Will crew chiefs be featured? I''d really like to be able to meet with my head engineer and say, "Sargeant Wilson, I''m moving Ensign James to the midnight shift. Adjust your roster accordingly," or maybe, "This is the new crew assignment roster, Sargeant. See to it that it is implemented." Being able to do it all myself or have an AI officer take care of it would be neat, especially if I am dealing with the seeds of mutiny or short-handedness on the staff.

Furthermore, will their be non-essential personnel on board? Marines in case of boarding or ground action? Civilians or colonists being transferred? Entertainers and service staff to keep morale up and food flowing?

Boy, this is a terrific game idea.

quote: Original post by Sta7ic
Very cool idea. As long as the players don''t have everything hit them all at once (one or two things at any given time, "at first"), and there''s a help window that says how to fix what, and an objective panel, it''d be an interesting sim.

I plan on a very good tutorial. Something along the lines of being the son of a rich shipping magnate on your first shakedown cruise, which eventually ends up with you overcoming a mutiny.

quote:
Do repairs always either work or fail when the test is finished or do they rattle along with a minor failure and then go down worse?

You get a fixed result after the skill test, but it isn''t always bad or good. There can be ranges, like, "Fixed but overall hit points lowered in the process."

quote:
Not sure if it''d be enough for a game in itself. Would post more but pressed for time.

Thanks for the feedback! This is part of a larger game, btw, which has as its core combat, stealth and trade involving the ship that you''re running.






--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by krez
man i want to play your game, wavinator...

Man, you don''t know how inspiring that is to hear!!!!

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
Can you build backup and reducenent systems? So for instance if I need two workstations to control the ships reactor and I build a third, does that third automatically become a backup station that an npc uses if one of two primary ones go offline? Or can only build two.

You can fill your ship with them if you want. Players plunk down stations, equipment, panels and corridoors (heck, even furniture) just like a Sims or Space Colony game. The only real limit in this case is size of the hull.

quote:
What are the effects of reserve or no power? Do system go offline and leave the ship dead in the water?

All systems are powered from reactors and/or capacitors (big batteries). As with stations, you can add as many of these as will fit inside your hull. A normal setup will have the reactor charge the capacitors over time for emergencies later.

The ship is on reserve power when it is drawing only from any available capacitors. After that, things get grim.

Systems go offline from the most to least critical. Non-essential systems first, weapons next, defenses after that, drive / engines next, then life support.

quote:
If that happens is there a way to restore power or do I have to wait and hope for a rescue?

If the reactor can be repaired, you can restore power. Otherwise, you''re waiting for a rescue (that is, if your environment holds out). You can carry things like a solar sail or vacuum energy tap which are optional items that may help you survive.

quote:
Also can I control the power distrubtion? Say to lower power to nonessential systems in order to conserve power, or to divert additional power to combat systems in battle?

Yes. I forsee a quick interface for common requests which favor engines, defenses or weapons. Then, as with Total Annihilation, you can click and turn off systems. As with TA, you can click to select all similar items and turn them all on/off at once. (Treat your ship as an RTS base with a hull around it).

quote:
Perhaps reactor instablites could effect power generation or distrbution? So if the reactors normal output is 100 TW, at 80% stability the power generated ranges from 80-120 TW. The additonal power would damage transmission circutes that wheren''t expecting an overload.

Added. Very nice. Now the conduits have a REAL reason for exploding.

quote:
Perhaps these effects should start taking place at around 25% rather then 0. When it reaches 0 the would mean there is no environmental control and that section is essentially exposed to space, any crewmember caught in such a location would only be able to survie for a few minutes without prober equipemt.

You''re right, but I''m hesitant to switch the paradigm. The mentality is supposed to be "keep this bar above zero."

Maybe I should make two bars? One is "Labor put into environmental control" and the other is "Condition of environment." When the "Labor into enviro" drops to zero, it degrades the "condition of environment?"

I see power and hit points at the top of the screen as resources. This could go below them as yet another resource. Then off to one side the Sims-style bars would display and affect those resources at the top of the screen.

quote:
Will I be able to see a detailed break down? Say an engineering map of the ship where the all the componets are color coded based on their health. So that I can prefrom preventitive maintence?

You can view all the components of your ship as 3D modelled pieces and even walk up to them as a character and interact with many of them. When you hit TAB you get a RTS view allowing you to pan around and see actual health bars.

In the best of possibilities, you''ll see visually cracked, punctured, smoking or leaking components. If that proves to be too much modelling and texturing, then you''ll at least see color coded HP bars and flashing overlays for critical damage.

quote:
For skill tests, I think that something based the shadowrun system would work well for you.

Thanks for the ref. This is good. I actually cribbed some ideas from this system and a few others to come up with exactly what you''re talking about, variable success rates. I''m actually using the Civ method of calculating battles, oddly enough. There are skills and challenge levels (CLs). For systems, the CL for the system is equal to the HP times a complexity modifier, plus so many points for the tech level of the item. Let''s say this equals 100. Let''s say your Chief Engineer has a 200. Add the two together to get 300. The percentage that the Chief Engineer occupies of the total is his / her chance to fix the problem (in this case, 66%). There are some other wrinkles, such as skill options that allow rerolls of failures, but this is basically it.

quote:
This could work well also if you have second hand parts, so the old reactor you bought at a salvage yard, might only by 63% maxium repair level. However your master engineer can spend a few hours with his universal tool kit and have the reactor working like new.

Exactly. I actually do want parts to have quality ratings, as this works in this example as making the trading aspect of the game more sophistocated with little extra development cost (stats instead of more cut scenes is my motto )

quote:

quote:
Local In-sys FTL Optimizations
These are strictly optional bonuses. The meter charges up to a max for each moment that the NPC works at workstation set to the optimization, then falls once the program is executed. The premise is that the in-sys drive is optimized based on "shifting quantum gravitational topology." (space is moving)
Velocity Boost: Accelerates ship 1.5x speed
Fuel Economy: Saves 25% fuel
Silence Signature: Reduces FTL drive emissions by -33%
These shake up management of the ship and add risk of switching stations to the dropping meters

Again varying levels of success might be better the then fixed values.

You might be right, but right here I''m trying to be VERY careful not to overwhelm the player. I need them to think "why should I take the time to manage these bars when I travel?" "What happens if I don''t?"

Varying levels of success do suggest a more fluid, less "arcadey" approach, and this helps immersion. But I think you need to be very clear about the rewards and consequences of not meeting a goal timer. With the Sims, for instance, when your sleep meter runs out, you eventually fall out wherever you are, even though in real life you might be able to perk yourself up long enough to get into bed. I think this is right because it makes the system of cause and effect VERY clear to the player.

quote:
I assume the same optimizaitons are available for warp as are available for impulse? Or does it have its own set?

The interstellar warp has no optimizations because it''s meant to be hands off. I really wanted a mode of gameplay that was exclusively about people management. So the universe disappears while you jump, and like MegaTraveller, you''re locked into the jump until it ends. Any issues with mutinous crew, Sieger incursions, unruly passengers or terrorist takeovers have to be resolved while in jump without help.

You can make a series of jumps, btw. This allows you to change course, get updated news from local comsats or visit any facilities that might be in deep space. The tradeoff is that for this flexibility, you spend more, as initiating a jump costs fuel above and beyond that required to travel.

quote:
What happens if those challenges are failed or the timer runs out? Does the not repairing the Plasma Conduit cause it explode injuring nearby crewmember and systems?

Each game object has a set of failure states that it picks from, usually determined by damage level (more severe == more drastic). So the conduit may leak a jet of plasma, making the corridor impassible until repaired. Or it make explode dramatically, taking out the wall and several nearby systems... AND THEN leak plasma all over the place. (Here you would shutdown connecting infrastructure).

quote:
One final thing that I think would be very interesting and work well is the startrek flash of inspiration idea. You are in a battle the enemy lasers are penterating the shields, suddenly your chief engineer comes up with the idea to repolerize the shields and shunt extra power from the engines into the shield emitters, and if it works, it should relect the enemy lasers back at them. But it you''ll only be able to maintain the modification for a few minutes at best and its going to but a lot of strain on the power transfer systems, so should we do it captain?

I''m so with you! Based on personality type, skill level and racial bonuses, Challenges are met by what I call Miracles. Miracles are events that trigger as a result of critical failures, critical loss of resources, or being outclassed by enemies or a danger (like an anomaly or imminent nova).

Miracles are arbitrary and automatic, you can neither summon them nor schedule them because they represent brilliance under stress. They always have an upside and a downside, a resource cost, and an implementation time. They occur more frequently the higher your character''s leadership skill and the skills of the NPCs in the area involved (engineering, navigation, comms, medical, etc.)

Btw, you may be interested to know that there''s another concept that doesn''t give you miracles but does let you plan ahead in similar fashion, called Synergy. Synergy allows yout to idle two compatible characters and let them combine skills to solve a challenge or implement a System Configuration. Configurations are simply vulnerabilities and immunities a ship has for a specific time (iow, stat not animation changes), and they again have a cost, resource time, etc. The only difference is that they''re less powerful than Miracles and can be used over and over again.



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Wavinator
You can fill your ship with them if you want. Players plunk down stations, equipment, panels and corridoors (heck, even furniture) just like a Sims or Space Colony game. The only real limit in this case is size of the hull.

The adavantage of having a system marked as a backup would be that it would remain offline not consuming resources until a primary system goes offline.

quote:
Yes. I forsee a quick interface for common requests which favor engines, defenses or weapons. Then, as with Total Annihilation, you can click and turn off systems. As with TA, you can click to select all similar items and turn them all on/off at once. (Treat your ship as an RTS base with a hull around it).

perhaps this would be easier to do with a quick refrence bar chart? It shows percentage of power devoted to diffrent system groups and then you can adjust them or reset them to normal.

quote:
Maybe I should make two bars? One is "Labor put into environmental control" and the other is "Condition of environment." When the "Labor into enviro" drops to zero, it degrades the "condition of environment?"

That seems like an effective solution.

quote:
You might be right, but right here I''m trying to be VERY careful not to overwhelm the player. I need them to think "why should I take the time to manage these bars when I travel?" "What happens if I don''t?"

By varying levels of success, I mean the results, so rather then a 25% reduction if fuel consumption you could have anywhere from 5 to 50% depending on your success.

quote:
The interstellar warp has no optimizations because it''s meant to be hands off. I really wanted a mode of gameplay that was exclusively about people management.

Perhaps the optimizations could take place when the jump is initiated? So for instance the trip take 10 days at warp, however your navigator achived a high success on the course plotting test, and reduced the total travel time to 7 days.



-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project: Ambitions Slave

quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
Another well-thought-out and innovative system model from Wavinator. You might just be on the way to making teh best gayme evar.

Now, now, I'm a bit superstitious. Don't jinx me!

quote:
I'm looking forward to your response to Technogoth's post, but in the meantime, I am wondering just how large your crew will be in this sort of situation, and how it will be organized.

Here is what I envision: You start by yourself. As you make money you can afford larger ships, which become increasingly sophistocated and require more personnel to man. For the first half of the game's growth curve, you hire NPCs to man individual stations. For the last half, you promote those NPCs to manage departments.

You can hire a maximum of 15 principle NPCs. In order to hire any more, you have to promote one of the principles and assign them to a department. To do this, you have to have a ship large enough to have additional workstations (just one will do). You can add as many NPCs to a department as the NPC's Leadership skill allows. (All departmental management is assumed to be handled by the NPC, and doesn't actually exist for all practical purposes.)

In terms of chracter management, you view the 15 principles on a summary screen which is one of the tabs of your character sheet (Hirelings). You can see a summary of their position, top 3 skills, morale, health, assumed loyalty, current location, and current action. If they run a department, you see the department's morale as well. From here you can click to bring up details, issue orders or promote / demote the NPC.

You can switch from a direct control character mode ("Avatar Mode") to an RTS mode ("Command Mode") with the TAB key. In Command Mode, you can direct your crew as if they were RTS units, setting waypoints and issuing orders. For large ships, your principles actually direct the crew, and you will see them moving around to execute tasks you've given to the principles. Being the Captain, however, you can commandeer and redirect them at any time.

The morale and loyalty of a department are directly tied to the principle managing the department. The NPCs in the department will still have their own morale and loyalty, based on your ship's facilities and your in-game actions. But in general having a principle NPC in good morale and loyalty will offset negative effects (they smooth things over with the team). Character events will arise based on personality conflicts and other troubles, but a loyal, well trained principle will always bring these up to the captain, offering a number of suggestions which fix the problem but have tradeoffs.

What I want to emphasize is that the system is theoretically scalable: No matter how many crew you add, you never manage more than 15 principles.

quote:
You've obviously got a crew of engineers and computer experts rolling around, and their individual skills will be relevant, but with a basic understanding of this system and your equally impressive loyalty system and the sanity system and the psionics system and who knows what other incredible game elements you've got cooking in that noggin of yours, how will the player keep up?

A highly relevant question! As much as possible the game is broken into seemless modes. Every mode integrates the effects of every other, but I'm trying to carefully design them so that you only have to focus on a small set of factors at any one time.

Here's an example: When traveling, you're expected to manage your ship and crew. You're concerned with morale, loyalty, supplies and the ship's function. Time is sped up, and these resources change, and you respond to them.

When space combat occurs, experience with Space Colony has shown that combat is too hectic to manage a bunch of goal timers (and is trivial in comparison). So no space combat occurs at warp speeds, meaning those timers go away; time slows down to 1:1 so that fuel and food concerns go away; and NPC's enter into combat with the morale and loyalty they had at the point of combat, and can only be affected by real-time enemy or player decisions. I think people can handle lots of detail if and only if it's limited to manageable chunks that seemlessly fit together.

Since the player needs to both be in control of strategies and be responsible for failures, no matter how large they grow, everything will be funneled through either their own character or their 15 principles. Success and failure tests for all events, missions and random encounters hinge on how well the player controls their main avatar (ship or character) and how well they take care of their 15 principle NPCs.

quote:
Setting duty schedules and shift rosters and the like would be a real chore with a few dozen crew members.

Very much agreed! I think 15 won't be too bad. If it turns out to be, I'll reduce the number. Space Colony gets away with managing I think up to 10 at any one time, plus mining / production / repair, plus base building, PLUS occassional combat. They only fail slightly when it comes to combat, which I find can get overwhelming.

quote:
Will any aspect of this system be automated?

Yes, starting with each department head and ultimately automated by the NPC you promote to Executive Officer. Once you have an XO, lots of management results get funneled through him and you may not even see problems that arise because the NPC is so skilled at making them go away (based on skills and personality type, as well as personality interaction with your other principle NPCs).

quote:
Will crew chiefs be featured? I'd really like to be able to meet with my head engineer and say, "Sargeant Wilson, I'm moving Ensign James to the midnight shift. Adjust your roster accordingly," or maybe, "This is the new crew assignment roster, Sargeant. See to it that it is implemented." Being able to do it all myself or have an AI officer take care of it would be neat, especially if I am dealing with the seeds of mutiny or short-handedness on the staff.

NPCs will trade resources without you if you don't interact with them. By setting system priorities, the NPCs will share crew, manage morale and do what it takes to get the job done automatically. If they need something, they'll talk to you; otherwise, you can just sit in your ready room or bridge chair while they do what you say.

Alternately, I added a roster browser for the management lovers: Here you can click your principle NPCs under the Hirelings tab of the character sheet. This shows all NPCs under them. Each entry will feature a name, morale, loyalty, performance rating, top skill and icon representing duty station (medical, security, etc), plus any special flags (reprimanded, commended, etc).

The list will be broken into 1 to 4 sections, which indicate duty cycles (set elswhere). Like moving files in a file manager, you can drag and drop them into new stations, or click the icons for more information. You can also open another window and drag and drop crew to another department. Finally, you can save these rosters as named configuration with a short description.

Double click any entry brings up a bio of the crew member, their character details, their history aboard ship, and any specific event entered into their record. This is actually all semi-randomly generated, but it adds a personal touch.

Based on how the numbers add up on the roster you set, the department head may obey, complain and obey, complain and disobey, or secretly ignore you. These outcomes are based on loyalty and morale, btw.

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Furthermore, will their be non-essential personnel on board?

Yup, especially for cruise ships and luxury stations.

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Marines in case of boarding or ground action?

Absolutely. In fact, I have planned a wide array of security systems, characters and machines that can be thrown into the field. Everything from a wimpy little Electrobot to autoguns to blokes in Full Body Combat Shells.

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Civilians or colonists being transferred?

Taxi missions definitely, especially because the passengers can get you into adventures. ("How much for a fast ship to Alderaan?" )

Though the scope may be far too big with everything else I've got going on, I'm entertaining the idea of letting players run a generation ship or huge colony ship. The map could be segmented for memory management, and the principles in terms of management could be crew and community leaders. Not sure about this one yet.

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Entertainers and service staff to keep morale up and food flowing?

Porters and entertainers will be especially useful on luxury ships, which simply have a contingent of non-controlled NPCs wandering the decks, eating the food, and generally messing about with your normal crew (Space Colony does this with tourists, btw, and it's simple but well done).

One wacky idea a friend suggested was letting players customize the interior of their ships to meet needs in other regions. For instance, he suggested a starship brothel, gambling casino or circus spacestation.

The only real limiter on this is modeling, animation and whether or not the AI can be roughly shoehorned into what's planned. If not, I'm shooting for a plug-in architecture so players can swap out graphics.

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Boy, this is a terrific game idea.

Thanks! I hope people get inspired to make more stuff like this. I've been wanting to play this for a long time, but the industry keeps coming out with more cutscenes and more non-replayable scripted sequences. If something like this become popular, maybe we'd see more games like it with different settings and different gameplay.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

[edited by - wavinator on April 1, 2004 1:48:34 AM]