I had a discussion with a good friend of mine yesterday. We talked about RPGs where you control one character, like Diablo, vs. party games (Baldur''s Gate). He stated that he didn''t like party games that much because you have to control and *equip* a bunch of guys/gals, he rather takes care for a single character. For me, it''s the opposite. This should not be a party vs. single character thread, instead I wanted to ask about your opinion of equipping a whole team. For example in Earth/Starsiege, for me half of the fun was mounting weapons on your team''s mechs and then watching whether your mates could effectivly use their arsenal or you made the wrong decision. I guess many ppl don''t like that lot of management, but for me it''s the best non-technical feature a game can have. In my new game (kinda RPG with a lot of strategy), players may equip their starships ''till it hurts If it works the way I plan, I''ll be a very happy man

Alright, somebody else doing upgradable starships (YES! )


I''m playing around w/ this idea, two (except I''m trying to see if you can control a single unit and a team)

Major thing to worry about: Control. How can you give the player the most control over what''s happening where. The really fun thing about these types of games (I think) is the tactical decision making. But precise control is a real problem (which is why so many, like the great X-Com, started out turned-based).

Couple of other things: Can your team lose equipment? How detailed are the unit options? Is there any planned automation, like waypoints or rules of engagement?

I could ask a ton more but that should be a good start.


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Just waiting for the mothership...

HEy, while you are talking about customizing ships, I jsut have to ask. Do you have any resources on what is inside a real battleship ? Because I don''t have any problems coming up with an odd cool looking spaceship, but the thing that annoys me in my need for consistency is that I jsut don''t know what is all inside. I mean, you have reactors, you haves shields, weapons, crew, etc ... but how is it all organised ? how does it work ?
I know it''s a bit OffTopic, sorry

as for the issue of equipping, I must say I am a fervent admirers of the Mechwarrior series. My personal favorite bit being of course the briefing and equipping of the mechs before going on to a mission. This is just *so* cool, I can''t make any constructive criticism. I think I just love it because of the feeling that you are really controlling *everything*.
I remember a game called Delta force of something (no, not the one with the voxel rendered landscape, the one I am on about wa ages ago, in the Vietnam war, with ugly polygons).
You had to equip your 4 guys and go on to a mission.
I think the equipping/managing items part is really a mistake to put into an RPG. It just smells so much like wargame ...
You should only deal with your one character. But the problem comes when you want to give stuff to other characters, or you want to get back your stuff, etc ... I don''t see an easy solution here, unless you try to give more depth to dialogs with your team members...

I don''t really think having to deal with each of your wingmen is a very enjiyable thing. I''d rather work very hard on making the AI better. Maybe not clever, but at least a good follower, that doesn''t make utterly stupid decision.
For instance, avoid having a computer controller wingman that has the one "Armaggedon nuclear warhead launcher" in your team, and suddenly starts firing at the enemy while you are ahead of him, getting hit in the process. Or the flamethrower in your team getting jiggy with his trigger and toasting you when the enemy attack, or ... you get the idea. If you can equip your wingmen, and let them do their stuff, work hard on *HOW* to use the weapons effectively. It''s not just, "should I shoot or not". Maybe even have communication initiated FROM your wingmen, rather tahn always from you. "Sir, shouldn''t we use the Death Bringer Mega Cannon now, they are close enough, if you would jsut get out of the way ?". I would *love* that

youpla :-P

quote: Original post by Wavinator

Alright, somebody else doing upgradable starships (YES! )

I''m playing around w/ this idea, two (except I''m trying to see if you can control a single unit and a team)

Major thing to worry about: Control. How can you give the player the most control over what''s happening where. The really fun thing about these types of games (I think) is the tactical decision making. But precise control is a real problem (which is why so many, like the great X-Com, started out turned-based).

Couple of other things: Can your team lose equipment? How detailed are the unit options? Is there any planned automation, like waypoints or rules of engagement?

The control may represent a problem, that''s right. To be honest, we didn''t already figure out totally how to do combat in our game. It''ll probably be turn-based (not sure yet), while the rest of the game''s real-time. You are sitting in one of the ships, so you shouldn''t loose this unit

You can send away other ships, mainly to trade, but they cannot fly into undiscovered sectors as long as you are not with them. There will be automation functions like waypoints, load/unload cargo, maybe even buying/selling goods. Probably you only control combat if your own unit is involved, otherwise the outcome will be generated automatically.

Equipment can be destroyed on combat. The whole thing will be a bit more detailed than in Privateer (but comparable)

quote: Original post by ahw

HEy, while you are talking about customizing ships, I jsut have to ask. Do you have any resources on what is inside a real battleship ? Because I don''t have any problems coming up with an odd cool looking spaceship, but the thing that annoys me in my need for consistency is that I jsut don''t know what is all inside. I mean, you have reactors, you haves shields, weapons, crew, etc ... but how is it all organised ? how does it work ?

Here''s a (yes, insane!!!!) goal of mine: Run a unit like a finite state machine. A ship is composed of modules which generate things like power, or shield energy, or life support. These become tactical hardpoints to destroy / protect during combat.

So the system runs something like this: The reactor is all important, and generates power to everything and sets an energy "budget" for all other systems. Out of the budget comes things like defenses, engines, life support, etc. These system in turn affect other attributes, like damage taken, manueverability, crew efficiency, etc. You can go as deep with this as you want, but the important thing is to have a way for the player to know what''s happening and make decisions about it.

In most cases, I think macro-decisions are key: You can set captains of other ships on AI modes, such as "Protect the Ship First" or "Do or Die!" The captains then handle the FSM internals. If they can''t, they tell you, and this becomes a command decision (for instance, maybe you send techs over to repair it because most of their crew are dead)

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Just waiting for the mothership...

Note: This was me the last post

quote: Original post by ahw

HEy, while you are talking about customizing ships, I just have to ask. Do you have any resources on what is inside a real battleship ? Because I don''t have any problems coming up with an odd cool looking spaceship, but the thing that annoys me in my need for consistency is that I jsut don''t know what is all inside. I mean, you have reactors, you haves shields, weapons, crew, etc ... but how is it all organised ? how does it work ?
I know it''s a bit OffTopic, sorry

It depends on how accurate you wanna simulate this ship. I believe it''s enough to hire a crew, mount some fat weapons and here we go. Your crewmen will be divided to have different roles, e.g. gunner, pilot, navigator, fighter pilot, security etc. All crewmen have different attributes, and the better you use them, the more efficient your ship will work. But there should be an option for automation of that task.
Then you have different systems, but as long as they work well you won''t get in touch. If systems are damaged, you cannot shoot with full power, or you loose speed, or whatever.

quote:
as for the issue of equipping, I must say I am a fervent admirers of the Mechwarrior series. My personal favorite bit being of course the briefing and equipping of the mechs before going on to a mission. This is just *so* cool, I can''t make any constructive criticism. I think I just love it because of the feeling that you are really controlling *everything*.

Yeah, it like that too

quote:
I remember a game called Delta force of something (no, not the one with the voxel rendered landscape, the one I am on about wa ages ago, in the Vietnam war, with ugly polygons).
You had to equip your 4 guys and go on to a mission.
I think the equipping/managing items part is really a mistake to put into an RPG. It just smells so much like wargame ...
You should only deal with your one character. But the problem comes when you want to give stuff to other characters, or you want to get back your stuff, etc ... I don''t see an easy solution here, unless you try to give more depth to dialogs with your team members...

For me, equipping folk is also great in RPGs. But tastes differ (thank goodness)

quote:
I don''t really think having to deal with each of your wingmen is a very enjiyable thing. I''d rather work very hard on making the AI better. Maybe not clever, but at least a good follower, that doesn''t make utterly stupid decision.
For instance, avoid having a computer controller wingman that has the one "Armaggedon nuclear warhead launcher" in your team, and suddenly starts firing at the enemy while you are ahead of him, getting hit in the process. Or the flamethrower in your team getting jiggy with his trigger and toasting you when the enemy attack, or ... you get the idea. If you can equip your wingmen, and let them do their stuff, work hard on *HOW* to use the weapons effectively. It''s not just, "should I shoot or not". Maybe even have communication initiated FROM your wingmen, rather tahn always from you. "Sir, shouldn''t we use the Death Bringer Mega Cannon now, they are close enough, if you would jsut get out of the way ?". I would *love* that

youpla :-P

In such a game, the AI is indeed very important (ok thats true for all genres). But I woudln''t omit the fun of equipping a team just for the reason a brain-dead guy could fry your character
Communication with a wingman wheter he shoulds use the wowie-zowie weapon now, would be really cool indeed . I wonder whether this has been done already?

quote: Original post by ahw

You should only deal with your one character. But the problem comes when you want to give stuff to other characters, or you want to get back your stuff, etc ... I don''t see an easy solution here, unless you try to give more depth to dialogs with your team members...

What if crew simply had inventories that you could open up? This would *really* work if your inventory limit was a heck of a lot more realistic than it is in most RPGs. No carying around 6 claymores and 250 metric tonnes of gold!!! If you want to do that, that''s what you need henchmen for, dangit!

quote:
I don''t really think having to deal with each of your wingmen is a very enjiyable thing. I''d rather work very hard on making the AI better. Maybe not clever, but at least a good follower, that doesn''t make utterly stupid decision.

What about better AI settings, like Total Annihilation or Dark Reign. I realize that takes it into the RTS territory, but I''d love to have more high level control over my mates. Of course, you could still mix this with better AI, but I''d like to have the option of overriding it to suit *my* plans.

quote:
Maybe even have communication initiated FROM your wingmen, rather tahn always from you. "Sir, shouldn''t we use the Death Bringer Mega Cannon now, they are close enough, if you would jsut get out of the way ?". I would *love* that

Hahahaha! Ditto! You''d need some smart AI. Or, as I''m a great fan of, you could cheat. For instance, you could either imbed certain solutions in missions, or have the enemy communicate to the AI player a good solution... for instance, you have to code rally behavior, and when you do you send a message to a friendly AI that the rally point would be a great place to point the Mega...





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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
The control may represent a problem, that''s right. To be honest, we didn''t already figure out totally how to do combat in our game. It''ll probably be turn-based (not sure yet), while the rest of the game''s real-time. You are sitting in one of the ships, so you shouldn''t loose this unit

Yup, this is my paradigm to. That ship is *you* so don''t lose it!

quote:
You can send away other ships, mainly to trade, but they cannot fly into undiscovered sectors as long as you are not with them. There will be automation functions like waypoints, load/unload cargo, maybe even buying/selling goods. Probably you only control combat if your own unit is involved, otherwise the outcome will be generated automatically.

Notice something here: What kind of game are you playing if you sit back and let the AI units do all the work? You''re straying into strategy game territory (which I''m fine with, ''cause I''m already there ) Just thought I''d note it. It''s a design I''d like to see more people work on, as I''d like to play it myself. There''s the potential of growing from a privateer to a business, with a fairly simple paradigm, which I think is kinda cool.

quote:
Equipment can be destroyed on combat. The whole thing will be a bit more detailed than in Privateer (but comparable)

Something to take issue with, then. You may want to think about how the player can take responsibility for this thing, and what info he has to make choices. For instance, if you go sending your new cutlass with those new fancy Mark V shields, and it gets jumped by pirates and you lose both ship and shields your gonna be ticked... unless, of course, you had the information and took the risk anyway.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Wavinator

Notice something here: What kind of game are you playing if you sit back and let the AI units do all the work? You''re straying into strategy game territory (which I''m fine with, ''cause I''m already there ) Just thought I''d note it. It''s a design I''d like to see more people work on, as I''d like to play it myself. There''s the potential of growing from a privateer to a business, with a fairly simple paradigm, which I think is kinda cool.

You know what? That''s exactly what we intend! You start with one ship as a privateer (sometimes others may join you on your ''quest'' and all characters have a set of attributes, these are the RPG elements) and when you earned enough money you start becoming more a businessman with a whole fleet, but still you can explore the rest of the galaxy, ''cause your business runs automated. Actually you must keep on exploring, otherwise the storyline cannot proceed.
Man, I am really working on my dream game But what a lot of work...

*** AWESOME ***

Lemme know when it''s done, so I can play it!

BTW, have you dealt with this issue yet: "What makes it fun to play at the ''biz empire'' level that a player can''t get from playing a full blown empire game."

One way, I think, is to deeply tie the two together: You can''t explore unless you expand an empire, and you can''t expand an empire unless you explore.

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Just waiting for the mothership...