ops has bin along time devotee ot the creative assembly/activision total war series (shogun, medieval, rome).

Thus, in some future as yet mythical version two, fleet0ps is to have the same turn basd stategic/rts tactical gameplay mix. unlike total war howevr human playrs will be competing on the strategic lvl.

considering the effects of a particular realism inna multiplayr tactical space combat sim.

Suppose that, as on the strategic lvl, evry playrs using time laggd information flows. onna stellar system sizd battleField where some extremely interesting objects are operating at .5 to .75 light velocities.

due to the consequent light speed induced uncertainties playrs nevr really kno where their opponents are.

thus if fleet0ps operates innan internetworking sortof publisher/subscriber multinode environment then evn an rts system only kneeds to passaround true position updates only in the case of extreme proximity events ?

game economics.

there are four basic resources involvd in the construction nd maintenance of assets in fleet0ps.

industrial assets gathr the raw resources of asteroids nd comets freely available in all stellar systems and produce manufactured goods. these industrial 'points' represent evrything from toasters to hulls.

biological assets produce the foods and, more importantly, medicines requird to keep people alive nd relatively healthy in space.

habitat assets produce the population points requird to crew all assets.

economic assets produce economic points by providing a marketplace and a currency. e.p. are a reference to some quantum of stored value that can be exchanged for immediately present materiel.

as a 'helper' class ops has defind a 'mercantile' asset which provides the cargo handling infrastucture required to transport quantities of all of the above resources between stellar systems or to store them for future use.

thus it can be seen that ops considrs the explicit logistical resupply of units as part of the gameplay 'fun'.

combat systems.

in fleet0ps control of assets is a prime victory condition. thus there are many different 'combat' modes possible in addition to simple military intimidation, capture or destruction.

as example. ops has defind an 'economic' asset. in addition to it's role in the fleet0ps economic system this unit has 'offensive' nd 'defensive' roles. offensively this unit can spend economic points to mount a hostile takovr of a targeted asset. if successful that target will then be controlled by the aggressor.

ops has now in broad strokes delineatd the major gameplay elements in the fleet0ps design.

are these gameplay elemnts sufficiently innovative. do they play well togethr. is this concept implementable inna garage. does it need furthr gameplays to make it 'bettr'.

or is this instantiation of a tired turn based strategic futureSpace empire running onna personal computer genre yust too dull nd boring to be wurth comment.

oh dear. going back ovr some fairly recnt threads ops can see that some might think that our fleet0ps design is simply a distillation of those threads. we can only assert that we're a virgie to those threads nd that we've developd this design on our own.

in the interest of gameplay many design manuals suggest that artfully placd limitations can significantly enhance play.

ops was after a game of nomadic mobility nd so has postulated that fusion power sources do not operate in volumes of significant gravity such as planets nd moons. furthr we have stipulated that complex evolvd planetary biospheres are extremely rare.

regarding ftl. according to the landis cannonical list of stardrives ops uses a classical type 1 hyperdrive. to jump requires a very low gravitic field or increasingly enormous amounts of power to twist the witch into the impossible medium. with a fixed range based on ship class nd limited by the destructive effects of ftl transits.

but, assuming no gravitic occultations, any system in range can be reached. as well the exit co-ords can exist at any point on the surface of a sphere, normally the 'heliopause' radius. at any vector upto say .9 c.

considering a novel UI feature.

being a stellar conquest game it is de rigeur nd sin qua non to do a three dee stellar map. unfortunately these seem to convey relatively little visual information. stars are point sources inna featureless space nd it's difficult to trick the eye with the screen nd produce perspective effects.

ops proposes to use sound. having spent far too long in voxel space playing novalogics earlier delta force shootrs we appreciated the directional cues afforded by russls in the grass.

imagine ifn a playr hadda tool that allowed them to assign a musical note to the stellar systems displayed on their onscreen map. perhaps modulate the notes to indicate state.

thus an aural representation of the visual map is created. most importantly, when the playr reorientates their visual map the aural map reorients as well, giving playrs two sensory inputs to the same phenomena.

this principle could probably be applied on a tactical lvl as well with aural samples attached to the ships on ones tactical displays.

p.s. guess that cuts some costs ifn one doesn't kneeda wanta pounding heavy death metal hop traks.