I''m thinking more along the lines of the Sci-Fi (galactic domination) type. The basis for this idea was the though "Wouldnt it be nice if players developed (and were encourgaed to) different weapon types." Think Star Trek, especially the original series where the Romulans had Plasma weapons, the Klingons Disrupters (I think, but I cant ever remeber seeing a Federation - Klingon ship to ship battle in TOS) and the Federation Phasers (and in the movies Photon Torpedos). That was the idea of the thought, to encourage diversity in the technologies used by various players (including the AI), not just in weapons (although they are the most noticable). The idea I came up with to implement this, would work something like: There would be a technology "tree" and dependency "web" (kind of like the skills web discussed in another thread). The top level of the tree would be the major areas in which the player could invest "Research Points". Each of these would have sub-areas (which the player would instruct thier scientists to research in) e.g. The weapons area could be further sub-divided into Plasmatics, which would result in the various plasma based weapondry, or Missiles which would give better torpedos, or beam weapons which would give phasers, etc... Each of the sub-areas would be several levels "deep" (e.g. Plasmatics level 1 would give a low-yeald plasma torpedo, Plasmatics 2 would improve on this, Plasmatics 5 may give a new type of torpedo, etc)... Something extra I''m a little undecided on is: Sub-areas could be shared over major areas, e.g. in the above example Plasmatics level 4 could be under energy research and give say a Plasma based power generator. Hope thats understandable (I''m not one of the worlds greatest explainers.. in fact I''m probably one of the worse) I dont know if something similar has been done before (in all of the ones I''ve played it hasnt, researching all areas equally is usually the best way to go.. leading to a bunch of ships that only look different externally) Please, feel free to support it, critisize it (constructive critisum please), suggest changes, another system that implements the basic idea, etc.. NightWraith

Sounds good. To some extent Age of empires II etc already do this, if you research the first upgrade for say, a cavalry unit, then your money is worth investing in the second upgrade to get a killer unit rather than just getting the standard version of say, a pikeman.
This ends up with people having cavalry-centric aries, or infantry-centric ones, which is cool. Also AOE2 has the different technologies that each side can have which their opponents cant, which is also cool. However i dont think it goes far enough.
I find Chess boring, and StarFleet battles cool, because in Chess you always know what you are up against. In SFB, there were so many units and races that often when you went into battle you didnt have the vaguest idea what the enemy ships were capable of, which made for interesting games.
So far, every game gives the player access to everything, maybe not all at the same time, but i can (for example) play as any race in AOE2, so when im Teutons V Britains, i know what the Britains have because i have played them before.
Why dosent someone do a game where different copies of the game actually had different units? that would be cool, there would be no way to know what kind of forces the other guys had, and they woudnt know what your weapons did till you used them.
Of course this would bug people who thought it was a trick to make them buy multiple copies.....
ho hum.

http://www.positech.co.uk

"Specializing" would be the correct spelling.

Nait write, i doN unDerstan whut jou means everytimme.. hEllo byh the way.
Butt yuorh ideaS soundhs interestING

kiFe guy, multhiple copies wuoldH be noT realistick because that soMEONE mighT feeL thaT they goth a cophy that waS noT ass god as anotherone .anotHER wey too duh it could be toh maike it wery customizable ifh yuh nderstAND whuth i meahn

Knife Guy.... Not in England its not ;o) and since I''m from England I speak and spell the Queens English.. (so dont post just to "correct" my spelling, thanx [cuz it dont contribute to the topic after all])

Cliffski...

I have a reply for you units thing, but I''m gonna make another post out of it (just so it doesnt detract from the main idea of this one, so check it out if u havent already)

I agree! I am from the UK too and am sick of americans thinking they can spell better than the people who invented the language!
And for all you yankie coders out there...
its COLOUR not COLOR ok???????????/


http://www.positech.co.uk

NW, I may be thinking about this too narrowly, but if the goal is to end up with species specialties, why not go with a straightforward but detailed linear point system, where some races get research "discounts," and head starts and penalties in certain categories.

Let''s say you''ve got:

PROPULSION
ARMOR
SHIELD
SUPERLIMINAL DRIVE
MISSILE
BEAM
MAX MASS (for maximum ship size)
COMMAND & CONTROL (for large or small group emphasis; think Zerg vs. Protoss)

etc., etc.

So imagine the Altana are experts in PROPULSION (low research cost) but weak in CnC (balkanized, tribal society). They got a early start on BEAM (bonus), but because of lower gravity and species history late start on MAX MASS (smaller, less powerful ships).

The Altana then can only field a small number of small ships (low mass, low CnC). But these things are fast . In first engagements, their BEAM bonus combined with propulsion will allow them to dance in and out of enemy range. Throughout the game the maintain their edge on PROPULSION, being masters of the discipline, but can never quite keep up in CnC (those pesky inter-clan wars). Whether the player squanders their early advantage in BEAM is up to them, as is whether or not they catch up in terms of MAX MASS.

Alter these stats, and you''ve got yourself a new race with new capabilities. Best of all, the system is straightforward (like Moo1) and easy to understand.

However, there''s room for a definite cool factor: You could pay a lot of attention to detail, and create subcategories within categories that further diverge weapons, comms, propulsion, drive, stealth, sensors, auto repair, crew requirements, etc, etc, etc.

For example-

PROPULSION
-- ENERGY CONSUMPTION
-- ACCELERATION RATE
-- RADIATIATIVE PROFILE (for stealth)

SUPERLIMINAL DRIVE
-- RECHARGE DELAY
-- RANGE PER JUMP
-- IN SYSTEM BATTLE JUMP RANGE

EXPLOSIVES
-- BLAST RADIUS
-- MASS TO ENERGY RATIO
-- HARD RADIATION DAMAGE

etc., etc.,

You can detail this for dozens and dozens of systems, and since you have different

Want to get even more cool?

Lock some of the values permanently, so races have to deal with what is a scientific handicap: No stealth, or low propulsion, or weak shields are a mark of the race.

If players could create items that embody these values, they could trade them. You''d probably want to be able to create substandard equipment, too, and reap tons of cash by selling into the open market (heh, and fostering war to keep the other civs off your back).



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

Wav, love the ideas. You''ve also helped another (more general than the galactic domination area Empire games) thought I''ve been having about Empire games, and that is how to make your races political makeup also have an impact on the way you play. I know civilisation does this, but I dont like it, but thats another topic.

My idea wasnt aiming quite so much at race specialities (although that has to be a part of it), as having a broader set of ship designs across races. I dont like the fact that whatever race you''re up against you know what their ships will be armed with, and those will be EXACTLY the same as yours (give or take a few research levels), makes things pritty boring for me. There''s little thinking to the design of ships, its just, Bung as many weapons and defensive systems as possible on (i.e. the best of everything). You dont need to think "The Borlans have brilliant close range weapondry therefore I would be better to arm my ships with the weaker, but longer range weapondry", simply because you know they''ll have a wide range of weapon ranges. (I liked the kind of tactical thinking in Starfleet Command for example where you tried to keep you ships a good distance from the Lyrian''s because thier ESG (v.powerful, but v.short range) would do serious damage to your ship if u got close enough)

I''m also thinking the research system would have to encourage the player to research down one or two or three (I''ll stick with weapons for now, but this should be extended to cover other areas) different branches of the weapons tree (i.e. weapons types) to thier conclusions, rather than trying to develop all branches at once.

I wasnt planning on take this idea past the reseach aspect of it, [if I go too far I may find myself trying to write something to use it in and I dont have the time to sped away from my other project], but I guess Trading Technology would be part of the research process...

quote:
Let''s say you''ve got:

PROPULSION
ARMOR
SHIELD
SUPERLIMINAL DRIVE
MISSILE
BEAM
MAX MASS (for maximum ship size)
COMMAND & CONTROL (for large or small group emphasis; think Zerg vs. Protoss)

Still too close to what I''m trying to get away from, think more:

Weapons:
MISSILES
LASERS
PLASMA TORPEDOS
ESG
HELLBORE
FUSION BEAMS
DISRUPTORS

Shields:
AREA SHIELDING (where forward, aft, port and starboard shields are ''seperate'')
BUBBLE SHIELDING (like the ''defense screen'' (I think) in Farscape, single solid shield)
etc etc


ok yeah so most of this list is stolen straight out of Starfleet Command (but I''m only demonstarting a point here I''m not actually gonna use it)

Should hopefully give more thought what and how to equip a ship...

I do like the idea of more of a improvement approach rather than a "new technology".


NightWraith