In the tradition of grand old games like Starflight and Star Control I'm planning on allowing players to collect stuff (minerals, flora, fauna) from planets in a terrain vehicle. The collecting is done either using a minigame or just by picking stuff up. Planets are more like abstract strategy maps than some attempt at realism. I have a few different questions: 1) What's the best way to make collecting challenging? Combat is probably the easiest, but making every planet a battleground seems senseless and implies a dark and ugly universe. Hostile weather and terrain works for some planets. The moon, however, is the best test case. I could make it a race against time and try to create terrain that's more puzzle / maze like, so that the chief challenge is navigation. Alternately, I could make it a real race, with competing AI terrain vehicles trying to get stuff before you do. 2) How acceptable is boring space? Do you ban the player from going places where there is no gameplay? A good example might again be the moon-- no animals, no weather, few useful minerals. Alternately, I could insist as a principle that every location and major chunk of terrain on it provide something. But then leads to the third question: 3) What balance should the game strike between repeating collectibles and providing unique ones? Some things, like minerals, should naturally repeat. But when there could potentially be hundreds of planets, the choice for collectibles seems to be either to make them repeat or try to give them semi-unique or unique uses in the game. If, for example, you were collecting "avians", you could have a game where avians are specific to the ecosystem of a specific planet, or one where they're pretty generic. The former would mean I'd need to support detective gameplay to avoid needle/haystack searches as well as a wide variety of UNIQUE uses. I'm up for that, but it might be overwhelming to the player if there were 95 avians each with unique uses, let alone other collectibles. The later might be more generic and more geared to simplicity: Find the habitable stars & planets and you'll always find some sort of flying species, which can always be used in a wide variety of ways (medicine, food, etc.) Thoughts? Any other suggestions, advice to make this concept playable? * - Non MMO btw

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1) What's the best way to make collecting challenging? Combat is probably the easiest, but making every planet a battleground seems senseless and implies a dark and ugly universe. Hostile weather and terrain works for some planets. The moon, however, is the best test case. I could make it a race against time and try to create terrain that's more puzzle / maze like, so that the chief challenge is navigation. Alternately, I could make it a real race, with competing AI terrain vehicles trying to get stuff before you do.

You could also limit the Air (or energy/fuel/whatever) of your lander vehicles so they have a limited window on the planet. Or you could do like that prison planet on the Chronicals of Riddick where the lightside was boiling/lethal, and the only safe place was the darkside. I think it would be pretty fun if done well to boot around on a planetary surface and watch as my wheels turn up dirt while navigating around obsticals.

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2) How acceptable is boring space? Do you ban the player from going places where there is no gameplay? A good example might again be the moon-- no animals, no weather, few useful minerals. Alternately, I could insist as a principle that every location and major chunk of terrain on it provide something. But then leads to the third question:

I think every space (even if it contains nothing) serves some purpose. The Moon (as per your example) would be an excellent place to practice navigation and manuvering in order to get a handle on the lander for example. You could also have different variables for each planet like different gravity, atmospheric densities, etc, that can change how the lander handles (thus making a renewable need for practice grounds).

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3) What balance should the game strike between repeating collectibles and providing unique ones? Some things, like minerals, should naturally repeat. But when there could potentially be hundreds of planets, the choice for collectibles seems to be either to make them repeat or try to give them semi-unique or unique uses in the game. If, for example, you were collecting "avians", you could have a game where avians are specific to the ecosystem of a specific planet, or one where they're pretty generic. The former would mean I'd need to support detective gameplay to avoid needle/haystack searches as well as a wide variety of UNIQUE uses. I'm up for that, but it might be overwhelming to the player if there were 95 avians each with unique uses, let alone other collectibles. The later might be more generic and more geared to simplicity: Find the habitable stars & planets and you'll always find some sort of flying species, which can always be used in a wide variety of ways (medicine, food, etc.)

Mineral's came in a variety of different flavors and concentrations (purple being the best, grey being the worst), which helped the generic mining aspects abit. It was always great to land a Rainbow planet or a deposit of Purple ore deposits and warming up your lander in anticipation of the riches below (even if it was flare infested).

SC2 actually used a combination of the two, there was that "beautiful creature" you had to collect for the Vox Commander, or the "Terrible Beasts" on the Spathi homeworld, in addition to the abundance of "generic" creatures. I think having 95 unique varieties of avian would be a bit overkill though (although there could be several "generic" types). You could also have "unique" creatures for each type, like Mothra for avians or Godzilla for land creatures and make it so that those have unique properties, but the generic don't.

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Original post by Wavinator 2) How acceptable is boring space? Do you ban the player from going places where there is no gameplay? A good example might again be the moon-- no animals, no weather, few useful minerals. Alternately, I could insist as a principle that every location and major chunk of terrain on it provide something. But then leads to the third question:

How about space that is on average boring but with methods to find the non boring parts without random searches. If you do something like star control 2 you could have some way to scan a entire solar system and learn the planet types without having to orbit them all individually.

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Original post by Wavinator 2) How acceptable is boring space? Do you ban the player from going places where there is no gameplay? A good example might again be the moon-- no animals, no weather, few useful minerals. Alternately, I could insist as a principle that every location and major chunk of terrain on it provide something. But then leads to the third question:

A game could be successful by doing either. However if you have a lot of places where there is nothing, it's important to make it clear to the player that it's not worth wasting their time looking there. If people can't tell the difference boring searches and being rewarded for their skill then something is wrong.

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Original post by Wavinator 1) What's the best way to make collecting challenging?

One idea might be to create some type of energy expenditure / collection trade-off. The mechanical devices used to collect raw materials use up energy, so in order to use up the least amount of energy (to make the best profit), the player is required to strategize the collection process.

Similar to a race, where the car needs to stay on the inside of the track to gain the best distance. But rather than speed or time, it would be about energy or cost. Actually coming up with an implementation of it would require more thought, but it might be something to work from.

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2) How acceptable is boring space? Do you ban the player from going places where there is no gameplay?

I would provide hints. Clues that lead to specific elements.

Who's to say what the player is looking for? Maybe the player is searching for biological life form data, or maybe it's iron. All planets should offer at least something. If greenish planets usually have life, and greyish planets usually have iron, the player can direct their own priorities with a simple system-wide scan that shows the planet's appearance. It wouldn't be a big deal (at least for me) for the color to be misleading every once in a while.

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3) What balance should the game strike between repeating collectibles and providing unique ones?

I don't think you'll have a problem with rare needles in haystacks, as long as the needles are a bonus, rather than a requirement. I would still provide small clues to find them, even if the clues are very miniscule or partially hidden.

For example, you could have some vapor rising into a spot on some random planet's atmosphere, leading to an ancient precursor artifact. The spot looks peculiar on scan, but definitely doesn't suggest what it leads to.

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Original post by Wavinator 1) What's the best way to make collecting challenging?

Require special handling cases of different types of materials. Consider the differences between
- aquatic creatures
- combustible gases
- radioactive matter
- perennial flowers

All could be conceivably collected in your game, by your description. But tossing the sharks, petrol, uranium, and tulips into the same cargo bay could result in disaster. Instead, the collecting vehicle/ship should need to be retro-fitted with technology befitting the purpose (aquatic creatures -> fresh/salt water tanks, combustible gases -> pressurized containers, radioactive matter -> radioactive containment units, perennial flowers -> simulated "M"-class-planet environmental holding cells).

Warthog Derby
As an aside to the fun factor, I use to LOVE playing around in Halo 1-3 in the vehicles. My friend and I use to have a destruction derby with the warthogs and actually made game types with no weapons and self enforced rules about letting people back into flipped vehicles just so we could roll around flying over hills and hitting each other. Don't underestimate the intrinsic fun of rolling around on the planet. In such a case you might want the collection to be a very minimal process instead of challenging.

Avoid Danger While Conserving Resources
As to the actual collecting, there have been some great suggestions here and I think they would be even better in combination with each other. The planet where the night/day side was dangerous because of temperature is a good idea, could also be radiation due to no atmosphere, could just be large storms that roll around the planet, whatever. Avoiding a huge danger zone that moves around the planet is good. In combo with resource management it is even better. Not wasting gas while you drive is boring, conserving gas while staying ahead of the day/night line so you don't roast is exciting.

Cargo Management
Making sure your ship can hold what ever you are collecting is another interesting point, it doesnt interact with the first two much, but gives the player something to think about before they go collecting. There is also the fuel:cargo ratio to think about, the less fuel you bring the more room you have to hold other stuff.

Its All About Fun
Overall, think about it in terms of fun, not challenge. Making something difficult might be fun, but it might just annoy. Its fun you are after.

Boring space is an interesting idea. I always wished that in games such as Elite II you could land on a 'boring' planet and set up a mini base, maybe with an ore refinery/link to a trade channel, etc. In the 'real' fronterism universe, do we really think that humans/aliens would just leave potentially useful real estate just laying there?

If there is no content there and the player found the location, I'd love to think that the player could as his/her own content which eventually influenced the AI/universe to start providing content there too... a key point is that if there were a huge cache of minerals on a remote planet, who's to say that the military factions/industry factions/etc wouldn't want to get involved? Maybe an in-game bulletin to announce new discoveries could be utilised, which could effectively create mini gold rush type scenarios? You discover a world rich with mineral X, word gets out and suddenly everyone is there, forcing prices down for that mineral and your profitability with it. You could also then, as a player, respond to such bulletins and reap certain rewards to getting in there quickly. It'd provide some content to previously 'dull' areas, unless they are totally devoid of value of course...

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Original post by evolutional If there is no content there and the player found the location, I'd love to think that the player could add his/her own content..

That would be really neat.

How about minor terraforming? Plant some seeds, leave, come back in a few years, and collect some minerals or plants. When taking seeds from one planet and planting them on another, any type of funky sci-fi result might be possible. Possibly brand new forms of life, or hybrid minerals.

Or maybe monitoring scanners? Install a scanner on a barren planet to monitor the planet or entire solar system. You could then access the monitor data from any location in space with your starship.

Thanks for the great ideas everyone.

I like the idea of making resource use a form of strategy, and I can see that working well on worlds that have bad weather or terrain hazards.

Thinking this over further, I also am a little less paranoid about having some boring space provided I can make some good detective gameplay for making searching fun.

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Original post by evolutional If there is no content there and the player found the location, I'd love to think that the player could as his/her own content which eventually influenced the AI/universe to start providing content there too...

This is a very cool idea (along with Kest's great suggestion of terraforming) but how do you reasonably limit it?

Do you tell the player, "You can only build 1 base or X bases?" If you don't tell them that, then don't you have to provide management screens for keeping track of them? What do you do if a base is threatened and on the other side of the star map?

It's very cool, but I'm not sure how you keep it playable.