I'm working on the design for a tactical top-down space game where the player commands a capital ship, e.g. Adama and Galactica, Kirk and the Enterprise, etc. One game mechanic I think would be fun is the ability to direct extra power to different ship components: shields, phasers, engines, jump drive, etc. This gives the player the option of sacrificing mobility for defense, defense for offsense, etc. Three design questions: 1.) What level of control should the player be presented? At the very simple end of the spectrum is to allow the player to designate one or more component "high power". At the other end would be a complicated level system where each component can be assigned precise percentages. My instinct is to lean toward simplicity. 2.) What UI should I use for the control? 3.) Given a particular set of energy demands and energy supply, what formula would work "logically"? (By logically I mean from the player's perspective)

For each component, you could display a slider, a lock checkbox and a set of buttons for commonly used power levels(none, medium, full). That would give the flexibility to give a precise power level and the simplicity of a single button. The lock checkbox is there to prevent another slider from affecting a value you just set, so if you need more power than is available, it will take power from other sources.

I like Tiblanc's idea. Another I remember from a very old game is a kind of simplified colorwheel sort of concept: A circle or some other shape with points for shields, engines, weapons, etc. at different axis from each other. A control widget sits in the center and represents everything being balanced. You click and hold the widget and slide it toward whatever you wanted more of. It only works with really simple options, though-- anything else and it gets hard to quickly read and understand.

Depending on how real-time it needs to be a point system could work -- the ship has 10 power points, and 5 systems that rely on power (weapons, shields, etc). You can allocate them however you choose, and rearrange them without penalty. Just like a D&D stats system except you can reallocate at any time.

The interface wouldn't be so bad either -- just make each system a slider, and when you want to reroute a point from engines to shield, tick back engines one, and tick up shield with the excess.

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Original post by Wavinator I like Tiblanc's idea. Another I remember from a very old game is a kind of simplified colorwheel sort of concept: A circle or some other shape with points for shields, engines, weapons, etc. at different axis from each other. A control widget sits in the center and represents everything being balanced. You click and hold the widget and slide it toward whatever you wanted more of. It only works with really simple options, though-- anything else and it gets hard to quickly read and understand.

Wing Commander did this and it was quite intuitive. WC4 offered options for distributing power between shields/engines/weapon/repairs. WC5 did away with the repairs section.

If done correctly (so you can change it quickly, without using the mouse), it can become a very powerful concept. Although this didn't play a large part in Wing Commander, I remember fondly some of the longer missions where diverting energy to repairs or engines (for higher velocity/maneuvrability) saved my ass!

If you only have three targets (kinda unlikely), you can let the user select a point on a triangle. The three vertexes of the triangle are labeled corresponding to the targets. How close to each target it is determines how much power goes there. Barycentric coordinates should be what you need.

This is similar to a concept for a FPS game I have, and what I would warn you to watch out for is when the directing of power to different areas is too easy or too hard. If it's too hard or complicated the player will never use it the way it's supposed to be used. If it's too easy or simple the player can simply give all power to weapons every attack and to shields when being attacked and it loses it's strategic qualities and boils down to being no different than just adding a block button and attack button, but with an extra step in the basic controls that doesn't need to be there. Make sure there is sometimes a reason to not have all power on the weapons when attacking or the shields when defending.

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Original post by Tiblanc For each component, you could display a slider, a lock checkbox and a set of buttons for commonly used power levels(none, medium, full). That would give the flexibility to give a precise power level and the simplicity of a single button. The lock checkbox is there to prevent another slider from affecting a value you just set, so if you need more power than is available, it will take power from other sources.

I'd considered the slider idea, but I hadn't thought of the lock checkbox to keep values from changing. But I worry that multiple sliders or sliders and checkboxes will be too micromanagey.

An idea I had after posting: The ship produces a constant rate of power that goes into a reserve. Various systems draw on the reserve at a rate determined by their normal requirement. A system can be set to max power, in which case it will draw energy at a higher rate. The downside is that energy drawn past normal usage is less efficient.

For example, if phasers normally draw 100 units/second to recharge, max power might draw 200 units/second, but only recharge at a rate of 150 units/second.

What do you think?

Edit:
A reserve could also be used with sliders. Instead of balancing sliders against each other, they all draw from the reserve. All sliders to max would be the same as setting all components to max power in the above.