Hi, I am working on a space adventure game. It lets the player engage in space combat or fly to different planets to find missions, recruit new crew members or trade in commodities. One of the goal I really want is to treat the ship more like a NPC and the home of the crews, not merely a form of transportation. For that purpose I think it is important to give the components like weapon, shield or generator on the ship and the ship herself more individuality. As a developer and a person, my opinion is no doubt very biased. So I would like to hear some different opinions from people who are also interested in game design. An idea is to implement some mechanism for the generatos, which supply power to all other components on the ship, in order to make it interesting and fun to play with, but at the same time not too complex. Ideally it should also play a role in the gameplay. So the the standard design that generators differ only in price and output will not suffice. What I have at the moment is give each generator unique characteristic, it is basically the energy output in relation to the damage taken. And the player decide how much energy is distributed to certain component like weapon or shield. Below are two such characteristics: The one on the left looses power capacity at an even pace when taking more and more damage; While the one on the right is hardly effected by light damages but looses capacity very quickly when a certain damage threshold is reached. I hope it will have some impact on the style how the game is played. If the player has good gunner in his crew and enjoys space combat (which means he will get hit more often) the generator on the left is better suited. The generator on the right is maybe for someone who has an able pilot in his crew and prefer to outfly the enemies. In this case shield and engine are more important than fire power. And a generator which stays in peak performance as long as the damage is relatively light is more desirable. So that is what I got so far on the generators, any feedback is appreciated! Thanx for reading. P.S. For those interested here is some additional info about this game: The content is seperated from the game engine itself, the actors/missions/buildings are added via Lua script. I use C# and Truevision3D, so far the graphic engine / physics / path finding are mostly finished. What's left are the mission system / crew management / space combat. And of course quite some 3d modeling and animation. I will create a small game world to have some fun :) Those interested in creating his own sceneries could use lua script to do so.

If you've ever played the Warcraft 3 mod Cruiser Command, it has a different (but interesting) take on power consumption:

Power is generated at a steady rate, which can be upgraded. Power is also used at a steady rate by different subsystems. The key is the alteration of power consumption; you can choose how much power you want to spend. And you there is a cap on power stored, which can also be upgraded.

You could have a similar system: every subsystem can run at different powers (unpowered, lightly, medium, heavy), which would give different effects. Maybe some things radically improve from medium to heavy, while others have a barely noticeable shift. Different generators would have different attributes: power generated per second, power cap, maximum that can be routed to one subsystem, requirements to create power (money, materials), and also how it functions in combat. It would be cool if some generators are more unstable: they easily give away power, but lose a ton if a subsystem fails (they just shoot the energy into space). So you may be able to have a really good shield, but if it breaks you'll have no power for guns for a bit.

The game looks pretty cool as it is, though.

I'm working on a similar concept (searching these forums for "full power to shields" will bring up a thread I started on this topic).

In my design there aren't different generator profiles, although it's an interesting idea. Instead, the player makes choices on where to "spend" power.

Ship systems have three states: Off/On/Max. Off is self explanatory and doesn't consume any power. On runs the system normally at normal power consumption. Max runs the system in an overdrive mode, with higher "output" but lower efficiency-- your shields charge 50% faster and have a 50% higher max strength, but at a cost of twice as much energy. So less efficient, but maybe worth it if it means the difference between blowing up and not blowing up.

To add to the list doomhascome provided, you could add weight, space and complexity. Weight affects your ship by requiring more energy to accelerate at the same speed. Space is limited, so a bigger generator leaves less room for other stuff. Complexity is how much processing power the generator requires to function. Max complexity can be determined by the ship's computer(another component). That would give a lot of different choices and would increase synergy with other components. Fast ships would have to do without the heavy generators(less output), ships with big guns would have to use less sophisticated generators(they have higher complexity) and a big transport could use a cheap, big, polluting low tech generator because they're so huge they don't care.

>And you there is a cap on power stored, which can also be upgraded.
Yes, I have a similar thing in the game. Did not mention it since i want to
concentrate on the generators. It is independent from the generators
though. Some kind of energy cell which could store energy, the advantage is
it could instantly replace energy lost from shield or weapon. The drawback
is it's slow to recharge so only recharged during non-combat periods.
And more importantly it tooks spaces away which could be used to install
other components.

>every subsystem can run at different powers (unpowered, lightly, medium,
>heavy), which would give different effects. Maybe some things radically
>improve from medium to heavy, while others have a barely noticeable shift.
>Different generators would have different attributes: power generated per
>second, power cap, maximum that can be routed to one subsystem
Yes, I have them already. Different state of components will be coded in different colors. (black, red, yellow, green). :)

>It would be cool if some generators are more unstable: they easily give away
>power, but lose a ton if a subsystem fails (they just shoot the energy into
>space).
I thought that is what the generator on the right shows, if it gets damaged
a little too much it loose massively on output. Or do you mean something like
random power losses?

Quote:

Original post by justkevin I'm working on a similar concept (searching these forums for "full power to shields" will bring up a thread I started on this topic). In my design there aren't different generator profiles, although it's an interesting idea. Instead, the player makes choices on where to "spend" power. Ship systems have three states: Off/On/Max. Off is self explanatory and doesn't consume any power. On runs the system normally at normal power consumption. Max runs the system in an overdrive mode, with higher "output" but lower efficiency-- your shields charge 50% faster and have a 50% higher max strength, but at a cost of twice as much energy. So less efficient, but maybe worth it if it means the difference between blowing up and not blowing up.

The-player-choose-where-to-spend-power is already in the screenshot i think :)

The idea you are having is very interesting. You mean if the player want to
increase shield regeneration well beyond its normal operating range? But i am
sure you need some special interface design to implement that feature. Btw,
what consequence does it have gameplaywise if the shield blow up?

The implemention i am happy now is just have each shield have different power
input/shield regenerate conversion rate and max power regeneration rate. So it
is always a balance issue when the player want to purchase a shield.

Quote:

Original post by Tiblanc To add to the list doomhascome provided, you could add weight, space and complexity. Weight affects your ship by requiring more energy to accelerate at the same speed. Space is limited, so a bigger generator leaves less room for other stuff. Complexity is how much processing power the generator requires to function. Max complexity can be determined by the ship's computer(another component). That would give a lot of different choices and would increase synergy with other components. Fast ships would have to do without the heavy generators(less output), ships with big guns would have to use less sophisticated generators(they have higher complexity) and a big transport could use a cheap, big, polluting low tech generator because they're so huge they don't care.

Space is taken into consideration. Since there are only so many
slot on the ship.

The Complexity System in addition to the power distribution system will
certainly make the game more complex. :) Currently, most components are
weapon, shield and generators. but there are a few other components like
life support and central computer system. i try to keep the number as low as possible, only those effecting agmeplay will be included.

P.S.:
i see it is quite impossible to limit the topic to generators only.

Quote:

Original post by sitwind The-player-choose-where-to-spend-power is already in the screenshot i think :)

Sorry I didn't see that in the screenshot-- is the shield bar actually a slider that the player uses? Can players set everything to max?

Quote:

The idea you are having is very interesting. You mean if the player want to increase shield regeneration well beyond its normal operating range? But i am sure you need some special interface design to implement that feature. Btw, what consequence does it have gameplaywise if the shield blow up?

It's not that special-- right now the design calls for button that lets the player choose Off/On/Max. So whatever UI I provide for turning things on/off needs to support 3 states instead of 2. I'm currently thinking something like a select list or button bar.

Quote:

Original post by justkevin Quote: Original post by sitwind The-player-choose-where-to-spend-power is already in the screenshot i think :) Sorry I didn't see that in the screenshot-- is the shield bar actually a slider that the player uses? Can players set everything to max?

I see what you mean, other than the generators, the screenshots are not
very informative. I think they are not very clear to doomhascome and Tiblanc
either. Here is another screen shot:


I checked your Max Shield post, invariably such a topic ended up about Wing
Commander :) But you missed another great game with the same mechanism:
X-Wing!

Do you have any screenshots from your game yet?

Quote:

Original post by sitwind I see what you mean, other than the generators, the screenshots are not very informative. I think they are not very clear to doomhascome and Tiblanc either. Here is another screen shot: I checked your Max Shield post, invariably such a topic ended up about Wing Commander :) But you missed another great game with the same mechanism: X-Wing! Do you have any screenshots from your game yet?

So if I want to increase power to shields, is that top bar a slider that I drag?

I'm not ready to post any screenshots, yet, I'm still nailing down some of the interface details.