I posted the basic idea of this a while back... Basically you build up an empire from the uncivilized stage to space fairing civ (obviously the former is a minor point) The central idea of this is getting planet stats and travel down. Battle between ships can be handled as a different level as well as government structure. So yeah...thoughts? Suggestions... Please don't suggest jumpgates again. Planet Sizes - Asteroid ==> 100-1,000km Tiny ======> 1,100-10,000km Small =====> 10,100-30,000km Medium ====> 30,100-70,000km Large =====> 70,100-150,000km Gas Giant => 36,000-1,430,000km Resource Chart - Ice =====> (2000 / 100km) Metal ===> (2000 / 100km) Rock ====> (0500 / 100km) Ocean ===> (0500 / 100km) Caustic => (1500 / 100km) Terran ==> (1000 / 100km) Structure Chart - Ice =====> (1 / 200km) Metal ===> (1 / 200km) Rock ====> (1 / 100km) Ocean ===> (1 / 300km) Caustic => (1 / 300km) Terran ==> (1 / 100km) Moon Chart - Asteroid ==> 0 Tiny ======> 0 Small =====> 1 Tiny Medium ====> 8 Tiny Large =====> 11 Tiny Gas Giant => 11 Tiny Orbit Slot - Asteroid ==> 1x1 = 1 Tiny ======> 3x3 = 9 Small =====> 5x5 = 25 Medium ====> 8x8 = 64 Large =====> 10x10 = 100 Gas Giant => 16x16 = 256 Max Planet Population - 100 (Building Tech Level * Civilization Type) / 100km How Does Construction Work? - A planet Earns Construction points once a day. Construction Points are generated by Population at 1:1*Civ mod ratio Construction points for each planet can be allocated to building. Each Building has an amount of Construction Points it needs to be created. This amount is amount is determined by various tech factors. For Example: A "city" for a tribal civ takes 1 point to construct. A "city" for a Modern City may take many game years worth of points to construct... and even more so for a tribal civilization due to different abilities to construct. Note: Cities that are built while in a different type of civ auto convert. As Cities build over time naturally to more advanced cities thus with more advanced civilization comes automatically more advanced cities. What Can be built on Planets? - Cities : +100 base level pop without tech Resource Collector : +(1*collection) Resource Processing : +(1*processing) Resource Storage : +(???*storage) Shipyard : +1 Ships being built/repaired on planet Spaceport : +1 allowed to trade and tourism Observatory : Allows you to see and Communicate in Star System Military Academy : +100 crew men training for a ship Planet Turret : +(1*Weapon tech) Planet Shield : +(1*shield tech) Capital : Center of your empire. You must establish 1 on a planet. Planetary Stats? - Ungathered resources: amount left over unProcessed resources: in storage / max Processed resources: in storage / max population: alive / max Planet Defense: current / max Planet Offense: #### Capital: ? Economy: tourism + tax + industry Ship building: current / max Construction Points: ### How to build & launch ships? - Design a ship Spec. Gather the amount of resources Build it in Shipyard Train Crew Launch Ship with crew How is space divided up? - The map is a layered grid that as you zoom in represents less space per grid cell. Moons work on the same grid system as planets which is based on their size. The Inner Star system is a 10x10 grid The Outer Star system is a 10x10 grid The light year map is a 10x10 grid The sector map is a 20x20 grid (20 ly square) The Sector BlocK map is a 500x500 grid (though probably shown in smaller chunks) The Quadrant Map is a 5x5 grid (50k ly squared) The Galactic Map is a 2x2 grid (100k ly squared) The Last 2 won't be used for a while most likely. How long does it take for a ship to travel to x from y? - As your technology increases your engines improve and change form. These tech upgrades can take a while in game, but open up new oportunities to expand. The Current planned out speeds are based on how many seconds it takes to travel from 1 inner star system cell to another. Liquid = 1b / 540000s (150 hours or 6.25 days) Ion Dr = 1b / 54000s (15 hours) warp 1 = 1b / 1800s (30 mins) warp 2 = 1b / 900s (15 mins) warp 3 = 1b / 450s (7.5 mins) warp 4 = 1b / 225s (3.75 mins) warp 5 = 1b / 112s (1.86 mins) warp 6 = 1b / 56s warp 7 = 1b / 28s warp 8 = 1b / 14s warp 9 = 1b / 7s warp 9.1 = 1b / 6s warp 9.2 = 1b / 5s warp 9.3 = 1b / 4s warp 9.4 = 1b / 3s warp 9.5 = 1b / 2s warp 9.6 = 1b / 1s warp 9.7 = 1b / .9s warp 9.8 = 1b / .8s warp 9.9 = 1b / .7s warp 9.95 = 1b / .6s Warp 9.99 = 1b / .5s As one can see travel times are exponentially cut, but to travel across, from one end to another of 1 sector block it will take roughly a year to do even at the top speed listed here. Once more sector blocks are created and supported Higher speeds and Jump Gates will be put out. (Jump gates may be out before that though) Warp 1 = 1c or rather the speed of light. A year in game time is 15 days which means if you are in the middle of your sector you have another system no more than 75 days away at warp 1. At Warp 2 that's less than a month away and at warp 3, 15 days. Better your tech the more exploration you can do and the more exploration you do the more you need better tech to defend yourself.

You forgot one of the most important turn-ons/offs. Is it round based or unending. In whichever case how are you handling midgame joins, in other cases how are you handling massive "rapes" that reduce a player almost back to the beginning.

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I would also be disappointed in your "long" research system that you seem to have planned. This doesn't do "much" for long time players since they'll still hit the end, and only hurts slower/new players since they won't be able to catch up until they hit the end(a long ways away).

Something like having 3,000 or so research points in the entire game, but each person can only have 700 or so unlocked at any time. With proper balancing you end up with a system where even the "slowest" players catch up in a two or three weeks, encourages trade(of several types), and makes it so research is "always useful" if you were to ever choose to adapt yourself.

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Planet building seems to be interesting and sound. It also opens up a lot of research options, which is a good thing since most web games seem to have "civ" based research to be quite lacking.

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You forgot one of the most important turn-ons/offs. Is it round based or unending. In whichever case how are you handling midgame joins, in other cases how are you handling massive "rapes" that reduce a player almost back to the beginning.

It's unending... If I ever manage to make this... There are roughly 250,000 sectors each with around 10 stars with no more than 10 planets on each... that's 25 million planets in the starting game... So restarting wouldn't have a point save for letting new players start at an equal time while annoying players like me who like to build and sustain empires.


As far as protecting... I've considered several methods.
#1 split the sector block into smaller areas and have players when they join be placed in new areas. This isn't a 100% strategy and leads to the problem of people new people being able to join larger older alliances and still causes problems.

#2 Put up some sort of protection through some sort of story element like people without warp 1 are protected by some super species that puts up a barrier around their system.

#3 Let it play out like it would in world...There will be several "conquering" options... Firstly the conquered could submit or the could petition to be a tributary state. Secondly the conquering party can raise up a species through force, enslave them, destroy them, annex them, or make them a colony. There are plenty of option with this one and I like it out of all the rest, but some might not be so happy about it.

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I would also be disappointed in your "long" research system that you seem to have planned. This doesn't do "much" for long time players since they'll still hit the end, and only hurts slower/new players since they won't be able to catch up until they hit the end(a long ways away). Something like having 3,000 or so research points in the entire game, but each person can only have 700 or so unlocked at any time. With proper balancing you end up with a system where even the "slowest" players catch up in a two or three weeks, encourages trade(of several types), and makes it so research is "always useful" if you were to ever choose to adapt yourself.

i haven't worked this all out but what I figure is the following...

I start out with a stat of 1 in everything for every building built it is equal to 1 point that can be used per day.

So when I build 1 research building I have at least 1 point.

So... now that i figured that out I also know that each planet also has a maximum number of building that it can build and the average starting plaent should be a small terran world which means 100-300 buildings... which gives me a max base rate of research for any new player...

I have also decided that you get x points every 24 hours. so once you build a research base you get 1+ point every 24 hours from it.

And i have also decided that 15 days is a year. So, if I want to simulate roughly 200 years I can just give an estimate of 15x200x200, which gives me 600,000 points. (600k point is probably way over what someone would have lol)

This allows me to say if i want someone to be around this level that they should have gotten around this many points by this time and if they aren't i can just adjust ^.^

What I plan to do is roughly emulate a quick time for building up your first planet from tribal to Ion or Warp 1, say about a week to a month so as to get used to planet structures...once you hit warp 1 though it slows a bit to emulate more Star Treks timeline of roughly 200 years (unless i find this to be too long) to get from warp 1 -> 5... and Warps above that are for those that are super dedicated to researching warp tech

This part is also a balance issue... Once you get say warp 9 and can have a rather larger area of travel...well if someone else decided to research just weapons and done the same thing for the same amount of time...your traveling ability is pretty weak now isn't it ^.^ So it may be a deterrent from just exploring to conquer.

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Planet building seems to be interesting and sound. It also opens up a lot of research options, which is a good thing since most web games seem to have "civ" based research to be quite lacking.

Yes I also want to put in algorythms so that when you try to message someone, if you or they don't have translator tech of a certain level they can't understand it. I want to add in a whole bunch of different balancing techs... and I'd like to make it so you can design your own ships so that people are a bit more cautious about attacking people randomly... It'd be funny to develop scan resisters that make it so people can't scan your ship so they never attack them but you are incredibly weak in comparison...


Right now though I'm working on figuring out how to generate that many planets and system, even randomly that is a lot of information to generate and check

You'll have to include a realistic stock market model.

I had recently downloaded a nice space trade / combat sim (evochron legends) but no matter how good the graph is and how slick the ships look, it doesn't feature a good stock trading system and I loose interest! Why not I ask, it is the most fun thing of any trading game to invest in stocks.

This is the foundation for all the more exciting part of blowing others up.