Or you could just have the confederation be these scary monster-like things that sort of appear on the screen in a big block. They would move rhythmically left and right on the screen as a unit, and the player would have a spaceship at the bottom of the screen that could shoot them. They would move faster and faster as you killed more of them, until there was only one left, and he would just zoom all over the screen until you shot him too. Then there would be a temporal wormhole thingy and it would all start over. You could call it "Scary outer-space temporal wormhole thingy invaders (from space)".

Can I be in the credits too?

Just kidding. I actually think it''s a pretty good idea, and I''d like to be one of the six hundred programmers you hire to write it.

Thank you for using Slambot.

tuxx made a point earlier about history being more interesting than fiction, and then hase said that realism can kill gameplay. So, I think in many ways, the key between making a very engaging game is to be able to strike a balance between the two, or lean in favor one way or the other...to the detriment of some and the pleasure of others.

What do I mean by that? Some people love attention to detail and complexity (me for one), while others abhor it. That''s not to say that gameplay and complexity are mutually exclusive...in other words, I think one can have a very engaging game that is highly complex. However, I think complexity can boil down to several factors amongst others:

1) Learning curve- How hard is it to jump in and play? Is it Quake or is it Rainbow Six?
2) Depth of play- How many ways are there to win? Is it Chess or is it Checkers?
3) Intricacy- How hard is it to play once you have a handle on gameplay? CivilizationIII or StarCraft?
4) Intuitiveness- Not just from a GUI perspective, but from a gameplay perspective, are the objects, goals and means of playing obvious or obscure? This is the hardest to give an example to, but if you think of puzzle games, this may be the easiest. Are the puzzles obvious? Can they be solved without buying a hint book?
5) Balance- Do you stand a reasonable chance of winning? Personally, this one is cloudy for me, as I don''t think games always need to be balanced 50/50.

So that covers gameplay, but what about making something fascinating? This is where the balance comes in. Sure, there are fun simple games (Tetris can be addicting), but what makes a game fascinating is its backdrop, and to a degree the diffuculty of the game. In my personal experience, there''s nothing more satisfying than winning against a game that requires lots of skill, talent, forethought and luck. I personally was never found of Diablo or DiabloII, because I thought they were click fests. Ditto with StarCraft or WarCraft. But games like Tie Fighter or Xwing (which took every ounce of my skill to blow up the DeathStar) or games like CloseCombat were far more satisfying. Again, this tends to be in the complexity of the game....but a part of it was from the background of the games as well.

Obviously the Star Wars game have a wealth of material behind it compared to Diablo, and Close Combat a Bridge Too Far is perhaps one of the more fascinating battles of WWII...something Starcraft could never compare to.

Okay, so enough generalizations...what about Space Strategy? Well, this is just me personally, but I want something grand, with a desperate sort of flair to it. To be honest, I always thought the Battlestar Galactica show had potential, I just thought it was a bit cheesy at parts. But the premist itself was pretty interesting. Homeworld was very well done as well, I just didn''t care for the actual gameplay much (I''m a big hater of building resources and fighting at the same time...although the game did give a good reason for having to do so at least). I think alot of inspiration can be drawn from some Japanese sources too....all of the Gundam series (not just Gundam Wing), Robotech, Battlecruiser Yamato, Neon Genesis Evangelion....and if you like the solo ship stuff, even Blue Submarine.

Thanks for the advice, Dauntless!

Just so everyone knows, I wrote a huge chunk of my ideas for the RTS battle part, and hope to post it by Saturday, along with some of the related ideas.

-treknerd

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Ack! You said the EVIL word...RTS. So you aren''t making a strategy game, you''re making a real-time game. RTSs don''t really lend to any actual strategy, hence the poor AI, limited number of units and extremely fast kills and reinforcements. Hell, if they actually had good AI a human player could never win due to the complete lack of control they have over their entire army. Anyway, you also mentioned folding space...so...EXCELLENT! Here''s my idea of what you could do: Make a split between the real-time battles in isolated sectors and a strategic portion of the game where units can be built and sent into these sectors. So, after several minutes of real-time combat the game would switch to the strategic map where you could send reinforcements into battle and make additional attacks behind the front lines to stop the enemy from reinforcing embattled sectors. Plus, the game could cut away to scenes that further the plot. Having army moral could also help the game move along at a reasonable pace as well, that way you''re not forced to fight endless battles.

Bill6

Bill6-

That is exactly what I was thinking! There will be a turn-based style map or something for moving units, managing resources, etc. The RTS is just for the fighting battle stuff. I''ll hopefully have more info on both of those to post by Saturday. Thanks.

-treknerd

Continuing the summary of my game... this time: the gameplay (sort of).

This game will use OpenGL. All the units will be 3d, so they can be used in both map views (turn based )and combat views (real time).

This isn''t going to be a space sim where you go around piloting your ship through space. It will be more like a turn based / real time strategy game. What I mean by that is it will be turn based with real time battle control. It may be possible to allow the player to choose either one for the entire game. However, I like the combination better for several reasons. 1) It is easier to move units around a large map if it is turn based. It would prove difficult (and slow) to move units between systems, galaxies, etc. in real time. 2) Turn based allows the player to have a better view of their empire, as well as take their time to strategize. 3) If the game became a massive multiplayer online, it would be impossible ( or at least agonizingly slow) for a complete real time game. Also, it would be difficult to control all your units across many different systems in real time. It would be like trying to play 20 games of StarCraft at the same time! If it was going to work at all, you could only view one system at a time. Blah blah blah

Here is yet another great idea: 3d battlefields! Not just 2d in 3d, but actual 3d maps where the player can move in 3 directions (x y and z) instead of just x and y! Ships could attack from any angle, planes could change their altitude, it would just be incredibly cool and realistic! I have composed a short writing describing what the RTS game might be like.

You got through all that junk. Now its time for the summary of the Real time part of the game.

First of all, the RTS part of this game is unlike other RTS games because the player does not have to waste time gathering resources and building units. This is done during the turn based play, and will be mostly automated after locations are found and resource processors built. Instead, the player can go straight into the battle. Hopefully, we can accelerate the game enough so that the battles happen rather quickly. Here is what I summarized:


real-time battles

interface: The same interface layout for turn based play may be used for real time, except with different commands/info windows/etc.. If it will work, the RTS battles will be fought in 3-dimensional space. This will create a more realistic battle, since space is 3d, afterall. (There''s no up and down, left of right). If there are terrain battles, the z axis would be limited, but not too much so. This would allow battles to be fought in canyons, on mountains, etc. (This is similar to Total Annihilation, but with more freedom on the z axis (altitude)). (There is, by the way, a petition to free the source code for TA. You can support the petition by signing the bulletin board at ). The view would not be top-down, but would be somewhat angled, allowing the player to rotate the camera around the battle in 3d realtime. I’ll try to get some concept sketches to show what I mean. The battles will be shown with real time generated weapons fire and explosions. All units should be smart enough to attack enemies on their own, and even be told to intelligently search for the enemy using a search pattern in coordination with other friendly units. Units should automatically and intelligently work together with their allies. Space battles may take place in empty space or in a system with planets, or a nebula, or something like that. A battle could even occur around a planet. In either case, planetary defense and/or defnese platforms should be able to attack when possible. Planets should be big.—much bigger than the ships. Also, consider starbases. They should be able to attack enemies as well as defend/harbor allied ships. It could be a way to quickly repair ships. When a starbase is destroyed, all ships/supplies inside it are destroyed too. It would be cool if fragments could fall down and hit other ships or burn up in the atmosphere of a planet. Also, the explosion should damage nearby ships. Players may be able to avoid planets, depending on the planets’ locations in orbit around their star. It may also be possible to avoid detection to a certain degree in this way, as planetary sensors and even sensor outposts have a limted detection rage. There may be two types of sensors – close and long range. Long range could not detect cloaked/stealth ships unless they were at a technology level a certain amount above the stealth technology. Long range sensors are what will be used during turn based play for the larger maps. During turn based play, it most likely will not be possible to get new units. As mentioned, (I think), repair at a starbase may be possible, but of course time consuming. (thus, repair speed could become a tech level). Also, in the RT battles, it should be possible for ships to collide with debree or even other ships (regardless of affiliation).
Reinforcements – To compensate for the inability to build new units during battle, it should be possible to call in reinforcements from nearby star systems. It would take them a certain amount of time to arrive at the battle scene, depending on how close they are, and their level of engine technology. Also, there must be an expaination of how / why ships can arrive there quicly when in turn based play it takes a month to travel across a few squares (or hexes, or whatever). Perhaps the space-fold technology has the drawback of preventing a ship from using the device again for another month. (perhaps there are residual side effects on the ship or the surrounding space, temporarily preventing it’s use, or maybe it just takes a month to “charge the battery” enough for another jump. It does take quite a bit of energy to fold space, you know. Admittedly, the battery explanation is lame.)

That’s just some ideas of had for the real time part – its far from complete. Here is some blabbing that somehow relates to the turnbased play – even further from completion.

Turn – based

The turn based part of the game is basically where the player will control resource gathering, movement of troops, etc. Actual battles will be in real time, as already described. There will be turns based on a month. (Just for the record, the month has 29 days, just because that’s what the GC uses). There are 12 months to a year for some reason. One year is the average time it takes for a habitable planet to orbit its sun. Is rotation of the planet (day) influenced by the speed of its rotation around the sun? I don’t know.
For the online part, a turn will probably last 2 hours, making every day of your life an entire year in the game. This is subject to change. I am not sure about what could be done other than a 2 hr time limit for multiplayer. Obviously, this amount will be excessive for players just starting out.
I will hopefully post more on turn based play at a later date.

There is still a lot to be addressed. Any comments / suggestions / constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading this whole thing,

-treknerd