Wishlist: High level design thoughts

[Kwayne]

Don't worry gregebowman, as long as I'm here to direct art for SL you won't get any super duper fancy graphics My aim is SEV in 2D with more emphasis on effects, or you can imagine it as a mixture of Gratuitous Space Empires and Weird Worlds.

[Kwayne]

Ahem... I mean Gratuitous Space Battles ...

[Gregstrom]

Although that does sound like a great game title, now you mention it

[MarcoPolo]

Turn based is the way to do it if there are huge handicaps on gfx. And especially since I doubt a realtime effort with such a small budget will be upto speed. No disrespect at the wonderful creative team here. But I just want this game to be done sufficient justice.

However if this game will have a minimalist approach to realtime combat and gfx, then at least an engaging multiplanet micromanagement system that is fun and rewarding would be a nice bonus.

I hope it turns out to be at least half as fun as I am wishing it to be.

And can we have some little fun trivia facts thrown into the game for star/planet/other celestial terrain in its descriptions ala Weird Worlds. I find it refreshing and adding of some fun fictional backstories to make up for other contraints. I remember playing Elite and First Encounters, and just spending hours reading the star maps and bulletin boards that showcased the latest happenings in the Elite universe.

[Gregstrom]

I like the idea of flavour text. Also some weird and wonderful tech that you can only get by finding it rather than researching from the standard tech tree. Anyone remember the mystery traders in Stars!?

[Ed Kolis]

Heh, yeah, we've been working on technology lately, and one of the things that each technology can have (in addition to tech prerequsites, of course!) is scripted requirements... I imagine most techs wouldn't have any of these, but imagine something like "you can't research black-hole cannons, no matter how much Physics tech you have, until you have sent a ship with a science lab component within 1 AU of a black hole"!

Also, the way we're doing techs, you don't so much have "levels" as you just have points accumulated in various areas, with techs and components and buildings and the like branching off at various point values, say, 500 pts in Physics might unlock Lasers.

Another thing that techs (and anything else you can unlock, such as components or buildings) may have is "visibility requirements" - this would be especially useful for mods with randomized tech trees! E.g. you might know from the data files that getting lasers requires 500 to 1000 points in Physics - but how much exactly? You might not know until you reach, say, 250 points, and you see how much work is really ahead!

As for flavor text, that really depends on how much time we have to write that stuff!

[Gregstrom]

Was the flavour text in Elite procedurally generated somehow?

[MarcoPolo]

I find it interesting to have a point value system for science and other tech or ship/building components. Am I to assume Star Legacy will have a similar customisation screen available ala GSB for ship design and components? It would certainly open up a slew of possibilities.

Speaking of possibilities. I liked Armada 2526's ability to overtake colonies from other races and still be able to exploit the former alien populace for colonisation purposes. This being that if player X (say human) overtook player Y's colony (say aquatic) then the former Y populated planet would still have Y race inhabitants.

They would keep on growing in population size under the current growth rate applicable to the planets favourability of that race. And race X would steadily grow too as time wore on. However it would be possible to migrate some colonists across to say a waterworld, and choose between which populace you would want to inhabit said new water planet. This would allow the player to pick the better suited species under his dominion to grow his empire further. So in essence players could own several worlds with captured populaces from other races. The only setback would be higher incidents of civil unrest versus your own native species doing the planet colonisation.

This could also be a nice incentive for wanting to capture or make 1st contact with non space faring NPC worlds. They would provide a source of species diversity for future colonists in environments that are not friendly to your natives, without the drawbacks of civil unrest from former captured enemy colonies.

This is one of the few gameplay concepts that Armada 2526 seemed sensible in portraying. It also added abit of welcome diversity to the game itself.

[vanbeke]

As to EdKolis' tech tree uncertanty - The only way that I could see this as being important is if it changes with each game. Otherwise, after the first play, we will know what is required to get the next discovery (whether they are called levels or not, it appears to come to the same result).

I think it would be cool to have a tech tree that is different each time we play - some races find certain discoveries easier than others in the play of a game. Might make for interesting tech trading or espionage opportunites.

There was a paper and pencil game back in the 70s or 80s that had a randomization factor in the results. Sometimes you would get a specific tech for your efforts, and sometimes you get the shaft.

[dumbluck]

Perhaps if the multiplier is randomized. For example, your low/medium/high tech cost games have multipliers of 1, 2, and 4 to your "base" tech costs. Instead, make them a random number within a range. An example would be 0.80-1.20, 1.60-2.40, and 3.40-4.60. Then if I chose a low tech game, the computer picks a random number (1.12) and all your base costs are multiplied by 1.12 THIS time. The next time you play a low tech cost game, the random multiplier might be 0.94, and research would progress a little more than one sixth faster than it did the first game.

Lets look at another example: a high tech cost game. The first game could have a random multiplier of 3.53, and the second could be 4.51. In that example, tech gains in the second game would come about 1/3 slower than in the first game.

I would suggest making those randomization ranges moddable, as well.