Feature Debate Zone (Galaxy at War)

[Stellar_Magic]

This topic is for debate on how the Galaxy at War engine will run, its features, complexity, and a variety of other topics.

 

Firstly I must ask a question, we're talking about managing lots of worlds, and technologies, how much micromanagement do we want, or do we want macromanagement.

 

This is another feature I think we should have, a number of factions within a nation. This means that you'll have to cope with the occasional rogue element within your nation, or perhaps find yourself with a bunch of splinter nations that have declared their independence from you. The factions would act almost like a political party within the nation, and you'll find yourself using negotiation both within and outside of your nation. Or you end up like Britain with all your empire evaporating into seperate nations before your eyes.

 

We want characters!!! This is almost a duh, we want characters. But what role do we want them to play?

 

Thats all for now, I'm headed to class...

[Guest JediIgor]

I want to manage at any of the following levels:

 

planetary (including troop movement, building facilities in a certain point, etc)

solar system

sector

galaxy

 

So if I'm on galaxy I should just be able to say "I want to have X troops built, sent them to Y" and it will do it for me. I want to be able to set up my own rules for lower-level management as well.

 

i.e. if I say "do something at Z" when I'm in sector level, it will do the solar system/planetary stuff automatically, but by setting up rules at lower levels it will be something like an alias for "do something at A solar system, at B planetary"

 

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Characters should play more roles than in Rebellion:

we should have a full military hierarchy of ranks in the navy/army

also a civilian government of AI rulers i.e. planetary governor, sector moff, galaxy president, etc

 

Characters can be made non-persistent like in Rome: Total War, except for the major ones.

 

 

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By the way, Stellar, how come I never see you in #swrebellion?

[Stellar_Magic]

What I'd like to see on the solar system and space combat level would be the inclusion of gravity wells. Imagine if you used gravity assist to fling your fleet around a planet and straight into the enemy. (Unfortunately this would require the use of newtonian physics)

 

A military higharchy would be awesome! You'd be able to see units improve from experience as well I bet. I've also had some thoughts on the build program and our A.I. Civilian higharchy.

 

Would it be possible to enable a planetary governor to build their own defense force? Maybe give the player the old state's rights question to deal with? That would be interesting. It would also give the player a real dilemma as to how to deal with his worlds... maybe even having to stave off a rebellion.

 

I'd also like it if we were able to give a unit a series of orders, like a strategic plan. This would be absolutely vital to implement if we included all the problems the speed of light would play on communications. You'd send out a list of orders that would instruct the unit not just on what to do now but, after that.

 

Lets say a fleet. Fleet A is ordered to make a patrol of six systems, x, y, z...

 

You could say have a Que order box.

 

Patrol X for 15 days

Patrol Y for 15 days

Patrol Z for 15 days

 

So after the fleet runs a patrol of a system for 15 days it moves on to the next system and so on until it runs out of orders. Maybe you could create patrol and supply routes, or literally make it so you send ships on specific missions and assign them withdrawal and resupply points.

 

Those seem to me to be great ideas... Now to see if we could get them into a game.

 

oh and JI what is #swrebellion?

[kaja]

Wow, SM, that is an absolutely, 100% great idea!

 

As for characters, I think we should have allot of characters, at least Twice the amount in rebellion! (Four time would be better!!) and the ability to add more in the Game Tools, yeah, Fear my army of 3000 Characters Muhahahahaha!!!!! In fact, I think you should be able to add as many things (Ships, Characters, Defensive buildings, ETC...) as you want!

 

Characters should have an Experience system. And each fleet has to have an Command Character, (Or else they would have a hard time beating the enemy!) And when doing a Tactical Match (Like Rebellion.) You have to have a Command character to do an AI Match. (Like Rebellion, the part where you click the button and it simulates the Match, then you get the results.) But, have it realistic! (Like the problem where my super cheat Eclipse Super Star Destroyer, Gets slightly damaged by a Y-wing, And retreats...) The more Experience your command Character has, the better you're chances of winning the AI Match. But it also depends on other aspects of the battle. (AKA, How many ships there are, the grade of you're ships, ETC...)

 

With Military Ranks there should also be, Civilian Ranks. (Like President, Governor, Senator, ETC...) But, you can assign a person to either Military or Civilian! But, You can also have Special Ops teams, Saboteur teams, Assassin teams...

ETC!.

 

Also, in the galaxy, you should have more Events, more often than games like rebellion, Like an Extra galactic Invasion, Random in size, only in the Late Era or later, It could wipe you out, or it would smash into you're defenses and be crushed.(It may not be fair, but who said the Vong were fair.) Or events like, Giant super weapon found (Like Halo, or some other super weapon... Ok, maybe not finding a super weapon.) But stuff like, Sun Dies, or Sun goes Nova, and things like that, Natural disasters and the like.

 

I will Talk more, Later... Regards, Kaja.

[Stellar_Magic]

Great ideas... especially the novas, but here's another one for you to consider. Every year ten stars start nuclear fusion in our galaxy Ten new stars!

 

Here's a list of random events I'd want in game:

Solar Flare

Cosmic Flare

Mandar Minimum (Causes a mini ice age at nearby worlds)

Meteor Impact

Star becomes Variable - Stars size will randomly expand and contract

Star reaches old age - Becomes Red Giant

Stellar Collapse - Forms white dwarf

Star Nova - Forms Nebula

Supernova - Forms Nebula or Neutron Star or Black Hole

 

What should we be able to colonize? I mean what should our limits be?

 

Terrestrial Worlds, Jovian Worlds, Planetoids, and Ice moons? Should we be able to set up orbital colonies? Should some worlds be impossible to colonize (Demon planets like Venus)?

 

EDIT: Kaja we could set it up so that the game automatically creates new characters as they die from old age or combat.

[Mad78]

All these ideas are great.

I especially like the ones about new stars being generated.

The only problem would be to get the game to generate a card for new characters.

[Guest JediIgor]

All these ideas are great.

I especially like the ones about new stars being generated.

The only problem would be to get the game to generate a card for new characters.

 

Yes, we can also make sure that those random events happen about once in a gougle chance. Oh yeah, maybe that's the reason nobody codes them in? They are too rare .

[Stellar_Magic]

Not so Jedi Igor.

 

A major meteor hits our planet every 10,000 years or so... We had a comet explode in siberia, in the last 100, and watched a comet smash into Jupiter in the last 10. Now multiply the odds of a meteor impact by the number of worlds you might own in game. Now consider that our solar system has less then a 100th the amount of debris (asteroids and comets) than the amount we've detected around other planetary systems

 

You'd want to develop a defense mechanism against such collisions because you quickly find that in a hundred years with a hundred systems... the odds of escaping an impact aren't that good.

 

Yes I will admit that some of the events in the list are rare. Specifically these:

 

Supernova collapses to a Neutron Star

Supernova collapses to a Quasar

Supernova collapses to a Black Hole

 

All of the others are quite common.

 

If 10 stars like out sun are born in a year, each year 10 stars collapse into white dwarfs, 10 stars become variables, and 10 stars reach old age (This causes the star to expand and engulf all nearby planets.) Maybe 1 or 2 stars will explode into a large scale supernova in 10 years. Maybe 1 will collapse into a rare form of space object in a 100 years (Neutron Star, Quasar, or Black Hole).

 

Some of the others are much more common, Solar Flares can easily occur once or twice a year on earth. Cosmic flares occur perhaps every fifty years, and a Mandar Minimum has happened twice in the last 250 years on earth.

 

Space is a dangerous and ever changing place my friend. These interstellar events occur at a frightening frequency, and thats not counting all the other possibilities that are truly rare.

 

What do I mean by truly rare? Try a Galactic collision, an event which is said to occur once every dozen million years or so around our own milky way. In fact the Andromeda Galaxy is believed to be on a collision course that will cause a galactic calamity in next couple hundred thousand years.

 

NOW THAT SOMETHING NOT TO PUT IN THE GAME.

[kaja]

Kaja we could set it up so that the game automatically creates new characters as they die from old age or combat.

 

OOOooo, I like that!......................

 

My Mind just Hatched an Idea!!!!

 

A Realistic Setting, That you set before you start the campaign. (Like Rebellion's L/M/S Galaxy Setting, Well, Bad Example....) You Set stuff like:

 

1. Character Lifespan: Stays for the rest of the game. Or Dies after A period.

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2. Event Randomness: The Ability to set things like Alot, Some, Rare, And None.

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3. Difficulty: Hard, Normal, Easy.

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The more Realalistic it is, The more you can Brag about. That Kind of stuff. Moveing on...

 

Every year ten stars start nuclear fusion in our galaxy Cool Ten new stars!

 

I Like this, But, Call me stupid, how do planets get to orbit around stars?

 

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What should we be able to colonize? I mean what should our limits be?

 

Terrestrial Worlds, Jovian Worlds, Planetoids, and Ice moons? Should we be able to set up orbital colonies? Should some worlds be impossible to colonize (Demon planets like Venus)?

 

Terrestrial, Definitly, Jovian. (What's That?) Planetoids. (Are Planetoids Large asteroids?) Ice Moons, Possibly, You could Research a technology and be able to do it.

 

Orbital Colonies, Like Ice Moons, You should be able to Research a technology, and be able to build them, However, you should be able to Research more technologies to make tham Bigger!

 

Yes, Some worlds should be Imposible to colonize, However you should still be able to build structures like Orbital Shipyards and Mining Stations, But you should also be able to put in Orbital Colonys. (You can't put them over Colonized planets, or it would upset the people, Think about it, one day a Giant space station goes over you're house and blocks out the sun!)

 

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I also think we should have GAME TIME. It would be a good feature to acompany Researching. With a Day, Month, Year System, That would be a Great Adition,

 

Characters also have an age, (If you Use the Character Lifespan Option: Dies after a Period.) and Die after oh say 75-85 Years, You could have technologies that made them live longer, Each Research adds 5-10 Years to the Lifespan!

 

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You should also have A Resourse System, with the Following Resources:

 

1. Food. (Duh!)

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2. Water. (Mabye the same Recource as Food.)

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3. Metals. (Contains basic Metals, Like Titanium, Steel, ETC...)

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4.Technologies. (Contains, Well, Stuff... FTL Drives, Dyson Sphere, Generators, Engines, ETC...)

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Mabye more, Mabye Less, But still, stuff like that...

 

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Now, With planets...

 

Each planet should have Almost no Limit as to how manny orbital structures it contans, But it still has a limit.... A limit like Just under Covering the Entire planet!

 

HOWEVER!!!!

 

The more Orbital Structures you have, the more people on that planet hate you! that's why you wan't to put you're Orbital Structures on Uninhabited/Uncolonizable Planets.

 

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Also with Events...

 

Planets Should be able to be hit by an asteroid, And All Population, Is Killed.

 

And with Larger Asteroids, May Render the planet Uninhabitable!

 

Also, The Chances of having Earth (If there is an earth!) Hit by an asteroid should be Extremly LOW!!! If not NONE!!!!

 

Also Events like:

 

Problems with space stations...

 

1. Colony Hit by Asteroid.

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2. Riot on Colony. (Causing loss of Resourse #4: Technologies.)

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3. Colony struck with Plague. (Causing lodd of Resourse #1 and #2: Food, and Water.)

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But not all events need to be Bad. some can be good too, I just can't think of any....... Also if any Character(s) is on a Colony when a Event occurs He/She Mabye caught up in the event, Like be affected by a Plague or Killed by an Asteriod Impact.

 

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That's All I have to say..... for now, MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

[Stellar_Magic]

Along with what Kaja said about Realism settings... I'd like to add an option that enables hyperrealism.

 

Time Dilation: As an object approaches the speed of light, time slows down. So say you send a vessel and its crew on a mission in which they travel 3/4ths the speed of light. Therefore they’d only age 1/4th as much as they would at dock. This means that if you want a character to last forever, send them on mission after mission. They’ll live longer then their peers which are sitting around doing nothing.

 

Look Back Time: Look Back Time is an effect of the speed of light on perception. Events which occur out there in another solar system take an inordinate amount of time to become known on earth. Since it takes four years for light to reach us from the nearest star anything that occurs there we won’t know about for another four years. You’ll find that the farther a unit is from your headquarters the slower it will respond to orders, (In strategic mode). To keep units from sitting for decades awaiting orders you can issue queued orders meaning that a vessel will follow the orders you issued them. This is roughly analogous to the manner in which orders were issued to British vessels before the invention of radio. Orders are basically a schedule telling a unit where it should be and when so that upon completing its mission you’ll have already issued new orders for the task force to conduct.

 

These two features should be an option in the realism settings, I've also suggested in the plot ideas that there be an option that forces the player to use Slower then Light propulsion at game start. Think of Look Back Time as a unique and variable type of fog of war. Say you get a mission complete message from an agent that gives you data on an enemy world, but by the time you get this data five + years have gone by... talk about trying to piece together an enemy's actions from shards of data.

 

So imagine...

 

You sit there at the holographic table as a message from one of your colonies, Sirius Orbital, appears before you. It has spent years in transit, years in which the enemy that struck it has been able to take advantage off. Years in which other colonies may have fallen without a fight, years which you have wasted, researching and trading with the nearest nations, years that will now come back to haunt you. Years of war you did not even know was occurring, for this was a Galaxy at War.

[Mad78]

sounds good to me

[AdmiralFishface]

Crew or Personell should definetly be a resource.

 

Food and water could be summed up as Supplies, which are generated automatically on planets (and other colonies) with sufficient infrastructure and are transferred to ships when they get there, or via supply shipments (which could of course be intercepted by the enemy).

If supplies run out, repairs slow down and efficiency in battle and morale drop (about morale read below).

I'm not sure if that complicates gameplay too much, as you'd have to have an eye on the supply status of all your units all the time.

 

Experience for troops and crews is also a must.

EDIT: I'd even like a kill marker for units or the ability to add a tag to units, reading "survived Battle of [location] on [date]" or similar if I want to. I like to have a bit of a relationship with units that accompany me for a long time. Hm, just something to think about.

 

Morale and Loyalty - specifically of military units, but the same system could be used for colonies:

 

Morale: Simply put: How happy are you troops? Are they eager to go into battle or have the horrors of war worn them down? Units with little morale will not behave as well in combat, will not repair ships, structures and machines as efficiently, and may even question whether they should really keep serving you.

Lost battles, especially with high losses, news about defeat of allied troops and the lack of supplies will have a bad effect on morale, while victories, or even the survival of a battle against impossible odds, will boost morale. More experienced crews will be more confident and have higher average morale. Having an experienced admiral, or general, or "hero" the soldiers can look up to helps, too. (If we want to, we could even have experienced crews have a morale drop when they are assigned a 'newbie' commander)

 

Loyalty: Normally if morale is high, so is loyalty. However, there's different ways to ensure the loyalty of troops. Fear can be a powerful motivation here. Uprising or mutiny is not an option for men who fear their leaders. (NOTE: This really applies mostly to planets, but it can be used for troops too. It would add a lot to the "Empire" style of game-play to have your cititens calmed down by the military but ready to revolt as soon as you'd show weakness. The same goes for the military: Having a Vader type character would ensure the loyalty of your troops.)

 

If morale drops too much, it affects loyalty (except if the above-mentioned fear factor is in play). If loyalty drops too low, people tend to turn against their leaders and fight for their freedom.

 

Again, this model might involve too much micromanagement. I personally like to have power over as many details as possible, but don't want to be forced to micro. A good AI would be necessary to take care of all the details the player doesn't want to.

Specifically, the loyalty part could be scrapped, and a simplified morale system used. But I'd really like to see morale on my troops and starship crews, as well as the enemy's.

 

About colonization of planets: You should be able to have at least Outposts anywhere (even in deep space), and I think any planet, planetoid or moon with the right gravity would be terraformable sometime during the game (and considering the technology we're using later, even the ones with 'wrong' mass could be altered somehow).

[Mad78]

Perhaps we could do it that when a colonie is established you can build a terraformer which will then modifiy the planet to boost production.

[Stellar_Magic]

Maybe we could put limits on when you can terraform a world. Here's some ideas.

 

Terraformable worlds at game start:

Martian Like Planets, and Jovian Moons within the Waterhole.*

 

Waterhole is the are in space around a sun in which a planet can support water in all three states, solid liquid and gas. Our solar system has three planets within this area, Venus Earth, and Mars, unfortunately only earth is proven to have water in all three states.

 

Places where a planet based colony can be constructed at game start... everywhere but a demon world a.k.a Venus. Demon Worlds will require terraforming before being able to support any colony.

 

Colony Types:

 

Dome Colony: Planetside Colony in which the inhabitants live under a domed environment due to a lack of atmospheric pressure or breathable atmosphere. These should be able to be constructed at game start. Population, productivity, food production, and most operations except mining would be impeded by being forced to live within a domed environment. (Mines are the exception considering you could construct a dome directly over the mine itself)

 

Open Air Colony: Basically your citizens can take a stroll outdoors, atmospheric pressure, temperature, and air are all ideal to support human life. There are no restrictions on productivity. Buildable at game start.

 

Floating Colony: Cloud city is a representation of this form of colony, a floating city over the gaseous 'surface' of a gas giant, These colonies will probably require mid game level technologies. Mine and supply production are increased due to the presence of rare gases in the atmosphere. Unfortunately the colony is exceptionally vulnerable to attack and can be knocked out of the sky.

 

Domed Floating Colony: The same as above but the planet's distance from the sun or atmospheric composition require a dome to protect the inhabitants from the air or extreme cold. All productivity is cut slightly.

 

Orbital Colony: This is self explanatory, you can imagine the limitations, little productivity, little space, etc...

 

Deep Space Colony: Same as above but not in orbit

 

Any others you can think of... Aquatic maybe?

[kaja]

Aquatic? Sure.... , Suface or Underwater

 

More to the matter: ---

You should be able to Research Technologies to make Life Better!On those colonies that is...

 

Like:

 

1. Shields. (To defend against attack!)

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2. Minor Defensive Emplacements. (For defense.)

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3. Increased Room. (Very Costly, But increases the (Mood, Happyness Whatever...)Of the Colony)

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4.Automated Processes. (Costly, but raises the productivity of the Colony)

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5. Droid Workers (Increases Productivity, And provides more room for People.)

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And that's just some of the Ideas I have!!

Let's see now... Ahh yes!!!

 

I have an Idea, to have a Research system that is:

70-85% Hegemonia: LOI

30-15% My own Ideas...

 

The Idea is, The same system as LOI, but A little better (I think...)

 

The same Point System as LOI.

The same EVERYTHING!!!

But, you should also have Researchers, As in you have a Researcher, He works on what you wan't the more Experiance he has, The faster, And Cheaper, he gets it done.

 

But, If you have two Researchers, You can research two Technologies at a time! or if you had Four, or Seven, ETC...

 

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Anyway, I have a Idea about a Galaxy View,

Instead of using the, Picture of a Galaxy We use a 3D model...

 

Fully,

Rotateable,

Panable,

Zoomable,

 

You name it!

 

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I also have an Idea about Advisers...

 

You just have two like:

IMP-22/SD-7 Or,

C-3PO/R2-D2.

 

Can give you Tips, And Micromanage Some, Stuff.

 

Receives Messages, and Informs you about Important Stuff, Like:

Character Death! Or,

Ship Constuction Finished,

Stuff like that.

 

But you can also Program his voice, And,

Chane His Color!

 

By setting

HUE,

SAT,

Red,

Blue,

Green,

and can Paste on Custome Decals!

 

As for the voice, We'll give them 4-5 Choices. But can also Reccord there own!

 

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While were on the subject of painting,

 

You should also be able to paint Ships, Just like ^Up Above^. for a little money that is...

 

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Well I'd write more, but my Mom says I can't go past 10:45 PM, and it's 10:47, Crummy Excuse aint it?

[Mad78]

An underwater colony could be constructed only on a planet with anought water. The colony would then receive a protection bonus and a mining bonus but receive a space malus.