Game Speed

[nordwindranger]

Currently all events in my game occur in real time. I starting to think that this might be a problem, as building a star destroyer must take a month or so at least.

 

Real time made sense, as

1. you are a fleet commander, and generally speaking will not be making galaxy level strategy decisions.

2. tactical battles should obviously be in real time

3. You can speed up time in hyperspace (because it takes days to get anywhere)

 

However wouldn't battles be cooler if they were recorded as being hours long? Maybe 1 real hour should equal 1 game day.

[tacoJoemeru]

1 real hour equals 1 in game day (1/24) is what I think it should be, or half an hour.

[nordwindranger]

Yeah thats what I'm leaning towards myself.

 

one of the biggest problems that might be addressed by a faster clock is the frequency of hyperspace entry/exit in the sector that your ship is in. Although entering/exiting systems is currently coded into the engine, the chances of seeing a fleet enter/ exit out of hyperspace near you are pretty small. The problem is of course that there are a bunch of planets (20ish atm, but there is really no limit to how many planets are in the game) and there are a lot of fleets but the ai has just as many planets to cover them with. If each ship stays at a new location for a day or so, and hyperspace travel takes several days, ships probably only arrive at a particular planet about once every day or so. This makes sense in the real world, but would obviously be boring in the game world. If fleet movement doesn't happen enough the game could end up looking like rebellion where there is a big seperation between the strategy and tactical layer.

In my game, the player could decide to be a civilian, park his shuttle at a planet like Kuat, and watch the military traffic flow through the system. Currently this is possible, but you would have to deal with gaps of around 24 real hours in the action. not my idea of time well spent.

 

(note: I haven't spent the time sitting in a system to verify this theory, however I believe the way that the Alliance's strategic ai is currently set up, a fleet should visit each system around once a day. maybe.

I suppose I could have the fleets keep logs of their travels, and leave the game running for a week or so )

 

wow long post

[budious]

Think it should be calculated by travel distance on unit movements rather than speed to destination. In otherwords you can intercept a fleet between planets. This is the style of many other RTS games.

[nordwindranger]

hate to say it, but thats a big negative on intercepting ships between planets. It kinda goes against the idea of hyperspace. well I suppose you could use an interdictor, but I can't even begin to imagine how I would program it. Currently planets are more of a "concept" than an actual thing. What I mean is that you can go to the space around the planet, see the planet (if i put in the artwork), and fly around in that space, but you couldn't fly to another planet w/o going into hyperspace. In this way the only thing that has to be rendered on the screen are the ships and objects that are in your immediate vicinity.

 

hmm that might have been a little confusing, let me try again.

If I have interdictors in between planets to catch ships, there will have to actually be a place in between planets, and there isn't currently. Think of each planet as a "level" or a "map", and when you enter hyperspace your destination is actually loaded.

Actually this is exactly how the game is designed. The only difference is that ships move between levels when ever they want, and this constant reshifting of ships is occuring all of the time, every second that your in game.

 

See the interdictor would have to go somewhere if it was going to stop ships inbetween planets. But there is no where to go, you are either at a planet or you are nowhere aka hyperspace.

 

hmm this is a good point though, interdictors should be able to uh "interdict". Well in either case, coding support for interdictors isn't on the immediate horizon. If I do put them in soon, they will probably just be like interdictors in most star wars games, and simply prevent ships from entering hyperspace. I will have to think about how I could make them pull ships from hyperspace.

[nordwindranger]

whoops i think i misread that.

 

As far as a "travel distance" for units, I guess the thought never really occured to me. Doesn't the star destroyer have a huge ionizing reactor or something (that big dome on its bottom)? I really have no idea where to begin on calculating how far a star destroyer could go. I guess its about infinite, as I've never heard of them refueling.

 

I will probably just assume that fuel needs will be taken care of at a port, and the cost will be part of the total maintenance cost of the unit.

 

It seems that most of the Empire's equipment is more fuel efficient, what with the solar panels and all. those pesky rebels are polluting up the galaxy with their suv Mon Cal cruisers and E-wings

[Moribundus]

What about allowing player to accelerate time when he's in sector and no action is going on? Eg. if the player would be waiting for enemy's fleet (perhaps trying to ambush). Otherwise 1/24

[budious]

Can we add Nitrious Oxide tanks to an ISD? All ships have special characteristics that are temporary and recharge. Yeah, I stole that idea from EoW, but who plays that? So much potential, so a piece of crap.

[nordwindranger]

Lol at EaW! I still fire that up to watch the cinematic camera. so pretty, yet so boring to play.

 

I am thinking about throwing in special ships like slave I. Once they are destroyed, they will be gone forever.

 

As far as the time acceleration thing goes, I'm starting to think that it might be a must. They had that kind of thing in Microsoft's combat flight simulators.

 

More than anything I'm worried about killing what little bit of immersion that I've managed to create.