Space Rts

[MrBlais]

I'd be interested in writing a story arc if this project takes off; I'd just need to know a few things before production began.

EDIT: Also, I can work on some music. I have a music producing software. Let me know if you want me in.. I belive in 3D if it's possible. I think you'll be able to get a bigger effect from people.

 

[dflemstr]

A thing that should be planned before we take off:
How is the world going to look like?
Do we have planets spread out like in Galactic Civilizations?
Do we have some kind of ground separation like in Starcraft? (aka: A huge map, with small pieces of floating ground here and there that are "Worlds" and empty, for-ships-only ground in between)
Do we have a hybrid, like in Sid Meiers Civlization 1-4 (but not turn-based, of course)?

This has a huge impact on the structure of the game.

Proposal:
- The map is flat internally, but it looks like a big 'solar system' (I can add pics if you don't get what I mean)
- The map is tile based (just internally, we dont actually 'see' any tiles, or a grid)
- On every tile there can be a planet, something else like a star, an asteroid cluster or just nothing at all.
- Planets can have different sizes. This is for visuals only.
- Planets can have different attributes, such as a high availability of gold that gives faster mining, or a thick atmosphere that gives +20% defence or something.
- Planets can have wild inhabitants or 'space pirates' or something that you have to defeat before going to that planet. This is to hinder the player from making a scout ship and taking over masses of planets quickly.
- Moevment happens between tiles. So, all distances are measured in tiles. To visualize:
CODE



0 <-Planet 1

O <-Planet 2




CODE



0 <-Planet 1
##########
############O <-Planet 2

# = Ship movement between planets

 

[dflemstr]

Tell me how it goes, and when the new repository is up.

 

[dflemstr]

OK, now it seems to clone correctly... We'll see if it's stable.

And to more visualize my 'grid map' idea:

Basically, a ship can be at the intersection of any two lines. The planets are also at an intersection. Then, all speeds and distances are measured in tiles; for example, a ship can move 3 tiles per second or something. (this is all internally, the grid won't be shown)

 

[MrBlais]

So now you talking like 'Spore' where you go to different planets and colonize them or are you talking about war like C&C?

 

[dflemstr]

No, I am more thinking about keeping the overview at 'solar-system' level. No zooming in on planets and building individual buildings like in Spore, you just select a planet and press 'build factory', and a factory appears somewhere on the planet. A planet has ships that circle around it, and you can send ships from planet to planet or to somewhere in space, but not control them individually on a specific planet. (or could this be done? I don't know, really)

Also, I don't think it will be possible to do C&C-like maps if you want to have multiple planets. How would that work?

So, OK, I've heard keaft's verdict. So I amend my proposal as follows:
- Planets have building 'slots'. The larger a planet is, the more slots it has. A building needs at least one slot to be built. You need to have enough slots empty to build a building.
-- OR --
- If you double-click/tap on a planet, you go to it's 'planet view'. Here, you get a grid (like in C&C or WC3 or whatever), where you can place buildings. A big planet might give you 16x16 squares to build your buildings on. Then, buildings have a size (for example 4x4 or 4x3, you get the idea) and have to be placed on that grid. If they don't fit, they cant be built. This forces you to use your space more efficiently and plan ahead more.


And I'd say that there should be at least 80% emptiness. This is space, remember?

 

[fischju2000]

I think "metal" and "crystal" would be fine to use for resources, to keep it simple. Gold or credits coming all the time from taxes on your planets as well, how much is based on infrastructure (slow planets have more, fast planets have less) and population.

dflemstr: CODE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GalacticCivilizationsIIColony.png
slots, buildings ect, like this?

 

[dflemstr]

dflemstr: CODE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GalacticCivilizationsIIColony.png
slots, buildings ect, like this?

Nah, I thought more of a macro view, with 3D buildings on a relatively small patch of land.
And buildings can take more than one square in size.
BTW, this project seems to become more and more like Galactic Civlizations, and I have never actually played that game so I have no idea why

 

[dflemstr]

My original thought was the first part of your amendment but, the more I think about it dflemstr the more I like it. The double-click/tap where you have to plan ahead sounds really good to me. That creates a fairly unique strategy.

80% it is. Then anyone that wants more planets can put more in the map editor ;D

Ok, now does someone want to work on some simple graphics? say Upgrade icons? Ship icons? Building icons? (Keeping the size of the pandora screen in mind mind you.)

And please, PLEASE do them as SVG, alternatively at some riddiculously high resolution such as 512x512, so that they can be resized later. Low-fidelity icons can be a pain.

 

[MrBlais]

I'd do it but I don't want to work on TOO much. I'm already beginning on making the music portion.

I've started on it and it's kind of dark. Is this okay for the theme of the game?

 

[MrBlais]

I'd do it but I don't want to work on TOO much. I'm already beginning on making the music portion.

I've started on it and it's kind of dark. Is this okay for the theme of the game?

 

[dflemstr]

I'd do it but I don't want to work on TOO much. I'm already beginning on making the music portion.

I've started on it and it's kind of dark. Is this okay for the theme of the game?

Parts or we can't judge
"Dark" is kind of abstract. Is it Metallic? Clean tones or more industrial-like? etc.

 

[gammaquad14]

So the planets would be kind of like cities? If I understand it correctly, this is starting to look awesome!
Maybe a player could build space stations to act as sort of mini planets? For instance, if a planet has 20 slots for buildings (throwing a random number out), maybe a station would have like 3? Also obviously one would only be able to harvest resources from planets. (I'll make mockup in a little bit)
Another thought, are there going to be wonders that the player can build? Like an artificial planet which would have an unusually high number of building slots or a Dyson sphere which would decrease the amount of the resource which represents energy (Uranium?) needed to build things? I don't know if it would work out so well in story mode but it would be cool for free play.

 

[MrBlais]

I'd do it but I don't want to work on TOO much. I'm already beginning on making the music portion.

I've started on it and it's kind of dark. Is this okay for the theme of the game?

Parts or we can't judge
"Dark" is kind of abstract. Is it Metallic? Clean tones or more industrial-like? etc.


More or less the feeling of it is dark; foreboading if you will. They're definately clean tones [so far; however that might change]

 

[gammaquad14]

Well, we don't necessarily need building slots in the space statons. Maybe they won't even be 'space stations', but defense turrets or space mines or something like that. I think the sky scrapers are a good idea.

 

[dflemstr]

Space stations: Difficult to program. It would be much easier if you could be certain that nothing will be added in the 'zomed-out view' after you have loaded the map (aka that the number of planets will remain constant etc...)

Just from the developer POV.

 

[dflemstr]

Hmm, I think that we need to structure the ideas that appear here and there better
First of all: What exactly is a planet?
For exmaple:
- It's an entity in the game field
- It can move at a certain speed
- It can have buildings
- It can have resources stored on it
- It can have space ships orbiting it
- It has various attributes such as defence, gold availability, size etc.
- It can have various 'effects' (aka things that alter it's attributes) that apply on it, for example an orbiting meteorite belt that gives defence, or laser turrets that gives the planet extra attack (don't know if laser turrets are a good idea, but things like that, you get th eidea)

What is a ship?
- It is an entity in the game field --or-- an entity circling around a planet
- It can move at a certain speed
- The movement direction is controllable by the player in real-time.
- It has various attributes such as def, speed, health, energy level
- It can have various 'effects' such as circulating mini-ships that give extra def and extra attack, mirror armor that reflects 20% damage (etc)

If we could do lists like this, life would be much easier. (these lists aren't complete, it's just what I came up with at the moment)
This could be done in the Wiki: One page for every game element (such as game field, planet, user interface, building, ship, upgrade etc). I don't have time at the moment to restructure the Wiki to fit this structure, because it's 24:00 where I am. I'll look into it tomorrow (so please don't copy+paste this into the wiki ).

Also, we can of course not start with creating content (code, music, maps etc) before the game plan is finished, because at the moment, one idea can change the whole structure of the game.

 

[Samalthos]

Hang on are there going to be different Classes of ships? such as
Fighter
Bomber
Shuttle
Patrol Corvette
Missle Frigate
Frigate
Cruiser
Destroyer - Super Class Destroyers?
Carrier - Fighter/Troop
Special Classes? Interdictors, Missle Jammers, Shield Amplifiers (If there will be shields)
Are there going to be energy based (aka Lasers) weapons domiant? Projectile? Hybrid of both?

Orbital Battle Stations (Defenses)(Multiple stations or Classes of stations)

This would Be awesome as purely a Space RTS with the "Land side" of things only being production
and to capture a Planet would be the size of a fleet and troops it can carry and deploy.

Just some Ideas (Mostly stuff that I've seen in Rebellion and Empire at war, Both starwars games that are actually pretty cool)

All of the Ideas you have are Really Great though.

 

[dflemstr]

Read my GitHub pm. I'll step out of this thread for a while.

 

[JamineBourne]

Haha that's a pretty funky name, kind of obvious, but still good. I like it.

Other Punny names:
Pandoramonium in the Universe
PoRTSable (lame pun of of portable, and maybe port)
SuperNova StaRTS (another lame pun off of Star lol)
Thats a Shipload of Units!

As for the gameplay:

There are different styles for how long it takes to kill an average unit for different RTSs. For example, it took < 2 seconds to kill a marine in Starcraft with a group of about 4, but it takes around 3 minutes for four frigates to take down another in Sins of a Solar Empire. My personal vote for this kind of setup would be in the middle, as the Pandora's screen/controls would make it difficult to manage something as fast as Starcraft, but also it was just agonizing to play Sins early game for that reason.

Resources should probably be gathered with the least micro-management possible yet giving a lot of control. For this reason, I like the planet grid-based sandbox mode for placing buildings "strategically." You pick what resources to gather vs military buildings to build vs technological buildings to build. Planet defenses hangers and such should be built away from the planet. For example let's say a "farm" gets food or whatever the resource name is. It takes up 4 tiles, and gives you 10 food every couple seconds. You could fill up your entire planet's grid with farms, and have a TON of food, but then you wouldn't have any metal resource, or the ability to upgrade your units (let alone any restaurants to cook the food lol)

I loved the Sins capital ships. They were great (minus the fact that it took 30 minutes for me with 100s of units to destroy one that had leveled up for 4 hours lol). I think a similer idea should be implemented here.

I give props to an pregame adjustable population limit with the range depending on the above factors.

The different factions should represent play-styles. Yes, Strong and slow, Fast and Weak, and In the middle are play styles, but there's also that guy who builds like 5 units and somehow demolishes your whole base as your sitting back, booming with 100s of farms on your planets (lol), trying to get the one really good food upgrade faster than anybody else cuz then you rox man! I'm just saying economy should be taken into account as well. I propose the "fast/weak" to have a quick economy bonus early game, making them fast, but then suffer late game with a slower rate of income. The medium civilization could have a way to choose 1 resource that it can triple the income of (or something balanced), and build units accordingly. The slow civilization would suffer initially with a weak military (yet very good base defenses in case that rushing guy comes plowing in), but then he could purchase upgrades that further his economic income rate for all resources above that of the other civilizations. However, all three factions should have a way to vary their strategy, so an opposing player doesn't know EXACTLY what they're going to do every time because of their civilization choice. Maybe a group of expensive, heavy-armored slow units for the fast/weak, support units for the middle race that can change units on the battlefield based on their abilities (increase hitpoints, attack, speed, visibility, amount, type, look for a short period of time, repair units, power suckers (drain sheilds, if there are any), wormhole makers (teleport to different parts of the map), EMP shockwave that disables units for a short period of time, a unit that can hijack other ships and convert them ), the heavy civ would have a way to move their big units around the map quickly via phase jumpers that propel them to enemy sites and have very weak, very fast units for pestering tacktics (invisible scout).

Phew, that's my 2 cents, just here to make something controversial to talk about haha. I would code, but my java skills are not up to par with a game of this caliber, and I have a lesser game of my own I need to tend to.