After doing homework on this, I have begin to realize why so many sci-fi games use the Star Trek style lingo when it comes to planetary classification.... real astronomy SUCKS at this. 

I did some digging into the subject, found that Trek canon is incomplete at best.  Was preparing to do my own stuff, when I stumbled across an incredible resourcve - the planetary classification page at Star Trek: the Final Frontier.

The author there is incredibly friendly, and has offered all of his material (even including the images) for free use in any sort of project - all he asks for is a credit, which I am more than happy to give.

I can see using almost all of this stuff as is, save perhaps class Y (whcih is really a direct Trek thing). 

I do need to write a routine to figure out the percentages/frequencies of various planets, though.  Because one major point I feel strongly about is that no two games should play the same - the map needs to always be randomly generated, which means a lot of worlds to populate from the goodness of math. 

Regarding cooperative play: Bromern, I see the appeal of this.  But from a practical perspective, exeprience says that you often have trouble with players dropping off.  If the guy in charge of an empire quits, it ruins the game for those on his team. 

I'm looking at a game that - at least in the first form - is for, say, 4-8 players.  It would be a simply thing to generate larger maps and allow more players (or a longer game), but I don't see it as feasible on a larger scale to hope to recruit multiple people to work together on one empire, each handling X tasks.  I could absolutely be wrong, but this is what I'm looking at.

Eol - I had not considered the colony ship being consumed like you desribe... and I LOVE the idea.  That makes so much sense from a game mechanic standpoint, it makes sense from a game lore standpoint. 

I'm thinking that, as long as a planet has survivable conditions - gravity isn't crushing, temperature isn't too hot, you can put a colony on it.  The colony might be restricted to the initial dome (or to upgraded domes down the line), but it can at least survive.  Planets that have more optiimal conditions (breathable atmosphere, at least some surface water, reasonable gravity, reasonable termperature range) would allow much more population growth, etc. 

Which would in turn make thse world more valuable, you'd think.  A barren ball of rock with a dome on it isn't going to produce much for your empire, after all. 

Going down this road, it makes sense that you'd need dedicated vessels for terraforming.  If we do a tech tree, this would have to be fartehr down the list than colonization.  If it's just building based, then maybe the same facility is used for colony ships and terraforming vessels, but it has to be upgraded a couple of times to get to terraforming vessel capability?

This is feeling more and more right.

Good, good... let the discussion flow!

I'm feeling you for sure.

By the way - ANYONE else, feel free to jump in at any point!

So, we've touched on another big item - terraforming. 

I feel like this is a great option to have. 

Also, one ship type I didn't mention would be akin to a trnasport - a colony ship.  Slow, no armament, needs escorts.  Can it also terrform, or does it just carry colonists and materials?

I'm thinking that the number of truly habitable planets is pretty low.  Yes, you can drop a colony on a planet that isn't too unbelievably hot or too crushing in gravity... but you'd need terraforming for it to be much more than small domes or whatever. 

But terraforming should still on'y be an option on certain types of worlds, IMO.  To me, this makes scout ships and probes incredibly vital - the ability to find habitable worlds, or at least those that qualify for terraforming, makes all the difference in truly growing your empire.  I'm thinking that certain structures/upgrade levels are only available in systems that have enough population and such to support them.

thoughts?

Let's talk structures.

First off, you certainly need structures for fleet production - i.e. shipyards or the like.  I'm feeling like these need to be upgradeable, that you need significant upgrades/resource investment to be able to produce capital ships.  Obviosly, then, you'll want to defend these...

As mentioned, I see trade ports as a big item. 

How about orbital defenses?  A fighter station, defense cannons, that sort of thing?

Perhaps a mining structure or the like for uninhabitable planets/asteroids?

Do upgrades to planets make sense?

What else?

I love the idea of pirates being an NPC faction of sorts.  And it does make sense for them to have actual bases.

Upgraded structures would definitely give more income, have more traffic, etc. 

I'm not thinking that we want to actually construct and manage the trade ships themselves - I see that as a civilian function that our empires tax.  But I'm open to discussion!

Not at all into the weeds... these are precisely the sorts of discussions I want!

Here is how I had trade working in my head:

1) Build a trade port in your system to bring in income - perhaps a structure that can be upgraded?
2) Make trade agreements with other players.  Doing so means automatic income every turn from taxation on civilian trade.
3) Rather than attack a system outright, you absolutely could blockade it.  Doing so reduces trade income to zero in that system.

I have mused a bit on pirates.  If you wanted to make them "feel" right, fringe territories would be especially vulnerable to raids... would make it worth your while to keep some defenses in a given system.  Maybe even have a "patrol" order available to a fleet, where they fly back and forth to keep an eye out for pirates.

I could see pirates using corsair type ships - same class as a frigate, faster and lighter armored.  Perhaps the odd slower ship?

What do you think?

Transports... that's a great point.

I think that, to actually capture an enemy planet, you will need to land troops.  Maybe you can reduce the number of troops needed if you bombard from orbit, but to take it, you have to put people there. 

So it makes a TON of sense to have transports as an option.  And having them brings in a huge tactical component - I would see transports as large, slow, lightly armed and armored - and costly/slow to build (gotta recruit those soldiers to fill em).  They'd absolutely need escorts, as you could just CRIPPLE an enemey's ability to capture territory by destrotying their transports. 

Side thought - transports need "recharge" time after a battle; this represents the loss of troops in combat.  A successful fight means that maybe you keep them at that system and they rebuild slowly (takes longer to impress the locals into service).  A failure means you have to retreat to a friendy system if you want them at full strength. 

Also makes me think of another wrinkle... it seems like it should be possible to have neutral systems, not just unclaimed/unexplored.  Sure, maybe you do find an M class star with a planet ready to drop colonists on... more likely that really primo planets already have people on them that just aren't part of an empire.  So you'd still need to pacify these to absorb them.

Thoughts on any of the above?


Speaking of fleets... what about trade?  I'm thinking that it's best to just build, say, trade ports or whatever, and assume that the civilians handle trade ships, you just collect tax revenue.  I don't think anybody wants to micromanage trade fleets.   But should I look more into that?

Okay, point taken.  I'll stay out of math.  There's nothing really to discuss there, anyway.

So I'm thinking... I love the idea of at least three species, if not more.  Terrans, somethign reptilian maybe, something insectoid (hivemind, anyone?).

But for now, it probably makes sense to develop a working game/proof of concept with terrans only.  Get the game working, make sure the database is set up for species flags, then add additional species later for flavor, with game balance much easier to manage then.

So, let's talk ships for now.  Here's what I'm looking at.

Scout ships - very fast, little to no weaponry/armor/shields.  Longer sensor range than other ships.
Frigate class - fast, good weaponry, light armor/shields. 
Destroyer - slower, tougher, good weaponry
Cruiser - larger ships, tough, potentially a range of roles?
Capital ships - largest.  Slow, extremely tough, well armed.  Battleships, carriers (if we decide that fighters are a thing), etc.

Any thoughts here?

On movement and pathfinding...

I have run into pathfinding issues in a strategy game once more.  Space makes this a virtual nonissue.

Distance is super simple - the square root of the combination of the x difference (squarted), y difference (squared) and z difference (squared). 

Or

√ ( (x2 - x1)² + (y2 - y1)² + (z2 - z1)² )

I mean, I can't do that math off the top of my head, but it's easy to caluclate/script.

No reason to not use the straightest distance between two points, amirite?

Well... if we're gonna have wormholes, then the pathfinding script has to take them into consideration.  I'm thinking that, for the purposes of our calculations, I'm figuring wormholes to have a travel cost of 1 unit (representing flying into the wormhole sector and out of the end point sector).  If we're assuming that they are instantaneous travel, it doesn't make sense to charge more (though you could maybe argue that you "fly" through that subspace, maybe there should be a small cost with them). 

So the pathfinding script needs to first calculate the direct route.  It then needs to look at any known wormholes, see if flying to it and from the end point of it to the destination (plus adding 1) is shorter.  If it is, that would be the optimal route.

That said, I think that the player should always have the choice to pick which route to take.  Or even to lay out waypoints, if desired for strategic reasons. 

If we look at the test map, let's say we want to get from the friendly system at 28,14,4 to the one at  26,-4,1. 

A direct route is 18.36 sectors. 

We could use the wormhole at 38,6,3, which empties out at 14,2,0.

The first segment (28,14,4 to 38,6,3) is 12.85 sectors. 

The second segment (14,2,0 to 26,-4,1) is 10.05 sectors.  Add in one for the wormhole, you're now looking at 23.9... definitely not an advantage at this time, even though it allows you to cover 24.52 sectors for the price of one movement point.  Could be hugely useful in other situations, though. 

Okay, who's bored?

Bump.

I have a post in the works.

I have been pondering tech levels. 

I don't know that I want to go with true tech trees (research tech X to gain item Y), but I'm considering it.

I do think that, at the very least, you should have to build improvements to your systems.  I.e. you need a level 2 shipyard to produce cruisers there. 

That said... tech trees make sense.   It's worth serious consideration.

I like the ideas of long vs short range scans.  I'm thinking that you have to have a probe/scout ship go within X distance of a system to get data of any sort - which would be star/sytem type (habitable or not, for instance), traffic or not (i.e. is it colonized, are ships detected).  But any sort of real intel would require that your probe/scout actually penetrate the system.  This would give you population, number/size/composition of fleet, defenses, etc.  Perhaps even a couple of levels of detail, depending on how much scanning you do.

I have made the systems clickable.  Right now, all you get is a popup telling you the coordinates of the clicked point, but it's a proof of concept that the map can be interactive. 

People, I think that we have the toold needed to do this game.

So join me at this totally blank slate.  What makes sense for a clickable map?

You click a map and it opens up an info/control panel.  What do we see here?

Maybe the quick specs on the system (who controls it, the population, avilable intel on defenses, etc)?  Perhaps links to manage any fleets that may be present there?  Perhaps a distance/time readout to tell you how long it would take your fleet(s) to arrive? 

Perhaps context sensitive commands - i.e. if it's your system, you can control the production queue here, manage defenses, etc.  If it's not your system, you can order scouting/attack/diplomacy from here?

Or should other things go here? 

Would love to hear ideas...

Check out the map test now.  I have added wormholes, changed how the mouseover text works.  Currently disabled for neutral and hostile systems, but it's working for friendly and for wormholes.  This is getting closer and closer to something we could use in a game.

I think that I need to see if the framework will allow them to be clickable and bring up the menu like I am suggesting.  If I can do that, then I can proceed with this.  If not, I need to scrap the 3D idea.

Would love feedback on some of the other questions I've tossed around in the thread!

I can see that in terms of playability.  Will likely need to be able to make these plets and such clickable, pull up a context menu, etc for it to be workable.

Check it out - a small test map.

Friendly systems in blue, hostile in red, unexplored in gray. 

Hold left click on your mouse to rotate.  Hold right click to pan.  Use the wheel to zoom in and out.

It's still very simple.  I need to add the ability to hover over them and provide more than just the X/Y/Z coordinates - but I'd call this a super useful proof of concept. 

Back to the idea that you have to be a rocket scientist to handle strategy in 3D.  If we had something like this, would it not make the game approachable, even without math skills?

I'd love feedback before I do more.  If it's still a bad idea, I'll go to a 2d (flat) map. 

I have the beginnings of a working proof of concept for a map framework. 

Here is what I am looking at.

Sort of a "box" model - i.e. a slide of space.  I'm playing with the idea of an area roughly 100 units x 50 units x 30 units.  That's completely up for change, it's just an early rough concept.  I think that a cube is a little unweildy when you start to visualize it.

The framework I am using is pretty great - you can zoom in and out, rotate at will. 

So I'm thinking... Your own star systems are represented with one color dot (say, blue).  Enemies in red, unclaimed in gray.  Perhaps allies in green?

From what I can tell, I can also add lines to the chart.  So any known wormholes could have their openings visually represented on the map, too. 

I figure that everyone starts with one sytem and some very limited intel on the immediate surrounding sectors.  Other systems and wormholes only show up after exploration - scouts, perhaps probes will be very important. 

I may have a very small mockup up a map by tomorrow.

I found a really cool javascript library for doing charts and whatnot.  Let me create a dummy starmap off of this, and you folks tell me a 3D map is a great or terrible idea.

I love wider perspectives.  Not sure of which items I'd want to use, yet.

I am thinking for players, just the "top lvel" empire owners.  Maybe 4-8 players in a given game?  More?

Good observation, Grugg. 

I want it to be approachable.  It seems that if I was able to provide the map in an accessible format, that would fit the issue.

Or would it?

Cool.  I'd love to hear your input. 

Fighter?  Yes or no?  If so, carriers are a thing (and are important, as are counters).  If not, then nope.

Can you just bombard a planet into submission, or do you need to land troops?  Masybe the latter is more costly/difficult, but the former damages production infrastucture and such?

Trying again to get this rolling, comrades!