4X game - astro feedback desired

[baric]

Hello, all. I hope that this is the proper BAUT subforum to post this on. If not, my apologies and hopefully it will get moved to the proper location.

Like most of you, astronomy is something I really enjoy. To feed this interest, I have started development on a 4X space game and have essentially finished the part of the game that generates stars, planets, etc. I have put in quite a bit of effort to make this portion of the game realistic while still tipping the scales (primarily exobiology) towards the gaming genre.

Anyway, I don't want to develop this game in a "bubble" for too long without getting some important feedback on playability, realism, etc. That is where any interested BAUT'ers would come in. If you guys would like to take a look at the star/planet generation and make suggestions, that would be greatly appreciated.

I am polishing up the existing screens currently in preparation for adding ship design functionality in the coming steps.

If anyone would like to take a look at it, my development blog is at http://bluedotblackvoid.blogspot.com. I've got one small chunk of terraforming code to test tomorrow and I'll be ready to send out a copy to anyone interested in taking a look. It's a Java application so it should run on any PC with Java installed.

Thanks in advance!

[The Supreme Canuck]

I'm going to go ahead and say "sweet!" I love 4X games - frankly I've been looking for a good one since MOOII.

I'd love to take a look at whatever you've got. I'm not as informed on astronomical topics as others here, but I have played a bunch of 4X games, so I know what works and what doesn't.

[baric]

I'm going to go ahead and say "sweet!" I love 4X games - frankly I've been looking for a good one since MOOII.

I'd love to take a look at whatever you've got. I'm not as informed on astronomical topics as others here, but I have played a bunch of 4X games, so I know what works and what doesn't.

Awesome! I tried to do a Java-base MOO clone a few years ago, but I simply did not have time to work on it when the hours at my real-life job ramped up. I actually had a working AI and ship combat, so I am looking forward to significantly improving on that attempt.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Boy, you do sound like you know what you're doing. I'm currently reading through your devblog - good stuff so far.

Edit: Okay, I've read through it all. Now, I'd need to see the prototype you're putting out before I can really comment, but there are a few areas that jump out at me already.

The production system is novel and interesting. So is the terraforming/planetary engineering system. Playtesting may cough up some issues, but it looks great. Research and diplomatic bonuses are a nice touch. I'm especially interested in the way that you can create and develop life.

Looking at your musings on combat - and I know you haven't implemented it - I see one element that simply does not appeal. Tactical combat is just something that I do not like to deal with. It's never implemented properly and I've always thought that it's odd to have something so focused in a game with such a large scale. I'd consider implementing an option that allows combat to be automatically resolved without entering into tactical combat at all. Ordering ships around and controlling a specific ship (especially with button mashing) isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting a look at what you've got.

[baric]

Looking at your musings on combat - and I know you haven't implemented it - I see one element that simply does not appeal. Tactical combat is just something that I do not like to deal with. It's never implemented properly and I've always thought that it's odd to have something so focused in a game with such a large scale. I'd consider implementing an option that allows combat to be automatically resolved without entering into tactical combat at all. Ordering ships around and controlling a specific ship (especially with button mashing) isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting a look at what you've got.

Actually, I feel your pain with tactical combat. The original MOO was great because you were limited to 6 "stacks" of ships and combat didn't take long. MOO2 fell into the common 4X trap of "more is better" and became too unwieldy to control dozens of ships in combat.

Automatically resolving combat will always be available as it is trivial to implement. I just didn't mention it because the real programming effort will come in the real-time combat

[The Supreme Canuck]

Cool, then. Now I'm intrigued as to how you're going to handle tactical combat, since we seem to be of the same mind concerning it.

[baric]

Cool, then. Now I'm intrigued as to how you're going to handle tactical combat, since we seem to be of the same mind concerning it.

I tried to cover it in this post:
http://bluedotblackvoid.blogspot.com...ciousness.html

The excerpt on ship combat:

Ship Combat

This is expected to be one of the major focal points of the game. Unit combat really provides the only "action packed" moments in a 4X game, so designers really need to put some thought into this. I've decided on several important aspects to ship combat in BDBV:

Real-time - although you will be able to pause combat at any time and give orders to your fleet, the actual combat will be occurring in real time.

Mixed AI/Player control - You will choose which ship you want to personally control (pew pew) and give orders to the rest. These orders could be: a) Retreat, b) Attack Ship X at max range, c) Attack Ship X at min range, d) Assist Ship X at max range, e) Assist Ship X at min range.

Variety of weapon effects - The idea is that your battle tactics will vary based on your weapon technologies. However, you don't technically get to choose which weapons you will learn unless you are willing to continually roll the research dice. Maybe you'll get beam weapons, or maybe you'll get plasma streams.. or something else. Whatever you use, you'll need to adapt your tactics. You'll probably want more than one type, however, since there are defenses that can effectively neutralize certain weapons.

Weapon cooldowns - to avoid button-mashing, each weapon type will have a firing cooldown. Before a combat starts, perhaps, you will be able to choose between shorter cooldowns (pew pew pew) or larger blasts (PEW). Typically, longer cooldowns will give you more dmg/time at the cost of responsiveness.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Yes, I saw that. It's just hard to judge a combat mechanism before I see it in action. What you've got could work great - it's just that there's no way to tell until it's implemented.

I do wonder what you mean by this, though:

You will choose which ship you want to personally control (pew pew) and give orders to the rest.

What's the difference to me between the ship that I control and the ships that I give orders to? Do I literally fly the one ship around and give orders to the rest?

[baric]

Yes, I saw that. It's just hard to judge a combat mechanism before I see it in action. What you've got could work great - it's just that there's no way to tell until it's implemented.

I do wonder what you mean by this, though:



What's the difference to me between the ship that I control and the ships that I give orders to? Do I literally fly the one ship around and give orders to the rest?

The orders are like directions to the AI that you give at the start of combat. From that point on, the ships would act autonomously unless you decided to pause combat and give new orders.

Orders would be something like:

Attack <targeted enemy>
Assist <targeted ally>
Maintain distance
Retreat


So, for example, let's say you have 12 ships that you want to divide into two groups. You would lead one group and let the AI lead another.

So, you set 5 ships to "Assist" you, and 5 ships to "Assist" ship B.

When you attack, your 5 assisting ships will do the same.

Maybe you decide to have Ship B and his assistants stay out of the fight until you determine which enemy ship is best to attack. Or perhaps the Ship B group has weak defenses and you don't want them to bear the initial brunt of an attack.

So, you attack with your 5 assistants. Then, when desired, you pause combat and tell Ship B to attack a particular enemy. At that point, his entire group would enter combat. You then resume and continue.

Sometimes, if a ship is badly damaged, you might pause combat and give him orders to Retreat. Basically, this system would allow you to lead your fleet without having to micromanage the particular movement, targeting and weapons of every ship.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Okay, I totally misunderstood what you were getting at. That sounds much more interesting and a heckuva lot less annoying. I could see giving that a whirl, though the strategic elements have always been more interesting to me. Implemented right, this could be one of the very few non-broken tactical combat systems that I've seen in a 4X.

Anyway, any word on when you'll have a prototype of the galaxy generation and colony development code thrown together? I'm itching to get a peek.

[baric]

Okay, I totally misunderstood what you were getting at. That sounds much more interesting and a heckuva lot less annoying. I could see giving that a whirl, though the strategic elements have always been more interesting to me. Implemented right, this could be one of the very few non-broken tactical combat systems that I've seen in a 4X.

Anyway, any word on when you'll have a prototype of the galaxy generation and colony development code thrown together? I'm itching to get a peek.

I had to go over the terraforming code with a fine-toothed comb today. Basically, it determines the steps needed to go from a planet's existing chemistry to a target chemistry.

For colonization, the target chemistry is simply the same as the player's home planet (Earth). That's pretty straightforward.

For research, the target chemistry is calculated based upon the target chemical base (C+H, et al) and solvent, padding the atmosphere with Nitrogen up to 1 bar. It's a bit more involved and still needs some tweaking to handle different starting points. Fortunately, our system has both atmospheric extremes (Mars & Venus), so I have two good test cases staring straight at me every time I start the game :P

Let me test it on my laptop this afternoon outside of the IDE and I'll try to get it uploaded somewhere.

[baric]

ok, I've uploaded it to http://www.bluedotblackvoid.com and linked it from the front page. It's not much of a website, but more of a placeholder for the actual thing coming later.

Let me know if you have any issues downloading or running it. I was able to get it going on my old laptop just now

[baric]

I have made available a more recent version of this in-work game. Details about the changes are listed at http://bluedotblackvoid.blogspot.com. We have a German and French translation working as well!

Any feedback on the game, especially from the astronomical community, is greatly appreciated -- especially with regards to the realism of the generated stars & planets.