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Re: Design Delimma

Thu, 26 June 2003 00:59

JeffMC

Petty Officer 1st Class
Stars! V.I.P

Messages: 66
Registered: March 2003

This was a problem we spent a lot of time thinking about for Supernova. We eventually settled on defining a list of possible behaviors (capabilities) that any techonology might have. The capabilities do not have to have a one-to-one mapping with the properties that you show the players. For example, a Stars! 2 style engine technology would probably want to override the default values for the following capabilities:

Maximum Free Warp Speed
Fuel Usage at Each Warp Speed
Is Radiating?
Is Ramscoop?
Combat Speed (Movement)
and so on...

This model removes any assumptions about the capabilities of any particular technology or category of technology. If you want a bomb part that is radioactive and forces you to put your colonists/troops into a different fleet then just mark the technology as Is Radiating. When you ask the Fleet if it "Is Radiating" it will ask each of its parts the same question....

Naturally, this model is far more powerful when combined with a rules scripting language like RDL. However, even without a rules scripting language you can save yourself a lot of grief by defining your base behaivors (capabilities) ahead of time. Define the capabilities that you will want to implement in the future so that the question exists even if the answer is always NO or zero for the current game engine.

Even if you don't implement a rules scripting language you'll need to define the additive nature of each capability. Think about how scanner ranges add together in Stars! 2 v/s cloaking v/s armor.

In general, defining a new technology or changing the capabilities of an existing technology should involve changing data only. This was not true in the Stars! 2 sources which was a huge pain in the rear.

Jeff

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[Message index]

		Design Delimma By: LEit on Fri, 13 June 2003 15:26
		Re: Design Delima By: gible on Fri, 13 June 2003 20:47
		Re: Design Delima By: boneandrew on Mon, 16 June 2003 20:42
		Re: Design Delima By: LEit on Mon, 16 June 2003 21:35
		Re: Design Delima By: John Marasco on Mon, 16 June 2003 21:58
		Re: Design Delima By: LEit on Mon, 16 June 2003 23:28
		Re: Design Delima By: John Marasco on Tue, 17 June 2003 20:16
		Re: Design Delima By: LEit on Wed, 18 June 2003 13:09
		Re: Design Delima By: John Marasco on Wed, 18 June 2003 19:57
		Re: Design Delimma By: JeffMC on Thu, 26 June 2003 00:59
		Re: Design Delimma By: Ptolemy on Fri, 26 March 2004 07:07
		Re: Design Delimma By: LEit on Fri, 26 March 2004 13:09
		Re: Design Delimma By: Ptolemy on Fri, 26 March 2004 14:21
		Re: Design Delimma By: multilis on Fri, 09 April 2004 13:42
		Re: Design Delimma By: Ptolemy on Sat, 10 April 2004 02:00
		Re: Design Delimma By: Ashlyn on Sat, 10 April 2004 02:07
		Re: Design Delimma By: Ptolemy on Sat, 10 April 2004 02:10
		Re: Design Dilemma By: Ashlyn on Sat, 10 April 2004 02:19
		Re: Design Delimma By: multilis on Sat, 10 April 2004 11:15
		Re: Design Dilemma By: overworked on Sat, 10 April 2004 12:41
		Re: Design Dilemma By: multilis on Sat, 10 April 2004 13:38
		Re: Design Dilemma By: Kotk on Sun, 11 April 2004 13:15
		Re: Design Delimma By: LEit on Sun, 11 April 2004 14:57
		Re: Design Delimma By: Kotk on Mon, 12 April 2004 06:29
		Re: Design Delimma By: LEit on Tue, 13 April 2004 15:04
		Re: Design Delimma By: multilis on Tue, 13 April 2004 15:32
		Re: Design Delimma By: Ptolemy on Tue, 13 April 2004 15:49

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