Home World Forum
Stars! AutoHost web forums

Jump to Stars! AutoHost


 
 
Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » Stars! Nova - Open Discussion and Help » Nova - How should it be different to Stars!
icon5.gif  Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Wed, 24 January 2007 17:48 Go to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Well, Nova is pretty much working (although far from bug-free). I'm just adding in the planetary defences at the moment and the only major feature missing is minefields.

However, the idea of making an Open Source version of Stars! is so that it can be changed.

So, the subject line says it all. Bearing in mind that it is "cast in the mold" of Stars! how should it diverge?

Any thoughts guys?

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Thu, 25 January 2007 00:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
Here's something from the RGCS I found a couple weeks ago, from here. Jim Lane explains what he plans on doing with his version of Stars!

Quote:

>> >We all wish you get a Stars3beta out somewhere "soon"...
>> Me, too. But I'm not the only person who could write something like
>I'm curious: Just what kind of improvements can we expect from the new
>version? More design slots? Bigger universes? Revamped battleboard? Pop
>redistributing itself to colonies?


Since it isn't done, the feature set isn't fixed. But as for general
directions...

No required limits on number of game objects (fleets, ship, ship
designs, mine fields, races per game, start systems, etc.), but the
ability to place limits on a particular game during set up, if
desired. Stars! 2 is limited by the Win16 API. This version assumes a
32 bit (or better) CPU.


Deeper race design, using something similar (but more flexible than)
SN's idea of physiologies and social models.


Hull designs are not specified by the game engine. Like other limits,
they can be fixed by the scenario, or it can be made possible to
design new hulls during the game.


More variation in galaxy creation, similar to SN.


More variation in, and more meaningful, winning conditions. Doing this
really means setting up a fairly sophisticated system for triggering
game events in general, with one possible action for a trigger being
to declare a victor. A key point that goes along with this is that it
is possible to create non-zero-sum games.


The possibility for more than one universe per game, possibly with
different physics. Might not be fully implemented at first, but the
game engine does not preclude implementing it later (I hope).


Completely revamped tech. Separate FTL and normal space engines, very
different types of offense and defense, etc. All of this is
implemented in terms of lower-level primitives that can be recombined
in a variety of ways. For example, weapons inherently have certain
characteristics: range, damage, mass, various costs, interactions with
other tech (i.e. defenses),rate of fire, accuracy, velocity,
maneuverability, local / remote tactical intelligence, etc. At a game
engine level, a "beam weapon" is a manufactured device that can
perform an action (create a beam) at a given rate while consuming
defined resources. The beam itself, once it has been fired, is a
separate game object that has a constant velocity, a constant
direction of travel (inherited from the projector that created it), no
tactical AI, and has particular effectiveness formulas vs. different
kinds of defenses. Each aspect of the projector and the beam can be
separately influenced by the technological knowledge of the
projector's builders, and by it's operators. All of these
interrelationships are defined by RDL, and can be very simple, very
complex, or anywhere in between.


A more sophisticated version of SN's RDL, more completely integrated
into the game engine.


The ability to play at more than one level of abstraction. In a
beginner's game, many different decisions are coupled together for
simplicity. . An advanced game gives the players direct control over
the underlying game controls. This is essentially the same idea as
"governors" used in many other games, but the scripts are in RDL 2 and
are available for modding. There will be at least two levels of
abstraction, and perhaps three.


A deeper way to specify orders to units, based more directly on a
real-life military model. Units get doctrines that are triggered by
various circumstances. The doctrines, the triggers, and the actions
taken to implement a doctrine are all in RDL, and can be modded. The
tactical AI is based on a flocking model; advanced players have
control over the flocking rules.


The battle engine is similar in concept to SN's: distances are
measured in meters, not "squares", movement is Newtonian.


A more complete economics model, allowing for trading without
wolf-lamb, ship scraping, etc. I'm not sure I've figured out how to do
it yet, but I'd like it to be possible to defeat an opponent without
ever firing a shot, by economic warfare.


Better game security, based on published crypto techniques.


Better support for Autohost'ing, although not as complete as SN had
planned.


---


There are some things that I have no plans to change:


One species per stellar object (planetary system, etc.).


The basic concepts of game set up, race design, ship design, fleet
design, etc. Players must have enough degrees of freedom to support a
Stars! like complexity of game play.


The basic idea of interacting compound interest formulas, although the
details are different.


No game-enforced contracts between players. Backstabbing will always
be possible.


The AIs have exactly the same information available to them as the
players. It is not possible for them to cheat. (As a result, there
will be a handicapping system, which can be applied to any player in
the game.)


One of the key, and very difficult, ideas is that there should never
be any single winning formula. Stars! 2 was not quite perfect at this,
but it was extraordinarily good. The intent is to create
sissors-paper-stone loops in every area of the game.


2D, not 3D. There is no gain in depth of gameplay in a 3D universe,
and the UI is much harder.


Turn based 4X. Jeff and I had discussed the idea of a variable
simulation period; a game could be set up to play at different amounts
of game time per turn, possibly varying it over the course of the
game. Using a very short simulation clock, one could approximate an
RTS, but the game engine remains fundamentally turn based.


---


I'm sure I've left out a lot. I'm willing to consider alternate ideas,
but please understand that I have a vision for this game, and there
are some popular ideas that don't fit that vision. I'm working on the
game that I want to play, and hope that others will enjoy it, too.


Jim Lane



That's a long list, and I could also add a lot of my own ideas. However, if I could put my finger on the one single improvement to Stars! that woudl best for the game, it would be: Micro Management. From what I understand, Stars! has lost more players for the huge amount of MM than for any other reason. I'd suggest finding ways to script certain behaviors into the game. Take a look at Space Empires. It had an OK system. If you want to know what I think would be best in terms of MM though, then take a look at Black and White. In that game you get a "creature" that you are able to train in certain behaviors. Basically, the game facilitates a path for the player to create an AI, easily. So, just set up a user interface where the player can attach certain "weights" to different behaviors, like Black and White does. It means making big improvements to the AI. It means that you put the player in charge of AI's. But really, how is that much different from Stars! in its current form? The player has access to all sorts of mini AI's, or programs, or scripts: production queues, waypoint orders, research, ship controls, etc.

I could go on, but that should probaby do.


[Updated on: Thu, 25 January 2007 00:02]




Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Thu, 25 January 2007 11:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
Commander

Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left
ken-reed wrote on Wed, 24 January 2007 23:48

Well, Nova is pretty much working (although far from bug-free). I'm just adding in the planetary defences at the moment and the only major feature missing is minefields.

However, the idea of making an Open Source version of Stars! is so that it can be changed.

So, the subject line says it all. Bearing in mind that it is "cast in the mold" of Stars! how should it diverge?

Any thoughts guys?


1st and foremost: make it bug-free or as nearly bug-free as to be wholly bearable. Stamping out many major loopholes/cheats in the process, of course. That would in itself be a significant difference. Twisted Evil

Then you could go to better automation/AI, perhaps more players/bigger universes, novel Victory Conditions, and even a completely revamped BattleBoard (or at least one where ships didn't make so many stupid random moves) Very Happy



So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Fri, 26 January 2007 16:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Whew! That's quite a list!

Some of the features mentioned are already built into Nova. For example, there are no numeric limits on anything and there is no battle grid (no squares to move between, distance is spacial). The number of players, fleets, etc., are unlimited (well, only by the amount of memory in a player's PC) plus some other odds-and-ends.

I'd like to get the core functionality working first (I've just added planet bombing), then I'll think about adding new stuff.

However, as it says on my web site, this is just a learning hobby for me. I don't expect anyone to ever play Nova.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Fri, 26 January 2007 16:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
It's now bug-free enough to be bearable. The main paths through the code work pretty well, the bits that are untested are the exception conditions when someone does something stupid Smile

There is no battle board, battles are fought "in space". I don't know if the moves are "stupid" yet because, although I've implemented (mostly) the battle engine I haven't done anything in the way of visualising how the battle went.

As I only play with this project on the train to-and-from work (often totally baffling the person sitting next to me as I type in code with words like "laser", "bomb", "shield" Smile ) it will probably be quite some time before I get around to doing that.

But, hey! This is just a hobby for me.

If someone wants to pick it up and turn it into a real project the code is there.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Fri, 26 January 2007 23:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
Quote:

there are no numeric limits on anything


That's definitely a relief--primarily an MM relief.

I personally like the idea of doing away with the squares. I know some players would probably want to keep it for the old-time feel, but I'd rather see increased realism in general.

Quote:

I don't expect anyone to ever play Nova.


Why not? The Stars! community has waited for years for SOME sort of sequel to the terrific game. If your game does everything the original did, and more, honestly, why should they not play it?

But on that line, I have one other suggestion that has come to me since my first post. Reducing the MM is best for the player's point of view. But, I think it's probably more important on the programming end to make everything modular. I've done a tiny bit of programming in Basic (not Visual Basic) and with Game Maker, as well as working on an Age of Empires II scenario, so I don't know much about programming, but from what I do understand, the Jeffs, while they made a great game, kind of botched it with Supernova because they hardwired the game so that the code couldn't function without Empire Interactive's original artwork. Empire abandoned the game and took the artwork with them, and the Jeffs were left with control of the code but would need to do a whole rewrite to really make it decent.

Anyway, back to what I was saying: make sure everything is modular. I said that some old-timers probably like the battle grid, while I and many others don't. Why not both? Specifically, how about allowing the player to decide what they want. In the top of the game window have a drop down menu for "Version." Then you can support a few different versions of the game. Have the first one be "Classic," and selecting it would make the game function exactly like the original. Then have another option for "Nova." But make sure it's a modular feature, so that more versions could be created. Basically, I'd suggest making everything modular. Don't hardwire anything that's not necessary. It will just make more work for when anyone wants to do something else with it . . .

At some point I'll probably download Nova. For now I'm much more interested in playing a game though. I did take a look at your site a couple weeks ago, along with the other Freestars clients . . . yours looked prettier, though that may have just been because you posted pictures Wink

Quote:

I don't know if the moves are "stupid" yet because, although I've implemented (mostly) the battle engine I haven't done anything in the way of visualising how the battle went.


I was just thinking about that yesterday or Wednesday. Stars! allows you to select battle orders before sending in your turns. This is good--you're able to do different things with different combinations of ships, etc. I've read about it, and apparently it's rather complicated though. But another game, Space Empires III, had a battle system that IMO was fantastic, since the player could control every single ship while they're fighting. This meant I could win almost every battle with few or no losses, even against an exceedingly larger and more technologically advanced force.

But the problem is that in a multiplayer game, all players going into a battle would need to be available to post orders. And people aren't often always online at once. So, I'd recommend a battle system where you're able to assign tons of battle arguments. Stuff like chaff wouldn't matter anymore, because, for instance, you could tell all your warships that they first shoot the ships with the most armor. That's a basic explanation of the idea, but basically it would allow the player greater control in battle.

I might like to do some programming for Nova, or at least "brute force" kind of stuff, like going through lines of code and changing numbers. How long did it take you to program the game though?

I'm looking at your site right now, and you said you made it with C#. How long might it take one to learn to program with that from almost no programming skill? And again, how long would it then take to implement various features.

Anyway, I have ton more ideas. If you're in need of any, I'd be more than willing to share Wink

And lastly, I'd recommend that you put a brief description of the game in your SAH signature (kind of like the one I have). It might help a little in making people aware of Nova. You could also link to your website using the WWW feature . . .



Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 01:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Coyote is currently offline Coyote

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 906
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pacific NW

If you're looking for ideas, there's plenty of them - and I mean plenty, scattered in the FreeStars subforum here.

Some I'd like to see are...

Optionalization of AR, selected in the econ screen, instead of having it available as a PRT.

Removal or alteration of Claim Adjuster instaforming ability, or combination with a thematic negative trait to limit its power.

Toys for Packet Physics, such as a ship-mountable mass driver that fits onto bomb slots, consuming minerals in the cargo hold to inflict massive point blank packet damage. Or, some sort of special hull that allows firing of mass packets from fleets to strike from a distance, again using minerals in the cargo space.

Balancing conventional torpedoes as a viable weapon option. As it stands they will need longer range than capital ship missiles to be effective, or else the combination of sappers and cap missiles is simply too powerful to compete against without changing the price/power of torpedoes drastically enough to introduce new balance problems.

Re-introduction of the area effect weapons seen in older versions of Stars!, again paying attention to balance issues.

A new weapon group (ballistics?) that ignores shields and deals damage to armor directly, thus creating an excuse to use ship-mounted armor and reducing the ubiquitousness of Regen Shields.

Make ramscoops less agile in combat than conventional engines. Reduce fuel capacities of warship hulls. This will make support ships more important.

Nerfing the rapid technological increase in weapon power/research cost compared to increase in defensive items power/research cost. Eg. perhaps jammers should be a little more powerful than computers of equivalent tech level, since the computers also grant an initiative bonus. Perhaps armors should be more cost-effective.

Add some more incentive to research Biotechnology.

Possible: mix-and-match trait selection instead of PRT/LRT model. Would require careful balancing but could allow far greater variety of available races, and less predictability of what an opponent is capable of. This could be very difficult to balance effectively, as different traits will have different synergetic interactions with each other.

Iconian wrote on Fri, 26 January 2007 20:41


But the problem is that in a multiplayer game, all players going into a battle would need to be available to post orders. And people aren't often always online at once.



Not to mention the difficulty of controlling hundreds of individual ships....


[Updated on: Sat, 27 January 2007 01:26]

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 06:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Quote:

Quote:

> I don't expect anyone to ever play Nova.

Why not? The Stars! community has waited for years for SOME sort of sequel to the terrific game. If your game does everything the original did, and more, honestly, why should they not play it?


Nova will probably never do everything that Stars! does (at least not with just me spending less than an hour a day on it). So, if you want to play Stars!, the original game is the better option. However, that's why I've started thinking about how Nova might be different to Stars! so that it's a different game to play (but still based on the same core ideas).

Quote:

But, I think it's probably more important on the programming end to make everything modular.


It depends on what you mean by modular. I've no intention of implementing "plug-ins" but the code itself is modular (e.g. The battle engine is all in one file, the bombing code is in another, etc.). So, to change, for example, the battle engine there is just one file to swap.

Quote:

I said that some old-timers probably like the battle grid, while I and many others don't. Why not both?


Easily done. It just requires an "if" statement:
if battle-type 1 selected then
   call engine1
else if battle-type 2 selected then
   call engine2

...

However, I've no intention of writing the grid-type engine. I'll leave that to someone who wants it. Smile

Quote:

How long did it take you to program the game though?


Difficult to say. If you ignore the time I spent trying out a few ideas in C++ first, probably about 150 to 200 man-hours. However, they were spread out over more than a year as I only work on Nova in little bursts.

Quote:

you made it with C#. How long might it take one to learn to program with that from almost no programming skill?


Well, C# is a pretty easy language to learn. You can probably learn enough to write useful code in just a few days as long as you understand basic concepts such as "if" statements, loops, etc. Learning to program properly is much harder. In fact, one of the bits I find fun with this little hobby of mine is writing some code, ending up thinking "that's rubbish" and re-writing it (the posh word is "refactoring").

Quote:

And again, how long would it then take to implement various features.


It depends on the feature. For example, adding in planet bombing took me about 2 hours, the battle engine took about 8. None of those times include testing, that's just getting the code written to the point that it compiles without error.

So far I've just done informal play testing (I'm playing a game against myself ... and I'm winning by the way Smile ). As another learning exercise I want to play with Nunit so I plan on writing some proper unit tests soon. However, I'm still in the "bulk" typing-in stage at the moment. Planet invasion is next on my list of things to implement.


Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 06:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Quote:

If you're looking for ideas, there's plenty of them - and I mean plenty, scattered in the FreeStars subforum here.

Indeed, certainly more than I can handle. I'll look through the ideas mentioned in this thread first and see what's easy to implement.

I wonder if I should let control of the code go and turn it into a SourceForge project so that other people can work on it?
Question


[Updated on: Sat, 27 January 2007 06:27]

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 10:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
Well, here's the main thing I'm wondering about.

Supernova was abandoned in, what, 2000ish? What has the Stars! community been doing since? According to gible's Stars! Wiki there are five clone projects. Why doesn't everyone just collaborate on a single project to get it done faster and with lots of yummy features implemented? I assume I'm missing a bit of history here, perhaps something buried in the very Freestars forum, but nevertheless . . .

If you're trying to conquer an enemy, divide and conquer is often a good approach. You split up their forces and disorganize them, forcing them to view their own little front as the only front, instead of taking a wider approach to what's going on. I don't know that's there specifically any malevolent force at work trying to divide and conquer the Freestars projects, but the effect seems to be the same. We have five different projects all at different stages of development. Why don't the writers just band together and create one project? I'm guessing there are probably design differences involved. So put aside the differences and come to sort of compromise, to get some degree of organization. It's like founding an alliance, and that often requires compromise . . .

I've course, I might be off entirely, but in my view something should certainly change. If there were a Stars! clone that does everything Stars! did and more, wouldn't people want to play it instead?

And now I have to go to work.



Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 12:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Quote:

According to gible's Stars! Wiki there are five clone projects. Why doesn't everyone just collaborate on a single project to get it done faster and with lots of yummy features implemented?


The answer is probably historical. I didn't set out to create a Stars! clone, my aim was to learn C# and .Net and things just got a bit out of hand Smile

There is some collaboration going on and Craig (Craigstars) and I exchange e-mails (his battle engine is based on the Nova one). However, we are both playing with different ideas: Craigstars uses DirectX, Nova uses GDI+ (just one example, there are many more).

Nova is still just a learning test-bed for me, if a Stars! clone pops out as a result, that's a bonus, which is why I made the earlier comment about not expecting anyone to ever play it (although it is actually playable now).

Perhaps I should start a separate thread about turning it into a SourceForge project to see if we can get a team together and turn it into a "real" project?


[Updated on: Sat, 27 January 2007 12:16]

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 12:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Neo the White is currently offline Neo the White

 
Master Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 96
Registered: December 2006
that would be nice.
clonemakers united

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 16:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
sirgwain is currently offline sirgwain

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 86
Registered: March 2004
Location: Tucson
Quote:

According to gible's Stars! Wiki there are five clone projects. Why doesn't everyone just collaborate on a single project to get it done faster and with lots of yummy features implemented?


I can't speak for the other 5 clones, but I started my own Stars! clone as a personal side project. I thought about helping with the official FreeStars, but I don't have any interest in working in C++ (I've done my time. Razz ). I also thought about writing a C# client for FreeStars, but I would have to rewrite all the objects used in the game anyway for the client (you can't share classes between ANSI C++ and C#), so at that point, why not write the whole game?

I started CraigStars! because I love the original game and I'm a client/server/database application programmer by day so it was a good fit for my skill set. Plus, I'm a good engineer, but I'm not very creative. The nice thing about Stars! is the rules are already written. Like Ken, CraigStars! is a fun side project for me and I only entertained the barest hope that it would someday be complete and playable. Smile

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 16:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
sirgwain is currently offline sirgwain

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 86
Registered: March 2004
Location: Tucson
Quote:

So, the subject line says it all. Bearing in mind that it is "cast in the mold" of Stars! how should it diverge?


With my version of Stars! I had a couple of goals that I wanted to implement from the beginning:

  • Make it easier to host games over an internet connection. No more emailing files back and forth.
  • Improve the UI to be more up to date with cool new windows technology.
  • Make the code easily readable and easily modifiable so that other devs could pick up the finished product and MOD it.
  • Create an API for the game so that other C#/VB/.Net developers could write AI's or turn processors that could 'plug in' to the game and aid with micromanagement.

As for cool new features, I thought it would be cool to build ships in a queue to the same fleet over the course of many years. That way you could construct a bombing fleet with multiple ship types, and when every ship in the fleet was done you would be alerted and could give them orders.

Allowing players to view friendly map information would be sweet too. The whole diplomacy engine would be nice to redo and expand upon.

I like the original Stars! quite a bit the way it is. I wouldn't really change it so much as make it easier to use and take less micromanagement. But then again, as I've said before, I'm not very creative. Smile

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sat, 27 January 2007 22:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
I was going to hijack your thread, but instead I made a new one.

Ken, I understand what you're saying. Learning C# (I assume you say that "see sharp?") was your #1 objective, and you figured you may as well do so with Stars! Now, objective accomplished. You know how to program in #C (I assume). Where are you going from here? In this thread you're asking for anyone's recommendations on improvements to Nova. Yours seems to be the most advanced of the Stars! clones, though I might be wrong. I think that Stars! needs a greater level of organization. The programmers working on their individual projects should join together. Instead of having a bunch of little projects half-finished, why don't the coders work on one single project and get it done?




Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sun, 28 January 2007 04:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Quote:

I was going to hijack your thread, but instead I made a new one.

A good idea, I was going to do the same thing myself (see my earlier comments about turning Nova into a SourceForge project). I'll consider this thread "closed" and switch to your new one.
Quote:


Ken, I understand what you're saying. Learning C# (I assume you say that "see sharp?") was your #1 objective, and you figured you may as well do so with Stars! Now, objective accomplished. You know how to program in #C (I assume).


Yes, objective accomplished, although I still have a bit to learn about .Net version 2.0 (and version 3.0 is on the way).
Quote:


Where are you going from here?


Well, next on my list of things to learn is Microsoft SQL server and I was just going to shut down Nova development. However, I kind of got caught up in Nova and got this strange urge to finish it properly. Like many people, I'm very fond of Stars! and would love to see publicly available code that can be modified and keep the game moving forward.
Quote:


Yours seems to be the most advanced of the Stars! clones


A kind comment, thank-you. CraigStars has some good ideas and I have his code which (time permitting) I'm starting to take a look at. Hopefully, we might be able to merge some features from our two projects.
Quote:


The programmers working on their individual projects should join together.


The main point is that some of us did not set out to create a Stars! clone. We wanted to learn things and just happened to pick implementing Stars! features as a good way of doing that (as we all happen to be very fond of Stars!). The "official" Stars! clone has always been FreeStars but, just to express a personal opinion, I don't think FreeStars will ever produce anything. People just seem to have lost interest in that particular project.
Quote:


Instead of having a bunch of little projects half-finished, why don't the coders work on one single project and get it done?


Well, a quick comment before I switch to your new thread. As I said, none of us started out thinking "I'll make a Stars! clone". We were just playing and trying out ideas. Perhaps it's time for that to change and we should get together and turn this into a "real" project.

However, I did start a separate thread a while ago asking for testers for Nova. I got two replies. So, it would seem that (apart from one or two people) no one is really interested. My Nova web page has had 100 "hits" since I set it up - not a vast amount. As far as I can tell, only 2 people have actually downloaded the code to have a look at the programs.

So, I'll switch to your new thread but, for the time being, my intent is still to use Nova as a test-bed for trying out coding patterns for my personal education.


[Updated on: Sun, 28 January 2007 05:20]

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sun, 28 January 2007 16:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
Quote:

However, I did start a separate thread a while ago asking for testers for Nova. I got two replies. So, it would seem that (apart from one or two people) no one is really interested.


You might be right. Perhaps people are tired of the idea of another Stars! and the one we have adequate enough. That might be possible, but I've always noticed that a lot of it's in the presentation. Try being a little more vocal about something, and you might get a better response.

With my Hardheads game I didn't get as many people signing up as I had hoped. Of course, I kind of half-expected this--people are busy, other games are going and starting up, and all sorts of other things. I remembered New Game For All from last year and emailed the players for that. Now two of them have signed up and a third has mailed me saying he may also sign on. Sometimes it's just a matter of spreading out the information properly . . . Use that to your advantage Wink



Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sun, 28 January 2007 17:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Quote:

With my Hardheads game I didn't get as many people signing up as I had hoped

I decided to join the game but couldn't find simple and clear intructions on how to do so!

Perhaps it's because I have a stinking cold at the momement but an "Idiots Guide" to joining the game would help. Especially for people like me who's head seems to be just bunged up at the moment while I fight off this virus. It will be gone in a day or two but, until then, simple step-by-step instructions will help me through the mental fog that this virus has induced.

Regards

Ken

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Sun, 28 January 2007 17:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
Quote:

I decided to join the game but couldn't find simple and clear intructions on how to do so!


Errr . . . he he he . . . oops Embarassed

I should have created a "Hardheads" Tutorial. I knew there was something I was forgetting . . .

Well, hopefully it's not too late.

Hardheads Joining Tutorial Very Happy
1. Reply to the thread saying you want to play.
2. Tell everyone your current rank according to the Ranking Forum (or you can PM me if you'd rather others not know your rank). If you don't have a rank yet, you can arbitrarily decide to be either Beginner or Lower Intermediate.
3. Create a race design and send it in to Micha by Monday (tomorrow). You can have any combination of PRT and LRT's. Cheats are banned though, except split fleet dodge, chaff, and ISB trumps gate scanning.
4. Ummm . . . I don't think there is a fourth step. There was going to be some stuff with the Xtreme Borders movie, but Micha will take care of it.

Anyway, we still have a few slots left if you'd like to join Wink (game starts Tuesday)


[Updated on: Sun, 28 January 2007 17:50]




Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Mon, 29 January 2007 05:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Coyote is currently offline Coyote

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 906
Registered: November 2002
Location: Pacific NW

Ability to queue research for multiple turns - say, if you want to grab three levels of Construction, then five of Weapons, one of Biotech, then more Construction... it'd be handy for multi-turn gen games as well as if you skip a turn.

Some way to ease the MM of population and mineral balancing. Supernova was supposedly going to include some sort of algorithm where colonists migrated on their own without the need for transport ships, and minerals could be bought and sold or transferred between worlds by "guild traders". I don't know if that would be too drastic a step.

Report message to a moderator

icon9.gif  Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Mon, 29 January 2007 06:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ken-reed is currently offline ken-reed

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 92
Registered: December 2006
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Quote:

Well, hopefully it's not too late.

Seems it was. Sad The game has been generated.

Next time!

Ken

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Mon, 29 January 2007 08:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
Commander

Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left
Coyote wrote on Mon, 29 January 2007 11:40

Ability to queue research for multiple turns - say, if you want to grab three levels of Construction, then five of Weapons, one of Biotech, then more Construction... it'd be handy for multi-turn gen games as well as if you skip a turn.



I think perhaps something like "Next Research: Const lvl 11" instead of just "Const", meaning you want to reach that lvl (by whatever means, be it straight research, scrap, battle, GR, SS bonus) before switching to something else... Whip Twisted Evil

Thus, a list like:

Deal Next tech goal: Const lvl 11
Deal Next tech goal: Weap lvl 16
Deal Next tech goal: Ener lvl 13

would give the player a great amount of control, even if (s)he didn't know how/when those (and their previous) levels will be attained. Sherlock It would not be substantially different from the Planetary Q "paradigm", and could even survive such "catastrophes" as meeting with a science-MT, or grabbing random tech from battles, or missing a level by just a dozen resources... Very Happy



So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Mon, 29 January 2007 13:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
Quote:

Quote:

Well, hopefully it's not too late.



Seems it was. The game has been generated.

Next time!

Ken


No! The game hasn't been generated yet, because I haven't generated it. Maybe you're thinking about Fledgling Admirals, which did just get generated.


I've added you onto the player list, so now you just need to get your .r file in to Micha. I also updated the Hardheads thread.



Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Mon, 29 January 2007 14:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
sirgwain is currently offline sirgwain

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 86
Registered: March 2004
Location: Tucson
Quote:


Thus, a list like:
Next tech goal: Const lvl 11
Next tech goal: Weap lvl 16
Next tech goal: Ener lvl 13



This is an excellent idea. I've seen you (or perhaps someone else) mention it a few times in this forum. The biggest problem with Stars! right now is the micromanagment. To some people this is what makes it so great, but to a beginner it's too much to handle right in the beginning.

I'm going to put a text file of feature ideas in my project so I won't forget stuff like this. On that note, has anyone ever compiled a list of requested features into a nice readable format? There are a bunch of posts on this forum about it, but those are hard to browse through.

Report message to a moderator

Re: Nova - How should it be different to Stars! Mon, 29 January 2007 16:11 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Iconian is currently offline Iconian

 
Officer Cadet 2nd Year

Messages: 233
Registered: January 2006
Location: Nevada, USA
I think a combined research and production queue would be nice. It would also be nice if you could tell the game exactly how many resources you want to devote to different things every turn. This could help, for instance, when you're being invaded, bombed, or packeted.

Let's say you have 5000 resources to go to a tech level you want, which you want to make sure you get next year. The way it is right now, you might go through ten different planets and pull various things out of the q's, like some ships, mines, factories, or terraforming. Then you check the research screen, and it tells you you'll put 5000 resources into research next year, so you'll achieve that tech level by then. The problem is, what happens if you get hit by a packet before the research gets done, or something along that line? Now only 4500 resources go to the research, which means it doesn't get done and you don't get the tech until next year.

The way I usually handle this is to make sure I have a "buffer zone" by freeing up maybe 5,500 resources, instead of 5,000, but that can be somewhat painful waste. It would just be easier to tell the game "Put enough resources into this field to make sure we get it done next year, regardless of what happens." Other orders could be included too: "Make sure we get this tech next year, but whatever you do, DON'T pull the resources from this plaent." Basically, it would give you the ability to prioritize and direct what you're doing with your resources.



Yeah, bread too.

Don't Let the Stars! Fade Away

Report message to a moderator

Next Topic: Nova
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Thu Mar 28 19:28:06 EDT 2024