| Just a Clone? |
Sun, 21 October 2007 11:04  |
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As my son and I create a Stars! like game many parts
of the game will be preserved.
However serveral things need to be changed
Population and Production
growth of population immediately effects production in Stars!
All I can see is toddlers in diapers building spaceships
and little ol ladies with canes and walkers harvesting minerals
Ships production - Spaceports
With no space program a race builds a spacestation
er? launching a spacestation is WRONG
True manufacture in space is more efficient
BUT no limit to resources(minerals/metals)???
Its like saying a woman bakes 10,000 loaves of bread
in one day using a home oven
Logistics don't exist
Races can't aquire new abilities???
anyone who watched the Japanese take the US electronics
market should know things can always change
Don't change too much???
True the game Stars! can be fun and each race has it place
in a multiplayer game.
However after a few years of games it gets old.
The game becomes usage of 19% pop races and the warfare is
predestined to the chaff stacks.
Basically the game needs
More Planetary micro management
Research and Resources(physical)enhanced by development
Planetary population growth effected by not only
temp grav rad but also by H2O and Atmos
actually Radiation falls into two categories
Healthy radiation ie: infra red and visible
and Lethal ie:microwave and ultraviolet (gamma etc)
Better design for moving Population
Ships designed to carry 100kt of ore are not suited
for moving people
people are not measured by the Kt and don't stack well
Ships production should reduce planet population
unless we are using dogs cats and monkeys to fly them
there are many items of design that could be improved
in the process of creating a full Stars! like clone
I hope in the coming months to be able to show the Stars!
community the beta.
Oh the game wont be turn based but allies will be able to
control your fleets and planets if you allow it in your away time
will have a much more expanded solar system per star
All races will be created from a single template allowing
for more diversity
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| Re: Just a Clone? |
Sun, 21 October 2007 15:13  |
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 yartrebo |
 | Petty Officer 3rd Class |
Messages: 43
Registered: July 2006
Location: North America | |
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| Quote: |
Ships production - Spaceports
With no space program a race builds a spacestation
er? launching a spacestation is WRONG
True manufacture in space is more efficient
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Space stations are easier to make than ships which much withstand the rigors of warp travel and years in isolation from any resupply depots. A crude space station can be made with 20th century technology. An interstellar ship cannot.
| Quote: |
BUT no limit to resources(minerals/metals)???
Its like saying a woman bakes 10,000 loaves of bread
in one day using a home oven
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It's like 1,000 workers baking 10,000 loaves of bread/day in their home ovens. Or you could build factories and use fewer workers.
Resources (labor) and minerals are both very limited. Resources are limited by population and minerals by depletion. Mineral depletion roughly follows a Hubbert curve, with extraction rising early as more mines come online and dropping as depletion overcomes the benefits of any extra mines.
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Logistics don't exist
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Mineral and pop management involves quite a bit of logistics.
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The game becomes usage of 19% pop races and the warfare is
predestined to the chaff stacks.
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This is a balance issue. I do agree that PGR should be made more expensive in the higher levels (15-20%). I'm not so sure about chaff. It seems like a pretty nice addition and allows for a rock(chaff), paper(beamer), and scissors(missile) setup.
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Research and Resources(physical)enhanced by development
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This is reflected in miniaturization and better cost effectiveness of higher tech parts. There are games which make production scale up rapidly with tech, such as in Masters of Orion III, but in that game advanced tech is also much more expensive. So long as getting higher tech is encouraged, be it because you get more resources or can use existing resources more effectively, the details don't really matter.
[/QUOTE]Better design for moving Population
Ships designed to carry 100kt of ore are not suited
for moving people
people are not measured by the Kt and don't stack well[/QUOTE]
Interior design is cheap. Just like passenger and cargo airplanes are interchangeable (with a little interior work), a freighter can be used to ferry people with a few precautions. 10T (.01kT) (10,000 kg) per person is plenty enough for life support and basic entertainment for that person. Don't forget that a large freighter dwarfs even the largest supertankers in existence today on a pound for pound basis (with the volume comparison being even more lopsided since spacecraft are presumably very light).
| Quote: |
Ships production should reduce planet population
unless we are using dogs cats and monkeys to fly them
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A freighter operated using modern technology (no less futuristic technology) is operated with less than a dozen people. A well automated warship could also be crewed with very few people. It just makes life easier to assume that they don't require any crew.
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Oh the game wont be turn based but allies will be able to
control your fleets and planets if you allow it in your away time
will have a much more expanded solar system per star
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Why call it a stars! clone. With all the changes you propose, it will bare little resemblance to stars! and you might as well call it something new to avoid confusion.
PS: Your proposal sounds very ambitious. Maybe it would make better sense to plan a more modest project that might actually get finished. So far not a single on the dozen or so stars! clones have been completed, and cloning a moderately complex game like stars! is a lot easier than designing a very complex new game.
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| Re: Just a Clone? |
Sun, 21 October 2007 17:11 |
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I just love FLAMERS!
For me it isn't ambitious
My last project was recompile a 3D engine
I made the ver 1.4 Garage Games RTS build
from purchase of both the 1.4 and the 1.3 RTS
it took 19 days
the community of over 5000 C++ programmers
had been trying for over 18 months
I have been working on several different things
in between Cancer treatments since then
BTW as much as I loved Stars! and hosting and map modding
I wouldn't take the time and effort to try to reproduce it
exactely as it is
Even Empire felt it could be better and started, on release
of 2.7, with a new project called SuperNova.
One of the things that players didn't like, at least the younger ones,was the slow start to the combat.
However, in a real time game this is needed to permit
the formation of allies and strategy.
My comments about the spacestation, perhaps technology in
space capability? a few ROCKETS? and from here a true tech tree
rockets branching into planetary defenses and space exploration
Something to do while waiting for planet population to grow.
One of the things that Stars! didn't consider was the solar system itself had both additional resources and possible habitats to be found thru exploration.
There was no cost to deliver resources for ships production
into space which should increase with gravity, for example.
Altho the game design is very nice, and I still enjoy it,
a true multiplayer real time version needs more options
to allow for diversity.
[Updated on: Sun, 21 October 2007 17:14] Report message to a moderator
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