Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » FreeStars » New Ideas
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| Re: New Ideas |
Mon, 18 August 2003 11:49   |
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 LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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First let me note that this is mainly answered in the FAQ: The primary goal is to match Stars! with some bug fixes, not to make big changes.
| gible wrote on Mon, 18 August 2003 06:39 |
Scanners: Have an option to make your scan data available to your allies. Or rather to selected other players. At (at least 4 levels) All scanner data, a "Group"s data , a single fleet's data, & a single ship/planet's data.
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This should be possible by giving them a chunk of your .m file, it will depend on the client to export and import these chunks, but it shouldn't be too hard. However, using that info to target a fleet will require changes in the host, and won't be done initially. And maybe not ever, having a seperation between allies is a good thing IMO.
| gible wrote on Mon, 18 August 2003 06:39 |
Groups:
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Most of this should be able to be done by a client program. Execpt if the main target is some one else's fleet. Adding it to the host is a reasonable addition for much later.
| gible wrote on Mon, 18 August 2003 06:39 |
Combat scripts. 1/4 (or 6) type X ships goes after Bob's frighters, while avoiding the main combat. others to defend Jim's frighters. others to engage at will. frighters & bombers to flee.
Contigency orders for split fleet or suprize attack eg if outnumbered more than 2:1 flee.
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This is a balance issue (no more chaff) and therefore is something I'd be very hesitant to mess with. Although scripting battles is something I'd probably enjoy (being a programmer, I know I could do a decent job of it...)
| gible wrote on Mon, 18 August 2003 06:39 |
Allow your ally's to "borrow" ships,fleets/groups as well as transfer them. They could give them orders and would be able to take advantage of their cloaking etc as long as you didn't give them other orders.
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I intend to allow you to set repeat orders on fleets set to follow another fleet. This way you can effectivly 'lend' a fleet to an ally, have it follow one of theirs.
| gible wrote on Mon, 18 August 2003 06:39 |
Ability to trade tech directly. Perhaps at (eg)10% cost.
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I really like the current tech trading setup, there are lots of opportunities to mess with it, and because it's random, make it harder to detect. I also like it because it's has some cost.
| gible wrote on Mon, 18 August 2003 06:39 |
option of 3 dimensional space. (could provide some really cool interfaces - anyone have VR goggles? )
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No. While some one else may add this later, I won't, and will also argue very hard that it shouldn't be done. The UI alone will be very hard, as well as making the game much more complex. One of the good things about Stars! is that it is fairly simple.
- LEitReport message to a moderator
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| Re: New Ideas |
Tue, 19 August 2003 00:29 |
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| Orca |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 1 |
Messages: 148
Registered: June 2003
Location: Orbiting tower at the L5 ... | |
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Current displays/UIs can't easily handle true 3d. Even Homeworld's interface, while a decent enough stab at it, isn't sufficient to make it as simple to manuever in three dimensions as in two. Perhaps when walk-through holograms and 3 dimensional manipulation of them is affordable it'll be practical. But for the vast majority of cases (strategy-wise anyway), three dimensions is much more of a hindrance than a help for gameplay and fun.
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| Re: New Ideas |
Tue, 19 August 2003 07:34 |
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| Orca wrote on Tue, 19 August 2003 00:29 |
Current displays/UIs can't easily handle true 3d. Even Homeworld's interface, while a decent enough stab at it, isn't sufficient to make it as simple to manuever in three dimensions as in two. Perhaps when walk-through holograms and 3 dimensional manipulation of them is affordable it'll be practical. But for the vast majority of cases (strategy-wise anyway), three dimensions is much more of a hindrance than a help for gameplay and fun.
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I concur with Orca that it boils down to gameplay.
In terms of strict strategy and logistics the important factor is how far Point A is from Point B (and Point C etc, etc, etc.) since this generally[1] controls potential depth of defense (how thick your minefields can be) and time to target (how quickly can someone/something get there.)
You could, for a 2D or 3D galaxy, simply produce a cross-table listing the direct line distances between any two points. However, properly visualizing the relationships is quite important to strategy (i.e. what is the proper non-stellar location from which I can potentially threaten multiple points at once - and how quickly can I maneuver to that point.)
This sort of information is processed better using visual mediums. A 2D plot handles well on most current displays, and travel radii are circles that are fairly easily to plot and assimilate in order to make decisions. An efficient 3D plot requires a different sort of display[2] and would be sphere based to plot travel radii.
However, the major factor is still analysis of the distance relationships between points. Does adding the additional layer of complexity really add that much to gameplay beyond a "coolness" factor that rapidly fades?
[1] With stargates some bets are off
[2] Note in space MilSF the space battle tactical displays are often described as "tanks" (like in fish tanks) implying a fairly complex 3D hologram display is in use to display complex 3D relational information. Previous to 1940 or so there also wasn't much need for plotting beyond 2D in the military. Air power and submarines introduced a few areas where the 'z' axis was of notable import and worth displaying at a central control level.
- Kurt
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Fruit flies like a banana.
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| Re: New Ideas |
Mon, 25 August 2003 01:30 |
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My suggestions would be:
(1) Ability to target individual enemy ship designs via battle orders.
(2) Larger battleboard (20x20?) and higher possible movement speeds.
(3) Shield slot on DD instead of armor slot, switch tech levels with FF.
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| Re: New Ideas |
Mon, 25 August 2003 12:44 |
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| LEit |
| Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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| Coyote wrote on Mon, 25 August 2003 01:30 |
(1) Ability to target individual enemy ship designs via battle orders.
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Big balance issue, it might be possible to change later, but it won't be in the first version.
| Coyote wrote on Mon, 25 August 2003 01:30 |
(2) Larger battleboard (20x20?) and higher possible movement speeds.
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Again, it might be possible to change later, but not initially.
| Coyote wrote on Mon, 25 August 2003 01:30 |
(3) Shield slot on DD instead of armor slot, switch tech levels with FF.
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All the tech components are in an xml data file (xml is basicly formatted ascii). So changing any of them should be pretty easy, it will not require code changes, as long as the changes match some combination of existing abilities.
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| Re: New Ideas |
Sat, 20 September 2003 11:53 |
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| LEit wrote on Sat, 20 September 2003 10:37 |
| Micha wrote on Sat, 20 September 2003 06:55 |
a wrap-around universe would be nice.
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Initially I won't be doing this, it might be a possible option added later. The math will get somewhat complex especially for scanners and such. In the code I'm pretty sure the distance between two points is calculated in only a few places, so changing it should be possible.
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Ah yes, positional wrap code. Leit, I have a sample of this in the EPS spreadsheet. So if there aren't a lot of position checks in the code we could probably arrange to set a couple of inactive "stubs" to facilitate adding a "wrap edges" option with the second version (when we start adding things).
The map display differences are pretty much client side. That will have to be addressed by whomever is coding that, and I'm not sure they're posting here.
- Kurt
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| Re: New Ideas |
Sat, 20 September 2003 16:10 |
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| LEit |
| Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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From the FAQ:
| LEit wrote on Thu, 12 June 2003 11:54 |
The .x and .m files will be initially open format (probably ASCII text, maybe XML), they will have to be encrypted at some point.
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We do not know the existing file format, so we cannot make FreeStars compatible with Stars! And even if we did, I would still rather have xml files.
Also there will be several things that won't quite be the same, like the battle board, MT odds, initial galaxy creation odds, and other things that are not clear exactly how they're done in Stars!
(The FAQ is a bit out of date, the files are in XML format - which is readable as ascii)
The first goal is to make something that is very similar to Stars! Big changes can come later.
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| Re: New Ideas |
Thu, 06 November 2003 09:23 |
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| marvo wrote on Thu, 06 November 2003 05:58 |
Hi,
My idea concerns minelayers, it occurs to me that managing large numbers is very time consuming so could not preprogrammed laying patterns be available.
One could be a six point pattern around a ref point with an auto matic move every other year or two. Another could be a straight line between two points with a number of specified laying points or an arc about a ref point again with an auto move component.
The possibilities are endless.
Another way this could be done which may be better as it would be more individual to each player and thus secret would be to be able to specify a wait for no of turns at x point to lay mines before the minelayer executes the next preprogrammed waypoint order.
This I feel would greatly reduce MM of this type of ship.
I do not know whether this has been suggested before.
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This sounds like something that could be handled on the client side - some sort of pre-set or defineable "custom order" that translates in a set of waypoint commands.
I do recall a "wish list" IRC discussion where I waxed philosophically about allowing non-circular minefield patterns as well. Though that essentially would require a new model on how to handle minefields (and sweeping) in general.
- Kurt
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or of not having mentioned them before now that I think about it.)
Re: New Ideas
Makes the game more fair.
. then we can talk about adding on other crap later. ok.
