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Re: What might be fixed in a "new" clone game? Mon, 28 July 2008 12:06 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
LEit is currently offline LEit

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT
 I'll answer for what I've done/am planning on doing for FreeStars, the rules.xml file for Freestars has lots of room to modify how the game works, so most of this is done alreay (and a lot more). Also a lot of this is game balance issues, and I love how well balanced Stars! is, and am very hesitant to change that execpt in some obvious cases (CAs and JOATs mainly)
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Implement a simple scripting language or something to give players more control over their ships' targeting algorithms. This would make chaff much less effective though.

I've thought about this, but as you say, it would reduce the effect of chaff, so I've ruled it out for now.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Write a decent AI.

In my opinion (and from a Freestars server point of view), the AI is just another player, and it's client would process the orders. I'm not planning on writing an AI for Freestars, but if some one wants to do it and have it run after the server has processed the turn it should be possible to package them together. Also, writing a decent AI is very hard.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Add more controls for universe generation, such as algorithms for generating galaxies in certain shapes.

In Freestars the .hst file can be generated by some other program, and since the generation code is Free, anyone could write a different shape generator. Also, it can take a partial galaxy as input and fill in the missing details, so you could give it a (properly formatted) list of worlds with just names and positions. There are settings for how random some things are, so you could make a low-iron game pretty easily, but not have to specify the exact value everywhere.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Revamp the tech "tree" (well its not really a tree) to encourage researching fields other than Weap and Con to a high level. Also, make components require more techs; as in, beam weapons would require En tech as well as Weap; Missiles would require more Prop than the currently do, etc....

All components can be modified, as can tech costs and max tech level.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Electronics could allow better automatic data correlation features.

What's "automatic data correlation" mean?
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Biotech could allow bioweapons/plagues.

Easy enough if you want to just add a new bomb that kills pop and/or harms enviornment, not planned if you want a plague that lasts after the bombers are gone.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Nerf cloaking. Either give everyone a less-powerful version of the Tachyon Detector or cap it at 90% or so; 98% cloaking is just broken.

Giving everyone a TD is easy. I don't think the cloak cap is in the rules file, but it would be easy to add.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Make a small utility that merges .p files for teams/allies and alters a players history file/whatever holds the planet info in-game accordingly.

That's up to the client, but it's one of the reasons I've wanted to do Freestars.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Rebalence PRT costs and LRT costs based on PRTs (as in, NAS should cost points for JoaT, etc...)

Possible, I won't do it in the default rules.xml, but the ability to do it is there.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Rebalence the LRTs; UR could cost less, MA could be more effective and cost less, as well as allowing alchemy for a specific mineral, BET could allow a TL 27 to cheapen TL 26 components as well as be cheaper overall, and CE could cause all engines to kill pop like the RadRam and prevent miniturization/add mass instead of the annoying chance-of-failure for over W6.

UR easily done, MA cost and effect are easy, specified mineral not in there but probably not that hard to add later, BET tech to 27 is easy to add, CE killing pop would be a bit of a change to the code, or you could just add CE only engines that do that, and disallow standard engines for CEs, preventing miniturization is not a current option.
Effluviant Walrus wrote on Mon, 28 July 2008 11:24

Allow choices for starting tech, independent from tech costs.

Not in Freestars yet, but an intersting idea to add later.

[Updated on: Mon, 28 July 2008 12:10]



- LEit

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