Spacenoth
Moderator: Forum Moderators
lol, that entire thing was a joke. The image I put in is black but the game glitched so that whatever was on the previous screen appeared faded into the next. If you just look that's deep water behind the snowy stars. Yeah.
It was funny seeing units move too. You could see each frame pasted on the next. The same with moving paths around and stuff.
Probably shouldn't have used absolute black behind the stars. I'm sure the alpha was right though.
It was funny seeing units move too. You could see each frame pasted on the next. The same with moving paths around and stuff.
Probably shouldn't have used absolute black behind the stars. I'm sure the alpha was right though.
I have a simple solution that will explain why ships can level up and become cooler. The whole thing is basically a wordy smokescreen to explain why a destroyer or somesuch could become a bigger and better one, but it won't explain something like a fighter becoming a battleship. Anyways...
First of all, let's assume that the navies of the future have been organized along Napoleonic lines; Captains are shifted to commands as the Admiralty sees fit, and while they command their ships, they are personally responsible for the upkeep and maintenence of the ship. The Admiralty, of course, will provide a stipend for basic stuff, but if the captain cares about his ship and wants a niftier one, he'll need to pay for it himself.
How does he do this? Via salvage! By firing on an enemy ship, he can blow off chunks of metal which his ship (Or little salvage ships standing by in the wings) can pick up, which he can turn in at Admiralty for money. Blowing up an entire ship (or perhaps capturing one) is, of course, worth a lot of salvage, thus you get more EXP for it. After having collected enough salvage, the captains will be able to afford upgrades to their ships; better engines, anti-fighter guns, missiles, what have you. Ta-da!
On a side note, it might be possible to simulate marine boarding parties if you give the boarder ship a modified version of the plague spell. That's the one that creates zombies if you bag the enemy, right? I don't know if it's possible to change it around so that you get exactly the same ship you boarded, but it might be worth thinking about.
First of all, let's assume that the navies of the future have been organized along Napoleonic lines; Captains are shifted to commands as the Admiralty sees fit, and while they command their ships, they are personally responsible for the upkeep and maintenence of the ship. The Admiralty, of course, will provide a stipend for basic stuff, but if the captain cares about his ship and wants a niftier one, he'll need to pay for it himself.
How does he do this? Via salvage! By firing on an enemy ship, he can blow off chunks of metal which his ship (Or little salvage ships standing by in the wings) can pick up, which he can turn in at Admiralty for money. Blowing up an entire ship (or perhaps capturing one) is, of course, worth a lot of salvage, thus you get more EXP for it. After having collected enough salvage, the captains will be able to afford upgrades to their ships; better engines, anti-fighter guns, missiles, what have you. Ta-da!
On a side note, it might be possible to simulate marine boarding parties if you give the boarder ship a modified version of the plague spell. That's the one that creates zombies if you bag the enemy, right? I don't know if it's possible to change it around so that you get exactly the same ship you boarded, but it might be worth thinking about.
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irrevenant
- Moderator Emeritus
- Posts: 3692
- Joined: August 15th, 2005, 7:57 am
- Location: I'm all around you.
Firstly, SINR. If we don't worry too much about where that peasant suddenly found a bow in the middle of a battle, I don't think we should worry too much about the equivalent in Spacenoth.Tomn wrote:I have a simple solution that will explain why ships can level up and become cooler.
Secondly, I like your idea, but why not cut out the middleman? Instead of saying you trade in salvage for money, just say that XP represents you accumulating useful salvage to upgrade your ship. Cite nanotech - works for me.
And I agree that ships could probably only upgrade within classes.
Sooo, to the nitty gritty:
How do you make for diverse factions with spaceships? Do we still have 6 types of damage and resistance?
What's the scale? If you want huge starships, we could take a leaf out of Galaxhack's book and say that 1 unit = ~3 fighters, maybe?
Or we could should the default level be fighter-to-fighter combat?
I thought also of different ship classes, like scouts, fighters, bombers, corvettes, destroyers, battleships and utility (repair) ships.
My game ideas:
- smaller ships could hide in nebulas ( ambush )
- bombers could have guided torpedos ( magical attack )
- fighters, scouts and bombers should have no control zone
- no level up
- melee and ranged weapons would be beam/projectile and missile weapons
- the leader ( like Konrad ) is a starbase and cannot move, so he is always in a planets orbit
- different races, for example one with weak capital ships but fast and strong fighters and so on
- a Zerg (from Starcraft), Yuzzahn Vong (from Star Wars) or 8427 (from Star Trek) like race, which uses organic ships. These ships are weak but cheap and can level up
- no space marines, only spaceships and only space battles
Terrains:
Space - nothing special
Mining Stations - Villages
Asteroid Fields - Forest
more dense Asteroid fields - mountians
Nebulae - Water
Orbit - the area around a planet (Castle)
Damage Types:
- positive beam weapons
- negative beam weapons
- small projectile damage (like the chaingun from Escape Velocity Nova)
- projectile damage (railguns, mass drivers,...)
- missile damage
- Anti-Matter Explosions (Torpedos)
Saddly, I lack of any EP with the map editor or creating graphics. But I play Wesnoth since 0.7
My game ideas:
- smaller ships could hide in nebulas ( ambush )
- bombers could have guided torpedos ( magical attack )
- fighters, scouts and bombers should have no control zone
- no level up
- melee and ranged weapons would be beam/projectile and missile weapons
- the leader ( like Konrad ) is a starbase and cannot move, so he is always in a planets orbit
- different races, for example one with weak capital ships but fast and strong fighters and so on
- a Zerg (from Starcraft), Yuzzahn Vong (from Star Wars) or 8427 (from Star Trek) like race, which uses organic ships. These ships are weak but cheap and can level up
- no space marines, only spaceships and only space battles
Terrains:
Space - nothing special
Mining Stations - Villages
Asteroid Fields - Forest
more dense Asteroid fields - mountians
Nebulae - Water
Orbit - the area around a planet (Castle)
Damage Types:
- positive beam weapons
- negative beam weapons
- small projectile damage (like the chaingun from Escape Velocity Nova)
- projectile damage (railguns, mass drivers,...)
- missile damage
- Anti-Matter Explosions (Torpedos)
Saddly, I lack of any EP with the map editor or creating graphics. But I play Wesnoth since 0.7
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Drake Pillager
- Posts: 53
- Joined: August 7th, 2004, 8:50 pm
- Location: Everywhere you imagine, nowhere you can possibly think.
Yeah, Warhammer 40K all over again, no?
Well, I thought up a different set of play mechanics while trying to get to sleep last night; here goes:
For starters, let's roughly divide ships up into two classes: Capital and Fighter. Fighters have very low hp, maybe about twelve or fifteen. Their attacks are also weak, dealing perhaps two or three points of damage a go. Let's also say that they have both ranged and melee versions of that attack. However, capital ship weapons will use a certain weapon type (impact, let's say), and fighters will have VERY high resistance against that weapon type. This means, basically, that fighters will try to fight against each other before skirmishing with the big ships. The only reason, really, that the fighters would get close to the big ships is to do that little extra bit of unblockable damage.
Now, I'm not sure if bombers should be a seperate class or an evolution of the fighter. However, here's how I imagine bombers to be: roughly the same hp as normal fighters, with the same wimpy little laser weapons. They have lower resistance to all weapons, but a notable weakness (compared to fighters) against capital ship weapons. Their main attack, their bombs/torpedos/acid packs/etc will be melee, and will have the charge attribute, to reflect the dangers of running up to a big ol' capital ship and heaving explosives at them. These bombs will do a decent amount of damage, and the bombers will still be fairly capable of dodging capital ship attacks, so that could work out.
Carriers will not spawn fighters, nor will they carry them. They will, however, heal around them for maybe five hp or so. This will be middling to a capital ship, though perhaps useful, but for a fighter it will be very useful indeed. This will simulate how carriers acts as platforms for the fighters.
Whether fighters should or shouldn't exert ZoC or have the ability to skirmish is questionable. It does make things more realistic, in that they can slip through the large ships to harry the support ships in the rear, but it also means that a fighter fleeing back to the carrier in order to heal can be hunted down regardless of what you throw in the way. One way to compensate might be to give carriers a powerful anti-fighter attack, but one way or another, it's up to debate.
Destroyer-class ships will be simple in nature; cannon fodder in the battles between the larger ships, and a threat to fighters. Improvements could see them upgrading to dedicated anti-fighter platforms, or to a decent anti-capital platform.
Cruisers are simple: They beat up on anything larger than a fighter. These guys should be doing most of the damage in a fight, and probably taking most of it, too, once the destroyers are cleared out. Their anti-fighter weaponry, however, will suffer as a result of this. As an upgrade, cruisers could acquire a particularily powerful beam cannon, perhaps like the Ion Frigates in Homeworld; in that it's fairly easy to miss with the weapon, and lining up the weapon makes the target vulnerable (charge attribute), but by GOD it goes through ships quickly. This upgrade should have less hp than the alternative, which should be a standard, "bigger and better" cruiser.
Missile boats should replace mages in that their attacks track easily. Early on, these will probably be the best anti-fighter ships in the arsenal, though they will cost quite a pretty bundle of cash. As they continue to upgrade, they could take on nuclear weaponry, which, hypothetically, turns out not to work much better than normal missiles against Space-age armor, but which does radiate the target (poison). They could also go for just plain stronger missiles, although some work will be needed in order to keep them from screwing over the fighters entirely in the later stages.
Battleships should rock. They will eat destroyers for breakfast, and fend off three cruisers at a time yawning. Their first incarnation, however, will have NO anti-fighter weaponry. Their evolutions could include anti-fighter guns, but these will be weak, and their main weapons suffer in damage. The alternative is simply to give biggers, much bigger and badder guns to the battleship, rendering it a God amongst capital ships, but also a big baby against fighters. Support it well.
You could also have Stardocks, which fight fairly well, heals an incredible amount of HP, HAS an incredible amount of HP, and moves one hex at a time. Obviously, positioning this thing will be vital.
Healing ships should be, of course, splendidly fragile, and heal large amounts of HP. No branching, just better armor and more healing if possible.
Instead of keeps, one could have warpgates instead; the flagship needing to be within the jumpgate to call up new ships. This will explain why the home base couldn't heal friendly ships.
Villages will be replaced by mines, refineries, and starbases. Easy enough, yes?
Also, just thought of this; perhaps one of the upgrade paths for a destroyer could include the leadership attribute, stating that some commanders find it wise to lead from a smaller, more agile ship, which furthermore is less of a target than the huge mother-lovin' hulks called battleships.
I can't think of anything else, though I think I forgot some stuff. I'll add it in if I remember.
Oh, and what does SINR mean? I see it all the time, but...
Well, I thought up a different set of play mechanics while trying to get to sleep last night; here goes:
For starters, let's roughly divide ships up into two classes: Capital and Fighter. Fighters have very low hp, maybe about twelve or fifteen. Their attacks are also weak, dealing perhaps two or three points of damage a go. Let's also say that they have both ranged and melee versions of that attack. However, capital ship weapons will use a certain weapon type (impact, let's say), and fighters will have VERY high resistance against that weapon type. This means, basically, that fighters will try to fight against each other before skirmishing with the big ships. The only reason, really, that the fighters would get close to the big ships is to do that little extra bit of unblockable damage.
Now, I'm not sure if bombers should be a seperate class or an evolution of the fighter. However, here's how I imagine bombers to be: roughly the same hp as normal fighters, with the same wimpy little laser weapons. They have lower resistance to all weapons, but a notable weakness (compared to fighters) against capital ship weapons. Their main attack, their bombs/torpedos/acid packs/etc will be melee, and will have the charge attribute, to reflect the dangers of running up to a big ol' capital ship and heaving explosives at them. These bombs will do a decent amount of damage, and the bombers will still be fairly capable of dodging capital ship attacks, so that could work out.
Carriers will not spawn fighters, nor will they carry them. They will, however, heal around them for maybe five hp or so. This will be middling to a capital ship, though perhaps useful, but for a fighter it will be very useful indeed. This will simulate how carriers acts as platforms for the fighters.
Whether fighters should or shouldn't exert ZoC or have the ability to skirmish is questionable. It does make things more realistic, in that they can slip through the large ships to harry the support ships in the rear, but it also means that a fighter fleeing back to the carrier in order to heal can be hunted down regardless of what you throw in the way. One way to compensate might be to give carriers a powerful anti-fighter attack, but one way or another, it's up to debate.
Destroyer-class ships will be simple in nature; cannon fodder in the battles between the larger ships, and a threat to fighters. Improvements could see them upgrading to dedicated anti-fighter platforms, or to a decent anti-capital platform.
Cruisers are simple: They beat up on anything larger than a fighter. These guys should be doing most of the damage in a fight, and probably taking most of it, too, once the destroyers are cleared out. Their anti-fighter weaponry, however, will suffer as a result of this. As an upgrade, cruisers could acquire a particularily powerful beam cannon, perhaps like the Ion Frigates in Homeworld; in that it's fairly easy to miss with the weapon, and lining up the weapon makes the target vulnerable (charge attribute), but by GOD it goes through ships quickly. This upgrade should have less hp than the alternative, which should be a standard, "bigger and better" cruiser.
Missile boats should replace mages in that their attacks track easily. Early on, these will probably be the best anti-fighter ships in the arsenal, though they will cost quite a pretty bundle of cash. As they continue to upgrade, they could take on nuclear weaponry, which, hypothetically, turns out not to work much better than normal missiles against Space-age armor, but which does radiate the target (poison). They could also go for just plain stronger missiles, although some work will be needed in order to keep them from screwing over the fighters entirely in the later stages.
Battleships should rock. They will eat destroyers for breakfast, and fend off three cruisers at a time yawning. Their first incarnation, however, will have NO anti-fighter weaponry. Their evolutions could include anti-fighter guns, but these will be weak, and their main weapons suffer in damage. The alternative is simply to give biggers, much bigger and badder guns to the battleship, rendering it a God amongst capital ships, but also a big baby against fighters. Support it well.
You could also have Stardocks, which fight fairly well, heals an incredible amount of HP, HAS an incredible amount of HP, and moves one hex at a time. Obviously, positioning this thing will be vital.
Healing ships should be, of course, splendidly fragile, and heal large amounts of HP. No branching, just better armor and more healing if possible.
Instead of keeps, one could have warpgates instead; the flagship needing to be within the jumpgate to call up new ships. This will explain why the home base couldn't heal friendly ships.
Villages will be replaced by mines, refineries, and starbases. Easy enough, yes?
Also, just thought of this; perhaps one of the upgrade paths for a destroyer could include the leadership attribute, stating that some commanders find it wise to lead from a smaller, more agile ship, which furthermore is less of a target than the huge mother-lovin' hulks called battleships.
I can't think of anything else, though I think I forgot some stuff. I'll add it in if I remember.
Oh, and what does SINR mean? I see it all the time, but...
Forgive me for not actually reading your post, i'm tooo bored right now to go all the way through but SINR means Spacenoth is not real, basically nicked off WINR, anyway basically means daft things like, where you got that big laser from don't necessairily matter.Tomn wrote:Yeah, Warhammer 40K all over again, no?
Well, I thought up a different set of play mechanics while trying to get to sleep last night; here goes:
For starters, let's roughly divide ships up into two classes: Capital and Fighter. Fighters have very low hp, maybe about twelve or fifteen. Their attacks are also weak, dealing perhaps two or three points of damage a go. Let's also say that they have both ranged and melee versions of that attack. However, capital ship weapons will use a certain weapon type (impact, let's say), and fighters will have VERY high resistance against that weapon type. This means, basically, that fighters will try to fight against each other before skirmishing with the big ships. The only reason, really, that the fighters would get close to the big ships is to do that little extra bit of unblockable damage.
Now, I'm not sure if bombers should be a seperate class or an evolution of the fighter. However, here's how I imagine bombers to be: roughly the same hp as normal fighters, with the same wimpy little laser weapons. They have lower resistance to all weapons, but a notable weakness (compared to fighters) against capital ship weapons. Their main attack, their bombs/torpedos/acid packs/etc will be melee, and will have the charge attribute, to reflect the dangers of running up to a big ol' capital ship and heaving explosives at them. These bombs will do a decent amount of damage, and the bombers will still be fairly capable of dodging capital ship attacks, so that could work out.
Carriers will not spawn fighters, nor will they carry them. They will, however, heal around them for maybe five hp or so. This will be middling to a capital ship, though perhaps useful, but for a fighter it will be very useful indeed. This will simulate how carriers acts as platforms for the fighters.
Whether fighters should or shouldn't exert ZoC or have the ability to skirmish is questionable. It does make things more realistic, in that they can slip through the large ships to harry the support ships in the rear, but it also means that a fighter fleeing back to the carrier in order to heal can be hunted down regardless of what you throw in the way. One way to compensate might be to give carriers a powerful anti-fighter attack, but one way or another, it's up to debate.
Destroyer-class ships will be simple in nature; cannon fodder in the battles between the larger ships, and a threat to fighters. Improvements could see them upgrading to dedicated anti-fighter platforms, or to a decent anti-capital platform.
Cruisers are simple: They beat up on anything larger than a fighter. These guys should be doing most of the damage in a fight, and probably taking most of it, too, once the destroyers are cleared out. Their anti-fighter weaponry, however, will suffer as a result of this. As an upgrade, cruisers could acquire a particularily powerful beam cannon, perhaps like the Ion Frigates in Homeworld; in that it's fairly easy to miss with the weapon, and lining up the weapon makes the target vulnerable (charge attribute), but by GOD it goes through ships quickly. This upgrade should have less hp than the alternative, which should be a standard, "bigger and better" cruiser.
Missile boats should replace mages in that their attacks track easily. Early on, these will probably be the best anti-fighter ships in the arsenal, though they will cost quite a pretty bundle of cash. As they continue to upgrade, they could take on nuclear weaponry, which, hypothetically, turns out not to work much better than normal missiles against Space-age armor, but which does radiate the target (poison). They could also go for just plain stronger missiles, although some work will be needed in order to keep them from screwing over the fighters entirely in the later stages.
Battleships should rock. They will eat destroyers for breakfast, and fend off three cruisers at a time yawning. Their first incarnation, however, will have NO anti-fighter weaponry. Their evolutions could include anti-fighter guns, but these will be weak, and their main weapons suffer in damage. The alternative is simply to give biggers, much bigger and badder guns to the battleship, rendering it a God amongst capital ships, but also a big baby against fighters. Support it well.
You could also have Stardocks, which fight fairly well, heals an incredible amount of HP, HAS an incredible amount of HP, and moves one hex at a time. Obviously, positioning this thing will be vital.
Healing ships should be, of course, splendidly fragile, and heal large amounts of HP. No branching, just better armor and more healing if possible.
Instead of keeps, one could have warpgates instead; the flagship needing to be within the jumpgate to call up new ships. This will explain why the home base couldn't heal friendly ships.
Villages will be replaced by mines, refineries, and starbases. Easy enough, yes?
Also, just thought of this; perhaps one of the upgrade paths for a destroyer could include the leadership attribute, stating that some commanders find it wise to lead from a smaller, more agile ship, which furthermore is less of a target than the huge mother-lovin' hulks called battleships.
I can't think of anything else, though I think I forgot some stuff. I'll add it in if I remember.
Oh, and what does SINR mean? I see it all the time, but...
AFAIK, it doesn't really matter is it's charged positively or negatively, specially that when something it's charged its normally a relation of electrons vs protons.
But what the hell, SINR, go nuts.
But what the hell, SINR, go nuts.
Cuyo Quiz,where madness meets me 
Turn on, tune in, fall out.
"I know that, but every single person nags about how negative turin is; it should be in the FPI thread "Turin should give positive comments" =)"-Neorice,23 Sep 2004
Turn on, tune in, fall out.
"I know that, but every single person nags about how negative turin is; it should be in the FPI thread "Turin should give positive comments" =)"-Neorice,23 Sep 2004
didn't want to start a new thread again... so....
My friend (who thinks he can draw good, i'll have to see) wanted me to make a space tbs game... and I thought I could save a lot of work by just making it a "faction" in wesnoth...
is there anyway the villages graphics and terrain tiles can be changed?
Can these images be changed from the wesnoth folder, like the title screen and wesnoth logo? (We are prepared to make a branched- wesnoth if we have to... if there isn't any c++ code involved...
)
My friend (who thinks he can draw good, i'll have to see) wanted me to make a space tbs game... and I thought I could save a lot of work by just making it a "faction" in wesnoth...
is there anyway the villages graphics and terrain tiles can be changed?
Can these images be changed from the wesnoth folder, like the title screen and wesnoth logo? (We are prepared to make a branched- wesnoth if we have to... if there isn't any c++ code involved...
)Why did the fish laugh? Because the sea weed.
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pigandforks
- Posts: 48
- Joined: October 22nd, 2005, 7:23 am
- Location: australia
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Combatjuan
- Posts: 69
- Joined: April 1st, 2004, 11:05 pm
- Location: Lincoln, Nebraska, United States
It's been a while since I've taken a significant stroll through the Wesnoth source code, but if you guys are really serious about creating Spacenoth, I'd recommend working out how the sci-fi system would layer over the existing fantasy system. What I mean is that you'll need to find ways to replace (at least) the following:
Terrain/Villages:
One of the reasons I'm most skeptical about spacenoth is that terrain is the thing that really mixes things up and makes things interesting. The fact is, 99.9999% of space just isn't all that interesting. There's nothing there. Further, your choice of what represents villages will determine the scale of your game universe. For instance, villages could be replaced by space stations, planets, systems, galaxies, or something even bigger.
It seems to me that the best scale would be for a map to generally represent a system where planets, large asteroids, etc. are the "villages". Although the idea presented by Raven where "Mining Stations" are villages would also be good, although I would generalize "Mining Stations" to "Space Stations" or "Colonies" or something that offers a greater range of possibility in your universe. Raven suggested some terrains. I would add to the list of possibilities: debris fields, energy fields, stars, possibilty planets/comets/asteroids. Now the problem here (and most sci-fi games are sort of plagued by this) is that in reality almost every square on almost all the maps would simply be emtpy void unless all of the major conflicts conveniently happen at those 0.00001% of places in space where there is something more than nothing. Most players would be williing to accept that, but you still have the trouble of making varied and interesting maps which I think is a lot harder in space than in a fantasy setting. That all is just to say that you should carefully consider the game mechanics before doing any art. Then, once you think you have some solid game mechanics that will fit with the Wesnoth engine and you've tested them, then get to work on a set of graphics and sound and everything else.
The major pitfalls you could easily fall into would be:
1.) Creating a bunch of graphics and designing a bunch of the game, but stagnate during the implementation because your initial design is flawed.
2.) Get a solid theory for your game design but get bogged down in the implementation (making all the graphics is LONG HARD WORK. Anyone who has done significant amounts of art for Wesnoth will affirm this).
Traits:
Intelligent, Quick, etc. sort of fit for spaceships but not closely enough. I would recommend having traits on the ships. I'd also recommend adding several possible traits. Armored, Fast, ECM, Stealthy, Manuevarable, etc are just some suggested traits that some of the races could employ.
Abilities:
Marksman, magical, and many of the existing abilities make no sense in a standard sci-fi universe. Last I checked, these were hard-coded and therefore would requires C++ (though probably not overtly much, and if your "fork" gained enough momentum, it would probably not be difficult to make the appropriate changes. Shoot, I'd even do it.
Attack Types:
In Wesnoth, of course, there are ranged and melee attacks. In order to fit well with the existing engine, would would probably want to emulate this dichotomy somehow. I'd suggest:
Long Range / Short Range - Long range would include large torpedos, missiles, spinal mount beams, etc... Short would include point weapons, countermeasures, ramming, boarding parties, and perhaps actual ship melee weapons. I can see this working well given the fact that space is actually really, really, really big and the game is simply an abstraction of this therefore given that two ships are on adjacent squares on the map they may be 3 feet away, or they may be 10000 miles away. This makes the whole concept of ranged/melee combat make even /more sense/ in space. It would also work well because I think that people would have no trouble thinking of lots of diverse kinds of attacks to make things interesting. In other words, this is a broad enough and sensible enough bifurcation that it would work well. It also allows that some units would have only long ranged attacks (Some battleships, heavy torpedo/bomber ships), some to have only short ranged attacks (assault vessels, fighters, spacemonsters, etc.) and some to have both (those ships which have both point defences and heavy weapons).
Damage Types:
Someone suggested
positive [polarity] beam weapons
negative [polarity] beam weapons
small projectile damage
projectile damage
missile damage
anti-matter explosions (torpedos)
While I respect Raven for having come up with a list, I would reject this particular set in favor of something more general and diverse. Having positive and negative beam weapons sounds not only cheesy, but it also seems a big uncreative and limiting. A good set of damage classes should have the following four properties:
1.) It is difficult/impossible to think of an attack type that doesn't fit cleanly into one of the categories. The above set fails here because it doesn't take into account,
2.) The number of attacks that fit into each catagory is in the same order of magnitude. Beam energy attacks, for instance, are easy to come up with (plasma, lasers, mesons, phazers, disruptors, neutrons (pick an elementary particle), etc.). Every game has them. However, there are very few sorts of things that could fit in an "anti-matter explosions" category, because they are all, well, anti-matter explosions and there just aren't that many types of anti-matter explosions (pretty much there is just the kind where anti-matter and matter meet and there is an explosion).
3.) Each type should be sufficiently different so as to keep things interesting. Positive/Negative beam weapons are too similar as are small projectile/projectile damage. It just seems silly to have such similar damage types.
4.) A consistent and clean set of names. "anti-matter explosions" for instance, is not a very clean name. It's too long, and shoot, it excludes all sortys of other kinds of explosions. Not trying to nit-pick here Raven, just suggesting what I believe to be improvement.
I would personally suggest:
Physical - Ramming, mechanical weapons, mass drivers, gauss cannons, rail guns, etc.
Particles - Bosons, Tachyons, Positrons, Neutrons, Radiation, etc.
Beams - Lasers, Phazers, Disruptors, Plasma, Ions, etc.
Explosive - Missiles, Torpedos, Nuclear Warheads, Bombs, Sabotage, etc.
Internal - Psyionic attacks, biological attacks, small arms boarding parties, etc.
Electronic - Hacking, electro-magnetic pulses, lightning guns, power drains, etc.
I think that this list while perhaps not perfect, does provide for lots more ideas and more damage type balance.
One other thing: I don't think that it is a good idea to try and create some kind of relation between Wesnoth and "Spacenoth" besides the shared engine. The story lines and universes needn't and shouldn't have anything in common. I'll probably write more later about some unit ideas that would highlight my suggested changes, but this is long enough now that some of the less zealous forum members probably won't read it all anyway.
Cheers,
Charles
Terrain/Villages:
One of the reasons I'm most skeptical about spacenoth is that terrain is the thing that really mixes things up and makes things interesting. The fact is, 99.9999% of space just isn't all that interesting. There's nothing there. Further, your choice of what represents villages will determine the scale of your game universe. For instance, villages could be replaced by space stations, planets, systems, galaxies, or something even bigger.
It seems to me that the best scale would be for a map to generally represent a system where planets, large asteroids, etc. are the "villages". Although the idea presented by Raven where "Mining Stations" are villages would also be good, although I would generalize "Mining Stations" to "Space Stations" or "Colonies" or something that offers a greater range of possibility in your universe. Raven suggested some terrains. I would add to the list of possibilities: debris fields, energy fields, stars, possibilty planets/comets/asteroids. Now the problem here (and most sci-fi games are sort of plagued by this) is that in reality almost every square on almost all the maps would simply be emtpy void unless all of the major conflicts conveniently happen at those 0.00001% of places in space where there is something more than nothing. Most players would be williing to accept that, but you still have the trouble of making varied and interesting maps which I think is a lot harder in space than in a fantasy setting. That all is just to say that you should carefully consider the game mechanics before doing any art. Then, once you think you have some solid game mechanics that will fit with the Wesnoth engine and you've tested them, then get to work on a set of graphics and sound and everything else.
The major pitfalls you could easily fall into would be:
1.) Creating a bunch of graphics and designing a bunch of the game, but stagnate during the implementation because your initial design is flawed.
2.) Get a solid theory for your game design but get bogged down in the implementation (making all the graphics is LONG HARD WORK. Anyone who has done significant amounts of art for Wesnoth will affirm this).
Traits:
Intelligent, Quick, etc. sort of fit for spaceships but not closely enough. I would recommend having traits on the ships. I'd also recommend adding several possible traits. Armored, Fast, ECM, Stealthy, Manuevarable, etc are just some suggested traits that some of the races could employ.
Abilities:
Marksman, magical, and many of the existing abilities make no sense in a standard sci-fi universe. Last I checked, these were hard-coded and therefore would requires C++ (though probably not overtly much, and if your "fork" gained enough momentum, it would probably not be difficult to make the appropriate changes. Shoot, I'd even do it.
Attack Types:
In Wesnoth, of course, there are ranged and melee attacks. In order to fit well with the existing engine, would would probably want to emulate this dichotomy somehow. I'd suggest:
Long Range / Short Range - Long range would include large torpedos, missiles, spinal mount beams, etc... Short would include point weapons, countermeasures, ramming, boarding parties, and perhaps actual ship melee weapons. I can see this working well given the fact that space is actually really, really, really big and the game is simply an abstraction of this therefore given that two ships are on adjacent squares on the map they may be 3 feet away, or they may be 10000 miles away. This makes the whole concept of ranged/melee combat make even /more sense/ in space. It would also work well because I think that people would have no trouble thinking of lots of diverse kinds of attacks to make things interesting. In other words, this is a broad enough and sensible enough bifurcation that it would work well. It also allows that some units would have only long ranged attacks (Some battleships, heavy torpedo/bomber ships), some to have only short ranged attacks (assault vessels, fighters, spacemonsters, etc.) and some to have both (those ships which have both point defences and heavy weapons).
Damage Types:
Someone suggested
positive [polarity] beam weapons
negative [polarity] beam weapons
small projectile damage
projectile damage
missile damage
anti-matter explosions (torpedos)
While I respect Raven for having come up with a list, I would reject this particular set in favor of something more general and diverse. Having positive and negative beam weapons sounds not only cheesy, but it also seems a big uncreative and limiting. A good set of damage classes should have the following four properties:
1.) It is difficult/impossible to think of an attack type that doesn't fit cleanly into one of the categories. The above set fails here because it doesn't take into account,
2.) The number of attacks that fit into each catagory is in the same order of magnitude. Beam energy attacks, for instance, are easy to come up with (plasma, lasers, mesons, phazers, disruptors, neutrons (pick an elementary particle), etc.). Every game has them. However, there are very few sorts of things that could fit in an "anti-matter explosions" category, because they are all, well, anti-matter explosions and there just aren't that many types of anti-matter explosions (pretty much there is just the kind where anti-matter and matter meet and there is an explosion).
3.) Each type should be sufficiently different so as to keep things interesting. Positive/Negative beam weapons are too similar as are small projectile/projectile damage. It just seems silly to have such similar damage types.
4.) A consistent and clean set of names. "anti-matter explosions" for instance, is not a very clean name. It's too long, and shoot, it excludes all sortys of other kinds of explosions. Not trying to nit-pick here Raven, just suggesting what I believe to be improvement.
I would personally suggest:
Physical - Ramming, mechanical weapons, mass drivers, gauss cannons, rail guns, etc.
Particles - Bosons, Tachyons, Positrons, Neutrons, Radiation, etc.
Beams - Lasers, Phazers, Disruptors, Plasma, Ions, etc.
Explosive - Missiles, Torpedos, Nuclear Warheads, Bombs, Sabotage, etc.
Internal - Psyionic attacks, biological attacks, small arms boarding parties, etc.
Electronic - Hacking, electro-magnetic pulses, lightning guns, power drains, etc.
I think that this list while perhaps not perfect, does provide for lots more ideas and more damage type balance.
One other thing: I don't think that it is a good idea to try and create some kind of relation between Wesnoth and "Spacenoth" besides the shared engine. The story lines and universes needn't and shouldn't have anything in common. I'll probably write more later about some unit ideas that would highlight my suggested changes, but this is long enough now that some of the less zealous forum members probably won't read it all anyway.
Cheers,
Charles
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." - Phil. 1:21
This is the funniest thing I ever heard.appleide wrote:(We are prepared to make a branched- wesnoth if we have to... if there isn't any c++ code involved...
We are prepared to build a house if we have to... if it doesn't involve any house-building.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
Wesnoth acronym guide.