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Unread 6 Aug 2008, 22:44   #1
JonnyBGood
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A vision for the future of Planetarion

I posted this about two years ago on the pa development forum (yeah there is one, no it's not really used for much). I thought I'd actually posted it publically since then but apparently not. As such I thought I'd post it now, maybe with the changeover in the ownership of pa some things will actually get done. It's basically a list of ideas, some of which have actually been implemented in piecemeal fashion, some of which have been mentioned before by others and some of which you might not have heard anything about. I hope this helps spark something off.



Above all else we are trying to create a game that we want to play when we're done. I would urge you when reading this to consider later points which may counteract problems you find apparent with certain proposals.

The most important thing about a game is the authentic vision that you have for the gameplay itself. Far too often in PA we get bogged down in details and balancing issues which are nothing at all to do with game development. Game development is the key idea behind the game you're creating.

Primarily Planetarion is a space-based wargame. This is a multi-layered statement. It is a game, there is competition and there are winners and losers. It is a wargame, the mechanics of the game will provide for conflict between the participants. It is a space-based wargame, the background scenarios are those of interstellar conflict. When you are designing the game you need to relate back to these constantly.

The essential vision that I'm trying to follow is that of an indepth strategy based game. My model for this approach has been the hugely successful Total War series. Obviously there are differences but the key points remain that we want the surface features there to attract new players and the variety to gameplay to keep them.

In terms of surface features you are looking at what encourages people to logon frequently to check their planet once they've signed up and what integrates them into the community quickly. The approach here is manifold. A nationstates style interface with questions with a number of different outcomes, but with none being negative per se (ie res/cons/min bonuses) every 1-4 ticks could prove helpful here. More prominent ingame links to the forums with the possible addition of a specific newbie help forum (we had this before) being the initial forum linked to. Ingame polls, which light up similar to mail and news functions are also viable. The possibility of links to blogs/pictures/profiles, obviously optional, from ingame planets is also an approach to this problem, in that it creates an awareness of the people you are playing this game with outside the galaxy itself.

The readdition of quests could go a long way towards making the early part of a new player's round go easier and with the above listed surface features should prove more interesting. Other possible surface features include dynamic pictures of the planet/galaxy itself (higher levels of activity surround the bigger planets etc) and the (re)introduction of graphics for ships. The development of a background story for PA provides the sort of interest level likely to involve new planets to a greater extent.

In terms of gameplay there are a number of areas to focus on. A long-standing problem of Planetarion is the ingame geography, clusters, galaxies, parallels and so forth. Personally I see credit in three major approaches. First of all, the setup as it is. Second the abolition of galaxies and the introduction of a number, eg 15-20, of clusters providing no cluster status but becoming replaced with an alliance status. Third the creation alongside the current system of private galaxies, planets in which cannot be a member of an alliance. Personally I favour the recently proposed third option, to be found here. One vital point which helps to integrate players is the readdition of a -1 cluster ETA for attacking.

Another area is the general limitations placed on creativity, both on a planetary level in terms of the ships possible to produce and in terms of possible fleet "missions". We are going to introduce components, from which players can choose to assemble their own ship types. The insistence we have on balance is not a necessity, obviously violent imbalance is bad for the game but our main focus should be the creation of fun stats, not balanced stats. Remember this is a game.

As regards fleet missions I am going to refer to Total War here slightly. Obviously it is impossible for us to run battles in real-time but the introduction of fleet formations adjustable from, for example, eta 1 to eta 0 which give bonuses to fleet performance (I'd see a maximum of a 10% bonus here). A scan indicating the relative fleet formations opposite you could also be introduced. The keypoint here is to introduce depth to the game without making additional activity an absolute necessity to do even vaguely well.

Similarly in order to introduce depth the previously mentioned concept of "outposts" or "colonies" emerges. There are different ways to approach this idea, possibility of score, resources or eta bonuses. I'm proposing a combination of the first and third ideas. Alliances, and possibly private galaxies if those were introduced, can fight battles for outposts, which are unplayable planets located in particular clusters. The best approach would be the creation of a specific ship which if it does a certain amount of "damage" would take over the outpost for the alliance of the players attacking it (the possibility of two alliances attacking the outpost in the same tick exists, you can decide who claims it based on value or "damage" done). Alternatively, and this is how it will most likely look in the short-term outposts are buildable and destroyable, not capturable. These outposts would give a separate, undestroyable score boost to the alliance itself as long as it still controls it. The outpost would also give an ETA bonus of -1 to anyone in that alliance sending defence or attacking in that cluster. Most probably the best approach in terms of sending defence to the outpost itself would be on a -2 ETA bonus as opposed to the standard -1 bonus in-cluster. Also a similar value-based cap on whose alliance you can attack would probably be involved. Details in such a new area are obviously open to fine-tuning, the key point is the introduction of an extra element which provides an incentive to interact with an alliance both in terms of "fun" and an advantage ingame.

A new method of playing different to the conventional planet paradigm has been proposed by bashar/kloopy. "Pirates" would be accounts without planets but with ships which can "intercept" fleets moving throughout the universe and then use the components present in these ships to assemble their own ones based off salvage from the battle. You can initially choose this way of playing or later on select an option to move to it. The main thrust of the concept is to provide an alternate, and preferably slightly difficult and requiring real skill, way of playing to conventional Planetarion. Potentially this will reattract previous players who quit due to lack of variation in the game itself but remain in the general community.

A wider range in terms of constructions and researches would be helpful in terms of keeping people interested. Ideally the initial few steps would be easy to follow, again the quest system resurfaces here, with more variation as you progress through the round. Introducing a queue system for The possibility of galaxy or alliance wide researches could be looked at as well. Again we're aiming at giving people incentives for interacting with others in the game beyond some bizzare demand on their time as being due to new players.

One new element that should go a long way in this area is the introduction of trade routes. Trade routes are routes, of a limited number, that can be established between different members in a galaxy (or potentially cluster if we went that way) which can be proposed by one player and then accepted by the target of the trade route. The originator gains a research/construction time bonus and the target gains a certain percentage of the originator's income per tick extra (the originator doesn't lose resources, those new resources are "wealth created" due to the presence of the trade route). The principle here is that a big planet can get a bonus that will be beneficial almost regardless of the point in the round, and a new planet gets a boost that gets it up and running quicker. You could also alter it slightly so that both gain research bonuses due to the trade route (the option of different types eg scientific, commercial comes into play here). Along this same theme one angle to consider is galaxy gained score for defence fleets sent ingal or attacks sent to the same galaxy, basically rewarding people for co-operation but more as a whole than individually.

There are a number of problematical areas we are confronted with that have arisen due to the way the game has moved, for example the development of scan planets. First of all I think we can all acknowledge that these are really not beneficial to the game (and trust me being a scanner is not much fun). However the tactic of dist-whoring is a way of rewarding active players so the existence of scan planets is necessary to counter this. What we can change is the way in which people can be so dependent on them. The introduction of a very early single ETA scan as outlined by keizari here is one potential way of dealing with it. Similarly constructions are slightly unbalanced and have lacked innovation since PAX. Alternate approaches have been outlined here. An important point is construction and research queueing, we have rewarded high activity in other areas, something like this is great as it means that a player can miss a week come back and their planet is different. This is more an area for the development team than part of the vision per se but recognising that we have problems is important.

Beyond the next round one potential idea is the introduction of land-based conflict. Personally I see these battles as occurring in real time using the speedgame server, between small teams of people (possibly limited to galaxies or alliances) of five-ten using the same combat engine but with basic modifications to fit in with the theme in terms of ships changing to vehicles and obvious alterations to the tech-tree making it more basic and advanced (in terms of where you start off). Considering the time element involved I would envision a two hour, one minute tick combat. You can offer various rewards for winning this conflict, resources, score etc. In terms of how they begin you can have them occuring on planets to which you send resource-gathering teams in a specific ship, obviously you'd require two (possibly more?) teams of people to have the combat at the same time. Possibly the best approach would be to have a ship launched seeking resources and then they only find a planet when another team also seeks resources.

Overall what we are trying to do is give Planetarion more variety in approaches to gameplay, more depth in terms of skill, more attractiveness on the surface and to put some originality into the game itself. To accomplish this we have to consider game development an ongoing process instead of the stop-start affair it sometimes becomes. Planetarion should be initially straightforward with the advantages of becoming more active and more involved apparent to everyone. Most importantly it has to be fun.
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Unread 6 Aug 2008, 23:15   #2
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Figured I'd post it here as well.

Many of these ideas are hugely intriguing, and given the chance I would implement pretty much all of them (polls? say what?), if only to see what would happen. Further, there is no excuse for not implementing some of the smaller ones (ie, better scan tree, newbie help forum, more res/con queing).
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Unread 6 Aug 2008, 23:38   #3
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

I thought this was a great thread when it was in the dev forum, and I still think it is here. The problem as always is getting the team together to implement this, and imo it should be done from the ground up. If the game were free I would say we already have the talent in the community to do this, but since the game is a pay to play game unless Omac wants to throw some money at this, I'm afraid this will just be a beautiful vision of what PA could have been.
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Unread 6 Aug 2008, 23:44   #4
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

The ideas are fantastic and imo would make the game a lot more interesting to play, especially liking the "pirate" idea.
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Unread 6 Aug 2008, 23:45   #5
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood View Post
Third the creation alongside the current system of private galaxies, planets in which cannot be a member of an alliance. Personally I favour the recently proposed third option, to be found here. One vital point which helps to integrate players is the readdition of a -1 cluster ETA for attacking.


The introduction of a very early single ETA scan as outlined by keizari here is one potential way of dealing with it.
both of these were presumably discussions that went on at the time you were first writing this, any chance of someone who knows what they are looking for finding and linking the threads discussing them for those of us who were not here at the time?
EDIT: sorry I see londo beat me too it

overall alot of pretty amazing new ideas, and I think I agree with pretty much all of them! I particularly like the formations idea as this gives the game more tactical depth... rather than just point all your ships at a usually smaller target and launch! it also presumably allows for both sides to be altering the outcome of the battle right up to the tick meaning that both sides need to stay on their toes, and both sides have something to do rather than twiddling their thumbs waiting for ages for a combat report to appear.

would also mean that we get away from the current situation that we have that using bcalcs both sides can (assuming they have worked out the fleets in the potential combat correctly) just run a calc and get pretty much exactly what will happen several hours before hand.

tho I am afraid that with such a large goody box you have simply partially lifted the lid to give us a tantilising glimpse of possibilities that are unlikely to ever happen...
I think that many of these ideas would each individually be worth a discussion on the forums and if ppl discuss several at once this thread may become rather chaotic with several different debates ongoing at once, might I suggest that if there are any particular sections that get alot of discussion you make a seperate thread for it
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 00:00   #6
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Quote:
Originally Posted by booji View Post

would also mean that we get away from the current situation that we have that using bcalcs both sides can (assuming they have worked out the fleets in the potential combat correctly) just run a calc and get pretty much exactly what will happen several hours before hand.
Is this necessarily a good thing as some ppl need to know what its going to be like so they kno they can land in 4 hours time cos they cant be on due to work/sleep etc if it can change even marginally until the last second then its problematic for many ppl
I would see the obvious result being an increase in overkill
not that I am against extra dimensions in the game as I am almost always on until the last second myself - but I am on worrying or biting my nails that additional margin of error would force me onto smaller targets
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 00:41   #7
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Quote:
Originally Posted by booji View Post
both of these were presumably discussions that went on at the time you were first writing this, any chance of someone who knows what they are looking for finding and linking the threads discussing them for those of us who were not here at the time?
Scans:
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=196324
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=196178

Private galaxies:
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=192776
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 09:00   #8
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

I like pretty much all of your ideas (and the ideas of others you've collected in this post) but one caught my eye and I'd like to add some of my own suggestions to it:

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood View Post
A new method of playing different to the conventional planet paradigm has been proposed by bashar/kloopy. "Pirates" would be accounts without planets but with ships which can "intercept" fleets moving throughout the universe and then use the components present in these ships to assemble their own ones based off salvage from the battle. You can initially choose this way of playing or later on select an option to move to it.
I really like the concept of piracy but even pirates need to have some sort of base, preferably highly secretive and hard to find with decent defences (pds anyone?). These bases could even be asteroids that are located around another players planet or (putting this together with the outpost idea) on some huge asteroid in an asteroid field around the outpost.
Attacking this base should be difficult but rewarding to the person that is succesfull in attacking it, depending on how good the pirate has been.
Also, changing from pirate to normal player should come at a cost, the more succesfull you've been as a pirate the higher the cost.
This could create an extra layer of gameplay when the higher ranking pirates are being tracked down & hunted for their wealth.

Ships & Fleets:
Pirates should be able to buy alsmost every ship in the game but have the shipstats reduced a bit (weaker armour, lower dmg, ...) this due to the fact that pirates don't have an entire planet and it's population as resources (factories, engineers, scientists, ...). This would also even out the odds a bit compared to normal races.
Pirates should also have a couple of special pirate ships with the ability to track down what fleets are going to be in their area soon that they can attack.
The following idea will use the ingame population (yes, actually giving it a use!): A pirate will have a population alot lower than a planet, ships however need people to fly them, so I propose making the maximum size of their fleet depending on their amount of population. This will also act as a way to create balance between normal planet who can only build ships of 1 race and pirates that are able to build all ships.
how this works: fighter= 1 pop, co= 3-4 pop, going as far as the bigger ships needing a couple thousands of your population.
Because population is a dynamic number that usually increases at almost the same rate for all planets this would mean that pirates can never grow untouchable by normal players.
Because they are limited to the amount of ships they can build any mildly succesfull pirate will soon have a shitload of extra resources he can't use for building ships (pirate treasure). This is the wealth I spoke about earlier that is stored at their base.

Fleetslots:
Pirates should be limited to 1 base-fleet and only 1 or 2 normal fleets that can be used for piracy.

There are probably a million more things I could say about pirates, but for now i'll limit myself to what I've put in this post.
Sorry for possibly derailing this thread to be just about pirates but for me it was by far the most appealing idea in the post as it gives another way to play the game.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 09:25   #9
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

thank you very much for the links Mzyxptlk they make interesting reading.

Quote:
Originally Posted by [B5]Londo View Post
Is this necessarily a good thing as some ppl need to know what its going to be like so they kno they can land in 4 hours time cos they cant be on due to work/sleep etc if it can change even marginally until the last second then its problematic for many ppl
with it only being only suggested as being a small change making only a 10% difference or so to each combat it would not really be a problem for ppl who cant be online to ignore formations entirely.

it obviously depends how the formations were to be done, but I dont necessarily thaink that most ppl would simply hit smaller targets to balance out the increased uncertainty. Smaller players would still be willing to hit bigger targets for the xp, and the value players who tend to be the ones who verge on bashing ppl anyway are most likely the ppl who will be online in the tick before, and will if anything feel that they can take bigger targets with less risk rather than being forced to take smaller targets.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 09:53   #10
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

VDM, the ideas I outlined were, and are, aimed at working together. As such talking about the different ships the "pirate" race could build isn't relevant as the entire current system would be replaced by "components".

Quote:
Is this necessarily a good thing as some ppl need to know what its going to be like so they kno they can land in 4 hours time cos they cant be on due to work/sleep etc if it can change even marginally until the last second then its problematic for many ppl
I would see the obvious result being an increase in overkill
not that I am against extra dimensions in the game as I am almost always on until the last second myself - but I am on worrying or biting my nails that additional margin of error would force me onto smaller targets
Again you appear to have rather glazed over the idea of components. Although the idea is that all the information is going to be there but each planet could conceivably have entirely different ships. I'm aware this probably has alarm bells ringing for some people as calcs have been such an essential part of PA but I'd actually envisage defence becoming a lot easier as people design their own optimal fleets.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 10:12   #11
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

What exactly do you mean by "components"?
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 10:27   #12
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

If im not calcing at all then Im definitely bashing
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 10:45   #13
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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Originally Posted by JonnyBGood View Post
Although the idea is that all the information is going to be there but each planet could conceivably have entirely different ships.
forgive me if I am being really dumb for a second but either all the information is there (in which case U can calc - at least to a certain extent even if there are not bcalcs) or else the information is not there.

does your planet concievably having entirely different ships mean that you could for example have a bomber with the guns of a tzen? so the ship would show as a bomber when it really is not (now I come to think of it using xan for the example was a bad idea )

hmmm would components mean that you would design your own ships just once... or could you refit them for each individual attack... so in effect you would rebuild your ships to target your opponent's ships each time, meaning that every ship on both sides would fire rather than what we have atm where you try to attack with ships that make your opponents fleet as redundant as possible?
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 10:56   #14
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

if we:
a, dont have all the information and are likely to run into fleets we dont expect
b, have different formations/attack strategies
would it not be sensible to go back to a three tick attack again (with each tick less deadly than the one we have atm) so U can run away after one disastrous tick without being wiped out, and if all is well but needs a tweak, change formation.
the alternative would be to have 3 battle ticks inside a tick (xx:15, xx:30, xx:45) allowing for greater tactical flexibility without allowing more defence in for tick 2
sorry to go on about this but I am uber cautious, I have never yet crashed nor do I intend too.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:05   #15
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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Originally Posted by [B5]Londo View Post
If im not calcing at all then Im definitely bashing
Go nuts. I never said you couldn't calc. AU scans would reveal everything about each ship in the fleet (unit scans would give a margin of error either in the ship numbers as it does now or in what the ships can do). All you need then is a calc which can interpret the scans as they're pasted in. I don't foresee this being much of a problem. After all in r10 they constructed perfectly working calcs and pateam never even told us the exact stats that round.

Quote:
What exactly do you mean by "components"?
This was originally someone else's idea. The interpretation I had of it was that you would research various ship-related paths. Armour, initiative, damage, emp, steal, cloak, classes, targetting.

If I had to give a rough outline of what I'd do right now...each race would start off with a class it could already build and some basic options already in place. For example terran would have de, cath co, xan fi, zik fr. Each would have a simple, flatlevel armour/firepower in place with a base T1. For this class of ship you can then build on it, you can research heavier armour for it, faster init, more damage, more targetting, or convert it to cloak or steal. The relative speeds at which you can research these would depend on the race you pick. Terrans could get heavier armour faster, xans could improve their damage faster than others, caths could improve inits faster, ziks could convert their ships to steal quickly. Some things are going to be pretty hard to do. Researching bs targetting for fi/co ships is going to take a lot of time for example. Having a low init stealer is going to be tough.

As you research more classes (these are non-linear so terran could research bs first and then go for co or whatever) you can then construct the ships in each new class. Certain advantages from what you've previously researched would carry over (if your xan fi has really high firepower and then you research fr it starts off with a pretty decent d/c). The point is you build your own ships.

Edit: You can build more than one type of ship in each class obviously, with the second being relatively easy to research (on a par with researching a new class altogether) and then the third being harder, fourth even harder etc.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:07   #16
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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Originally Posted by booji View Post
forgive me if I am being really dumb for a second but either all the information is there (in which case U can calc - at least to a certain extent even if there are not bcalcs) or else the information is not there.

does your planet concievably having entirely different ships mean that you could for example have a bomber with the guns of a tzen? so the ship would show as a bomber when it really is not (now I come to think of it using xan for the example was a bad idea )

hmmm would components mean that you would design your own ships just once... or could you refit them for each individual attack... so in effect you would rebuild your ships to target your opponent's ships each time, meaning that every ship on both sides would fire rather than what we have atm where you try to attack with ships that make your opponents fleet as redundant as possible?
It's not a bomber or a tzen. It's just a xan frigate. You can't rebuild your fleet but your fleet does develop.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:17   #17
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

right thats pretty much what I thought was the case before your previous post confused me... thanks for clearing it up
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:27   #18
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

if theoretically any race can have any shiptype built as a pod then its a DC's nightmare, and would unfortunately require mil scans or equivalent, its very frustrating as a dc if u have to wait for the person who is under attack to come online to incoming scan.
While it may be less interesting there is a big advantage to knowing that a certain race will be a certain shiptype, I hate dcing ziks late round for the very same reason.
I sense there is a bit of a theme for this thread so far, that a proliferation of strategies components etc requires a proliferation of scans/other sources of info - like cov ops, to deal with them effectively. This is not a bad thing, rather its probably a good thing, in that it puts more thought into the game but the system of DCs run buy most alliances atm would be stretched to handle more, and more complex information.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:31   #19
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

No offence but wouldn't you just ask your members to build the simplest def ships possible so you can cover things easily? Remember aus are going to reveal exactly the same amount of information you need as you do now.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:40   #20
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

I appreciate that once I know whats coming things are no different. However, that was not the point at all, the au is going to be inadequate if someone has the ability to build any type of pods, particularly xans, as any idiot will build fleets of nice round numbers so his fleet will appear to be one of several possibilities, with conventional xan fakes dcs can assume its one of two and cover the more likely, or both if they have the resources but if I had the pod add on I could put on any basic hull I would build 3 or 4 different types and present the possibility of my attacking fleet being equally likely to be one of several to the dc, who then has an impossible dilemma. I have called fakes wrong b4 and the result is usually the DC (me gets blamed for destroying defenders ships and losing roids.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:44   #21
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Obviously it gets correspondingly harder to build more pods in different classes.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:47   #22
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

if it becomes too much of a problem there is probably no reason why you could not be limited to having pods on only 2 classes of ships, so things in regards to how difficult it is for dcs would be at the same position as it is today.

I would think that for you Londo a more worrying thing would be the prospect of cloaked pods - unless ppl are to be banned from having the 2 together.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:51   #23
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

I don't like limits really. Making things progressively more difficult to do but still possible is where it's at.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:56   #24
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

As I said I favour giving them distinctive advantages. As in it'd be easier for terran to build high armour ships etc but it's possible to do everything.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 11:58   #25
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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No offence but wouldn't you just ask your members to build the simplest def ships possible so you can cover things easily? Remember aus are going to reveal exactly the same amount of information you need as you do now.
Promoting thinking on the spot, rather than applying the same formulae over and over again. +1
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 12:02   #26
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

To Londo's worries:

if things are being changed alot anyway I see no reason why you could not be able to scan an individual fleet while not being the planet under attack, obviously it would have to have a big margin for error, or else it could just say what classes of ships are in the fleet (or else give the metaclass (fr/de etc))
this would not take out the possibility of faking entirely as if you had both fi and fr ships in a fleet it would show as being fi/fr, so you could still have 1 fr and the real fleet be fi, or else as in the planet scans atm show a low/medium/high
... not yet too sure about this idea myself
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 12:48   #27
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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The most important thing about a game is the authentic vision that you have for the gameplay itself. Far too often in PA we get bogged down in details and balancing issues which are nothing at all to do with game development. Game development is the key idea behind the game you're creating.

In terms of surface features you are looking at what encourages people to logon frequently to check their planet once they've signed up and what integrates them into the community quickly.../...More prominent ingame links to the forums with the possible addition of a specific newbie help forum (we had this before) being the initial forum linked to. Ingame polls, which light up similar to mail and news functions are also viable. The possibility of links to blogs/pictures/profiles, obviously optional, from ingame planets is also an approach to this problem, in that it creates an awareness of the people you are playing this game with outside the galaxy itself.

The readdition of quests could go a long way towards making the early part of a new player's round go easier and with the above listed surface features should prove more interesting. Other possible surface features include dynamic pictures of the planet/galaxy itself (higher levels of activity surround the bigger planets etc) and the (re)introduction of graphics for ships. The development of a background story for PA provides the sort of interest level likely to involve new planets to a greater extent.
.../ Most importantly it has to be fun.
I hope this thread continues for a long time......

In my own vision for what will take (or break PA) in the future i would have to say i like a lot of the ideas you have suggested, which while they will obviously take a long time and concerted investment in development in both monetary terms and also in manpower and time they will ultimately lead to a better game. I can appreciate that some things will not happen "overnight".

However, some of what you have suggested (and others including myself have suggested also) can be implemented fairly low cost and quickly without the need, i believe, for a huge cash injection into the game and still give the game a much need "morale" injection.

This may go off on a little tangent now but hey...

As far as a "perspective" (can't think of the word i want )i would like to see future changes done with....

IMHO stats balancing discussions and arguing over classes of ships and +1 here and -1 there whilst yes they are valid points they really really lose sight of the overall picture of PA as not only a game (a game with dynamics ofc) but PA as a community. I think its great that there is so much heated discussion of such small details in the game but think to myself how the **** does this forum and community generate so many threads on stats and balancing but you get somebody suggest a more possibly intangible benefit to the game of having say a newbie forum not seem to have the same number of responses or level of discussion????

This community does an excellent job at discussing the minute details of a formula in a spreadsheet but why is the same level of discussion not applied to the wider aspects of the game? Is it because its just so obvious what needs to be done?

I would maybe like to see some input or people looking specifically at what exactly "a community" means to people who play PA. Already mentioned, pictures, blogs, expanded forums, backstory (btw wasn't there a thread/story a few EONS ago with exactly this??? It was GOOD! and really fleshed out the game etc, or maybe i imagined it heh), better portal, more cohesive START to the game for newbies.

Don't get me wrong I don't necessarily see this discussion as separate to a discussion on the dynamics of the game and stats balancing i just think its a bit mad to sometimes see so much time and effort spent arguing over the far end of a fart of a formula when we aint getting the players into the fecking game and keeping them for the enjoyment and fun of playing a lively, vibrant interesting and challenging but ultimately ACCESSIBLE game in a GREAT community.

I aint having a go ay anybody or even at the community in general but what excites me about PA is the stuff i see happen that will make/take PA to a wider audience and expand its base of players both hardcore and "for fun" which, to me, is all the stuff to do with developments to bring in players and work on enhancing the community and access to it. I don't think making a game easier for a newbie to get into necessarily means dumbing it down or making it less strategy based, i believe the two can sit happily together and believe this is the challenge.

Like I say i like all of what JBG has suggested some of it would take time but some of it could be done quickly and at minimal investment especially the non-coding/development stuff.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 13:16   #28
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

It's pretty easy to confuse the quality of the suggestion with the amount of discussion surrounding it. I have made several suggestions in the past which got less than 5 responses; not because they were bad ideas, but because they were so obviously good ones. Similarly, some utterly retarded suggestions have been made in the past (all by others, obviously.), which are subjected to heated discussion. People don't post when they agree, they post when they disagree.*


* The suggestions that get the most discussion are excluded from this rule. These are the suggestions that make a choice in game design. An addendum to "People post when they disagree" could be "People post even more when they can voice their opinion".
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 13:19   #29
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

I think that this is mostly because we tend to see things like a newbie forum is obviously good and as such does not generate discussion beacuse its difficult for anyone to say "NO I think that is a really bad idea" so how do U discuss it... I know that this leads to the problem that such ideas get lost in amongst everything else.

I also think that there is much more discussion on these forums about things like stats because that is the kind of thing that will keep the current players playing... if there is a round with really unbalanced stats or else the stats don't change at all then a lot of the current players will leave from boredom, which is just as bad as not getting new players.

there does seem to be quite a bit of discussion about way pa in general needs (with more players being a consensus), it however does not get heated or generate so many posts precisely because it is a consensus, and unfortunately something that does not seem to change much, whereas we tend to feel that our input into stats have a tangeable benefit (the stats do tend to change after all) while suggestions about the community don't tend to get done - take for example all the suggestions about more on the portal that never seems to change.

EDIT: beaten too it by Mzyxptlk!
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 13:30   #30
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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Originally Posted by Link
It's a long story, or rather it's an old story, but it is quite short actually. C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a book in the early 1960'ies, called "Parkinson's Law", which contains a lot of insight into the dynamics of management.

You can find it on Amazon, and maybe also in your dads book-shelf, it is well worth its price and the time to read it either way, if you like Dilbert, you'll like Parkinson.

Somebody recently told me that he had read it and found that only about 50% of it applied these days. That is pretty darn good I would say, many of the modern management books have hit-rates a lot lower than that, and this one is 35+ years old.

In the specific example involving the bike shed, the other vital component is an atomic power-plant, I guess that illustrates the age of the book.

Parkinson shows how you can go in to the board of directors and get approval for building a multi-million or even billion dollar atomic power plant, but if you want to build a bike shed you will be tangled up in endless discussions.

Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the details before it got this far. Richard P. Feynmann gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point, examples relating to Los Alamos in his books.

A bike shed on the other hand. Anyone can build one of those over a weekend, and still have time to watch the game on TV. So no matter how well prepared, no matter how reasonable you are with your proposal, somebody will seize the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is paying attention, that he is *here*.

In Denmark we call it "setting your fingerprint". It is about personal pride and prestige, it is about being able to point somewhere and say "There! *I* did that." It is a strong trait in politicians, but present in most people given the chance. Just think about footsteps in wet cement.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 14:01   #31
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

well i live in hope and continued discussion
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 17:44   #32
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Well, I too, will have to voice my opinion in this matter! I think many of the original proposals are thought provocing and very exciting. However, I also see potential problems with many of them. That is ofc not a reason NOT to try them! As several posters before me I fell in love with the pirates. Immediately visions of patchy-looking spaceships lurking behind some space rocks seeking to ambush passing fleets came to mind, and I like it!

That makes me wonder, btw, if perhaps some sort of customizable ambush strategy could be implemented for pirates in the fleet formations functionality.

Ofc, if we want the general attack procedures for the avarage player to stay roughly what it's been thus far, all this would mean that you'd have to take possible mid-way ambushs into account when calcing a battle. And, if intercepted and some of your ships happens to survive, will they return to base or continue to the original target planet and get mashed if you don't have time to recall? I don't want to shoot holes in suggestions I really like, but what I'm trying to say is that many of those things would probably require the player to be more active... which may or may not be a bad thing.

As for the ship parts discussion, that too appeals to me. However I do think that the round would have to be longer for this to have a major impact. Would be meaningless to have the option as a Terran to build high A/C, cloaked corvettes if you can't get them until the last couple of days of the round. Or we could change the research rates, but that would again lead us to the question of "required activity" that I touched above.

But I want to end on a stricltly positive note and say nice work! Many good and intresting suggestions.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 18:07   #33
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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Originally Posted by Veedeejem! View Post
Pirates should also have a couple of special pirate ships with the ability to track down what fleets are going to be in their area soon that they can attack.
Perhaps also, if as you say Pirates could have their bases in asteroid fields and such these "sentinel vessels" could report back if they see actual (or remnants of) big inter-planatary battles so that the Pirate could send out "scavanger ships" to steal some of the salvage...

EDIT: ... and there could be a fleet formation for regular planets that was designed to be better for detecting and defending against small ambush fleets, but not as good as some other formations for big inter-planetary battles. Ok, I'll shut up now.

This Pirate idea could be developed immensely!
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 19:06   #34
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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Originally Posted by Teclcontar
However, I also see potential problems with many of them.
If they're design problems as opposed to implementation problems please outline them here.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 19:36   #35
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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As several posters before me I fell in love with the pirates. Immediately visions of patchy-looking spaceships lurking behind some space rocks seeking to ambush passing fleets came to mind, and I like it!
Yes! Exactly, me too.
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Unread 7 Aug 2008, 21:02   #36
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

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If they're design problems as opposed to implementation problems please outline them here.
No, my main fears regard balancing the features and implementing them in a way that makes them intuitive and fun (as opposed to complicated and frustrating). I'm a pessimist when it comes to these things, since I have tried to write games myself, and know from experience how hard it can be to realize envisioned game features...


EDIT: Basically, what I wanted to say (although I've done a terrible job explaining it so far) is this: the best strategy games (PC, online, board games, whatever), are (imho) the ones that takes 5 min to learn, but yet provides for near endless variations and tactical variety. Many of the long-lived PC strategy games for example have in my opinion shot themselves in the foot by implementing loads of new features and "more of everything" for each new instance of the game. In many of those series, I find that one of the earlier games (although not always the first) is the best. Somewhere you'll find a golden middle-path where you have enough complexity to allow players different paths and strategies, but not so many that it becomes unbalanced or simply too difficult to learn. I'd love to see the creators trying for instance adding that whole "pirate deal" and the ship parts, and no more. If they implement all those suggestions - or even more - then I'd think it'd become too complicated for me to even bother trying to get my head around... So eventhough all suggestions sounds good, I don't want to see all of them in the game. But maybe that's just me.
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Unread 12 Aug 2008, 21:06   #37
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Hi guys,

Great thread, and very interesting reading. If you could dig out those old threads with the story it would be a great help, i'm working on the manual to start with and it would be great to use what the community has inputted towards the backstory of the races.

Things will take time, and we haven't even touched development of the game yet. That's why I'm listening as we get our plans down on paper : )

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Unread 13 Aug 2008, 14:18   #38
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Re: A vision for the future of Planetarion

Pretty much agree with everything JBG posted, aside from the land-battles. I envisioned combat(s) taking place in real-time much the same way, on the speedgame server or something.

I'll dig through the Dev forum later on and paste some ideas of mine on here (in a seperate thread) later.
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