HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to
THE UNIVERSE PROJECT
(Build3)
We've reached 3 years old! Due to RL busy-ness and issues the development is slow, but certainly not stopped or forgotten! In this post, I would like to babble about various visions and features I have for UNIVERSE. Also, I love Back to the Future and that wasn't the planned title of the post but it took over in a hurry. Revealed: Lots.
Reality-inspired formation patterns for solar systems and galaxies
This one is already largely completed. Solar systems - the planets for a star - are designed according to several rules and varying factors, so no two systems will be the same. There are several improvements I'd like to make, but for now it is fairly adequate. Galaxy and cluster formation is not yet completed, but will be comparitively simple to construct. At the current point of development for the game, specific formation patterns of star clusters is not a matter of priority.
Asteroid Mining, Resource Management, Internet Spaceships!
I am imagining a game where people will have their home base that provides a lot of what they need, but to really build and advance a lot as an entity in the game by building more and bigger economy and ships, they need to harvest more resources which will be available from asteroids. Many peoples' homeworld will probably be on moons and asteroids.
Ships won't be mere clones and data counters, they'll be sophisticated constructs. Each one will matter, at least to the one who owns it. They'll be built with a purpose, for a purpose, and in service of who built it it will be an improvement to the whole of their empire. They can be ships of war, freight, or colonization, or hybrids of any kind. There will be some pre-set ship designs that players can use to build ships to perform certain essential functions, to give you an idea of what might be necessary or useful... but the freedom to custom-design ships will be a core feature of UNIVERSE.
Valuable Military Conquest
There will be conflict. Battle between empires with their mighty starships will probably be the focus of most people playing the game. That's pretty much the genre, after all. Bases will be able to contsruct masses of powerful stationary defenses, fleets can have any sort of composition, and powerful rules of targetting priorities will be available. Glorious internet spaceship combat will rule the day.
But it won't be everything.
One day, armies and special forces will be carried on warships. Hundreds or even thousands may one day be deployed to planet surfaces, break in to space stations, and invade asteroid colonies. Special operatives attempt to quietly and quickly usurp control of asteroid mining colonies, while mechanized infantry might engage enemies across fields to conquer enemy strongholds with the assistance of orbital bombardment. Beyond that, large engagements of ground forces could be supported by aerial units fighting to claim air superiority and large mechanical monstrosities of war will deliver ever heavier weapons to the field than can be mobilized by convential vehicles.
To the victor, either a new source of resources or a denial of them to your enemies.
Lore-based factions and histories
Different people place a different emphasis on story in a game, but for many it can be an attractive factor in a game. I am one of those people, and I enjoy storywriting, I enjoy history, and I enjoy the complex reality of how various situations come about. There's so much history to our own human history here and now on Earth in just a few thousand years, and now so much more is happening and being recorded than ever before.
At this moment, I'm seeing the habitable worlds of the galaxies already well colonized and self-goverened, certainly well-defended and often allied with each other, but some times not. They will probably host some trade centers, where players will be able to bring items and materials to trade safely in neutral territory.
There will also be dead worlds, or others in a state of civil unrest, and others who are not so well apparent. Some civilizations will be aggressive, brutal, sneaky, mysterious; you won't see them all, but they'll be there. Not only will they be there, they'll be where they are and who they are for a reason. History.
I know I also want at least one solid 'lawful' faction to act as a kind of enforcement power. I don't really want to control people in the game, but there need to be boundaries at times and it would be good to have an in-game mechanism to enforce necessary boundaries.
A nice smooth 3D map viewer
Using standard Javascript - compatible with almost all internet browsers - I'm making a map that will show stellar regions and solar systems in 3D, with (hopefully) intuitive controls to look around at the surrounding areas: panning, rotating, centering on targets, displaying essential information. Solar system maps will also show planets and fleets and anything else of significance in the system, and again with a simple javascript field that should work on almost any internet device.
You'll be able to see that the space in this game uses three-dimensional space and distances; this instead of a flat or arbitrary mapping system, featuring two dimensions or less.
In addition to having SO MANY spatial dimensions in Universe, distances and sizes in UNIVERSE will also be modelled on reality.
Player Trade
As mentioned before, players will be allowed to trade resources and eventually items between each other. Compared to most other games of the genre - where trading of any kind tends to be strictly forbidden - this should add a level of interest to the game by creating an inter-player economy. Of course, exploitation of this feature will be strictly punished.
Trading resources will allow people to raise money to buy other needed resources, or help newer players in your alliance build up their empire more quickly, and sooner join and contribute meaningfully to the efforts of the greater collective.
That's All For Now
I ran out of thoughts that I wanted to put into this, I'm sure there's more though. Hopefully you have found this an interesting insight into what I'm envisioning for the future of the game. Some is new, some is old, but never before have I put so much into a single post or conversation. I might even look back on this one day for a feature list, hm...
Feel free to contact me any time about anything. Even if you're limted to the comments below, I'll be happy to answer any questions!
