Well whatever I was trying to remember from the end of the last post is probably long gone. Unless it's one of the things that will come up here! Which is possible, as it could get a bit wordy...
Time really flies when you're having fun, and otherwise keeping busy. I think about the devlog often, and I somehow tricked myself into believing that I had posted something in February.
"So, what's been cooking lately?"
ASTEROIDS
In the future of humanity, asteroid mining is likely to be a massive boost to large-scale construction and industry. That's just what happens when much-needed resources become much more accessible: massive growth. It's not just human nature, it's nature-nature!
It's also true (in theory) that precious metals that we find on earth are almost certainly not part of the earth's original formation material, but were actually deposited long ago by meteors and asteroids falling to the earth in late stages of formation.
Tangent
Why does this seem to be a solid theory? Why can't the gold we find be part of the early planet? During the middle-ish stages of planet formation when the planet was almost entirely molten rocky materials, heavy metallic material would have been mixed in with the rock all as a molten liquid mass during which any heavier-than-rock (heavy metal!) material would sink to the bottom of the gravity well, aka the planet's core. Over millions or billions of years, the early heavy metallic contents of the earth's mass would have sunk to the core while rocks remain on top. The molten phase of the earth is also why it's believed that most of earth's water and atmosphere came from asteroids and comets: at those temperatures the water and gasses would have been extremely light and volatile, allowing them to be boiled, ejected, and blown away. With such conditions present it leads to the conclusions that water, atmosphere, and precious heavy metals could only be present for us to find in the earth's surface if they were deposited after the crust had cooled and hardened enough for asteroids to [crash] land on without sinking and melting in with the rest of the mantle.
SO! With asteroids being sooo theoretically and probably important, shouldn't they also be important in the game? Well, I thought they should! So they will!
But how, exactly?
When I first put my mind to the idea I wasn't sure how to do it in a way that seemed clean and natural and not a forced gimmick. I wanted asteroid importance to really be a part of the game, especially after watching this video which reminded me about the significance of asteroid mining. It also taught me there are actually people right now in the real world who are really actually laying the first foundations towards very real asteroid mining! Anyway.... I couldn't come up with any resolution about asteroids for a long time, until a few days ago when it just hit me while I was cleaning: surface-to-space launches. As in reality, launching rockets is expensive, and the more weight you want to lift into space the more it costs! UNIVERSE will mimic this in some fashion, roughly, by having an appreciable cost to launch materials and ships directly into space from a planet. What this means for asteroids is the value of asteroid mining comes with large-scale ship production, through the concept of logistics. Moving large quantities of material from asteroids to orbital shipyards will be much more practical (cost, time, volume) than launching from a planet to its orbital shipyards.
But that's not the only gold nugget we'll find in asteroids.
Going back to that idea of planetary formation, it's probably fair to suggest that most asteroids live in - or come from - asteroid belts. If we run with the idea that precious resources on planets (and large moons) come from asteroids, and asteroids come from asteroid belts ... then perhaps planets closer to asteroid belts might receive more asteroids, and solar systems with more asteroid belts might see more resources deposited onto their planets. Hmm, yes, perhaps...
RESOURCES
One of the aspects of UNIVERSE that I honestly believe will make this game work and keep working and evolving for a long time is the matter of simplicity. Other games of this genre are too simple, and so after months or years of playing the game people eventually get bored and leave, ultimately because it's simple and there's virtually no room for being creative or clever. Once you've done everything there is to do and seen everything there is to see, there comes a point where investing a lot more time just doesn't pay off like it used to. UNIVERSE will combat the rot of simplicity, and it will do so by maintaining a mild level of complexity.
A long time ago, I said that there would be four resources. I recently decided to change that, and am now deciding on a few more resources, splitting the concept of the previous resources into a few more varieties. The spread of base resources I'm imagining right now might look more like this:
- Volatiles
- Light Ore
- Heavy Ore
- Precious Ore
- Rare Minerals
- Oxysilicate Minerals
These 'base resources' would actually count as raw materials, which would then be processed (often in some combination with each other) to produce other resources which would then be used in other production and manufacturing. For example, "Volatiles" alone represents various substances which could be turned into things like "Atmosphere" which your starship crews might appreciate, or water and other chemicals necessary to refine ores into their respective products like "Light Metals" which might be used a lot in aircraft or "Structural Metals" which would go well into building large structures and starship armour plating. The list of significant 'production materials' that I'm imagining [while typing on the verge of passing out] looks something like:
- Atmosphere
- Water
- Reactants
- Concretes
- Light Metals
- Structural Metals
- Precious Metals
- Rare Metals
These lists aren't finalized, but I do know for sure that I'll need to revisit the formation of solar systems, at least touching on resources and asteroids. The general formation strategy that I spent several painful weeks perfecting shouldn't change too much; though I do want to look at tweaking stellar and planetary masses to base them on real units instead of the vague arbitrary units I have in effect right now.
I'm not implementing these new resources just 'for the fun' of making things more complex. I also like to try modelling a bit of realism into the game, and more than that, I want/expect the inter-player economy in the game to be lively and meaningful, and having a variety of resources to need and produce and exchange will contribute toward this end.
MODULES ..?
I'm also playing with the idea of another form of starship construction, which would probably come as a later addition to the game: modules. Modules would be pre-built sections of a starship - such as weapon systems, engines, power plants, armour plates, and shield emitters - that players could trade in local markets. It would probably be a separate market 'zone' than resources as they would be more complex, but it would allow players to try specializing in some technologies and developing very low-cost or high-power modules and selling them in markets. On the other side of that coin players might choose to specialize in some technologies by intentionally neglecting others, trading with neighbours for certain modules instead of building their own.
With modules, you would be able to make interesting or useful items that you could trade with others, or perfect to your own standards for your own ships. I would even consider giving some cost advantages to modules, saying that a 'mass production' operation producing a module would cost a bit less than custom-building the equivalent piece into a ship. It's all just an idea, but it's an idea that I like and hope that others will also enjoy.
AND
With a lot of stuff going on around me right now, it's hard for me to make updates regularly, as has been the case for the past year. I'm not happy with having basically missed the 2nd birthday, and with not having a playable beta yet, but life... That being said, I'm trying really hard lately to work through things and am hoping to start scheduling - on a calendar - regular blog posts starting in April, even if it's only once per month I really want to do at least one per month. Also, I have the birthday on my calendar so I won't miss that. I'm really hoping and really working hard at it... I'm going to try getting more MORE re-focused on the project around the time of THE THIRD BIRTHDAY (which would be April 20) and really honour it well. The third birthday of the third build of The UNIVERSE Project...
Wish me luck! o7
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Update#86 : Little Big Reveal & HAPPY NEW YEAR
I hope everybody else had a good year! I know I did, though it could have been better. Still, a pretty good year, the next one should be better! Hopefully for all of us!
The main thing I wanted to share in this post was the idea I had for ship design, which would be one of my favourite aspects of the game.
Inspired mainly by my first big space-empire MMO which I loved to death - SPACE: Glory Through Conquest - because I never came across another such game to do it: as stated in the previous post, players would design their own ships. There would be some 'basic' designs (blueprints) available so players could make ships without having to learn about designing ships, but you would have the option of creating your own designs through drop-down value selections and options, which would affect various attributes of the ship. For example, increasing the 'hit points' of a ship would generally make it larger and more durable, but also less quick and maneuverable, and you could add thruster power to somewhat counteract this (but it might never be as evasive as a smaller ship) and naturally the more you add to the ship, the more it will cost. Ship sizes/classes would probably have a limited number of slot-points to build a ship, to represent it being bound to a certain size class and the range of values within it.
I'm probably not describing it very well right now, but for fans of the genre, it's really satisfying and cool to design your own ships and then actually use them with and against other players!
An advanced option I'd want to add in the future would be to make another page in which you wouldn't even have drop-down menus for everything, just a few limited things (like weapon types for weapon systems) but otherwise you would manually design all of the main attributes and stats yourself (such as hit points and armour and speed and weapons) and the page would report the cost and results of what your design is.
I'm actually down with a cold right now which is making me reeeeally tired, and if I had any more thoughts of what to add to this babbling I've forgotten it! Hopefully there's something and hopefully I'll remember soon!
Have a nice day and a Happy new year =)
The main thing I wanted to share in this post was the idea I had for ship design, which would be one of my favourite aspects of the game.
Inspired mainly by my first big space-empire MMO which I loved to death - SPACE: Glory Through Conquest - because I never came across another such game to do it: as stated in the previous post, players would design their own ships. There would be some 'basic' designs (blueprints) available so players could make ships without having to learn about designing ships, but you would have the option of creating your own designs through drop-down value selections and options, which would affect various attributes of the ship. For example, increasing the 'hit points' of a ship would generally make it larger and more durable, but also less quick and maneuverable, and you could add thruster power to somewhat counteract this (but it might never be as evasive as a smaller ship) and naturally the more you add to the ship, the more it will cost. Ship sizes/classes would probably have a limited number of slot-points to build a ship, to represent it being bound to a certain size class and the range of values within it.
I'm probably not describing it very well right now, but for fans of the genre, it's really satisfying and cool to design your own ships and then actually use them with and against other players!
An advanced option I'd want to add in the future would be to make another page in which you wouldn't even have drop-down menus for everything, just a few limited things (like weapon types for weapon systems) but otherwise you would manually design all of the main attributes and stats yourself (such as hit points and armour and speed and weapons) and the page would report the cost and results of what your design is.
I'm actually down with a cold right now which is making me reeeeally tired, and if I had any more thoughts of what to add to this babbling I've forgotten it! Hopefully there's something and hopefully I'll remember soon!
Have a nice day and a Happy new year =)
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Update#85 : Back and Forth about SPACESHIPS
It's only been a few months now, yeah? Yeah...
Anyway, I've dropped that idea of an EVE application within the greater whole of my website. At first I was just going to drop the idea of a shared login, but the totality of having a whole extra database and a moderately complex system there, and then finding a website that already exists to do what I wanted to do... it just didn't feel like it's worth making.
That said, for UNIVERSE development I can say that I haven't made any real progess to the game in a little while (sorry!) due to being busy with people and jobs.
I have made one important breakthrough for the project: I have confidence now that even with a total system loss I can restore a backup from scratch onto a fresh computer. This is good also because the current host system is mildly crippled by a virus I picked up a while back [don't worry no threat to you] which has been gradually sapping resources and performance capability from the machine, which I therefor may soon reformat or replace.
SPACE COMBAT ~ SHIP ATTRIBUTES
I don't think I've mentioned much about the game's combat system yet, so I shall gift thee all with some details that have been swimming in my head for a long time. Besides, if you've read most or all of the devlog, you deserve it.
Mass & Volume: These physical attributes affect things like speed, evasion, and detectability.
Structure: The main HP of the ship. As the structure takes damage so too do various ship systems. On-board weapons, evasion, and sensors will be reduced along with the structure HP level. Once reduced to zero, the ship is fully incapacitated and damaged beyond repair, effectively dead.
Armour: Yes I spell it with a u. The armour attribute of a ship will reduce incoming damage by the 'amount' of the armor equipped; as the ship takes damage the effectveness of the armour is reduced by a factor dependant on the damage recieved. For example, a large powerful shot would pierce and severely compromise that area of the armour plating, allowing a percentage of future shots to completely bypass any armour.
Energy Shields: Who doesn't like energy shields? First to mention, they would be an advanced technology not available to starting empires; that's okay though because they would be expensive, too. Energy Shields would function as both additional HP and armour. The shields would have a threshold, a max HP, and might regenerate a bit through the battle. The shield threshold would probably be something like 10% of the current shield HP; an attack whose damage is less than or equal to this amount will be completely absorbed by the shield HP, and if the damage is higher than this then its damage would be reduced by the threshold amount and then what remains would hit the ship armour/structure as normal.
Speed: There would actually be a few speed ratings; one would be a battle maneuvering speed, one would be a cruising speed for travelling within a solar system (too fast for battles but too slow for interstellar flight) and one would be an FTL drive for travel between the stars.
Summary of Weapon Types: Laser, Projectile, Missile, Particle Beam
Laser: Good Accuracy, High Power Demand, Shields are not very effective, Least damaging type
Projectile: Medium Accuracy, Medium Power Demand, Shields are normal effective
Missile: Excellent Accuracy, Very Low Power Demand, Shields are highly effective
Particle Beam: Good Accuracy, Very High Power Demand, Shields are normal effective, Significant damage & tech cost
Additionally: Projectile & Missile weapons might have a moderate & high upkeep cost (respectively) for ammunition, while lasers and particle beam (P'eam?) weapons have very low upkeep cost...
Summary of Weapon Systems
When designing your ships, you get to create whole weapon systems (if any) your ship will be equipped with. Larger ships are permitted to install more weapon systems. A weapon system will probably include 3 attributes for you to control: Weapon Type, Power, Shots .. and maybe a 4th for accuracy ... Small ships will be limited to one weapon system, medium ships will be allowed two, and large ships will be allowed up to three weapon systems.
NEXT TIME
More about designing your space ships... (coming soon!)
Anyway, I've dropped that idea of an EVE application within the greater whole of my website. At first I was just going to drop the idea of a shared login, but the totality of having a whole extra database and a moderately complex system there, and then finding a website that already exists to do what I wanted to do... it just didn't feel like it's worth making.
That said, for UNIVERSE development I can say that I haven't made any real progess to the game in a little while (sorry!) due to being busy with people and jobs.
I have made one important breakthrough for the project: I have confidence now that even with a total system loss I can restore a backup from scratch onto a fresh computer. This is good also because the current host system is mildly crippled by a virus I picked up a while back [don't worry no threat to you] which has been gradually sapping resources and performance capability from the machine, which I therefor may soon reformat or replace.
SPACE COMBAT ~ SHIP ATTRIBUTES
I don't think I've mentioned much about the game's combat system yet, so I shall gift thee all with some details that have been swimming in my head for a long time. Besides, if you've read most or all of the devlog, you deserve it.
Mass & Volume: These physical attributes affect things like speed, evasion, and detectability.
Structure: The main HP of the ship. As the structure takes damage so too do various ship systems. On-board weapons, evasion, and sensors will be reduced along with the structure HP level. Once reduced to zero, the ship is fully incapacitated and damaged beyond repair, effectively dead.
Armour: Yes I spell it with a u. The armour attribute of a ship will reduce incoming damage by the 'amount' of the armor equipped; as the ship takes damage the effectveness of the armour is reduced by a factor dependant on the damage recieved. For example, a large powerful shot would pierce and severely compromise that area of the armour plating, allowing a percentage of future shots to completely bypass any armour.
Energy Shields: Who doesn't like energy shields? First to mention, they would be an advanced technology not available to starting empires; that's okay though because they would be expensive, too. Energy Shields would function as both additional HP and armour. The shields would have a threshold, a max HP, and might regenerate a bit through the battle. The shield threshold would probably be something like 10% of the current shield HP; an attack whose damage is less than or equal to this amount will be completely absorbed by the shield HP, and if the damage is higher than this then its damage would be reduced by the threshold amount and then what remains would hit the ship armour/structure as normal.
Speed: There would actually be a few speed ratings; one would be a battle maneuvering speed, one would be a cruising speed for travelling within a solar system (too fast for battles but too slow for interstellar flight) and one would be an FTL drive for travel between the stars.
Summary of Weapon Types: Laser, Projectile, Missile, Particle Beam
Laser: Good Accuracy, High Power Demand, Shields are not very effective, Least damaging type
Projectile: Medium Accuracy, Medium Power Demand, Shields are normal effective
Missile: Excellent Accuracy, Very Low Power Demand, Shields are highly effective
Particle Beam: Good Accuracy, Very High Power Demand, Shields are normal effective, Significant damage & tech cost
Additionally: Projectile & Missile weapons might have a moderate & high upkeep cost (respectively) for ammunition, while lasers and particle beam (P'eam?) weapons have very low upkeep cost...
Summary of Weapon Systems
When designing your ships, you get to create whole weapon systems (if any) your ship will be equipped with. Larger ships are permitted to install more weapon systems. A weapon system will probably include 3 attributes for you to control: Weapon Type, Power, Shots .. and maybe a 4th for accuracy ... Small ships will be limited to one weapon system, medium ships will be allowed two, and large ships will be allowed up to three weapon systems.
NEXT TIME
More about designing your space ships... (coming soon!)
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Update#84 : EVEn More of a Website
Less than a month since the last update! Woohoo! Anyway..
Some people may know, there's a game called EVE Online and it's a pretty neat game. Check out that website to learn more because if I try to tell you about it I'll ramble on and on and on and on because it's really really really really big.
Anyway, I can admit that some aspects of UNIVERSE were created with some inspiration from EVE Online, either direct inspiration or through several tangent thoughts... I'll stress that I'm not copying anything; they're completely different games so it wouldn't work anyway!
Am I rambling? Because that doesn't look like actual information!
I'm a big fan of EVE Online, and the developers who build that game offer an API system to allow people to make their own web sites and applications which can fetch data from within the massive EVE universe, to help them manage their in-game businesses and assets. I would like to do that too!
So, with that in mind, I'll gradually or eventually build a second part of the website which will employ EVE API and other information supplied by users, to make a nice set of data... some of it should be open for those who want to use it, but some tools will be very powerful and their use will be restricted so that only myself and my friends will be able to use them.
To serve the needs for accomodating that as well as anything else I might decide to concoct in the future, I'll be rebuilding the login function of the website. Users will have a general account login/access for the site, which would then grant access to all of those areas they might be interested in and keeping the same identity for all, which is relevant for game/forum access, and thus also prevents imposters.
I have no idea when I'll set up a forum, but I'm sure I will some day.
... Yeah I think that's all for now. Ta~!
Some people may know, there's a game called EVE Online and it's a pretty neat game. Check out that website to learn more because if I try to tell you about it I'll ramble on and on and on and on because it's really really really really big.
Anyway, I can admit that some aspects of UNIVERSE were created with some inspiration from EVE Online, either direct inspiration or through several tangent thoughts... I'll stress that I'm not copying anything; they're completely different games so it wouldn't work anyway!
Am I rambling? Because that doesn't look like actual information!
I'm a big fan of EVE Online, and the developers who build that game offer an API system to allow people to make their own web sites and applications which can fetch data from within the massive EVE universe, to help them manage their in-game businesses and assets. I would like to do that too!
So, with that in mind, I'll gradually or eventually build a second part of the website which will employ EVE API and other information supplied by users, to make a nice set of data... some of it should be open for those who want to use it, but some tools will be very powerful and their use will be restricted so that only myself and my friends will be able to use them.
To serve the needs for accomodating that as well as anything else I might decide to concoct in the future, I'll be rebuilding the login function of the website. Users will have a general account login/access for the site, which would then grant access to all of those areas they might be interested in and keeping the same identity for all, which is relevant for game/forum access, and thus also prevents imposters.
I have no idea when I'll set up a forum, but I'm sure I will some day.
... Yeah I think that's all for now. Ta~!
Friday, May 30, 2014
Update#83 : Shadow and Flame
Seven months?!
I knew I was being neglectful but I thought I was still posting at least once every other month!
Apologies! Apologies everywhere!
As is always the case I have been quite busy; apparently even busier than I knew. Last weekend I visited the AnimeNorth convention for the weekend, and for much of the past few months I even had a job! Just a temporary contract thing, but still, real money!
I haven't stopped working on this project, though the pace has been forced to slow down. I've been working mostly on back-end improvements (still!) to ensure that the best future is built on the best foundation.
Here's a few of the more recent things I've been working on.
Names : To help prevent unwanted name overlap and simplify management, all names of significant entities (planets, stars, empires) will be collected into a single database table. A name which is currently in use cannot be used for something else. I believe I have stated in the past (or otherwise written somewhere) that there would be an exception to this, that a planet and its star could have the same name; while I thought it was a nice idea, it would and add unnecessary complications to navigation for both coding and player experience, so instead I'll just skip that option and say there can't be any overlap. This no-name-overlap policy will not apply to ship designs and names, and only might apply to outposts/cities. Having name management centralized into one table also allows for easier monitoring, to make sure people aren't abusing the name feature and check for inappropriate labels and messages being applied in names.
Logging : I toyed with the idea in my head for a while, and originally I wasn't going to do it but now I have decided to... After observing in various other games and platforms how useful the data can be, I've decided that I want to install basic logging in the site. Basic logging would just record when someone loads a page, how long it took for the page to load, maybe report little page or data errors, and really just give a bit of statistical data that would allow me to monitor how the game is being played, where people spend their time, what pages need optimization, and anything else like that. Such logging would eventually extend into transaction records when the market gets together, collecting economic data. It also has applications for things like account security.
Resources : I'm very much considering adding some tiered resources in the future; that is, resources produced by combining/processing basic resources. Right now the list is only 4 long, consisting of [volatiles] [minerals] [light metals] [heavy metals] ... I'm thinking these could comfortably be refined and combined, calling those metals ores and having a list of 'usable resources' which might look like [water] [simple chemicals] [complex chemicals] [crystalline compounds] [soil] [structural metals] [heavy metals] [active metals] and those would be the resources used to actually build things (list not finalized!) and some other products could exist, like [rations] which is another idea playing in my head, as supplies are really a big deal in large-scale warfare.
NPC Factions : I know I've mentioned that long ago somewhat, but I'm closer to having some identities for such things. For example, some might be outright aggressive raider factions which attacks players seemingly at random, while another might be some sort of semi-benevolent nation who tries to enforce peace (by punishing violence) between others in its territories.
Tools : Devising and building tools for admin (and users) is an important part of safely managing complex systems.
Stories and Lore : Any game with depth has a background story, so I've been putting some thought into the history of things in the UNIVERSE. Right now I'm leaning towards a core theme about something like ... some sort of civil war and a general crumbling of humanity occurred some generations ago, a few major organizations survived [which would be represented by NPC factions] but most colonies have been decimated or abandoned or lost or whatever and we - the players - represent those who have survived and grown to a point where they are ready to join the interstellar community and establish themselves as a power of their own.
I'm really sorry for the long period of blog neglect, and I hope this has been enough of a glimpse to convince everybody that I haven't given up! No promises, but I'll try to make my next posting somewhere in the near future; if you get tired of waiting, feel free to poke me through the internet!
Alright, off to bed...
I knew I was being neglectful but I thought I was still posting at least once every other month!
Apologies! Apologies everywhere!
As is always the case I have been quite busy; apparently even busier than I knew. Last weekend I visited the AnimeNorth convention for the weekend, and for much of the past few months I even had a job! Just a temporary contract thing, but still, real money!
I haven't stopped working on this project, though the pace has been forced to slow down. I've been working mostly on back-end improvements (still!) to ensure that the best future is built on the best foundation.
Here's a few of the more recent things I've been working on.
Names : To help prevent unwanted name overlap and simplify management, all names of significant entities (planets, stars, empires) will be collected into a single database table. A name which is currently in use cannot be used for something else. I believe I have stated in the past (or otherwise written somewhere) that there would be an exception to this, that a planet and its star could have the same name; while I thought it was a nice idea, it would and add unnecessary complications to navigation for both coding and player experience, so instead I'll just skip that option and say there can't be any overlap. This no-name-overlap policy will not apply to ship designs and names, and only might apply to outposts/cities. Having name management centralized into one table also allows for easier monitoring, to make sure people aren't abusing the name feature and check for inappropriate labels and messages being applied in names.
Logging : I toyed with the idea in my head for a while, and originally I wasn't going to do it but now I have decided to... After observing in various other games and platforms how useful the data can be, I've decided that I want to install basic logging in the site. Basic logging would just record when someone loads a page, how long it took for the page to load, maybe report little page or data errors, and really just give a bit of statistical data that would allow me to monitor how the game is being played, where people spend their time, what pages need optimization, and anything else like that. Such logging would eventually extend into transaction records when the market gets together, collecting economic data. It also has applications for things like account security.
Resources : I'm very much considering adding some tiered resources in the future; that is, resources produced by combining/processing basic resources. Right now the list is only 4 long, consisting of [volatiles] [minerals] [light metals] [heavy metals] ... I'm thinking these could comfortably be refined and combined, calling those metals ores and having a list of 'usable resources' which might look like [water] [simple chemicals] [complex chemicals] [crystalline compounds] [soil] [structural metals] [heavy metals] [active metals] and those would be the resources used to actually build things (list not finalized!) and some other products could exist, like [rations] which is another idea playing in my head, as supplies are really a big deal in large-scale warfare.
NPC Factions : I know I've mentioned that long ago somewhat, but I'm closer to having some identities for such things. For example, some might be outright aggressive raider factions which attacks players seemingly at random, while another might be some sort of semi-benevolent nation who tries to enforce peace (by punishing violence) between others in its territories.
Tools : Devising and building tools for admin (and users) is an important part of safely managing complex systems.
Stories and Lore : Any game with depth has a background story, so I've been putting some thought into the history of things in the UNIVERSE. Right now I'm leaning towards a core theme about something like ... some sort of civil war and a general crumbling of humanity occurred some generations ago, a few major organizations survived [which would be represented by NPC factions] but most colonies have been decimated or abandoned or lost or whatever and we - the players - represent those who have survived and grown to a point where they are ready to join the interstellar community and establish themselves as a power of their own.
I'm really sorry for the long period of blog neglect, and I hope this has been enough of a glimpse to convince everybody that I haven't given up! No promises, but I'll try to make my next posting somewhere in the near future; if you get tired of waiting, feel free to poke me through the internet!
Alright, off to bed...
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Update#82 : Current Seas
This little post is about ... currencies! (See what I did there? If not, too bad)
First of all, I'll share an idea which is NOT new to my plans for the game. Tokens. There will be tokens that you can purchase to upgrade your 'playing experience' or whatever, but really they will make things more convenient. This can include things like extending the span of galactic space that you can request to download at once, renaming** a star or planet or increasing the depth of your construction/research queues.
**You can rename your homeworld and any moons that it may have at least once for free. I realize that renaming planets is usually a freely available option in most games like this, but in UNIVERSE it will be a big deal as it can affect gameplay.
Originally I was thinking that tokens would have a simple price of 1$ or 2$ but with various conversion rates it still seemed like it could get a bit complicated. So, to simplify things, I've decided that I'll just go with the idea that I resisted for reasons I can no longer remember! I'm going to make an additional in-game currency. Instead of just buying tokens directly, you would buy some amount of that currency and with that you could buy the tokens. Both tokens and this new currency could be traded in the market, or exchanged between players.
By implementing this additional currency, it will keep token prices more simple and easier for me to add new tokens and other such features.
I don't have a name for this currency at the moment, but I'll be working on it.
First of all, I'll share an idea which is NOT new to my plans for the game. Tokens. There will be tokens that you can purchase to upgrade your 'playing experience' or whatever, but really they will make things more convenient. This can include things like extending the span of galactic space that you can request to download at once, renaming** a star or planet or increasing the depth of your construction/research queues.
**You can rename your homeworld and any moons that it may have at least once for free. I realize that renaming planets is usually a freely available option in most games like this, but in UNIVERSE it will be a big deal as it can affect gameplay.
Originally I was thinking that tokens would have a simple price of 1$ or 2$ but with various conversion rates it still seemed like it could get a bit complicated. So, to simplify things, I've decided that I'll just go with the idea that I resisted for reasons I can no longer remember! I'm going to make an additional in-game currency. Instead of just buying tokens directly, you would buy some amount of that currency and with that you could buy the tokens. Both tokens and this new currency could be traded in the market, or exchanged between players.
By implementing this additional currency, it will keep token prices more simple and easier for me to add new tokens and other such features.
I don't have a name for this currency at the moment, but I'll be working on it.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Update#81 : Orbital Inclusion
While doing a bit of cleaning the other day, I thought a bit about orbital bodies again... and it just clicked, how I could implement objects - both fleets and planetoids - having tilted orbits, and also ellipsoidal orbits!
However, I won't implement these fancy orbit functions until some time after there's a bit of game to play, which is still a little further away than I'd like it to be.
That's all for now. Still working!
However, I won't implement these fancy orbit functions until some time after there's a bit of game to play, which is still a little further away than I'd like it to be.
That's all for now. Still working!
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