Hot posts in thread: ISG Dev Diary #0: Project Space Sector Announced!

My point is that realism in a 4X game would be awful. You can forget FTL drives and communication. If a system at the edge of your empire is attacked, you won't even know about it for at least 100 years. Reinforcements will take 1000s of years. What kind of game would that be? I want star trek style nonsense sci-fi for a game thankyou very much!. FTL drives, transporters, naval style combat in space, space monsters, etc. A hard sci-fi 4X game would be boring.

 

That's ok. But, no one said that for example Civilization has slow pase
I think it could be fun to have start from pre-warp age colonize local star system and form the race during the game, rather then selecting like it is done in most cases.

 

Such game would have horrible pacing. You'd spend 100 turns just building scouts and exploring few neighboring stars. That is if you go by If you go by MoO 1 time scale where 1 turn is 1 Earth year. If you go by MoO 2 time scale (where 10 turns = 1 year) a regular MoO 2 game would be over by the time proble leaves a home system in real physics simulatior.

 

Voyager and Pioneer programs were great for their time. But we should not compare it to technologies potentially available nowdays.

Mankind still could not build and send colony ship, but it technically could, like you said spending But we a talking about 4X game with (hopefully) good amount of realism. LIke fuel, ship design, colonization, diplomacy, military operations, planning and so forth

There are nice examples like "Children of dead Earth"

 

The furthest any man made object has reached from Earth is Voyager 1, launched nearly 40 years ago. A quick check on google informs me that it is approximately 18 billion kilometres from Earth. The nearest star, Proxima Centurai, is approximately 40 trillion kilometres from Earth. Claiming we can, nowadays, send an interstellar probe to nearby systems, is like claiming you can cross the Pacific Ocean because you have built a row boat.

The fastest man made object is Juno, traveling at 0.00023 c. Somewhat slower than 10% the speed of light! I'm sure there are pie-in-the-sky theories about attaining 0.1c, but claiming we can achieve this, when the fastest we have achieved is nearly a thousand times slower is not reasonable.

Now, it is possible we will one day send probes to nearby star systems. But colonising other star systems, like seen in every 4X game? I don't think so. Most stars are a lot further away, and simply not possible to reach in any practical sense, even for unmanned probes. Maybe some form of cryostasis will allow humans to survive for thousands of years to travel to the nearest planet capable of supporting life, and all the other many difficult problems can be solved. However, the cost of doing so would still likely be the worlds GDP for several years, so you have to ask why any civilisation would.

 

Why??! Even nowadays we are capable to send interstellar probe to nearest systems, at least with fly-by mission. 10% of speed of light is achievable right now.

With fusion reactors we will be able to send larger missions.

So it is obviously covered be good hard science fiction.

 

A realistic space 4x would have all the species stuck in their home systems the entire game.

 

Good luck, guys. What about realism and simulation complexity?

 

just wana say good luck and dont dumb it down

 

Greetings,
Long term lurker on the Space Sector site. Avid 4x fan so seeing your news gave me hope that we are going to see something special from you guys. I wish you all the best on your journey.

 

Cautiously optimistic. How many moo2 inspired games have come and gone?

Good luck!

 

I wish you will come up with a really fresh UI and game design.
since you and your friends have tested so many games through and through, you know what is good and what is not.

If all of us would make a MoO4 (stated we had all almost endless time),
many would be good,
some would be stuck in the process,
others would not be so good
but for sure every game would look different!

I read for many years all of space sectors game tests and thankfully bought games that i would not have otherwise (but i really can not really love Distant Worlds. Something does not feel right and it is NOT the graphic).

I wonder what makes a game good.. i mean, you can make good graphics but still it could feel.. soulless, dead.
And some tiny things turn me off of some games. Lets say for instance in "MoO: Conquer the stars" you can drag your People from one slot to another and they wave around when you pick them up.
It looks like the Google Puppet when you are in the street view option (I hope you know what I mean).
I do not like it. It makes it look silly.
Also another point (of many) is that the Spaceships look silly and the whole process how ships are built is too shallow.

Or lets take Swords of the Stars 1 as another example:
Those acknoledgements when you command a ship were so stupi (excuse me), i woul rather enjoy no acknoledgment at all (yess sir... and so on).
also, those comic style graphic before a fight were kind of kiddy manga style or whatsoever.


You have to be inspired and hit the nerves of many others. thats not that easy.

Right now one question i have is:
You mention in your Post an article where you got so many comments, that they made you start developing your own game.
This article is years old, and meanwhile, there were not only many 4x scifi games made, but also
"MoO: Conquer the stars" came out.

Now this new game must have not met your expectations (yes, you tested it i know an dread .-) ), but otherwise you would have said so in your post.
But a thing that the successor of MoO2 should have (as was said in your linked article) would be a good AI, and you said "MoO: Conquer the stars" has it.
Also the Graphic is good.
So what makes your MoO 4 different, why don't you mention "MoO: Conquer the stars"?
OK, besides this:
"For us, the fundamentals are (more or less in this order of importance): Turn-based tactical combat; ship design; free space-based movement with range limits; race customization; leaders; deep colony management and espionage. This is the foundation upon which all other aspects of the game will be built."

Ok, I guess your update at the end of October will give us more insight, right

 

As a longtime reader of the Spacesector blog, I'm extremely interested to see your design approach for a Space 4X. Maybe interested enough to even overcome my "lurker" tendencies and make me contribute to the discussion here, so bring on the Dev Diaries!

 

Looking forward to the game. Been an avid reader on your blog for a long time.
Your in depth reviews has helped me a lot deciding what to buy.
You also got me hooked up as a game tester due to your information.

 

Best of luck guys! Looking forward to following the progress of your game.

 

I'm a dedicated reader (though in a lurker-like way ;-) ) of Space Sector.
I think you have an excellent chance to succeed in creating a superb game...
I mean, just the discussions in various game reviews over the years could give lots of valuable ideas and solutions to potential problems in a 4x game!

I do have one question, though... How do you plan to finance this project? Did you considered crowdfunding?

In any case - best of luck. It's gonna be a hell of a project!

 

Will be fun to watch how you decide to set up the AI as well.

Luck to you!

 

A long time lurker but received the email newsletter and decided to register and support this game.

Looking forward to it!

 

Thanks a lot! Hope to see you around

 

Ready for launch! , Oh and I didn't see ? (old and blind) anything with regards to diplomacy, don't forget the bureaucracy, we must have the bureaucracy!