Hot posts in thread: ISG Dev Diary #1: Starmap and Exploration

140 Moo2 type systems is more expansive than meets the eye. I can't recall how many times I had over 20 productive colonies while controlling only about 8 systems. If the distances are calculated well it would work but I can see this being a point of contention with a substantial part of the community. (Torches being lit, pitchforks picked up)
If anything, I would suggest that a superficial increase would be in order, in other words, increase the number of no-value, low-value systems.
You would basically add more space... to space but not disrupt the balance of other mechanics such as fewer but more important ships, research rates etc. (Just make sure the algorithm spreads these systems out well)
You would also add strategic depth to the game and minimize steamrolling somewhat.
Personally, I would welcome a game where I can see the entire map as in Moo2 without clicking around and zooming in and out.
1000 Moo2 type systems (with corresponding ratios) would throw the entire game wildly off balance.
I partially agree with JOM, 140 systems might get a negative reaction but you do not need to go to 1,000 in my opinion, you can easily do considerably less and stay "modern" around 250 perhaps
P.S. the flavor would be more representative of a Space Sector or globular cluster of stars rather than a galaxy
You can even put in an energy barrier around this cluster like Star Trek to give a psychological explanation for the size of the map and have a very late and expensive tech to breach it, another victory condition perhaps?

 

140 for huge? Sounds not enough, given that Stellaris has 1000 (some of them with a quite extensive layout) on highest setting. I think these 1000 should be the new standard in modern 4x games and not 140.

 

Just re-read the thread and I am wondering, have you determined a scale yet? How many systems do you anticipate on map? Knowing this information helps in thinking about other issues as they arise.

 

gja102, i like your ideas and i have wished for these kinds of scenarios to play out in these kinds of games for a long time now. Sadly though i have little hope for it actually coming to be, unless Endless Space 2 does it. I believe that game will have an excellent quest system. Most of these space games though are all Moo2 remakes, and Moo2 didnt have it so none of these remakes/spiritual successors are going to have it. None of them want to innovate or deviate much, and that makes me sad. I have already played Moo2 to death, and Stars in Shadows is a very close remake that is out now, and they all get kind of boring because they lack interesting events. I found Endless Legend to be so good and refreshing because it was so innovative and had excellent stories/quests. Lets keep the dream alive and hopefully before we die we can get a space game that has this kind of questing and dynamic storytelling.

 

I really like your ideas about keeping exploration fresh throughout the game, rather than limiting it to the initial phase – so it seems a shame that the ruins will only be searchable once. Perhaps some of them should reward further study, or provide an ongoing benefit. They could come in stages - ‘hidden’ ruins which appear later, or even ‘vaults’ which are somehow tech-locked. Vaults would be fun, when you know there’s something interesting in there, but you can’t get past the alien metals / energy fields until late-game.

Yes, if the results are always positive then there’s no strategy as such, like most 4x games where you just dash around the map and ‘pop’ as many ruins as possible. Ideally there would be some kind of trade-off between rushing to plunder a site before the enemy empires get there, and carefully studying the place so that you don’t accidentally awaken Cthulu.


One way to keep exploration fresh, even from game-to-game, would be to have a semi-randomised selection of extinct races whose ruins are scattered across the map, each following a different precursor trope (the warrior race, the science race, the psychics, the ancient AIs, etc). They wouldn’t always be present each game, and their backstory would be different each time. You could uncover their history by searching ruins, completing quests like in Endless Legend, etc. I envisage little story pop ups to add flavour, like speaking to the Planetmind in Alpha Centauri.

For example, in game 1 you find the ruins of the warrior and science races. Through further study you discover that the warriors won, but then succumbed to bitter infighting afterwards. Eventually you find a vault left behind by the science race which contains some cryogenically frozen survivors from the science race – they will join your empire (provided you don’t remind them of their original conquerors too much!).

In game 2 you find warrior, science, and machine race ruins. You rush to open the science race vault, thinking it will be a bonus like last game, but it turns out that the scientists created the machines to fight the warriors, only it backfired and the AI tried to kill *everybody*. By cracking open the vault you have reawakened the source of the ancient AI which suddenly spills forth as a hostile NPC. If you’d done more ruins research you would have found clues that it was lurking there (or even found ways to reprogram it into a benefit), but in your haste you’ve restarted an ancient war.

These are just random examples. I know it’s ambitious, and the game could portray all those individual events as unconnected pop up bonuses and maluses, but by having an unknown narrative to uncover, that links all the events and turns them into a story, they could become more engaging and keep the player’s attention over multiple playthroughs. You really WOULD be exploring the unknown each game, which would hopefully make it sufficiently creepy.

 

Thank you for the link to The Eternal War - I had never heard of that one, fascinating read!

I like that, a lot. Actually, at 4-5 years between stars, you don't need "FTL" anymore - typical distances between stars in the Milky Way Galaxy are 3-4 lightyears, so speed of light is fine. If there was a technology (some kind of reactionless drive?) to boost your ships to near light speed (and, somehow, escape any collisions with dust, and survive the storms of X-rays from extremely blueshifted starlight...), crews could easily explore multiple star systems within their "natural" lifetimes (thanks to time dilation at high relativistic speeds). Meanwhile, back at home, the years would pass, new technologies would be developed, etc. - the furthest ships would always be the oldest (unless they return to the core worlds). It took only a couple of centuries from the first european colonies on the East Coast to the US becoming the worlds superpower, so on a time-scale of 400 years (or so), I can totally see some space colonies reaching maturity and empire-wide influence. I also like the idea of time-limiting the service of leaders.

 

That’s a great concept and a ptentially ‘neverending’ game would probably attract a lot of interest – like that popular reddit post where someone played the same game of Civ2 for 10 years and it descended into a dystopian 2000-year long war, characterised by the death of democracy, nuclear suicide bombers and the world becoming an irradiated swamp.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii/

But, while a ‘neverending’ game is theoretically possible, it relies on empires being able to fall, as well as rise. It would be extremely difficult to model the decline of empires and make that fun to play – most players would understandably be annoyed to see their lovingly-built creations get smashed to bits by forces beyond their control. MOO2 is more about the space-opera shenanigans between a bunch of rising empires, and anything more is probably beyond the remit of this game. Still a fun idea though.


Incidentally, I am wondering what the timescale for this game will be, since that does affect the lore, the map, and the frequency of events such as supernovae.


A lot of space 4x games use ridiculously short timescales like 1 turn = 1 week. So you end up seeing humanity taking to the stars, colonising the galaxy, and becoming demi-gods, in something like 30 years.


I think it would aid immersion to slow things down a little. Maybe even 1 turn = 1 year. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that even with FTL technologies it would take 4-5 years to get between stars. And your leaders would only have say 50-60 years of service before needing to be replaced. So a 400 turn game represents 4 centuries and you would plausibly see a lot of turmoil events and rising / falling empires over that time.

 

Love the concepts you've detailed so far. One thing that's always bothered me about Ancient Ruins is that the results are almost always positive, when in reality I'd think exploring the ruins of a long-dead alien culture should be very creepy. So in addition to the possibilities of a new tech or a new ship, one thing I've always wanted as an Ancient Ruins option is to accidentally awaken a hibernating hostile civilization. This would operate as an NPC similar to pirates, and could be levelled according to the technology of the race that finds it so that it isn't too easy to defeat or too overwhelming.

 

Is the game going to have real elements like real life?

Things like totally open-ended (or sandbox) game play, a mechanic as your empire develops over yrs, new research tech and developments become available above the standard ones.

new empires emerge after centuries, they enter space travel, have there own agendas and research/tech. The game could continually grow the longer you play it, more research, tech, empires, diplomacy etc etc

Planets go supernova, others age and can be colonized, the universe is a living evolving and dying thing.

I think you get where im going, I just wonder if it's possible? There has not been a game with a truly evolving universe, tech, empires etc that never ends, just grows / dies in time/years/centuries.

 

Got signed up a bit late, but I've been reading space sector for a long time, and this news just blew me away I'm so happy! Really excited about the project and more than willing to pay for something that really brings back all the fun I have had with MOO2 over the years. TURN BASED PLEASE.

 

Ah, the good old star map topic. It depends on so many factors:
- The map size?
Some say they cannot enjoy a game, if it is played in a galaxy "this >< small", when real galaxies are "yea > < big". Others cannot play in huge galaxies as the inability to oversee it all intimidates them and makes them feel out of control.
There aren't good compromises here, as it depends on the person you ask. The best thing you can do is to make this a largely parameterized part of your game, that can cater to a wide audience.

- Distance both in space and also in time is something we rarely see reflected in designs of 4X games.
Stellar travel takes long, as established by the fact that your starting ship will likely take several turns to get to the neighboring system. Now if you want that ship to go somewhere, how would you tell them? Unless there is some sort of miraculous communication method that allows you to communicate instantaneously irrespective of distance, your best bet would be sending messengers, as all other methods will likely only travel at the speed of light, thus be slower than "Ye Olde Postal Service". If that is so and if travel is inherently a slow thing, then what about command delays? Sure I would want that colony on the fringe of my empire to build a spaceship, but if it takes my fleet 10 turns to get there, then so does my command.

- How about exploration?
If there is anything Stellaris has taught us, then it is that exploration in itself can almost carry an otherwise mediocre game on its back. Sure there are things you can improve on their formula, but I believe they did manage to get it right in that aspect and there is little more you could add that would make it better, while a lot you could take away that would make it worse. Sure you could think, that the shape of a wheel is in essence a polygon with its many corners laid out in a circular fashion, but trust me.. streamlining that polygon into a hexagon, square or even a triangle will not improve your wheel's performance. If anything, it will be degraded exponentially the more points you remove.

What I am trying to say in my extremely convoluted fashion: stick to well known recipes and do not try to reinvent the wheel just because you can, unless you are 100% certain that you truly can, in which case be ready to drop your solution in favor of a proper "wheel" on a moment's notice. Don't stick with it just because its yours.

 

great stuff. Since I consider exploration to be the most important aspect of a 4x game, I really like the focus you set on your approach. The problem most 4x games have is in fact that exploration is limited to the early/mid game but tends to disappear as a gameplay element as the game advances. I think an additional way to keep it as a gameplay element even in later stages of the game might be to detach exploration from the galaxy level to which it is typically limited and to add it to the planetary level, too. So, planets, or generally objects, discovered, scanned and possibly colonized during the exploration phase on the galaxy level, don't become just dead assets as soon as you discover and categorize them, to be exploited and developped only, just a management concern, but continue to be something alien, to evolve independently from player actions, to keep mysteries (resources, dangers, life forms), which can only be revealed and accessed by additional efforts (resources applied to research, engineering, planetary level exploration projects). In some games such as stellaris events are introduced to make the planetary involvement a bit dynamic, but I think a more radical approach is needed to keep exploration interesting throughout the game, an object discovered on the galaxy level should only be gradually discovered on the planetary level, and the more resources you apply to planetary exploration the greater the chances to reveal one of its mysteries.

 

Very impressive and a solid start Mr. Solo.
In reading through the dev diary I could see the originating influence of some of the mechanics you listed and the experience of a game reviewer behind your vision.
Your proposals are very solid and interesting, perhaps it would be best to flesh out the mechanics you wrote rather than adding more as you know the risks involved. Right now what you propose sounds like a lot of fun and it sounds clean, (meaning I don't spend hours just figuring the map out)
If you were to then fine tune the pace of exploration and retain your "basic scan, full scan" mechanics it should allow for the explore section of the game to persist to level that few 4Xs do.

As far as planet specials go, why not throw some more nasty specials in as well. Things such as
Unique virus. (Colony is quarantined until either a cure is researched or the planetary population perishes)
Hostile natives. (Similar to an invasion, win and keep the colony, lose and get a new minor power on the map)
Lost outpost. (You stumble upon and activate a lost outpost that calls for help, small group of ships en-route to relieve the outpost)

In any case, I am very pleased so far with the direction this project is taking.

 

I really like this idea! An ancient civilization may have a range of discoveries available, depending on how intact the ruins are. Examples:

--In the game 'Homeworld', the ancient ruins took the form of a gigantic starship. The inhabitants of that world exploited the discovery to develop FTL travel, advanced weaponry, research capabilities, and (most importantly) found a map to a key star/planet (Higara).

--In the game 'Mass Effect 1', the ancient ruins contained the collected history of the extinct Promethean race, which revealed critical information regarding the Reapers--a super-advanced synthetic race that had wiped out the Prometheans and would soon come to wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy.

I also like the idea that an ancient ruins planet with rich discovery potential would become a key research resource, and could be the focus of diplomacy or even war in order to maintain control of these advancements.

 

Hi......

Just a few bits to add or discuss.

Travelling...
presuming it takes longer to travel at the start between stars and gets faster the better tech you get ?

Ancient Ruins.....
In keeping with your theme - current science etc.
a) Not keen on the idea of ancient ruins giving you a legendary leader - that civs been dead a thousand years - how is a leader still around.
Would be better to get a leader from a NPC world you find.
b) Yes a dead civ world can give heaps of tech - even something not in game tech tree - cause the ancient civ went down a different tech path.
c) Query - I dont understand the treatment of an ancient ruin in most games these days - i mean its possibly a city or whole world of ruins - not just one building thats been found.
d) so why cant an ancient ruin be treated like a sector - invest some scanning or scientists or colony in it and it keeps giving techs - not just science points or something abstract - but every 10 or 20 years scientists either find or decode more of the ruins to give another advancement - be it either bio, power generation, weapons, or even a brand new tech line not normally in the game.
e) to expand further - different ruins could be of different ancient races - so one race could have been great at food - another at power generation - another at ships, another at travel - and so on.
f) or you could just find a pyramid of stone.

If we want to keep exploring - I would love to think there are ancient worlds out there that we get to explore fully - rather than just visit once.
It sure would make me want to fight for it - to keep exploring it.

 

Just had an idea with the whole ancient ruins system. Along with providing potential cultural and research bonuses, you guys could create random conditions in each games that, once reunited, provides the key to the initial finding or accessing Orion (or whatever you will name it). For instance, in order to find orion you would need to find 2 to 5 ancient artefacts and hold 1 to 3 location under your control (or under the control of an ally or subject empire (or just under military control).

Ancient artefacts, of orion or other, origin could also be moved, stealed, selled. Along with your aforementionned scaled scanning system, we could maybe implement an archeological/cultural system similar to Civ5.

You could also still keep the Super-Monster guarding Orion, or not, or both! Speaking of the Super-Monster, why not making it even more interesting by letting it reconstruct ships from failed attack with upgraded tech. If you send 10 destroyers against it, and fail the attack, then the auto-repair system would take over the ships remnant and add them to the orion defense fleet. Even more interesting! Make any destroyed ship during battle, come back "to life" at reduced capacity to fight for Orion.

 

Congrats on kicking off the project, Adam and crew.

Figured I should finally make an account around here, and hopefully it's not too impolite of me to poke my nose into another developer's game.

It sounds like you guys have put a decent amount of thought into these mechanics, and I want to see more space 4Xes with meaningful terrain, but I have a question regarding how you intend to handle the situation where one might be tracking a hostile fleet that then arrives at an undiscovered location:

• Does the fleet disappear?
• Does the fleet appear to be hovering over nothing or "unknown"?
• Or, would the previously undiscovered location become known by tracking the enemy fleet there?

I don't think any of these are perfect answers, but I'd err towards one of the last two options myself, or maybe you've already thought of a better solution. Regardless of this wrinkle, I think the concept of hidden systems is interesting.