Hot posts in thread: ISG Dev Diary #5: Leaders

Konstantine · May 4, 2017

I was thinking about this and there is one more thing I would like, it should help with immersion and add a further RPG element to PSS.
What if the player was represented as a leader?
Start screen will allow the selection of an avatar and certain number of points that can be spent on attributes, (points could be dependent on difficulty level). The "leader" unit would be available from turn one and could be either a ship or colony leader per choice. Perhaps the leader could even be a unique unit that can do both.
Initially the leader unit must only give slight boosts (to retain balance and pacing), but be able to level up similar to existing units. Consideration could also be given on whether these units can be lost and if any consequences arise in such an event.

Konstantine · May 2, 2017

Leaders in Moo2 were mostly a positive to the game and added some flavor to the same, PSS looks to have taken leaders to the next level.

Personally I would be quite happy with the way they are presented now, they are beneficial without being too much of a distraction or game breaking.

While it is true that more enhancements can be made, (a Reclusive Mind has already suggested nice additions) my focus is not so much on what further attributes they can be given, it is elsewhere.

The way leaders are introduced in both Moo2 and PSS just annoys me. A few decades ago I didn’t mind as much but today I expect better.

In both cases leaders show up at random and offer their services. Here is where my problem lies.

A likely scenario has an early Empire (perhaps still restricted to their home system), get a message that a leader is available. No problem here provided the leader is the same race as said faction. Often however we see that this leader is an alien, sometimes from a faction that we “discover” 100 turns later.

So I am asked to believe that an alien shows up, (even though we haven’t met aliens yet in-game), asks for a job, and we give the alien one of our most sensitive positions in government, no questions asked.

I have to tell you, if an alien showed up in the U.S. tomorrow and asked for a job… it would be on the dissection table so fast that it would not know what hit it.

An adjustment then that restricted leaders to your same species until contact is actually made with aliens would remove this rather blatant departure from reality.

Another aspect that disturbs me is the whole random thing. Why?

Why not consider a slight adjustment here.

Classify leaders into three classes

Common (generic)

Uncommon

Rare

Common leaders should not be random appearing. Introduce an additional “wonder” type building limited to one per empire (yeah another building, adds variety). The building is an academy and the player could for a cost, create a generic leader. This leader would start with all stats at zero and the player could select which trait to improve once the leader is trained (5 turns after being paid for) In all other areas the leader would be similar, including maintenance costs.

Uncommon leaders would be What PSS has now, no changes needed here with the exception of restricting leaders by species until after contact is made with aliens

Rare leaders would have to be exactly that, rare. Their attributes would be empire wide and as long as attention is paid to insure they do not unbalance the game they would become very sought out and beneficial. Triggers could be adopted here so these type of leaders offer their services only to those that are hard pressed, If a faction is already ahead, it may not make sense to give them a Darth Vader.

In short then I am real pleased with the way leaders are presented in PSS and consider it to be a strong point of the game, a few adjustments could see this going from strong to excellent.

aReclusiveMind · May 2, 2017

One of my favorite diaries so far. I'm a fan of interesting characters and personalities adding life to space 4X though, so that's probably not a big surprise to anyone.

There is a ton of room for variety in the systems presented. It could also help introduce further variety in how you develop your entire empire. For instance, I could see ship leaders who specialize in smaller ship classes and provide benefits to all ships of that class in their fleet. Something we've discussed on the forum is making smaller class ships more relevant in the late game, and this is just one more way we could potentially do that. A Destroyer Captain trait could grant bonuses to destroyer offense, defense, maintenance costs, and potentially even reduce the support point cost of destroyers across your entire empire. Such a captain, one in love with destroyers, would likely strongly desire to command a destroyer themselves and to also have a fleet of destroyers at their side. It'd all have to be balanced, but the potential for things like this is there, and this is why I am excited about the system.

Adam Solo · May 1, 2017

Hi everyone!

In this new dev diary, we propose to discuss Leaders in Project Space Sector.

In our view, Leaders were one of the key ingredients that made Master of Orion 2 great and stand out from other space 4X games. Having officers commanding your ships and system governors managing your colonies gave the task of ruling a space empire much more flavor and character while enhancing the RPG elements of the game.

Of course, Leaders will return in Project Space Sector, and this time their impact in the game will be even more meaningful.

Hope you agree, and please enjoy this dev diary.

Leaders

There are ship leaders and colony leaders. Ship leaders can be assigned to individual ships, while colony leaders can be assigned to systems, and therefore oversee all the colonies that may exist in that system.

Each leader will have a history and backstory and can have a nickname. Both their name and nickname can be edited.

Leaders have both an initial hiring cost and an ongoing salary. How much money a leader demands will vary and can even change during a game.

Primary Skills

Ship leaders have the following primary skills:

- Command (better stats allows commanding bigger ship classes)
- Operations (adds to the empire’s ship support, helping field more ships while reducing maintenance costs)
- Attack (ship attack modifier - affects all fleet)
- Defense (ship defense modifier - affects all fleet)
- Initiative (a factor on determining which side in battle moves first)

Colony leaders have the following primary skills:

- Administration (tax bonus)
- Labor (production bonus)
- Research (research bonus)
- Corporate (bonus to system exploitation revenue, offworld mining operations, trade income)
- Warfare (bonus to troops defending from invasions)

Secondary Skills

In addition to the primary skills, the leaders also have other skills, which we call secondary skills. These range from Smuggler, Pirate, Navigator, Explorer, Spiritual Leader, Scientist, among many others.

These skills will evolve as the leader gains more experience. Each skill experience starts with "Basic" knowledge, upgrades to "Advanced" and finally to "Expert", for increased benefits as the leader levels up.

Note that colony leaders only acquire colony-oriented skills while ship leaders only acquire ship-combat oriented skills.

Some secondary skills though can appear in both Colony and Ship leaders, these are the (shared) “empire-wide” skills. An example of a shared skill is “Commando”, which provides bonus to both troops defending planets as for marines on board of ships during boarding actions.

Leveling up skills

As the leader gains enough experience (for instance, when a construction is completed on a colony they manage, a battle is won or a ruin is explored), the leader levels up and the player may choose to increase one primary skill further.

In addition to increasing the primary skill, the leader will also be able to learn a new secondary skill or enhance an existing one from a choice of two.

Traits

In addition to having primary and secondary skills, which reflect more the leader's abilities, what they are capable of doing, the leader may also have traits.

Traits are the characteristics of the leader that reflect their differences in personality, which may be inherited or acquired during the game.

Traits affect mostly the things that may happen with respect to the leaders themselves, their relation with the empire (leaders may defect, revolt or become double agents) and the interactions among themselves.

Examples of currently implemented traits include Trusting (the leader is less likely to revolt, to defect and/or of conducting sabotage), Genius (can level up primary skills twice per level up), Uncreative (cannot choose between two secondary skills to learn or improve by level up), Empathic (more morale on colony) and Lone wolf (combat penalties per additional ship in the fleet). And there are many others currently designed but not yet implemented.

Desires

Leaders may also have desires, which can pop up from time to time due to the current game's circumstances. These can be personal ambitions or a reflection of the wishes of the people they lead.

Meeting or not the leader's desires will have consequences, which may translate into boosting the leader's skills, acquiring a new trait or the decrease of their opinion towards the empire in case of desire unfulfillment.

Desires can be fulfilled through concrete gameplay actions, like building, researching or improving something, or by some diplomatic action, combat or exploration mission.

The player will have to evaluate if meeting the leader’s wishes is advantageous with respect to the empire's current agenda.

Along with ingame events, desires may influence the traits that emerge and vice versa. For example, a greedy leader may demand a raise, while fulfilling a leader's desire may turn other leader envious by not fulfilling theirs (even more serious if it was the same desire!).

Leader Opinion

As mentioned above, leaders have an opinion about the empire (the value at the top right). Low opinion increases the chances of the leader revolting, defecting, or of conducting sabotage / acting as a double agent (all not implemented yet).

Not fulfilling the leaders desires can also lower their opinion towards the empire, while fulfilling them may raise it.

Hope you like what we have in stock for you regarding Leaders, and thanks for reading. Most of what's described is already implemented and now it will be just a question of adding more content to the game (more leaders, desires, secondary skills, traits).

Now please let us know your impressions, as for what your ideas and suggestions for improvement may be.

Thank you all!