Very early prototype of a game I'm making

[DrKilljoy]

One day I came to the following realizations:
-I'm addicted to strategy wargames.
-I'll be a better programmer if I get experience now.
-I wanted there to be a hard science fiction wargame, to stand out from the (admittedly, though, a lot of them are damn good) multiple sci-fi wargames with easy interstellar travel, spacefaring alien races everywhere, and energy shields on every warship.

So I decided to create a game centered around a story of a war that takes place strictly within the solar system fought only between humans, where the best spacecraft weapons are railguns and the best shielding is an extra 6 inches of titanium. A few months of planning, programming, and graphic design later:



The gameplay is quite similar to the Advance Wars series, with the same basic dynamics: Get resources, build weapons, and fight for control of the battlefield. I'm trying to keep things fresh, though, with the following features:

-Accuracy and evasion mechanics. These aren't luck-based - a weapon is guaranteed to hit fully, miss, or inflict half damage depending on conditions, and the game outright tells the player what it's going to do. Rather than just giving a certain damage reduction, terrain gives an occupying unit an evasion bonus.
-Destructible terrain. I haven't really seen this done in a turn-based strategy before. Any weapon with a good enough attack score (and it doesn't take much) can damage terrain, and eventually blow it up, leaving empty space. This gives two dilemmas: Destroy a structure or try to take it over, and snipe out a unit on high-evasion terrain or just blow up its cover.
-Realistic supply handling. While I'll admit that (as the screenshot might have tipped you off) fuel alone governing how many missiles you can launch is a bit off, I'll try to deal with it realistically otherwise. You get a certain amount of fuel each turn, which is dumped into a unit's tank when it's built, and if you don't have enough fuel to fill the tank, the game just dumps in whatever you have. Supply ships are just cheap spacecraft that carry a lot of fuel.

I hope you found my idea interesting, because I would like some advice...

1) What should I call this damn thing? I still have no clue, and no one's been able to provide good suggestions.
2) Any mechanics I should introduce/change?

[Art Vandelay]

From what I can see, you've got a space-themed turn-based strategy game that you want to be as unique as possible. Well, how about adding a 3rd dimension? I know it'll be difficult to work in but seeing as the game is electronic rather than tabletop it should be possible and it'd certainly add to the uniqueness (I can't actually recall a space-themed strategy that is three dimensional) and make the game feel a lot more like it is taking place in space.

Just my thoughts.

[Mantorok]

Jul 25, 2010 23:49:15 GMT -5 Art Vandelay said:

I can't actually recall a space-themed strategy that is three dimensional

Flotilla:

[Art Vandelay]

My point still stands, they're not exactly as numerous as their two-dimensional brethren.

[Mantorok]

Probably because a 3D battlefield makes pointing at an exact point in space slightly more difficult.

Anyway, as for suggestions:
Ships have a decoy/jamming option. Reduces movement and/or consumes more fuel for each turn active, but makes a ship harder to hit. So an attack that would cause half damage now misses, an attack that would hit with full damage now causes half damage.
A full thrust movement option. Allows a unit to move further in one turn, but only in a straight line up/down/left/right.

[Tiberius]

... is that a mobile suit in the top right corner?

[Yla]

How does your game handle inertia? Do ships consume fuel for moving in general, or do they for acceleration and braking? From how the board looks I'm assuming it's the first. If you're going for the realism angle, you should also handle spaceship movement realistically. When a ship starts moving, it continues to do so until you order it to counter-accelerate and stop.

Edit: Question: What are these grey square boxes?

[Mantorok]

It's not really about a realistic implementation of physics, just realistic technology. So there's no doomsday weapons that can blow up planets, mecha is close to the size of a tank instead of as big as a skyscraper, and lasers aren't short bursts of light that punch holes through anything.

[Yla]

And? The one doesn't exclude the other.

[DrKilljoy]

While 3D space is an interesting idea and it makes sense, the problem is implementing it in a way that doesn't make the player's head explode. The best way I could think of to do it is an X-Com style battle map, but that mainly worked in X-Com because exact distances don't usually matter much in that game and there's not much vertical movement.

Anyway, as for suggestions:
Ships have a decoy/jamming option. Reduces movement and/or consumes more fuel for each turn active, but makes a ship harder to hit. So an attack that would cause half damage now misses, an attack that would hit with full damage now causes half damage.
A full thrust movement option. Allows a unit to move further in one turn, but only in a straight line up/down/left/right.

Thanks for the suggestion. Neither of these would be difficult to implement, and they would add another layer of strategy without overwhelming the player.

... is that a mobile suit in the top right corner?

Actually, the design was inspired more by Robotech's veritechs =p

How does your game handle inertia? Do ships consume fuel for moving in general, or do they for acceleration and braking? From how the board looks I'm assuming it's the first. If you're going for the realism angle, you should also handle spaceship movement realistically. When a ship starts moving, it continues to do so until you order it to counter-accelerate and stop.

I considered this and now that I think about it, it would be fairly easy to implement. As it is, the game has a standard "move this much, burn this much fuel" setup (with more fuel used on difficult terrain), but changing it to a more realistic inertia setup is just a matter of having a unit remember how far it moved last. I'll probably try this in the alpha build.

Edit: Question: What are these grey square boxes?

You can think of those as bunkers or pillboxes. Basically, they're fairly tough to destroy and give any ship on their tile a decent evasion bonus.

[Art Vandelay]

Jul 26, 2010 11:24:26 GMT -5 DrKilljoy said:

While 3D space is an interesting idea and it makes sense, the problem is implementing it in a way that doesn't make the player's head explode. The best way I could think of to do it is an X-Com style battle map, but that mainly worked in X-Com because exact distances don't usually matter much in that game and there's not much vertical movement.

I wouldn't think it's that difficult, since the game is turn-based. Maybe an option to switch between an xy, xz and zy view of the map as well as ordering the ships to move via entering co-ordinates rather than clicking a certain spot. Since you seem to be aiming for a game aimed at more hardcore strategy gamers than their casual brethren, if the player's head is asploding then they're probably not a hardcore gamer.

[swordfish]

Go here and read. You can probably skip most of the math, but there are a few sections on space warfare that actually give the impression that lasers and/or missiles may be the dominant weapons of space warfare (lasers for their time to target, missiles for their potentially extreme maximum effective range).

Also, no cloaking devices. There's no stealth in space.

[shadowpanther]

Jul 26, 2010 11:24:26 GMT -5 DrKilljoy said:

... is that a mobile suit in the top right corner?

Actually, the design was inspired more by Robotech's veritechs =p

Looks more like a ZAFT GINN to me.

[DrKilljoy]

Jul 29, 2010 2:34:48 GMT -5 swordfish said:

Go here and read. You can probably skip most of the math, but there are a few sections on space warfare that actually give the impression that lasers and/or missiles may be the dominant weapons of space warfare (lasers for their time to target, missiles for their potentially extreme maximum effective range).

Also, no cloaking devices. There's no stealth in space.

Thanks, this link has been incredibly useful! It allowed me to improve a lot of the ship designs, and I'll be sure to integrate its info into the mechanics.

[swordfish]

Aug 1, 2010 14:49:27 GMT -5 DrKilljoy said:

Jul 29, 2010 2:34:48 GMT -5 swordfish said:

Go here and read. You can probably skip most of the math, but there are a few sections on space warfare that actually give the impression that lasers and/or missiles may be the dominant weapons of space warfare (lasers for their time to target, missiles for their potentially extreme maximum effective range).

Also, no cloaking devices. There's no stealth in space.

Thanks, this link has been incredibly useful! It allowed me to improve a lot of the ship designs, and I'll be sure to integrate its info into the mechanics.

That site is pretty incredible. I've read through the whole thing a number of times. I'm working on developing a hard sci-fi universe of my own to write stories in. That site has been beyond helpful in helping me get my science right and develop somewhat feasible spacecraft.