Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Aurora Chat => Topic started by: iemfi on May 23, 2013, 08:08:30 PM
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I found out about Aurora about 2 weeks back and was absolutely amazed by the game. It inspired me to make a game using some of the mechanics of Aurora with a ship building concept I did for Ludum Dare a few months ago. Thought I'd show some of the progress so far, hope this is the right place for that. Would love any criticism, feedback, suggestions, or even a name to call the damn game. Images at hxxp: imgur. com/tpUXRJ2
System View
(http://i.imgur.com/tpUXRJ2.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/YUdtU0x.png)
The idea is to have fully Newtonian movement and combat. Starting with more or less what we do now with hohmann transfers and gravity slingshots in the early game to more direct movement as engines get more powerful. The planets and stuff are orbiting nicely but I'm still working on the fleet movement aspect of it (orbital mechanics is a bitch). Same thing with interstellar travel, the idea is to only have slower than light interstellar travel for the early game so that early expansion will be a seriously costly undertaking. The game plays in real time, with up to 1 million times faster than real time time warp.
Industry
(http://i.imgur.com/2nimMkf.png)
Pretty similar to Aurora here, the difference is I want to focus on the generation of energy. Solar array construction around the sun, fusion plants, geothermal reserves from planets. Massive amounts would be required for interstellar travel.
Ship/Module Design
(http://i.imgur.com/zBWFleN.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/juY8mqT.png)
Ships and modules will be collections of tiles. Damage to the ship will damage/destroy tiles based on where the projectile hits. Right now the design only cares about whether your crew can get from place to place and whether the various rooms are closed off from space, and the total count of each tile. Would like for the various modules to have their characteristics rely on the specific placement of tiles. Haven't been able to think of a proper system though.
Research
(http://i.imgur.com/R6lGV9r.png)
The idea is that you can only divide your research time between various categories. A roll will be made for any techs within that category. Each time a successful roll is made the player gets to choose whether they prefer more work in that sub-category.
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That looks really, really awesome!
Some short questions, since I'm going to be on the train soon (more to come later):
- Which language did you use?
- Especially, which framework for the UI?
- Did you really make that in under two weeks?
- Is your concept 'realistic' physics aside from FTL or physics plus?
- What's your plan for the development?
- Did you see the Pulsar4x project? http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/board,169.0.html
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- Which language did you use?
C# / XNA
- Especially, which framework for the UI?
UI is from scratch (which is probably not the best of decisions but I wanted to try my hand at making a UI)
- Did you really make that in under two weeks?
Yup, 2 weeks of full time work on it. :)
- Is your concept 'realistic' physics aside from FTL or physics plus?
Realistic physics as much as possible. I'm thinking of doing without even FTL at the early game. Voyages at 50% lightspeed which take a year to build up the energy required to launch and a decade of travel time. Sort of something which could be done in real life given physics as we know it. I think Aurora makes interstellar travel too easy.
For interplanetary travel I'm hoping to have a robust Newtonion movement system. Today I just got the hohmann transfer working, so you give a fleet a target planet, the system calculates the time to initiate the transfer and plots the path then follows the path exactly. I was hoping to simulate it properly but orbital mechanics is proving to be way too damn difficult (and probably too resource intensive). The target is something close enough but not have fleets crash into planets or get lost in space for no reason (but still happen after certain events).
- What's your plan for the development?
To get a playable version ASAP. But really I don't have a plan at all, which is part of the reason why I made this thread.
- Did you see the Pulsar4x project? hxxp: aurora2. pentarch. org/index. php/board,169. 0. html
Yup! Couldn't even access the github page though, broken link.
EDIT: Just read through more of the Pulsar4x forum, I didn't even know it was still in development. I think the main difference is that Pulsar4x seems to be following Aurora very closely. I'm hoping to be more different, for example I don't want anything to do with the whole time pulse business. Unless absolutely impossible my game does try to actually update anything until the player wants to look at it.
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Keep up the good work!
And let us know as soon as you have a playable version and need testers ;D
I actually had a dream of a game just like this a few weeks ago. I had played lot's of Aurora and Lots of Kerbal space program, and in my dream I was playing a game as complex/deep as Aurora, but still modelling the extreme difficulties and energy cost of early space travel the way that KSP does.
In such a game you can get really scared at the prospect of any simple threat, because of the massive investments in energy and time needed to establish even basic colonies off Earth, not to mention in other systems. And you can also understand how isolated such colonies would be before your science advanced considerably.
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BTW any thoughts on multiplayer?
I have a very hard time forgiving games for their bad AI (all complex games tend to have "bad" AI) unless they support an option to play against a real intelligence (Multiplayer) :)
The more complex, the harder to code a challenging AI that doesn't cheat, and the more important support multiplayer, at least if you ask me.
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- Especially, which framework for the UI?
UI is from scratch (which is probably not the best of decisions but I wanted to try my hand at making a UI)
On the risk of repeating myself: The UI looks really, really neat.
- Did you really make that in under two weeks?
Yup, 2 weeks of full time work on it. :)
Just wow. You're certainly programming very quick. What's currently working?
- Is your concept 'realistic' physics aside from FTL or physics plus?
Realistic physics as much as possible. I'm thinking of doing without even FTL at the early game. Voyages at 50% lightspeed which take a year to build up the energy required to launch and a decade of travel time. Sort of something which could be done in real life given physics as we know it. I think Aurora makes interstellar travel too easy.
Well, it's kind of a design philosophy. With Aurora's resources, interstellar expansion is critical. By making resources more abundant (for example, by ignoring all of the TN minerals and instead using 'real' materials), that would be a whole other game feeling, I think.
For interplanetary travel I'm hoping to have a robust Newtonion movement system. Today I just got the hohmann transfer working, so you give a fleet a target planet, the system calculates the time to initiate the transfer and plots the path then follows the path exactly. I was hoping to simulate it properly but orbital mechanics is proving to be way too damn difficult (and probably too resource intensive). The target is something close enough but not have fleets crash into planets or get lost in space for no reason (but still happen after certain events).
What happens if you change your mind mid way through and burn the other way? Do you calculate a new orbit? What happens with projectiles?
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BTW any thoughts on multiplayer?
That is definitely at the back of my mind when coding but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I fear a game like that is going to be hard to balance for PvP as well. But as you say an intelligent AI is probably going to be much harder than that. I'm personally ok with games with cheating AIs though, especially if it's well hidden. In a game like this there are RP justifications for big mismatches in starting resources too.
Just wow. You're certainly programming very quick. What's currently working?
The system map is mostly working, just got the moving of fleets around done. Building installations/fleets/mining is working. Designing/saving basic modules and ships is working, but as I said I'm still at a loss on the ship tiles designing gameplay. Right now it simply adds up all tiles of a certain type.
What happens if you change your mind mid way through and burn the other way? Do you calculate a new orbit? What happens with projectiles?
Well you're going to have a very bad time trying to burn the other way mid way if your engines are anything similar to modern space travel tech. Yes, the idea is to calculate a new orbit. I think there needs to be some hand waving though. I'm having problems with things not matching up exactly. I think for projectiles gravity is not going to have a significant effect at all (a few meters a second of acceleration is nothing compared to a projectile going at 10% c). I'm thinking similar system to aurora, chance to hit based on ship acceleration, projectile speed, fire control. Haven't put much thought into combat yet.
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On the Newtonian part of it, I think the twin specters are inertia and gravity. Gravity seems (I'm sure you've thought about this, so apologies if I'm coming at it from a rudimentary perspective) the easier one to handle, since there is basically a 'right answer' for any given orbit. So if you did want to change direction, the time to burn to zero and then accelerate to the new orbit could be hand-waved out, at least on a large time scale. For tighter time scales / actual battles, seems that might make more difference.
Also, if there's any balance / design things I can help with, I'd love to help out. I do a lot of homebrew strategy game design.
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For tighter time scales / actual battles, seems that might make more difference.
I'm thinking for combat acceleration of the ship could just be an attribute which affects hit chances and not affect moving around. Gravity on the other hand would have no impact on combat.
Distance difference if ship accelerated = (0. 5 * acceleration * (projectile flight time))
So a 10m long ship with 100 m/s^2 of acceleration could be 50m away from it's expected location if the projectile took 1 second to reach it. Meaning a 20% hit chance from evasive maneuvering.
Hit chance = (target cross section (m)) / (Distance difference if ship accelerated) * (tracking speed (rad/s)) / (target angular velocity) * (target cross section (m)) / (targeting system resolution(m))
Active sensor and fire control would be combined into one unit. Maximum range would be determined by the maximum range of the fire control, tracking speed would be the minimum of the weapon system and the sensor. The cross section would be the longest length of the target ship. Problem with this is that ships could end up all being circles. Is this all too complicated for gameplay?
Damage I think is where the big departure from real physics would be. Damage would ignore speed and only depend on the size of the projectile. Because in real life a ravioli going fast enough could probably blow up a battleship, which wouldn't be that great for game play I imagine. . . Another reason would be to preserve the game play decision between whether a player wants more damage or more accuracy. The damage is going to be simulated tile by tile. For example a laser would hit the ship from a random angle and start destroying tiles in a straight line.
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Distance difference if ship accelerated = (0. 5 * acceleration * (projectile flight time))
So a 10m long ship with 100 m/s^2 of acceleration could be 50m away from it's expected location if the projectile took 1 second to reach it. Meaning a 20% hit chance from evasive maneuvering.
Hit chance = (target cross section (m)) / (Distance difference if ship accelerated) * (tracking speed (rad/s)) / (target angular velocity) * (target cross section (m)) / (targeting system resolution(m))
Actually if your going for full realism you would want to use the target cross section in m^2 (for example 10x10 = 100m^2) / area of circle of possible locations 50m^2*3.14 = 7854 m^2.
This would give you a hit chance of around 1.3%.
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Hmm, problem is that all ships are flat like pancakes since the ship design is purely 2D. I guess we could just have all the ships 1m tall and calculate hit chance based on area of circle but I think that would make the numbers come up all strange?
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Anyone good at orbital mechanics? I have hohmann transfer working between planets with circular orbits. The problem it does not work with planets/asteroids with highly eccentric orbits. Google doesn't seem to be much help. What method(s) are used for transferring between planets with eccentric orbits?
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Anyone good at orbital mechanics? I have hohmann transfer working between planets with circular orbits. The problem it does not work with planets/asteroids with highly eccentric orbits. Google doesn't seem to be much help. What method(s) are used for transferring between planets with eccentric orbits?
While there is probably a way to do the math, you could simply fluff it that the player needs more powerful engines to travel to such objects.
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While there is probably a way to do the math, you could simply fluff it that the player needs more powerful engines to travel to such objects.
Hmm, yes I guess that's always an option. I have the orbit transfers working for the more circular orbits working nicely though (they're plotted by just adding the correct velocity then simulating the position based on interaction with gravity), so it seems like such a pity :(.
I've uploaded the game in it's current state. I'd be very grateful if you guys could take a look and help shape it. You'll need XNA hxxp: www. microsoft. com/en-us/download/details. aspx?id=20914 if you don't already have it installed.
hxxp: www. mediafire. com/?khbu9g646h5ebjd
Whats working:
System map: Can move fleet around (click on target planet), give auto survey order to fleet (auto survey should automatically refuel ship when required but I think it's not working right). Hold down right click to pan, mouse wheel to zoom.
Industry: Mining and production are working, can only do one thing for shipyards (build ship).
Ship / Module design: Mostly working. Need ideas on game play here though.
I'll use a railgun module as an example:
Projectile damage: Number of railgun core modules.
Projectile Speed: Number of accelerator modules.
I'm thinking terminals would provide a 100% increase on each of the surrounding tiles. Terminals need to be manned by crew, and crew need armour between them and the outside of the ship. This isn't implemented yet. I'm worried it won't lead to very fun game play. Any ideas on a fun system which requires thought in design while still allowing room for creativity would be much appreciated. So far this whole aspect has been very disappointing. Also I'm drowning in a huge mess of numbers, I think I really need to plan it out in excel first or something.
Events: Show contact found/loss and combat messages. I put ships on all the other planets to test the hit chance calculation, ships don't actually take damage yet though. The locations/velocities of ships are calculated down to the 100 nano-second interval. It's all pretty pointless now though since the ships just orbit in a circle. I'm thinking there needs to be a tactical view of battles or something.
Default ship/planet/system names are from text files in the Data folder (right now they're all set to a list of star names I found). If anyone likes to muck around with names I'd be grateful for any lists to use.
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Hmm, it doesn't like my 7800 GTX card, so I can't really help see how it works beyond that.
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I'll check it out tomorrow after my exam , from what I'm reading it sounds interesting - and beta testing always helps :D
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Hmm, could be because of the texture size I used. Could you try this version instead? hxxp: www. mediafire. com/?khbu9g646h5ebjd
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Ok that works. Clicking on the name of a fleet in the fleet menu causes a crash, actually clicking anywhere in there seems to do it. Other than that(and the hordes of dead people in the event log that keep setting the speed back to 1x) it looks really neat.
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Thanks for testing it! Oh smeg, just noticed the hoarde of dead people dying a million deaths, guess they have a lifespan of a fruit fly now :D.
Any ideas/comments on the whole ship/module design aspect of it?
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Haven't looked at that yet, though I believe that the simpler it is the better.
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Hmm, problem is that all ships are flat like pancakes since the ship design is purely 2D. I guess we could just have all the ships 1m tall and calculate hit chance based on area of circle but I think that would make the numbers come up all strange?
I think it would be better to assume an arbitrary relationship instead. Lets say we assume all ships are five times as long as they are tall.
So the side area is always equal to [Length * ( Length / 5 )]
This does promote building very short ships that are wide however, so to limit that exploit you probably should change it to be Length or Width, whichever is greater.
This leads to the optimal ship shape being a flatter version of a borg cube ;D
When calculating the stats/output of different size modules you could also use volume scale instead of area scale, basically assuming a bigger module is bigger in all 3 dimensions instead of just the 2 we can see.
This means a 3x3 power module actually can output 27 times as much power as a 1x1 (since we calculate it 3x3x3 versus 1x1x1). This change would have to affect all stats (weight, cost, crew and so on).
This simplifies game design alot since we can build the ship in 2D but have it perform like a ship in 3D would.
But it also promotes using fewer big modules instead of many small ones (since the smaller ones are not stack-able in Z dimension).
Combined with the above it assumes your average ship is 5 modules long (or wide).
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Ship / Module design: Mostly working. Need ideas on game play here though.
I'll use a railgun module as an example:
Projectile damage: Number of railgun core modules.
Projectile Speed: Number of accelerator modules.
I'm thinking terminals would provide a 100% increase on each of the surrounding tiles. Terminals need to be manned by crew, and crew need armour between them and the outside of the ship. This isn't implemented yet. I'm worried it won't lead to very fun game play. Any ideas on a fun system which requires thought in design while still allowing room for creativity would be much appreciated. So far this whole aspect has been very disappointing. Also I'm drowning in a huge mess of numbers, I think I really need to plan it out in excel first or something.
Neat, did you play FTL? (Thinking of terminal manned by crew inspiration). Perhaps every large module also has one or a few terminals on one or two of it's sides so you need to turn them towards the inside /corridors of the ship?
(I am assuming most later modules you design like engines/powerplant/fuel tanks would be bigger then 1x1).
Do you intend to also model crew running around fighting fires, repairing modules and plugging holes or actual boarding party combat like in FTL?
Then you would need to design ships with air-tight / divided compartments to not lose everything in case of a major hull breach.
It would be very hard or at least very resource intensive to get it to work well in a strategic/grand setting similar to aurora though (many ships with hundreds or thousands of crew each). But I think it could be great fun for the earlier phases of fairly realistic Newtonian exploration (few smaller ships with crew 2-15 men).
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This leads to the optimal ship shape being a flatter version of a borg cube
That is exactly the problem I'm having with the whole ship design thing. The problem with the volume scale, shortest length thing, and damage having to work it's way in from outer tiles is that it's just going to turn into cube building simulator 2013. :( Which is probably realistic but not very fun. . .
One idea to combat this I have is heat dissipation. In real life the amount of usable energy you can get from power generation would depend on heat dissipation, the maximum ship power generation would be tied to it's surface area. The problem is that it could just change it from cube building simulator to "cube with fins" building simulator. . .
Another thing which could help combat it is the damage model. A laser cutting a cube ship in 2 would be a lot more devastating than said laser loping off an unimportant section of the ship. But weapons which do damage in an area would have the opposite effect.
I'm thinking instead of encouraging 3x3 modules to have patterns provide bonuses. For example having the modules in a cross shape would be the most effective. The problem is coming up with an intuitive system which isn't too complicated yet leaves room for creativity.
Neat, did you play FTL? (Thinking of terminal manned by crew inspiration). Perhaps every large module also has one or a few terminals on one or two of it's sides so you need to turn them towards the inside /corridors of the ship?
(I am assuming most later modules you design like engines/powerplant/fuel tanks would be bigger then 1x1).
Do you intend to also model crew running around fighting fires, repairing modules and plugging holes or actual boarding party combat like in FTL?
Then you would need to design ships with air-tight / divided compartments to not lose everything in case of a major hull breach.
It would be very hard or at least very resource intensive to get it to work well in a strategic/grand setting similar to aurora though (many ships with hundreds or thousands of crew each). But I think it could be great fun for the earlier phases of fairly realistic Newtonian exploration (few smaller ships with crew 2-15 men).
Yes I actually have the code for checking air-tightness done already, FTL style crew running around and all that would be nice but for now I'm just going for a simple version of it. Crew basically just assumed to be where they're supposed to be, crew member dies if terminal he is manning is exposed to vacuum, no boarding, or other cool stuff. All this actually makes the "cube is best design" problem even worse though.
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That is exactly the problem I'm having with the whole ship design thing. The problem with the volume scale, shortest length thing, and damage having to work it's way in from outer tiles is that it's just going to turn into cube building simulator 2013. :( Which is probably realistic but not very fun. . .
Depends how you envision it working. The way I see it the reason we envisions ships and rockets as pointy is thanks to sea or air drag slowing cube things down.
That is not really acceptable though in space, at least not when you build ships in orbital space shipyards. Perhaps in a game where you build them on the ground and they get prohibitively expensive to launch unless they are pointy it could work.
But what can be done to promote the same behavior is to promote small frontal areas/ cross sections for other reasons.
Some possible other reasons:
* Minimize chance to hit debris/junk/asteroids
* Minimize area to be hit when going straight towards or away from an enemy (requires directional damage model).
* Building time scaling with minimal width, since a cube would take much longer time to build (layer by layer) then a long craft you can build in sections.
Or a combination of:
* Lowtech Reactor / Radiation concerns (reactor in the back, heavy lead in the middle and crew in the front). Small cross-section needed to minimize heavy lead needed.
* High tech FTL/Other propulsion Technobabble reasons.
I'm thinking instead of encouraging 3x3 modules to have patterns provide bonuses. For example having the modules in a cross shape would be the most effective. The problem is coming up with an intuitive system which isn't too complicated yet leaves room for creativity.
Perhaps something like supreme commander? I really loved how they made synergies between storage - production - usage of resources.
Basically you wanted a powerplant to be surrounded by energy storage to maximize efficiency bonus. And for example a shield array got a bonus if all sides are adjacent to power generation. So you could end up with shield in the middle - powerplants around it and energy storage in layer 3.
Not sure what resources and bonuses can be applied to a space game besides energy, but perhaps CPU, crew terminals (as you said) and coolant.
Crew basically just assumed to be where they're supposed to be, crew member dies if terminal he is manning is exposed to vacuum, no boarding, or other cool stuff. All this actually makes the "cube is best design" problem even worse though.
Remember that spaceships (designed for combat) would probably work like submarines though, so for every station you have 3 crew rotating 8 hour shifts. This is also because of redundancy even if someone dies or get sick there are at least two others that can take over the job.
Speaking of expensive launches, Something I really miss in Aurora is a good early model for the $ per ton cost to bring things into orbit. Most agrees that this is the number one thing holding our current space exploration back, and many different projects, ideas and theories exist to reduce this cost before real large scale space exploration and exploitation can start.
There could be various level of detail to model both infrastructure capacity (how many tons / month our current rocket/shuttle infrastructure and production can launch), and the cost of launches in fuel and cash.
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* Building time scaling with minimal width, since a cube would take much longer time to build (layer by layer) then a long craft you can build in sections.
Oooh, that's a great idea. I think I'll do that. Will probably try for a directional damage model too.
Perhaps something like supreme commander? I really loved how they made synergies between storage - production - usage of resources.
Basically you wanted a powerplant to be surrounded by energy storage to maximize efficiency bonus. And for example a shield array got a bonus if all sides are adjacent to power generation. So you could end up with shield in the middle - powerplants around it and energy storage in layer 3.
Not sure what resources and bonuses can be applied to a space game besides energy, but perhaps CPU, crew terminals (as you said) and coolant.
If you look at the modules already inside there are so many already I don't even know where to start ><
Remember that spaceships (designed for combat) would probably work like submarines though, so for every station you have 3 crew rotating 8 hour shifts. This is also because of redundancy even if someone dies or get sick there are at least two others that can take over the job.
I envision crew as being a mix of AIs and mind uploaded people. Seems like the way reality is going and also doesn't run into any physics problems. Physical bodies would just be tools.
Speaking of expensive launches, Something I really miss in Aurora is a good early model for the $ per ton cost to bring things into orbit. Most agrees that this is the number one thing holding our current space exploration back, and many different projects, ideas and theories exist to reduce this cost before real large scale space exploration and exploitation can start. I suspect the game is already too complicated
There could be various level of detail to model both infrastructure capacity (how many tons / month our current rocket/shuttle infrastructure and production can launch), and the cost of launches in fuel and cash.
I think it's actually not that bad if we actually tackled the problem properly. The star tram for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarTram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarTram) would be able to launch stuff for dirt cheap and be limited mostly by energy requirements. I think I'll keep track of energy requirements, simple mass * height * gravity. Energy will be the universal currency for everything more or less.
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Wouldn't the need for heat dissipation discourage cubes, at least for warships? Let's say, for example, that your powerplant produces 500 heat units each second, and during each time step, heat is dissipated from a module to the neighbours at a rate of one fortieth the difference in temperature. So, for example: You have a power plant in the middle of a 9x9 cube of non-heat producing modules. You gain an equilibrium at over 7500 heat units in the power plant. So, if you need to keep the temperature of components under a certain heat you may fail to do so with a cube.
Add in specially-conducting modules, and you have the choice of either using more of them or exposing your heat-generating modules.
Additionally, why not require several modules to be on the outside for them to be usable? For example, missile launchers should be on the hull's edge (and magazines beside them), just as energy weapons. The sensor's sensor part, too.
And, lastly, would it be possible for modules to have different sizes? For example, a big, spinal mount railgun with something like 200x5 spaces.
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Additionally, why not require several modules to be on the outside for them to be usable? For example, missile launchers should be on the hull's edge (and magazines beside them), just as energy weapons. The sensor's sensor part, too.
Yeah that I agree with.
The weakness of any big ship IMO should be it's exposed areas like sensors, propulsion (propeller with ship, jet exhaust with spaceships) and weaponry. Some weaponry can be mostly armored (turrets), but most sensors can't since their very nature is to catch and/or send signals and big ass metal plating tends to not go well with that!
So I would very much love a ship design that reflects this where you need to put some things totally outside the armor layers to work at all (antennas/sensors), and some things need to at least be in contact with space like jet/matter exhaust for conventional propulsion (these could still have a long armored exhaust pipes and have engines be located mid ship).
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Actually, why not make armour another system? You need to place armour (which is a pretty bad heat conductor) on the outside of your ship - or you can place it on the inside. For example, armour your reactor stronger, or don't armour the magazines...
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Thanks for all the input so far guys, been really helpful. Have you guys tried the prototype? Any further thoughts on it?
Add in specially-conducting modules, and you have the choice of either using more of them or exposing your heat-generating modules.
Hmm, I like the idea of specially-conducting modules. I guess I'll have to implement a heat system then :).
Additionally, why not require several modules to be on the outside for them to be usable? For example, missile launchers should be on the hull's edge (and magazines beside them), just as energy weapons. The sensor's sensor part, too.
Hmm, I guess missile launchers, fixed beam weapons, and sensors could be forced to the edges. Turreted weapons can remain in the center.
And, lastly, would it be possible for modules to have different sizes? For example, a big, spinal mount railgun with something like 200x5 spaces.
Yes, the idea is that a module is a collection of tiles. The attributes of the module would come from the number/combination of tiles used.
Actually, why not make armour another system? You need to place armour (which is a pretty bad heat conductor) on the outside of your ship - or you can place it on the inside. For example, armour your reactor stronger, or don't armour the magazines...
Yes, armour is just another tile type and should form all the bulkheads as well.
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Yes, armour is just another tile type and should form all the bulkheads as well.
You could have different versions of it to enable heavily armored ships without 15+ tiles thick layer around your ship.
For example:
Thickness 1 - Bulkhead, can transfer 3X energy/data/coolant/lifesupport/...
Thickness 2 - Reinforced Bulkhead, can transfer 2X energy/data/coolant/lifesupport/...
Thickness 3 - Armored Bulkhead, can transfer X energy/data/coolant/lifesupport/...
Thickness 4 - Outer Hull, no transfer
Thickness 5 - Reinforced Hull, no transfer
Thickness 6 - Armored Hull, no transfer
Thickness 7 - Dense Armored Hull, no transfer
If each tile is supposed to represent a bigger area such as 2x2 meters or more, you probably want to combine lighter bulkhead variants and crew corridors/access paths in a single tile.
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Yeah, this game called Shores of Hazeron had a ship designer like this, except it had multiple decks which might be a bit hard for damage calculation.
They used the same system for modules; you fill a room with them and they get a bonus for being next to eachother. Ofcourse, more interaction would be nice.
Perhaps you could even go down to the level of placing your power conduits going from the reactor to subsystems. That way you might get a lucky hit and now they don't have power to a couple systems. Until it's repaired/bypassed ofcourse.
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Perhaps you could even go down to the level of placing your power conduits going from the reactor to subsystems. That way you might get a lucky hit and now they don't have power to a couple systems. Until it's repaired/bypassed ofcourse.
Yes that was the idea I had, but for simplicity most smaller amounts of energy would be possible to send through normal bulkheads/corridors. Big specialized cables should only be needed if you want to run say the Terawatt laser in one of the ship and it's Fusion power supply in the other.
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You could have different versions of it to enable heavily armored ships without 15+ tiles thick layer around your ship.
For example:
Thickness 1 - Bulkhead, can transfer 3X energy/data/coolant/lifesupport/...
Thickness 2 - Reinforced Bulkhead, can transfer 2X energy/data/coolant/lifesupport/...
Thickness 3 - Armored Bulkhead, can transfer X energy/data/coolant/lifesupport/...
Thickness 4 - Outer Hull, no transfer
Thickness 5 - Reinforced Hull, no transfer
Thickness 6 - Armored Hull, no transfer
Thickness 7 - Dense Armored Hull, no transfer
Hmm, I think tech levels already serve a similar purpose. The strength of a single tile would go up as your tech advances. But if really want 15 tile thick armour with starting tech then it is going to be an awkward 15+ tiles thick layer around your ship. And I'm thinking the tiles should represent 1m x 1m areas. Large ships should be made up of thousands of tiles, up to 16384 x 16384 big to be more precise :D.
Perhaps you could even go down to the level of placing your power conduits going from the reactor to subsystems. That way you might get a lucky hit and now they don't have power to a couple systems. Until it's repaired/bypassed ofcourse.
I don't think this would add much apart from making ship designing more tedious. I'd rather the player have to really think about how to place the available modules instead of having more and more ship systems to micromanage. At least for now my goal is just to get a playable version out ASAP.
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Hmm, I think tech levels already serve a similar purpose. The strength of a single tile would go up as your tech advances. But if really want 15 tile thick armour with starting tech then it is going to be an awkward 15+ tiles thick layer around your ship. And I'm thinking the tiles should represent 1m x 1m areas. Large ships should be made up of thousands of tiles, up to 16384 x 16384 big to be more precise :D.
The problem with that design is that 1 meter thick armour plating is really REALLY heavy, and you restrict the weight of a minimum armor layout, and also restrict the level of detail by to much IMHO.
You still need a system to handle partial armor if I have tech level 4 armor and only want to use thickness 1, unless you want to force everyone to use their tech-level as minimum armor level as well.
The ISS for example is made up off around 5 mm thick aluminum pressure shell, and some Kevlar/blankets to adsorb spacedust/debris. The total thickness is up to around 10cm.
Even the Space shuttle heat shield is no thicker then 13 cm thick.
Just something to think about for future versions :)
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Working on hammering out the rest of the game details. And I still need a game name! Was thinking of something to do with stars maybe?
Commanders:
Each commander or mind is either biological, uploaded, or AI. At the start, you will only have a small pool of biological commanders and your academy will only produce biological commanders. Ships with such commanders would be limited to something like 100m/s^2 of acceleration (no interstellar travel also). Either the development of AI or mind uploading would be required to start using ships which can accelerate faster (among various other benefits such as higher stats and not dying). To get the most out of the ships you still need physical avatars although all ships will still function perfectly fine with no avatars. Having a highly skilled team is going to be very important.
Each person has 4 RPG like stats: intelligence, conscientiousness, reflexes, and loyalty. Intelligence and conscientiousness affects the speed at which the commander improves skills. Each skill also has a primary attribute which affects the speed which it improves. There's nothing preventing jack of all trades type characters.
Piloting, reflexes, improves evasion from fire.
Gunnery, reflexes, improves weapon accuracy.
Engineering, intelligence, improves engine efficiency and ship based construction.
CrewTraining, intelligence, same as aurora (crew grade bonus mechanic)
Science, intelligence, improves sensors and surveying.
DamageControl, intelligence, improves repair rate.
FighterWarfare, reflexes, improves attached fighters.
Logistics, intelligence, improves cargo module.
ColonyAdministration, intelligence, improves colony happiness and growth rate.
Construction, intelligence, improves ship construction rate.
Mining, intelligence, improves mining rate.
FactoryProduction, intelligence, improves construction factory production.
WealthCreation, improves wealth creation.
Research, improves research rate.
No ranking system for now, eventually I want a ranking system which depends on your form of government.
Colonies:
Energy: Required for everything. 3 methods of production, fusion plants, solar collectors built close to the star(relies on luminosity of star), or geothermal (amount relies on geothermal resource on planet).
Population Growth: Population growth relies on base population and carrying capacity of the planet which is proportional to the surface area.
Wealth: Similar to Aurora's system. Low population colonies will cost large amounts of money.
Happiness: How close the planet is to the home planet's environment, amount of infrastructure, and energy surplus.
Productivity Bonus: Combination of happiness and population on planet. All buildings can be run without anyone home but having a large happy population would give you nice bonuses.
Shipyards: I'm thinking of doing without the whole retooling mechanic and commercial/military split.
Orbital Structures: Option to build solar collectors / mass drivers in orbit around the star. Energy will probably be free to beam around the system (but not to ships) for game play reasons.
Fleet Orders:
I'm trying to avoid queuing orders as much as possible. Instead of giving a long queue of orders to a fleet to get it to shuttle all the resources around you give it a "transport minerals" order and it goes around collecting minerals based on your colony settings and refuels/resupplies when required. Same thing with buildings/surveying/construction.
Interstellar Travel:
Eventually you'll get FTL but early on you'll have to rely on mass drivers. For example if you want to launch a 10,000 kg ship to 0.5c then slow it down you'll need mv^2 of energy. To slow it down you'll only use energy 50% as efficiently (need to beam energy to ship and have it's engines burn). So 1.5 * 10000 * (0.5c)^2 or around 900 EJ of energy. A single starting game fusion plant would maybe produce 20 EJ of energy a year. Everything will happen slower in the early game to match this. Interstellar freight is probably not going to be very viable. You could launch the ship at a much lower energy cost at 0.1c or something.
Research:
27 categories of research. You distribute your research power and get a chance of discovering a random new tech in that field. Each time you discover a new tech you get a choice to encourage further research in that sub-category.
The problem with that design is that 1 meter thick armour plating is really REALLY heavy, and you restrict the weight of a minimum armor layout, and also restrict the level of detail by to much IMHO.
What about an armour tile and a bulkhead tile? With the bulkhead tile being the bare minimum to keep the air in. And think of the armour as some sort of honeycomb/spaced armour structure and not a 1 meter cube chunk of metal.
Heat System and Life support check (light green area is pressurised):
(http://i.imgur.com/MTHJbIr.png)
Heat:
Powerplants generate 100 heat, processors generate 50 heat. Each run heat gets conducted based on heatDifference / transferFactor. Bulkheads have a factor of 2, floors 32, and all other modules 16(4 to space). Heat sim is run 50 times only then the values used. Modules will start receiving a penalty above 200 heat and explode at 1200 heat.
I intend to have proper units for everything ultimately.
Crew Bonus:
A "Terminal" is crewed by 1 crew member. Tiles surrounding the terminal (no diaganols) receive a 100% bonus. Tiles 2 manhattan distance away receive a 25% bonus. Each additional terminal affecting a tile receives a 50% penalty to it's bonus.
Placement Bonus:
If not mentioned bonuses will be applied in a similar manner to the crew terminal bonus.
Bridge: The first terminal on the bridge provides a 100% bonus to all functions on the ship. Each subsequent terminal provides half the bonus of the previous terminal. The processor tile improves the commander skills by 5% per tile (additive) up to a maximum of the commander's base skill.
For example if the commander has a 25% bonus in gunnery 5 processor tiles would mean a total of 50% bonus while a 5th tile would have no further effect. Processor tiles are also crucial to the running of the ship, destruction of all processor tiles means complete loss of the ship.
Crew Quarters:
Crew start with 1000 morale and lose 1000 morale a year. Each avatar tile provides 1 crew member. Each personal space tile per crew member provides 100 morale. Each empty space around the personal space tile gives it a 25% bonus.
Energy Storage:
Energy storage tiles store increased energy in contiguous clusters (number of tiles) ^ 1.3. Each tile explodes with (number of tiles) ^ 2 strength.
Engines: Engine tiles must have an uninterupted line of sight of the bottom of the ship (except for other engine tiles). There are 2 other special tiles for the engines. Power boost tiles increase engine power (50%) at the cost of extra heat generation (50%) while power efficiency tiles decrease energy usage by 50%.
These tiles provide the bonus to all engine tiles in the same horizontal row or 3x the bonus if placed directly above a row of engine tiles. Engineering tiles reduce the chance of a random maintenance failure.
Power: Engines require a power plant to convert stored energy into energy for the ship. Weapons and shields also require energy.
Active Sensor/Fire Control:
There is no distinction between sensors and fire control. 3 types of tiles, sensor range tiles which increase sensor strength, sensor resolution tiles which improve sensor resolution, and tracking tiles which improve tracking (rad/s). I have yet to work out the sensor formulas.
Passive Sensor:
Thermal or EM sensor tiles. Strength would go up by (number of tiles)^1.3.
All sensor tiles receive a 100% bonus if next to open space. Single "islands" of open space in the middle of a ship do not count.
Kinetic Weapons:
Railguns: Railguns have equivalent range to missiles and do more damage than missiles. However they'll require a lot of space and energy.
Gauss Cannons: Gauss cannons have less range and damage but a lot more accuracy and use less space and energy.
Missiles: Missiles have the benefit of not requiring energy but can be shot down.
Energy Weapons:
Lasers travel at light speed so are almost completly affected by the target's acceleration. They also do damage in a straight line but require more energy.
Plasma cannons have similar characteristics to gauss cannons but are armour piercing and explosive. They will skip a few tiles before exploding.
Meson cannons have a chance to destroy enemy systems directly with lower chances the further away the system is from the impact location.
All weapons have a core tile. The average width of each contigious cluster will determine the damage while the average height will determine the penetration. Only the first contigious cluster per module will be counted.
Loader tiles will improve rate of fire but increase energy requirements while accelerator tiles will improve projectile speed. Turret tiles will improve tracking speed by (number of turret tiles) / (sum of all other relevant tiles in module).
Missile launchers only have magazine and magazine ejector tiles.
Shields:
Shields are directional. The length of each contigious cluster will determine the distance of the protective barrier (diagrams needed). A hit to the barrier will reduce the shield strength. Regeneration tiles improve regeneration at the cost of energy.
Special Function:
All special function tiles (mining, construction, terraforming, survey, tractor) have a (number of tiles in module) ^ 1.2 bonus.
Tractor beams have a force and distance proportional to the number of tiles.
Hanger:
Hanger space is calculated by the least width and least height of hanger space tiles in the module. Each repair or rearm arm provides a multiplier to repair/rearm speed starting with 1x for no tiles, 2x for 1 tile, and so on.
Cargo:
Cargo, Troops, and spare parts. Spare parts are required to repair any damage caused by combat or random maintenance failures. Cargo arms provide a multipler to cargo/troop loading. Terminals here only provide bonuses to cargo arms and not storage space.
I realise making a ship building AI is going to be a heck of a lot of effort. I will probably rely on uploading/downloading designs to a webpage for AI ship designs.
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For AI ships it might be better to pre-build a series of modules (eg. engine room , crew quarters , command , weaponry sections ) and get an algorithm to mix them up as needed. Getting it to build realistic design might be quite hard indeed :)
I absolutely love the heat management part. There are few if no games in which the actually model it right.
I hope we'll get to see different radiator designs ( normal plate reactors for civilians , droplet and particle radiators for military ships and so on ) . Having heatsinks in would be nice as well .
Keep up the good work , I will be able to help with testing and maybe suggestions if u need them in a couple of days - damn grad exams are killing my time.
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Looks good, I'm particularly interested in the research system, technology seems like a very important thing to be ontop of to keep expanding.
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For AI ships it might be better to pre-build a series of modules (eg. engine room , crew quarters , command , weaponry sections ) and get an algorithm to mix them up as needed. Getting it to build realistic design might be quite hard indeed
I was thinking of something like the system in Spore. The AI empires you encounter use ships designed by other players. Could even collect stats on how well different ship designs do and stuff. Could quickly get just as difficult as a system to get the AI to design it itself though...
I hope we'll get to see different radiator designs ( normal plate reactors for civilians , droplet and particle radiators for military ships and so on ) . Having heatsinks in would be nice as well .
Sadly I think the complexity is getting out of hand. Rudimentary heat system for now.
Keep up the good work , I will be able to help with testing and maybe suggestions if u need them in a couple of days - damn grad exams are killing my time.
Thanks, could really use more feedback, especially on parts which are bad and need improvement/redoing.
Made some progress, but I seem to be running out of momentum :-\.
(http://i.imgur.com/DTsyiUZ.png)
Implemented most of the stuff in the previous post, fully functional ship yay.
New Tactical Screen:
(http://i.imgur.com/9en1qcb.png)
Man, this is really getting out of hand. I'm supposed to be keeping things simple but now I have a whole "star fleet command" thing going. The tactical screen should give precise control over the fleets heading and movement during a battle. Also realised just how fast a ship gets going if you accelerate at a few Gs for longer periods of time.
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Does anyone like to come up with lore and stuff for fun? I have the game loading all the ship parts and descriptions from this xml file http://www.mediafire.com/?1jvipz0ltjtyjkd (http://www.mediafire.com/?1jvipz0ltjtyjkd). If anyone is interested in coming up in names/descriptions/lore for all the parts I'd be very grateful.
Also, the 8 resources are:
Anium,
Boronide,
Corbomite,
Duranium,
Eridium,
Fanderite,
Gallicite,
Hercassium,
Roles and lore for the minerals would be nice too.
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Wow, this is really impressive, certainly it would be very interesting, keep up the good work.
EDIT:
Out of interest, you mention that Biological crews will not be capable of FTL, does that include colonists?
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Out of interest, you mention that Biological crews will not be capable of FTL, does that include colonists?
Yup, it does include colonists. Mind uploading or AI would be the equivalent of trans-newtonian tech from aurora (limited interstellar travel before it). Also FTL will be a late game tech. Most of the game is going to be at sub-light speed.
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Looks interesting.
For information about STL drives, this wikipedia article might be of interest.
hxxp: en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
The work published in 1968 by Freeman Dyson should be particularly interesting. (Yes, that Freeman Dyson)
TLDR;
First proposed by Stanislaw Ulam in 1946. Work started in 1958 by Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson.
"At 0. 1c, Orion thermonuclear starships would require a flight time of at least 44 years to reach Alpha Centauri, not counting time needed to reach that speed (about 36 days at constant acceleration of 1g or 9. 8 m/s2)"
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OK, so colonisation is going to be an extremely slow process, cool. I must say after taking a look at what you have shown us I am deeply impressed.
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"At 0. 1c, Orion thermonuclear starships would require a flight time of at least 44 years to reach Alpha Centauri, not counting time needed to reach that speed (about 36 days at constant acceleration of 1g or 9. 8 m/s2)"
While feasible I think it's rather silly to carry all that fuel on the spaceship for interstellar travel, the rocket equation really screws you over. An orbital mass driver could be incredibly efficient with energy and get the ship up to a significant fraction of light speed very quickly. You still have to slow the ship down at the other end which is the hard part but even that you could use the same mass driver.
OK, so colonisation is going to be an extremely slow process, cool. I must say after taking a look at what you have shown us I am deeply impressed.
Thanks! I hope to have something playable out within a week. Yes it would take years and years in game time but everything else will be slowed down to match and the game speed multiplier increased.
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Yeah, I like the time in this game and despite the fact that you are calling it aurora inspired it is still a very unique concept, and the rate you appear to be working on it seems staggering.
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Is anyone interested in helping me play test? In the rush to go through all the features everything is sort of wonky. I could really use some help ironing things out.
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I'm down with the exams and I should have a few weeks for myself. Feel free to drop me a pm with the latest build and what you think is wonky :)
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I am willing to do play testing and maybe help write some lore but it will have to wait till weekend to do that.
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Well, I have some free time this month, but late June/early July I will be busy again, but in between then and now I would certainly like to help.
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So I couldn't resist working on AI created ships. Also had some work to catch up on so progress has kinda slowed. I still don't have a name! I would be eternally grateful if anyone could come up with a name...
(http://i.imgur.com/8fiwLc9.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/1hH9yl5.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/CbjAlkC.png)
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Galaxia, or maybe Etherium
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I was hoping for something like this to be made. I will try it out.
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I will help playtest it.
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I would also love to do some playtesting.
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I would playtest it as well.
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I would love to playtest it too.
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I would like to playtest it too. I have a linux machine with wine and a win xp in a virtual box.