Realistic-style mod

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DiGuru
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Post by DiGuru »

About 'antigravity': have you seen this?

http://www.americanantigravity.com/

Those lifters actually seem to work. I followed some of those projects for a while. It's not actual antigravity of course, but very interesting nevertheless.
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Post by Jadel »

I think "realistic" is a bad word to use about a computer game involving people flying around in space and blowing each other up hundreds of years in the future - I think "plausible" might be a better word. That said I prefer games with a high plausibility level to those with a low one (e.g. I-War) unless they let that get in the way of gameplay (e.g. Elite II and Frontier - I think the Elite sequels are an excellent example of how not to do game design.)

On an entirely unrelated topic "Lifters" use electrostatic repulsion to accelerate air thus keeping themselves airborne - basically air breathing ion drives. No funky physics involved.
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Post by DiGuru »

I made a new thread, Realistic and strategic mod: Specs and asked Jadel if he would like to lead that part.

PeteyG and MKruer, do you both think you should open a new thread for the story as well?
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Post by Shrike »

DiGuru wrote:About 'antigravity': have you seen this?

http://www.americanantigravity.com/

Those lifters actually seem to work. I followed some of those projects for a while. It's not actual antigravity of course, but very interesting nevertheless.
There was a scientist I read about a couple of years ago, who had come up with a material which could "block" gravity. He only had it working on a small scale (like not much bigger than molecular) at the time I read about it. I haven't heard anything else about it, but such a material should be possible.
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Post by DiGuru »

Hi, all.

I would like to spend more time on this mod, as it is something I have wanted for 20 years.

But I am *very* busy earning my first million. I think I'll get close in a few months, with my first big contract for the new company.

But I won't abandon this! I just have very limited time at the moment.

So, please, keep it going. I might even be able to back it financially, if needed, in a few months. But don't hold your breath.

Anyway, let's try to keep this mod as probable as possible. If we do it right, we will make the new benchmark. Next to Star Wars.

So, Shrike, are you up to it? Take the lead!

And FlyingAce, trevor, PeteyG, MKrurer, etheral walker, Jadel and everyone I forgot to mention, please take the lead of a sub-project and go ahead! I'll help as much as I can, but I don't know if I can spend the time it would require.

Greetings, Diguru
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Post by DiGuru »

Ok.

And now, for something completely different!

What are we going to do in our probably more or less realistic universe?

Kill as much virtual people against really huge odds as we can?

Trade to become extremely whealty, so we can buy an uber ship to kill even more virtual people?

Do puzzles?

Explore the scenery?

I should let Shrike continue this. We agree: a killing or trading game (with a clearly defined target) is fun until you beat it.

For example, in Freelancer (which is VERY unrealisic any way you bother to look at it), when you have seen it all, as it is a very nice and beautiful game, you start to wonder.

'What to do?'

Well, everyone wants a 'killer' ship. But there are no instant-kill weapons!!!

There's not even targeting or tracking (as missiles are even more stupid than ANY missile build in the last 50 years, and have no killing power anyway). Line it up, pull the trigger (hum, klick the mouse, whatever), and miss by a wide margin.

Try again!

Is that fun? Hm. I wonder. Not for me.

As missiles are no use whatsoever in Freelancer, I made myself a turret with a low refire rate (1.33 secs), that shot a tracking plasma bolt. And did more than 3000 damage. Instant kill.

BRRRR! Where is the fun in that?

Exactly.

But weapons are *made* to be instant-kill! If you dumb them down to be easily subverted and doing only a very small fraction of their real damage, battles last long and you can have fun: 'I have an uber shield and armor!'

Duh.

Fun?

Duh.

In most games, trading is equally stupid: sometimes, you cannot lose: you always get more when you sell it. Other times, you need to make notes on paper, as your on-board computer is a lot more dumb than a stupid calculator.

But that is cool! If computers are morons, we can aim and fly manually! Rejoyce!

Duh.

Fighter planes from the 1950's in space. Star wars. Inertial compensators and shields to make it possible. Lucky for the creators of Star Wars computers are such morons in their universe, as the computers at the time the movie was made were just as bad.

'Luke, use the force! We don't have functional computers anyway, so we just pretend they weren't used anyway! Unless the story needs them, like when we want robots. But robots could never shoot at a human!'

Unless the story needs them to do just that, of course.

Whatever.

And we have to do the same! Yes, I hate it. And we WILL use very smart computers. But we DO have to make them work. We need to write their programming ourselves. And it has to run on current computers.

Ask Shrike. He knows. He explained it all to me.

Anyway, what do we do? Are there more things to do than 'killing' virtual people, trading and exploring?
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Post by mkruer »

It makes me seriously wonder why you even are here is Vega Strike is so against everything you want. Vega Strike is real-time first person combat engine that takes place inside of a larger macro war environment, not a strategy game. If you can except that get over it. If you want a strategy game try http://www.freeorion.org/ its not real-time, but it matches almost everything you said you wanted, and its open source.
I know you believe you understand what you think I said.
But I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Post by Jadel »

We can shoot real people, thats what online play is for! :wink:

I think what you are complaining about is bad game design, in this case artificially hampering the player because otherwise the game would not be challenging enough (as opposed to say Elite II which hampered the player because the game designers hadn't thought it through far enough :evil: )

I guess the moral of the story is that game design is just as important as flashy graphics. One idea is to have three different specialisations - A,B and C so that A defeats B, B defeats C and C defeats A. (think paper, scissors, stone). That way you can't have any one strategy that will always defeat everything. Homeworld is a good example of this.
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Post by uavfun »

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is sound. Pretty much every space sim fills space with magic sound-conducting ether. You would still hear plenty of noises from your ship and from running into bullets (or whatever gets used) , explosions, other ships and so on. It would be kind of neat to be just cruising along with your engines rumbling quietly and then *boom* pieces start coming off your ship :twisted:
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Post by mkruer »

What!? don’t you believe in then cockpit surround sound system that creatively gives voice to the silence of space? :lol:
I know you believe you understand what you think I said.
But I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Post by peteyg »

Heck no. If I was a space pilot, I'd use the silence to listen to some tunes!

Actually, though... I would imagine that a symphony of cool cockpit sounds and cool warning beeps for all sorts of events could make realistic space sound a pretty cool deal. There could be sounds to reflect the state of your ship, enemies on the scanners, your accelleration. All kinds of cool stuff.
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Post by Lupin »

are you asing for a real time strategy game and not a flight sim which is what vs is
DiGuru wrote:Ok.

And now, for something completely different!

What are we going to do in our probably more or less realistic universe?

Kill as much virtual people against really huge odds as we can?

Trade to become extremely whealty, so we can buy an uber ship to kill even more virtual people?

Do puzzles?

Explore the scenery?

I should let Shrike continue this. We agree: a killing or trading game (with a clearly defined target) is fun until you beat it.

For example, in Freelancer (which is VERY unrealisic any way you bother to look at it), when you have seen it all, as it is a very nice and beautiful game, you start to wonder.

'What to do?'

Well, everyone wants a 'killer' ship. But there are no instant-kill weapons!!!

There's not even targeting or tracking (as missiles are even more stupid than ANY missile build in the last 50 years, and have no killing power anyway). Line it up, pull the trigger (hum, klick the mouse, whatever), and miss by a wide margin.

Try again!

Is that fun? Hm. I wonder. Not for me.

As missiles are no use whatsoever in Freelancer, I made myself a turret with a low refire rate (1.33 secs), that shot a tracking plasma bolt. And did more than 3000 damage. Instant kill.

BRRRR! Where is the fun in that?

Exactly.

But weapons are *made* to be instant-kill! If you dumb them down to be easily subverted and doing only a very small fraction of their real damage, battles last long and you can have fun: 'I have an uber shield and armor!'

Duh.

Fun?

Duh.

In most games, trading is equally stupid: sometimes, you cannot lose: you always get more when you sell it. Other times, you need to make notes on paper, as your on-board computer is a lot more dumb than a stupid calculator.

But that is cool! If computers are morons, we can aim and fly manually! Rejoyce!

Duh.

Fighter planes from the 1950's in space. Star wars. Inertial compensators and shields to make it possible. Lucky for the creators of Star Wars computers are such morons in their universe, as the computers at the time the movie was made were just as bad.

'Luke, use the force! We don't have functional computers anyway, so we just pretend they weren't used anyway! Unless the story needs them, like when we want robots. But robots could never shoot at a human!'

Unless the story needs them to do just that, of course.

Whatever.

And we have to do the same! Yes, I hate it. And we WILL use very smart computers. But we DO have to make them work. We need to write their programming ourselves. And it has to run on current computers.

Ask Shrike. He knows. He explained it all to me.

Anyway, what do we do? Are there more things to do than 'killing' virtual people, trading and exploring?


*Flame!*
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Post by Jadel »

If we go the full realism path, with closing speeds in the hundreds of kilometers per second and engagement times many hours long, we are really required to make it a strategy game, either a very long one or with a lot of time compression.
I was aiming for something not quite as rigid however. Based on what we know now, with just enough carefully selected technical advances and superscience - some good examples of what I'm thinking of are the game I-War, the TV series Babylon 5 and any hard science fiction story that just happens to include an FTL drive.
This is meant to be fun after all. :D
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Post by Jadel »

Basic assumptions:
*Stutterwarp type drives are available, but need a low gravity environment to work as gravity goes up, the amount of energy required to run them increases until they are almost useless at app. 1 planetary diameter. They also take a significant amount of time to change operation rate. On the upside they are minitaurised enough to fit into missile sized spaceframes. FTL is possible, but only in extremely low gravity conditions.
*Electronic warfare is good - really good. Between active stealth, decoys, deceptive and noise jammers. getting a solid lock on a target is a big problem.
*There is a lot of factories, stations, asteroids and other junk in orbit around any settled planet
*For some reason people still insist on fighting, but not genocide. Planetary bombardment with gigaton antimatter devices is out.

conclusions:
*First task is always to detect and localise your opponent. Because of the effectiveness of decoys this quite often involves sending someone or something to physically have a look.
*Capital ships would be at their best out deep, where they are able to use their drives to the fullest extent. They would also be able to travel further in to a gravity well than smaller craft would before having to resort to normal newtonian propulsion.
*Beam weapons are only carried by capital ships their size and power requirements make them impractical for smaller platforms.
*Fighters are large enough to have stutterwarp generators, but are usually not capable of the same speeds as more powerful craft. Thus they are usually transported from gravity well to gravity well by carrier craft.
*In close (shallow), in a striclty newtonian environment fighters and gun drones change from minnows to sharks, there small size and maneuverability allow them to dodge and use cover in a way that is just not possible for larger craft. Eyes quite often work better in such a noisy environment anyway.
*Fighter class weaponry is good against fighters, missiles and is capable of damaging capital class turrents and sensors and other lightly/unarmored systems. Capital ships are too big to be destroyed otherwise.
*All units in a fleet will be linked by communications systems, the greatest horro of any navy is that someone will manage to take over one of their craft with a limpet and subvert there data net.

Comments?
Any holes you'd care to poke?
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Post by mkruer »

Jadel wrote:Basic assumptions:
*Stutterwarp type drives are available, but need a low gravity environment to work as gravity goes up, the amount of energy required to run them increases until they are almost useless at app. 1 planetary diameter. They also take a significant amount of time to change operation rate. On the upside they are minitaurised enough to fit into missile sized spaceframes. FTL is possible, but only in extremely low gravity conditions.
*Electronic warfare is good - really good. Between active stealth, decoys, deceptive and noise jammers. getting a solid lock on a target is a big problem.
*There is a lot of factories, stations, asteroids and other junk in orbit around any settled planet
*For some reason people still insist on fighting, but not genocide. Planetary bombardment with gigaton antimatter devices is out.

conclusions:
*First task is always to detect and localise your opponent. Because of the effectiveness of decoys this quite often involves sending someone or something to physically have a look.
*Capital ships would be at their best out deep, where they are able to use their drives to the fullest extent. They would also be able to travel further in to a gravity well than smaller craft would before having to resort to normal newtonian propulsion.
*Beam weapons are only carried by capital ships their size and power requirements make them impractical for smaller platforms.
*Fighters are large enough to have stutterwarp generators, but are usually not capable of the same speeds as more powerful craft. Thus they are usually transported from gravity well to gravity well by carrier craft.
*In close (shallow), in a striclty newtonian environment fighters and gun drones change from minnows to sharks, there small size and maneuverability allow them to dodge and use cover in a way that is just not possible for larger craft. Eyes quite often work better in such a noisy environment anyway.
*Fighter class weaponry is good against fighters, missiles and is capable of damaging capital class turrents and sensors and other lightly/unarmored systems. Capital ships are too big to be destroyed otherwise.
*All units in a fleet will be linked by communications systems, the greatest horro of any navy is that someone will manage to take over one of their craft with a limpet and subvert there data net.

Comments?
Any holes you'd care to poke?
Nope, you said it really well. You made all the major points for Rylix. About the only difference is that I am trying to limit the what’s in a system, and the timeframe of what has already happened in the game, so there will not be a lot of factories, stations, but asteroids and other junk in orbit around any settled planet defiantly.
Electronic warfare is in there between stealth and active sensors, these needs to be advanced more to include to data links to expand your field of vision though other ships. Beam weapons can be carried by all ships, but the effeteness really depends on the power, and the target. Fighters can also destroy cap ships, but then again with the defensive screen a carrier can dish out, its highly unlikely that even a squad of fighters will destroy a carrier let alone a single fighter. And perhaps the most importantly there is a reason to fight. The general idea if I can use the term is “Fortress Americaâ€
I know you believe you understand what you think I said.
But I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

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Post by Jadel »

Anyway I would like to copy your post and insert it into the Rylix QA since you put it so eloquently.
Certainly.
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Post by Shrike »

DiGuru wrote:So, Shrike, are you up to it? Take the lead!
Newp. I've been so busy the lately that I haven't even had time to look at the forum here for over a week. In fact I should be working right now. I just got done proofreading/editing a book for a buddy of mine, and I'm supposed to write his bio tonight so he can send the manuscript in to the publisher tomorrow...but I'm burnt and needed a break so I came here.

I've also been putting in some time getting my bass chops back in working condition. As long as I've been playing, and as much muscle mass as I've built up in my hands and forearms, it takes me a couple of hours just to get properly warmed up, so whenever I play (almost every day lately) I have to plan on doing it for a few hours.

Oh yea, work too.

No, I just don't have time for one, and for two, as we've already discussed in email, I don't believe it's actually possible to be realistic, since any game set in the future, is going to be based on tech which we know of or can guess at today - but just as 100 years ago they didn't envision the Space Shuttle, today we can not possibly imagine what will actually be happening even 100 years from now, much less 1000 years from now.

I also happen to actually believe in the multiverse:

http://www.qubit.org/people/david/Artic ... tiers.html

Therefore, I believe that anything which we can imagine or predict in this universe, can be totally different in a different universe, including the laws of physics. Since I believe that this is true, and thus real, then the definition of "realistic", to me, has a different meaning. In the context of a computer game, it just means realistic locally, not universally; "realistic here and now in this universe", which is only one of an infinite number of universes.

But, as I've said, since we can't predict the future even 100 years from now, and thus we have no concept of what will be "real" in the future, it is impossible to create a "realistic" space game.
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Post by Jadel »

But, as I've said, since we can't predict the future even 100 years from now, and thus we have no concept of what will be "real" in the future, it is impossible to create a "realistic" space game.
The consesus seems to be that the mod should not directly contradict what we now today, but fudging of figures and the odd bit of sneaky superscience are allowed to keep this interesting.
At least nobody yet has complained that I should be sticking to what is possible today, and nobody has complained that I pulled one major fast one in my outline a few posts back. Still any hard science fiction story is allowed to have one major break in the rules, I think its in the SFWA constitution.
Don't see why we can't do the same thing. :wink:
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Post by DiGuru »

I don't know about Electronic Counter Measures and stealth being very effective. Sure, they could be, if you could crack the computer of another spaceship.

But there is something about that I would like to discuss: The difference between hackers and crackers and how it works.

I am a very good hacker myself.

'Dude, can you hack your way into a bank and increase your saldo?'

No. And even if I could, that would be cracking, not hacking. A cracker is someone who knows some tricks and programs he can use to see if he can crack the security. A hacker is someone who designed that security.

So, if you can crack it, you need to be on the inside or go against a system that isn't designed by a hacker. Forget it.

And if you want to use active ECM, that means the eneny can spot you. Think about it. You can only change what he thinks he sees, not make it invisible.

Breaking a tracking lock is overrated as well. Even if you could, what good would it do? You can just detonate a laser missile against the largest occlusion.

No, you see it all. You just don't know what your opponent is planning to do.
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Post by DiGuru »

As we don't know how the future will be, why worry about it? Even if we knew, we couldn't make it happen anyway. The game has to run on a current computer. And the largest change will almost surely be the faster computers and the vastly more clever software that runs it, not things like Faster Than Light drives (if they are possible at all, which i doubt very much).
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Post by DiGuru »

Sounds. Yes, I agree. Sounds and light effects (like laser bolts) don't exist in space. But it would be very, very good if we could come up with realistic sounds. Nobody did that so far, so it would be a first. We could make another benchmark by doing so.

And, as PeteyG said, ther are enough things that could make meaningfull sounds than hearing things that happen a lightsecond away!

And nice sounds are a very primate thing. A stupid game with GREAT sound is sometimes better than a great game with awful sound.
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Post by Jadel »

But there is something about that I would like to discuss: The difference between hackers and crackers and how it works.

I am a very good hacker myself.

'Dude, can you hack your way into a bank and increase your saldo?'
I've read the Jargon File, so I know what you mean, but cracking doesn't roll off the tounge as well. What we need is a new verb to describe the action of infiltrating someones datasystem and making carniverous space goats appear on there monitors.

Any takers?
And the largest change will almost surely be the faster computers and the vastly more clever software that runs it, not things like Faster Than Light drives (if they are possible at all, which i doubt very much).
At this stage there are some weird ideas in quantum mechanics which lead me to believe it's not impossible. The question is will it be practical?
Of course both of these are irrelevent, People want to go tripping around the universe and absent any reason not to, I think that it should be included in the mod. So far not one person has said to me "your playing it too fast and loose." although a few have made suggestions and pointed out things I've overlooked.
Sounds. Yes, I agree. Sounds and light effects (like laser bolts) don't exist in space. But it would be very, very good if we could come up with realistic sounds. Nobody did that so far, so it would be a first. We could make another benchmark by doing so.
Sounds presumably would be generated by the crafts onboard computer systems to inform the crew that they are being shot at or had a near miss with another craft etc.
I'm also quite partial to the three part harmony jump noise form the original privateer. :wink:
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Post by DiGuru »

Jadel wrote:
But there is something about that I would like to discuss: The difference between hackers and crackers and how it works.

I am a very good hacker myself.

'Dude, can you hack your way into a bank and increase your saldo?'
I've read the Jargon File, so I know what you mean, but cracking doesn't roll off the tounge as well. What we need is a new verb to describe the action of infiltrating someones datasystem and making carniverous space goats appear on there monitors.

Any takers?
You hit the nail right at the hot spot. And I like the example. 'See, Capitain! Lots of hard returns on the radar! But they look like... uhm... Goats... It has to be a new superweapon!!!'

I think the verb should be 'infiltrators' or something like it. But if someone can think of a good one, post it.
And the largest change will almost surely be the faster computers and the vastly more clever software that runs it, not things like Faster Than Light drives (if they are possible at all, which i doubt very much).
At this stage there are some weird ideas in quantum mechanics which lead me to believe it's not impossible. The question is will it be practical?
Of course both of these are irrelevent, People want to go tripping around the universe and absent any reason not to, I think that it should be included in the mod. So far not one person has said to me "your playing it too fast and loose." although a few have made suggestions and pointed out things I've overlooked.
Well, time travel (which we are talking about if you go faster than C), is quite possible. But paradoxes are not. There is an awful lot of 'proof' about both. So, while you could 'beat the system' and travel forward in time (going faster than the speed of light), you could only do so if there is no possible way to carry any information that could influence things that happen in your past.

So, if we could devise a way to travel FTL for a long distance without the possibility of going back and carrying 'future' information, it could be done.

But nobody quite knows how that trick could work.
Sounds. Yes, I agree. Sounds and light effects (like laser bolts) don't exist in space. But it would be very, very good if we could come up with realistic sounds. Nobody did that so far, so it would be a first. We could make another benchmark by doing so.
Sounds presumably would be generated by the crafts onboard computer systems to inform the crew that they are being shot at or had a near miss with another craft etc.
I'm also quite partial to the three part harmony jump noise form the original privateer. :wink:
:D
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Post by DiGuru »

Igniz wrote:are you asing for a real time strategy game and not a flight sim which is what vs is
DiGuru wrote: ...


*Flame!*
Yup. Like C&C in space. We can do that.

It doesn't really matter if VS is like that. What matters, is that VS makes really nice graphics of space and ships, and can handle the background. That's the most important part.

In our mod, you would have a space station or at least one very large ship. Your base of operations. When you have that, you need to earn money and/or make deals so you can have 'the tools of your trade': smaller ships and drones.

To make it easy, we can just speak of capital ships and stations (bases), smaller, manned ships, and drones (missiles, 'fighters', and all other small things).

And you would have to see to it you can get the equipment you need (buy, manufacture, get given or steal) to do whatever you want to do.

So, if you can get your hands on it, you would have a station or capital ship, one or more general ships (from corvettes to battleships and freighters) and a lot of drones: our material and weaponry.

Drones can be as big and clumsy as a gunship (one humongous pulse laser with some thrusters) through scouts to missiles.

And we would like capital ships and bases to be way to valuable to destroy, and make it a capital punishment if someone does so.

So, you would 'be' somewhere, and handle all your other projects and assets yourself or hire people (multiplayer) or buy AI's to do your bidding, as far as light-hours away from you.

You could take command of anything, but you would have to live with the lag the distance would give you. So, if you want to fight a really important battle yourself, you have to go there.

And all along, your other projects would just go on. 'Commander, the AI at -someplace- reports incoming hostalities! But the battle is probably over by now, as it is a light-hour away from our current location.'

And you might wonder why you didn't try and hire another 'human player' to see to that project!

8)

Sounds nice? We could do all of that.
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Post by peteyg »

You're smoking crack.

Well, I guess you are anyways. That would require a fair bit of coding to do methinks. I think it would be worth figuring how feasible it would be to add all these new features before seriously comitting yourself to your strategic mod.

Because without the features and the coders to make them, it's not going to get off the ground
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