Love the game... (Also, accidental complement)

[laxrulz777]

I love the game and design... very nice mix of TBS and RTS type game play. I also wanted to mention that I kept thinking about Ender's game as I was playing. It felt very, very similar to the way Ender describes the final battle with the bugs. After that, I read that it played into your thinking as you built it and figured it would make a nice complement.

One question I had after reading some of your dev blogs.

You appear to have been concerned with terrain (or the lack thereof) as you built it. It seems like the obvious solution would have been to go with solar systems as your base locale (with planets, asteroids and moons serving as terrain) rather than planets... Was this ever considered? If it was considered, why didn't you go that way?

[x4000]

I love the game and design... very nice mix of TBS and RTS type game play. I also wanted to mention that I kept thinking about Ender's game as I was playing. It felt very, very similar to the way Ender describes the final battle with the bugs. After that, I read that it played into your thinking as you built it and figured it would make a nice complement.

Best book ever.  Regardless of Card's politics.  Glad you're enjoying the game!

One question I had after reading some of your dev blogs.

You appear to have been concerned with terrain (or the lack thereof) as you built it. It seems like the obvious solution would have been to go with solar systems as your base locale (with planets, asteroids and moons serving as terrain) rather than planets... Was this ever considered? If it was considered, why didn't you go that way?

Well, there are a lot of reasons I could give here, and all of them are valid and play a part.  That's a really good question, though, and it was something that I'd considered to a large degree.  Here's some of the things that played into my decision:

1. My graphics options were severely limited at that point, not having an artist on staff.  I had some graphics for asteroids, but nothing really stellar.

2. I'm using a pseudo-3D environment where nothing collides with anything else (forcefields excepted) while moving, since they are passing each other on different pseduo-Z-axes.  This was important both for the feel of the game, and also for performance implications -- the scale of the game, both in terms of number of units and the size of the maps, would not have been easily possible with traditional collision detection methods (which feature extensively in my other game that I had already programmed at the time, Alden Ridge).

3. Even with things like moon bases and asteroids, that's not providing a whole lot of variety.  You basically then just have some obstacles to fire around, and a few different visual looks.  Basically, variety is not all that high, especially between many games.  At least not compared to a terrestrial RTS.

4. In the end, I kind of did go that route, sort of, just with junk and rock clusters.  That's the basis of the resources here, is that they provide a random array of defensible points interspersed with a random array of wormholes (threatening points).  But even that alone was not much more variety than #3 (it had more individual locales than #3, but fewer different kinds of graphics), so having the AI populate each area somewhat uniquely was the final piece of that puzzle.  That uniqueness got much more heavily emphasized in 2.0, incidentally.

So, I guess the short answer would have been: limited art prospects, a desire for no collisions with said terrain, and a desire for a very high variety of possible configurations of said terrain, relatively speaking.

[laxrulz777]

Well, there are a lot of reasons I could give here, and all of them are valid and play a part.  That's a really good question, though, and it was something that I'd considered to a large degree.  Here's some of the things that played into my decision:

1. My graphics options were severely limited at that point, not having an artist on staff.  I had some graphics for asteroids, but nothing really stellar.

That makes sense... art is such a huge part of most "mainstream" games and it's the easiest thing to scale back for indie games... Having said that, you already worked out the planet graphics and the asteroid graphics... graphics for suns have to be easier than planets (I would think)

2. I'm using a pseudo-3D environment where nothing collides with anything else (forcefields excepted) while moving, since they are passing each other on different pseduo-Z-axes.  This was important both for the feel of the game, and also for performance implications -- the scale of the game, both in terms of number of units and the size of the maps, would not have been easily possible with traditional collision detection methods (which feature extensively in my other game that I had already programmed at the time, Alden Ridge).

I think that, perhaps, the decision to avoid collision mechanics (which I think makes sense) is probably the biggest impediment to "terrain" in the traditional RTS sense of the word. I think there's probably more room for play here then has been explored so far (don't have bullets or ships "collide" with planets... but perhaps ships sitting ON a planet are less vulnerable to missiles because the gravitational affect pulls them off target... but lasers are unaffected)... Even the sun doesn't have to be a hard obstacle but could provide a slow damage affect when ships get too close (forcing longer routes around a system or direct routes through a star with known damage taken)...

3. Even with things like moon bases and asteroids, that's not providing a whole lot of variety.  You basically then just have some obstacles to fire around, and a few different visual looks.  Basically, variety is not all that high, especially between many games.  At least not compared to a terrestrial RTS.

I think there's more to explore here as well. Especially if the resource system interacts with the terrain affect. You don't even have to go silly with this.

Bigger Sun = More damage when close and more energy from reactors
More Moons = Expand the gravitational field of a planet
More Planets = Aforementioned gravitational affect to weaken missiles and crystals
Asteroids = Slower travel speed (gotta fly careful) and metals

In this way crystal heavy systems FEEL different then metal heavy sytems (A crystal heavy system will be much harder to take with a fleet of cruisers and a metal heavy system will greatly negate the advantage of fighters and bombers)... I think that at least is a concept worth exploring (honestly, right now, most systems "content" only makes a difference as an invasion decision whereas it's "garrison" only matters in HOW I invade... the two sides don't affect each other very much, however).

I do like the way the astro-trains create a sense of "terrain"... That was an unexpected find for me.

[x4000]

That makes sense... art is such a huge part of most "mainstream" games and it's the easiest thing to scale back for indie games... Having said that, you already worked out the planet graphics and the asteroid graphics... graphics for suns have to be easier than planets (I would think)

Bear in mind that, when you asked about this, you asked why I didn't do this stuff initially.  So I gave you my reasons from the time, and not necessarily all of them hold true now.  For instance, we've had an artist on staff for months now, and aside from redoing all of the planet graphics (the old ones were awful), he's capable of doing a lot of things that were not possible before.  Art was a limiter when we were new, when I was originally designing the game, and when I wrote the article to which you were referring.  It's not particularly a limiting factor anymore, though.

In general, my prior response was geared towards why I chose to go with the design I did compared to alternatives, not making any judgements on whether or not I would consider extra stuff like that as upgrades for expansions or what-not.  In fact, moons have been under consideration for a while for the expansion, and possibly asteroid fields and comets, although I don't know how much of that will really be in the first expansion.  The focus of the first one is more on the Golems, and the new race, and the new map styles, etc.  Those are more fleshed out as concepts, and the "more space phenomena" sort of concepts might be the centerpiece of expansion 2, next year.  I see now that you were apparently driving more towards the future, rather than inquiring about past design decisions. 

You've got some cool ideas, and I've made a topic for it in the future expansions category, so that it can gather more commentary and discussion:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1959.0.html  Very cool stuff!

In this way crystal heavy systems FEEL different then metal heavy sytems (A crystal heavy system will be much harder to take with a fleet of cruisers and a metal heavy system will greatly negate the advantage of fighters and bombers)... I think that at least is a concept worth exploring (honestly, right now, most systems "content" only makes a difference as an invasion decision whereas it's "garrison" only matters in HOW I invade... the two sides don't affect each other very much, however).

This is true -- the big focus in the first expansion is really Capturables, to make each system more unique in the sense of having harder decisions on where to invade, etc.  Really going for enhancing the grand strategy aspects of the game above all else with that part.  The phenomena have a lesser impact on grand strategy, I think, but impact tactics to a heavy degree (how to take a system, then how to hold it, etc), and the more I think about it the more I think that would be a good galvanizing concept for the second expansion.  I'd been looking for something to kind of rally other ideas around for the second expansion (which is probably 10 months off at this point), and hadn't been coming up with anything concrete yet.  But I think this concept could really work wonders, when it comes time to it.

I do like the way the astro-trains create a sense of "terrain"... That was an unexpected find for me.

Yeah, I thought that was cool, too.  They started out as something else, and then morphed into their current state as the alpha versions progressed, and the effect they had kind of surprised me, too.

[laxrulz777]

I see now that you were apparently driving more towards the future, rather than inquiring about past design decisions. 

I hadn't meant it originally but I managed to thread-jack myself... Thanks for the answer!

[x4000]

I see now that you were apparently driving more towards the future, rather than inquiring about past design decisions. 

I hadn't meant it originally but I managed to thread-jack myself... Thanks for the answer!

Haha, no problem.  It was a useful thread-jacking, at least.