3X, not 4X: eXploration - improvement discussion

[tbrass]

I hope that this thread may spark some helpful discussion, because I (unfortunately) have few good suggestions at this point.  Right now, I think that SBR is a 3X game: eXpand (someday maybe even with multiple settlements), eXploit (resources through extraction and neighbors through trade), and eXterminate (cobolt bombs, anyone?) all seem to be on the right track.

But exploration? Like diplomacy, it feels really unsatisfying right now.

I build myself a handful of aboveground and belowground survey buildings and just leave on auto pilot. Where is the magic of discovering a new island, or a new wormhole pathway into the enemy camp? Or even a bonus for being the first player to explore the whole world? I would like some incentive to manually control my exploration and potentially even incentive to expedite exploration.

Our options will depend upon the actual lore/background. So, most importantly - do the other races have a need to explore as well, or have they fully mapped out the planet at the start of the game? If the former:

1. provide a bonus for the first team to discover a landmark. That bonus disappears if another race develops the landmark.

2. you don't "discover" a race until you discover its city center.

3. "first contact" bonuses/penalties - Boarines absolutely abhore the first race to discover them and violate their isolation. Andorians won't trade with 'first contact' until certain protocols are established. Peltians love you and invite you to a barn raising.

Thoughts? I know that diplomacy isn't fleshed out yet either, and maybe that'll make exploration more interesting, but right now the mechanics really fall flat here. (though falling flat is better than mandated moves, a la the earlier incarnation!)

[TheVampire100]

I also think the game would benefit from larger maps. Currently the maps feel to small for so many different races.
Different options of map size would be of course awesome but a general bigger map would be enough.

[tbrass]

Agreed (though I tend to play on small maps for performance reasons.)

As well, some ability to randomize the races that are present on the planet might be fun, perhaps some of the PC races could be AI as well?

[crazyroosterman]

agreed the maps do feel to small weirdly enough I personally had a sort of idea of scouts being to be intercepted which I think would give the player a bit of an incentive to pay attention to were he's trying to scout but I'm not sure how you'd implement that mechanic exactly?. ps but the other player races can be ai as well just not the persifick race you happen to be playing as

[tbrass]

Oh, scout interception and scout failure sound awesome!

Perhaps scouts can only go (x*resource range) beyond your base? And crossing over mnts/ocean/enemy base creates a random risk of failure.

I  thought I had seen krolin in game, but wasn't sure.

[crazyroosterman]

hmm I very much like your thinking and perhaps that failure could failure could alert the race that your scout happened across to your existence(but not yours to theirs) also I'm thinking that perhaps you shouldn't be alerted to your scouts failing (apart form the fact that the place you ordered them to scout is still blank) as a adjustable option if left of you should get a notification about it.

[tbrass]

I think you should get some notification by default, perhaps "Cmdr Skywalker failed to report in." But you shouldn't get to see where the scout died. This would encourage (but not force) manual scouting.

Any ideas on how to incentivize scouting in the first place? Right now it just doesn't seem that important.

[crazyroosterman]

not exactly besides making those wonders properly work perhaps have the option to sell map information to other ais that you've met that don't happen to have scouted those parts? maybe even be able to inform races of the existence of other races you've found?.

[jerith]

I think the full implementation of the resources system will make exploration (and expansion) more interesting -- you need particular resources, so you explore out along various geographical features, etc.

Also, International Incidents will likely make it more important to find the owners of the saucers that keep dropping by so you can best plan how to sow discord, dissent, derangement, and other things starting with "d".

One of the things that limits the usefulness of exploration at the moment (apologies if this has been mentioned, I mostly skimmed this thread) is that expansion range is quite limited. Being able to start a new city quite far from your starting point would make finding a good place for one fairly urgent, especially if you inadvertently dropped your lander between the Burlusts, Acutians, and Thoraxians.

[x4000]

Note that expansion range isn't remotely limited at all, just FYI.  You simply have to build a chain of helipads, seaports, and whatever else (cargo bays) and then you can plop a city somewhere.  Each thing just has to be in range of something else, and then the new city has to be in range of one of them.  So you can string them along like telephone wires.

Larger maps are pretty much out of the question for reasons of performance, although various map sizes are currently there.

The issue of not feeling like you have any incentive to go somewhere else on the map and do something is something that I very much get from this thread, though, and it's sparked some new ideas for me.  It is also a case where I feel completely like a homebody on my own games, too, and just stick in one spot.

[crazyroosterman]

personally I'm still quite fond of my idea of scouts having a chance of being intercepted or failing do you think that's an idea/mechanic that could be integrated farther down the line from here?. also I have to agree In my zenith game at the moment I'm expanding(at least I will be when the disease stop violating me) to the north but apart form that I'm just shooting anybody that comes near me with missiles granted its hilarious but its probably not the best policy in the world.

[tbrass]

The issue of not feeling like you have any incentive to go somewhere else on the map and do something is something that I very much get from this thread, though, and it's sparked some new ideas for me.  It is also a case where I feel completely like a homebody on my own games, too, and just stick in one spot.

Turtling is a viable playstyle (lifestyle), so long as you can avoid being sedentary. What we are missing right now is a reason to have wanderlust. Some additional ideas:

1. more structures are only buildable/function with certain resources (but we need to encourage the AI to trade resources with friends but not enemies)
2. re: discovery of special features, what about boosting productivity/birth rate -- hey, you found the legendary lost city, your people can't wait to celebrate and celebration leads to hot sex which leads to babies.
3. I want to reiterate danger to scouts. Oh, and scouts could also lead to international incidents - definitely with boarines, possibly in different ways with others.

[crazyroosterman]

3. I want to reiterate danger to scouts. Oh, and scouts could also lead to international incidents - definitely with boarines, possibly in different ways with others.
[/quote] absolutely the boarines aren't getting nearly pissey enough about their isolation at the moment!.

[x4000]

The problem with giving problems to scouts is that either this is automated or it isn't.  The only reason to manually scout at the moment is if you want to look somewhere specific, which I think it is as it should be.  Otherwise you're just determining rate of scouting by how many stations you build.  Having scouts have a potential for failure really rubs me the wrong way, because it means I probably have to start paying attention to scouts, which I don't like.

Having an incentive to keep having scouts long-term, even after the map is fully scouted, has been brought up before.  Possibly having them have a chance for discovering rare stuff is good.

For the resources, most of them are extraordinarily rare, so having hard gating on them is not a great thing because in some games they won't even exist.  Having really solid reasons to go over to the natural wonders and to the resources and capture them is certainly the goal, though.  I had a flurry of ideas on that front after this thread popped up on my radar, but I'm not quite ready to share yet.

[jerith]

[...] but I'm not quite ready to share yet.

My mom is a pre-school teacher and she always taught me that sharing is very important and you mustn't be selfish. Also that it's good to have a spare pair of pants in your bag in case of accidents.

More seriously, I haven't actually found the lack of exploration incentive to be much of an issue -- I have enough problems at home without sending forth scouts to bring me exciting foreign problems to deal with as well. I suspect resources and natural wonders will change this somewhat, but I don't think it's necessary to encourage anyone to explore the whole map the way one tends to do in AI War where an extra ARS or something could make a real difference to survival.