Whatever the speck is, it doesn't appear to show up in-game.......... the medalliobn looks a little Steampunk to me, I was thinking of something more like this:

sort of a tactical HUD look (the symbols on the right were supposed to be a circuit diagram, but I was too lazy to make it look good). In fact, why bother with medallions at all, or keep to the traditional medallion shape?

Why not give each race its own UI? Give each race a UI that fits their personality/traits. Based off of the backstories you've given so far, I'd say the Federation would be the rich executive style, Verdania would be all metal, dull gray, that sort of thing. Of course the title menu couldn't really be faction specific, so maybe that would be the "classic" sci-fi.

But this reminds me, I need to start coming up with ideas for the UI for my mod

I more wanted to modify them or splice them with stuff I've already got. The glassiness of the first is pretty awesome. But I'll work with what I've got for now.

 

[FLAVOR/GRAPHICS]

Technology & the Cartels in the colonies

In the labrynthine copyright laws of the Republic, research is a minefield of lawyers, royalties and contracts. Information is an extremely valuable commodity and thousands of corporations spend trillions on armies of lawyers to defend the technology they have the rights to. Lawyers... and mercenaries. These companies are known colloquially as the Cartels.

The good news is that almost every piece of technology can be licensed from the company that owns the rights. The bad news is the royalties. And the legal expenses. And the lawyers breathing down your neck, ensuring that copyright is not infringed. Then the aforementioned mercenaries, who go where the lawyers can't.

Thus, arises a bizarre phenomenon. Engineers could build cold fusion reactors but choose to instead build steam engines. New colonists utilize civilian arms or home-made black powder weapon. Computers may require vaccuum tubes. Luckily, sponsored colonists usually can field more advanced technology than this, but not much better than that of the 21st century.

Fortunately, there is a loophole that the Cartels have been trying to close for centuries. If the colonists can prove they've independently discovered a technology without the use of copyrighted material, then copyright infringement doesn't apply to them and them alone. This often becomes the cheaper alternative to buying the technology from the Cartels.

Thus, research in the colonies is sort of an ironic activity. Researchers aren't chosen for their expertise but for their ignorance in a subject. Instead of trying to find new things they are simply trying to rediscover the old. Often in the best research labs are also the best legal firms. In essence, research is weird. Even Canthians, who can theoretically bypass the entire legal process with their psychic communications, have to twiddle their thumbs and simply wait until an acceptable time has passed to announcing new discoveries for fear of arousing suspicion.

This isn't true with all research. Some research involves planet-specific ecology and political or social organization rather than hard-boiled technology. The Cartel has no interest in such areas. Cartels also don't care how their technology is used. Two backwater colonies firing nukes at each other is Unity's business... unless the nukes aren't paid for.

Across the Republic

From the hyperreal utopia of Nova Torus to Verdania's vast mechanical marvels, the Republic itself is a patchwork of technology. Worlds use cyberware and wetware and everything in between. One planet's technological innovation is another's old hat.

Past all the arguments about what kind of technology is better, it come down truly to fashion and need. Since the vast digital networks of the 21st century fell out of favor (except on Nova Torus and those in its sphere of influence) humanity has turned to a variety of technologies. Rainy or oceanic planets such as Aegea use waterproof plastic almost exclusively. Verdanians famously spurn digitalization in favor of "real things". Other colonies were founded to avoid technology completely and live as natural a life as possible.

Of course, Unity, who excuses itself from the Cartel's petty rules, uses whatever technology it wants to in order to further the interests of the Republic.

No where near the same as the last one, but this evil holgraphic imagercan become a good holographic imagerwith a simple hue tweak.

[GRAPHICS]

Hmm... It looks pretty good... though rather inappropriate for a farm. I think this holo deserves a special role...

 

 

 

Now THAT is cool.

Damn Scoutdog, those look awesome!

Thank you Scoutdog for the welcome .  Unfortunately I don't possess those skills.  Wish you and MagwillNZ well on your Dark Republic Mod. 

If you have any 3D modeling skills, MagicWillNZ and I would appreciate it if you could mozy over to the Dark Republic mod at some point in the future......... did I mention we have avatars for "sale"? 

As far as the Avatars go..um I haven't decided yet, maybe if you have a Mystic X avatar created?

You could always do a blue grid, or even *gasp* yellow! ............ in all seriousness, it might be worth a try to see how the game engine reacts to oversized images...... i.e. does it shrink them or tile them bigger or just crash: if you can make one image fill up the whole FOW, you could have it be a radial projection or perhaps a reconstruction of the tactician's computer desktop........ I have to do some homework so it'll be a while before I can test, but.........

[FLAVOR]

Hehe it actually started out blue, but with all the filters I put on it, it came out white. I made a new one today and it looks better, although still isn't really where I'd like it to be. I love the idea of a radial projection, and kudos just for the idea.



That's an excellent question, I've thought about this a lot when I built the universe, since Deadlock didn't really address this satisfactorily.

The short answer to this question is that since there's so many uninhabitable worlds compared to habitable ones, controlling a single powerful world secures a lot of area. Having a powerful planet basically "marks territory", giving the controlling faction a launch point to terraform and colonize the rest of the sector. I haven't really gone into explaining colonizing in great detail, but basically the standard procedure would be to colonize specific worlds and then spread out from there instead of colonizing every world in between. Interstellar travel honestly isn't all that good. It takes years to get from one end of the Republic to the other. Some planets are just easier to get to. Even the most technologically advanced aliens haven't improved speed by much.

You could say the universe is in a state of land grab. But the older races have had a few centuries more to do it in. Humanity was late into the space race, and its position squeezed tightly between two huge empires. Here, I drew a crude map:

 

(OK, admittedly, I felt pretty pathetic drawing borders in our galaxy... I had an existential moment there)

Yellow = Us.
Green = The Etarn aka "The Beacon"
Blue = The Cor
Purple = As yet unnamed mercantile race
Grey = Disparate alien empires, confederacies, democracies, monarcies, and so forth.
Arrows represent areas of expansion into the Green Belt

Humanity has always been a little more "insecure" in its position than, say, the Etarn, which is why they are so aggressive when it comes to colonization. They've really pushed expansion to the limit, often using a single colony to claim influence over hundreds of more worlds than it really should be able to handle. So far, this gamble has worked. This is why it's such standard practice to send more than one expedition to a single world... so that the Republic ensures that it gets a foothold.

But, as you mentioned, there is sort of "gaza strip" element to it. Simply, different factions want to hurt each other as much as possible... instead of economically (and intelligently) allocating different planets to different forces, the groups want to take the planet so that others can't use it against them. If they rob each other of a foothold in the sector, then they have a greater claim to it.

I guess it would make sense to have a unique mineral or "spice" to fight over. I'm not against it... I'd just prefer to avoid using MacGuffins until I absolutely have to. I'd rather keep such struggles on a planetary level rather than a galactic level... it's much too easy to have Unobtainium be the driving force in the universe.

Yeah... that was probably a longer answer than you were looking for, but that's my thinking... at least for now.

EDIT: The map above is crude, and doesn't reflect where things will be when I get closer to finishing... it's just a illustration for now.

I would definitely like things like this to happen. I'm going to take a lot of advantage over Elemental's unique world generation to make scenarios like this. I'm not against having "quests" of some flavor either.

Though, I also want the possibility of the game taking place on a complete meaningless backwater too... that might be fun in a different way.

[GRAPHICS]

I've made a new grid and a new ocean tile, using green this time. It's still not quite what I want.... and those seams will eventually need to go away... but it'll do.

EDIT: ...for now.

Thanks... I'll be sure to check it out. I'm somewhat reluctant to start something there until I've got more of a product... too much pressure for something I'm doing just for fun right now. But anyone is willing to submit anything if they want to. I just don't know what's going to happen with stuff.

[GAMEPLAY]

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Early Game Conceptualizations

One of the problems I have with TBS strategy games is that I personally am impatient for the all the cool stuff that happens towards the late game. For me, the early game usually involves me waiting for someone to declare war on me while I research like mad so I can build cool ships/troops.

I really want to do something unique and special for the early game... something cool enough where players will look forward to loading up a new game just for the experience, rather than feeling they've gotta “work” for the cool stuff.

So what's the coolest thing about going a new planet? Exploration. The early game will focus a great deal on exploration... how well you explore the planet will influence how successful your colony is. I'm not talking about goodie huts, although I certainly am fond of those... but something a little more dramatic.

I've split these conceptualizations into different categories, beginning with the easiest to implement to the most difficult. Eventually, I'd like to go for the gold and make the most interesting early game experience as possible.

CONCEPT A

The player will be able to build “surveyor” units. Surveyors can capture Anomalous Regions, that generate Research points each turn. The thing is with these Anomalous Regions is that they draw from a limited pool of Research points shared amongst all Anomalous Regions... once this pool is dried up the Anomalous Regions only produce the slightest trickle of Research.

This immediately generates strategic locations for players to fight over... whichever player can wrest the majority of the Anomalous Regions will have a definite edge over less aggressive players.

CONCEPT B

Concept B really focuses on making Surveyors more interesting units... making them the equivalent of heroes from traditional fantasy RPGs, except they're of a much lower power level and can't lead armies. They will be fleshed out as individual pioneers, adventurers, and scientists, and should be readily hirable from the first turn.

Surveyors should also have access to interesting gear choices from the get-go... sniper rifles, scout armor, gas masks, survival gear, mobile labs, etc, and also should have interesting skills and abilities. Surveyors should be able to form and fight as parties.

Surveyors should be absolutely the best early-game choice. However, as the game wears on and the colonies are better established, surveyors should be too expensive and too few to field in armies effectively, and eventually are replaced by military. Also, since exploration is no longer imperative, their role by mid and late game is basically over.

CONCEPT C

Concept C expands on planetary hazards, native life, and exploration. At this point I'm not above making mini-dungeons in the form of cave systems for little surveyors to explore. Hideous alien beasts like monsters from Avatar should be encountered. Essentially, a modified quest system like what we'll see in Elemental.

With this in place, the early game will ideally feel like one of those good/cheesy sci-fi space exploration movies. I don't know how to translate “wonderment” and “awesome” into a computer game form, but screw it... I'm gonna try.

Also, your old Surveyors should retire when their careers are over and live as citizens in your colony, perhaps eventually become generals, politicians, or some other kind of agent.

 

Noted, Kyogre... that's not the thing I'm going for. I too am a turtling player and I'd like that to be a somewhat valid strategy. The idea wouldn't be to build new towns over these strategic locations, but to capture them with surveyors and hold them with fortifications or something.

I think a weakness of other TBS games is that early game battles are uninteresting, don't happen that often, and usually require *all* of a civ's forces to be effective.  I want a sort of lower intensity conflict between small groups of well-armed people. Even if you are a turtler, there shouldn't be too much risk involved with arming 2-5 well-trained people to go out and capture strategic locations. Also, as a turtler, you wouldn't get super bored. As a point of comparison, it would be rather like the game Disciples, with well-fortified capitals and 2-3 groups of adventurers.

(My art skills are the suxors right now. I'll have to make something later)

[GAMEPLAY]

Planets and Gameplay

It's been a while since I posted, and I wanted to show you guys what I'm looking at right now.

Today I started playing around with Python. It's an extremely easy language. So easy I sort of did a "proof of concept" planet generator. You type in the inputs and it tells you the colonization potential of that planet. It even cranks out a "population growth rate" index and the escape velocity. It's a very crude program but I wanted to just illustrate some points to myself.

I'd like the choice of planet to dramatically change the gameplay. What I wanted to focus specifically on in this post is gravitational pull. Depending on the gravitational pull, warfare and society should dramatically change.

Gravity heavy worlds are generally less valuable because the escape velocity makes it more expensive to export goods from the planet. Heavy gravity worlds also are just more unpleasant... since everything literally involves more work. Air travel and travel in general is far more restricted.

On the other hand, low gravity worlds benefit from a high escape velocity. The increased capacity for flight and transport affords a more dispersed society. For a low-grav worlder, a high grav world should seem really frantic!

These things should be fairly easily simulated by attaching a "Gravity" modifier to things such as movement speeds, population growth, cost of transportation and flight.

In terms of military, low grav worlders would benefit from high manueverability and speed as well as exceptional ranges for weapons. War on high gravity worlds, on the other hand, would have effective ranges reduced by a lot, being largely replaced with very powerful guns, thick armor, and even melee weapons. Aircraft would have to be very specialized, but they would for the most part be replaced with tanks.

This also allows weapons specialized for different environments. An expensive, slow-firing obscenely overpowered rifle might be excessive on a low-grav world but the only well-functioning ranged weapon on a high grav one. Melee weapons would be of greater use.

Low gravity would allow a ton of really fun possibilities too... jump pack infantry, obscenely huge creatures, crossbows that fire artillery shells...

On a deeper level, there could even be a difference between a character raised on a high gravity world and a low gravity one. Low grav worlders would be crushed on a high grav world!

Of course, on a "Earth" gravity world, there would be a suitable mix of military strategies.

Here's the link to the raw code to the "planet generator", in case you wanted to copy/paste it into Python v3 and play around with, frankly, a pretty dumb program.

http://www.pastebin.ca/1823320