Collisions & Stuff

The way this map is presented bouncing off of the planet, or asteroids, should cause damage. You generally want to avoid having collision damage in a game like this, but when it is as blatant as everything using the center planet as a pinball machine bumper it becomes almost necessary that it cause damage. The problem right now is how strong the gravity of the planet is, how large the planet is, and the speed of the ships. You are a little bit out-of-control at these speeds and the gravity is forcing you to “follow the current”. So you run into things a lot, which right now makes it seem like this would be a really bad idea. But when this comes to be more under control, it is going to seem silly the way you slam into the planet without taking any noticeable damage and it flings you off and away. You wind up using the planet as a part of how you fight, intentionally bouncing off of it to provide an instant change of direction with a magical speed boost on top of that, which seems kind of silly. It's usually worth the tiny amount of damage that you take for hitting the planet, and the ships have so many hit points that sacrificing what feels like “1 HP” is usually worth it. The planet allows you to do what we call a “High Energy Turn”, which is the single most tactically powerful maneuver that there is... an instant change of direction.

So far, my primary tactic is intentionally bouncing off of the planet, both using the planet as a shield and keeping the enemy “down in the well” at the same time... which is just wrong. Remember Babylon 5 and Sheridan's attack on Mars? Using a gravity well to “trap” the enemy works very well, it makes them “slow” for one thing... and you can easily humiliate the SCO AI using “Sheridan's Gambit”. With the size of the planet being so large, it is hard to avoid hitting it. So instead of “slingshoting” around it like in Star Control or Space Wars, you hit it, which slows you, which traps you near it. Star Control needs “arcade game planets”, not real planets. The planet being small is a part of what makes that “slingshot effect” work, the fact that you get so near a strong source of gravity without the planet getting in the way. Or, said another way, the smaller planet allows you to get closer to the singularity where there is a comparatively much smaller area of strong gravity and a much smaller object to avoid to use that gravity to speed you up. I had long ago come up with the idea of putting rings around a planet to effectively make it about the size of the SCO planet as a means of taking away most of a planet's slingshot effect, so that I could have “non-slingshot planets”. The large size of the planet is a big reason that this is not feeling right to everyone for several different reasons.

There is a reason that they don't like making these types of games even though the players love them, everything is too small! You may also find that the ships are too big, and too easy of a target to hit at the closest level of zoom once you get the speeds down and the player has much more control over their ship and aim. Pulling the closest level of zoom back will also give the player higher overall situational awareness, so they see obstacles like the barrier or a planet coming. There is a reason that they don't make these kinds of games even though the gamers love them. Both the artists and programmers, but especially the artists, absolutely hate them! Watch, I can even channel the Stardock art team... “You don't need us for this!” That's what they said at GameFX, anyway...

With “distant planets” you could only collide with the “in orbit fight” planet, that would be kind of like the current planet, which you would want to make the most rare type of fight. The “race track” can be fun, but only as an occasional diversion. But this is map variety. The open space/no planet/“off in the distance planet” would have no gravity or collision and essentially just be a part of the star field background. The “fight at the edge of the gravity well”/medium distance planet would have light gravity and still no collision (you “fly over” it), and because there is nothing actually there but a gravity field this would act like an omni-directional “speed boost pad” at the center of the map. The true “race track” is a black hole, even bigger than your current planet with even stronger and more far reaching gravity on a much bigger map. But the black hole is more for a dozen or so player “combat race” type of thing.

The outer barrier wall (asteroids) causing noticeable damage would be a bad thing, but it doesn't make much sense to be running into asteroids and not being damaged by it. Asteroids should harm you in a noticeable way, that is what they add to the overall tool box of map variety (planets, black holes, asteroids, comets, nebula, ion storm, etc...). You can have individual “big rock” asteroids that you collide with and bounce off of, and/or “asteroid belts” and “asteroid fields” that are graphics you “fly over” that cause damage in proportion to the speed that you “fly over” them. Or they can just be solid barriers that you can't enter. You can create a “maze” in space with either type of belt and field “walls”. If you went too a barrier for the map edge it would make sense that the outer-edge walls don't harm you, and with “distant planets” you could only collide the “in orbit” planet. You can just have ship collisions not cause damage, or make them “fly through” (“over”) each other without colliding, and either of these methods are easily forgiven in the player's mind. So, as you can see, you can eliminate “collisions” in several ways, but usually when it makes sense that a collision would cause a lot of damage then it should. Otherwise players are going to see it as either “wrong” or even downright “silly”.

The current type of map with a planet with gravity at the center is great as an option for players to choose when they want it, or to use when a fight takes place in orbit during the adventure game, but in a “straight 1v1 duel” players want “open space” with no terrain/interference at all. The “normal dueling map” is an empty map, even though ships would pretty much never fight to the death over a patch of empty space. As a general rule, reality in space is boring. The most fun “realistic” scenarios revolve around fights against planetary defenses, piracy/convoy raids, and defense/attack of orbital facilities. These can be fun, but what is a lot more fun are completely unrealistic “beer & pretzels” scenarios. Things like capture the flag, a three way battle to drag an object away with a tractor beam, a sport played with space ships, a fight or “mini-game” that takes place within a “maze of terrain”... things that make no sense at all within reality. That's what is, by far, the most fun within this genre. Think about it... would you rather fight a duel, destroy/capture freighters in a convoy, attack a base, or play capture the flag? Which will hold your attention longer and make you want to keep coming back too it?