Supporting continuing development for Empyrean Challenge / Cluster Wars
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I am not actually the architect or game designer, here. I am just an interested party, throwing out suggestions. I think I've made it clear that I am happy to just make EC as Vern had designed it. No need to leave the party just because of me.
At this point, I have one job -- to build the cluster-generator. I have designed it so that all the major factors going into cluster characteristics can be configured before generating everything. This means one cluster can be generated exactly along the lines of Vern's design, and another cluster can have other characteristics.
There's no reason we can't design much of the game rules to be configurable for each new game. So if you are only interested in a version 100% faithful to Vern's design, that's perfectly fine. And if you want to try different settings, go for it. Want Vern-style beamers? Or you want super-beamers that work for pop? Or you want no beamers at all, like the old days? All could be configured during game setup, using checkboxes.
Anyway, I am probably posting here too much. I can also just build the cluster-generator tool and otherwise just observe and be quiet. I have been inspired by this effort, but I can just as easily build what I'm thinking of in a completely separate environment, and let this project here proceed as you all wish.
I remember looking over my new turn once during the Cluster Wars beta, when one of my kids was watching and asking about it. I told him it was a game, but it looked nothing like the computer games he had seen. Tables of numbers, order codes, status reports, etc. I explained that this was a game of imagination, and that I was playing a space empire just like in a computer game, but I was imagining the star destroyers and mega-factories. "This is one of my scout ships. And that is an orbiting space station that builds a special kind of steel..."
He was glad to see me enjoying myself, but quickly lost interest. This came to mind recently when I just installed a PC game called "Rimworld". It's very much a clone of a super-nerdy game called "Dwarf Fortress", that has a rabid cult following, but is almost completely unknown outside very geeky gaming circles. You start in a procedurally-generated world with a handful of individuals -- each of whom has hundreds of different stats outlining their skills, temperament, physique, psychology, etc. You set up orders on what to do -- "chop wood", "plant carrots", "build house", etc., and they do what they can to meet your directives.
But every thing is broken down in great detail. Want to make fish stew? You'll need to catch some fish, but first you'll need to make a fishing rod, and before that you'll need some of the right kind of wood in your stockpile, and some thread. All of these are tasks that you have to set down. And you'll need an oven, of course, and fuel. And a table at which to serve everyone (with chairs) -- carpentry! Then hopefully one of your people will have some level of cooking ability and not poison everyone. Don't forget to make beer -- dwarves get angry or depressed if they don't have beer.
It goes on and on, and it becomes quite challenging to get your clan to survive, build up some sort of safety net, recruit new members, and fight off the occasional monsters or raiders. The parallel with Empyrean Challenge is clear -- you want a star destroyer? What kind? How many guns, of what kind? How fast? How much crew? What else can it do? Build a factory network to make all those parts! Educate a qualified crew! Research the tech to make it easier! Deal with the shortages! Fight the aliens!
Well, "Rimworld", a "new and improved" Dwarf Fortress, has sold over 1m copies, I recently learned. It is every bit as geeky and procedurally intense as Dwarf Fortress, but it uses a much better graphic interface, and it's much easier to set up orders for your people to work with. If we somehow make dramatic improvements to Empyrean Challenge, such that it retains all it's meaty detail, but just becomes a lot easier to play (especially on a phone), then it could turn into something big. "1m copies sold" big.
I'd suggest that UI improvements ought to be the main focus of any work we do.
Thoughts?
I like the idea of Beamers to support the theme and the simulation. I don't like the idea of creating a hack in the game model to simplify order-writing.
If we want to simplify order-writing, make the UI much better.
- set up freighters that PUP/TFR cargos on a regular schedule
- set up freighter "pools" that automatically respond to requests for PUP/TFR
- abstract freight-shipping into a resource pool, shipping X mass/vol units throughout your empire automatically
- use drag-and-drop UI to order freight transfers
If we want beamers, make them fit the theme:
- super-beamers that beam everything
- regular-beamers that can't beam people
- low-tech beamers that can only beam raw materials
- allow for beamer interception or interference or redirection or hijacking
- allow beaming of soldiers onto enemy colonies
Lots of possibilities in terms of game-play!
I'm going to crack into this over the weekend. I'll set up a google cloud environment, and likely a github repo, but can easily abandon or change it if you have something already spun up. I'm going to try with just the basics -- get a node.js web app running, get a sql database of some sort going, do some CRUD transactions, etc. Proof of concept stuff.
I have been reading up on cloud hosting, but haven't really cranked up a web app on one. And it's been a while since I started a brand new application from scratch, so I will likely do stuff wrong. If you have expertise and want to lay down a proof of concept yourself, I'll be good with that.
I'll keep you posted in this thread. Also, if anyone else wants to pick something to do, please post here.
I like it. I suggest the following refinement.
In terms of theme, the narrative is that the entire cluster was once populated, but fell into disarray after a catastrophic civil war. The players represent the civilizations that have regained HEN tech. We could make it so you need HEN-2 to get anywhere -- even off your home system to the nearest other star. The players all start with HEN-2, but no other (non-player) planet has it.
Then make it so EVERY hab-world has an existing population. Or most of them, at least. They all have other tech artifacts remaining from before the civil war -- just not HEN.
And make it so there's no second hab world in the home systems. No radio contact. Players have to make the thematic jump to hyperspace to start conquering these remnant worlds.
Update to 3 proposed ship hulls:
"Streamlined":
- can dock with OPCs and ESCs on all worlds
- harder to hit/damage in combat
- harder to detect
- STUN cost is much higher, per unit of volume
- can't be merged
- SPD more effective, per unit of thrust
- can have ARM (armor)
"Compact"
- standard rules for STUN, SPD, combat, etc
- can dock only with ESCs -- not with OPCs (they can withstand gravity, but not atmosphere)
- can't be merged
- can have ARM
"Dispersed Structure"
- STUN cost is much lower, per unit of volume
- can't dock with any OPC or ESC -- only with OBCs or other ships
- easier to detect, spy on, have sensors attached, etc
- SPD less effective, per unit of thrust
- easier to hit (bigger target)
- harder to damage (a single beam or missile will hit less)
- can't be armored
- can be merged with other ships that have dispersed structure hulls
thoughts?
I love this idea. It helps in terms of gameplay, in that players will be encouraged to build "ship classes" (and figure out what their opponents' ship classes are like), and will face a trade-off between constantly deploying the same ships vs. upgrading and going through the expense of a new design. Trade-offs = good gameplay!
It also means that particular planets/colonies will become important specifically because of their shipyards. If you invest in a big one, you'll only be building it once, at one of your major planets. You'll defend it more vigorously, now.
It also boosts the space opera theme and naval-based fleet design.
I'd combine this with the idea of getting rid of ship-merging. If we throw in the "hull configuration" idea, then allow ship-merging for dispersed-structure hulls only.
FYI, here's a link to setting up a Node.js development environment on google cloud:
https://cloud.google.com/nodejs/docs/setup
And here is a sample node.js web app tutorial for google cloud:
https://cloud.google.com/nodejs/getting … torial-app
I'm not committed to google - I just looked for a comparison of the free-tier options for the "big 3" cloud hosts, and this article suggests that google's free tier might be best for this project:
https://www.computerworlduk.com/cloud-c … d-3676667/
Here's a link to a PDF for Traveller book 5 - "High Guard". This book was an early expansion off the base game, focusing on careers for characters in the navy, ship construction, and combat. One of the characteristics of ship design is hull configuration.
http://www.devansoft.co.uk/devansoft-fi … hGuard.pdf
I would simplify their list somewhat and propose something like this:
- streamlined (can dock with OPCs, harder to hit/damage in combat, harder to detect, more STUN for less volume)
- compact (spherical or box-like, standard ship configuration)
- dispersed (dispersed-structure, SPD less effective, easier to hit, harder to damage, less STUN, can be reconfig'd)
Anyone have a copy of the latest rules? PDF? Can we post it somewhere? Or start a google-doc or a wiki or something?
I thought about my idea of introducing "fighters" (think battlestar galactica or star wars x-wing), and then remember ASC. That made me want to look up what ASC can do -- do they have weapons or are they just transports designed for combat? A quick glance at the rules would help.
Starbase Orion is a port of Master of Orion II over to the ipad world, right? I tried it, but I decided I like MOO-2 better on the PC. I still play it from time to time, though I've never played it against human opponents. You can buy it on Steam or GOG. If anyone wants to play a game or two, let me know!
I had always assumed we'd have mine deposits generated randomly. With large number of worlds and deposits, a random scatter becomes uniform enough when considered in total. I had also assumed that HAB was too rare and important (for game-play) to leave entirely to random chance. My understanding was that Vern had carefully balanced the HAB worlds, so each player had the same amount seeded somewhere in their "local cluster". Do we want to do that, or go with a completely random seed?
I really like the idea of tuning the resources up or down for each game, to be METS-rich or FUEL-poor (for instance). Really interesting! Had never occurred to me. What about having the resource mix set independently for each player's local cluster? Player 1 might be METS-rich, player 2 might be FUEL-rich, etc. That would encourage players to invade, or trade, earlier. And early combat might be especially dangerous -- if you're in a local economy that favors MSS, and you encounter another local economy bristling with EWP -- you both will have very weak defenses against your opponents weapon platforms.
In any case, I plan to make these types of inputs a point of configuration for each universe-generation. Either set the resource-mix, pop-growth-rate, hab-seeding parameters manually when generating a cluster, or set it randomly so as to surprise even the moderator.
We can also solve the problem of having everything reachable in 2-3 jumps with HEN-10 by just expanding the size of the cluster. We can still restrict the number of stars to whatever we want -- just make the distances longer. That increases the importance of investing in HEN tech, and makes it easy enough to keep players isolated until some point -- maybe HEN-4? We could use a 50LY cube, or even a 100LY cube.
What about the idea of having 3 unlimited very-low-yield deposits on every planet?
I don't have an exact memory. In the old days, every planet had 40 deposits. In CW, there were a variable number of deposits, and some of were "bottomless", but with a lower yield. I'm not sure if the bottomless deposits existed ONLY on the home worlds.
I propose this:
Every planet has 3 "bottomless" deposits (METS, NMTS, FUEL). They are all low-yield (1-10%). All players with a colony on the planet can put mines on those deposits -- they aren't limited to one player's mine-group.
In addition, there are 0-40 "special" deposits, which are limited, and which offer higher yields. The probabilities will make it so deep mines will have lower yields, and shallow mines (ie: smaller total minerals) will have higher yields. These can be claimed by a player's mine-group.
This will give players an incentive to get to planets and extract surface resources quickly, while eliminating the game-exploit where players could block everyone else from mining a planet. It is also good in terms of theme -- it would be practically impossible to empty a planet of all resources -- there will always be more to extract, it will just be progressively more expensive to do so.
Any thoughts?
I never talked about it with Vern, but my impression was that beamers were added to handle a certain kind of regular cargo-shipping need. It was intended to make in-system bulk cargo movements easier, without completely removing the need for space transportation. I can take it or leave it. Either people build big cargo ships to move equipment out to colonies, or they build big beamer networks to power expansion. We could make this an option for each new game.
I like this idea. Make it so ship hulls can't be modified once they're built. Only the contents can be changed. This idea of merging ships (in one turn!) is a big abstraction.
I would combine it with my idea of hull-types, so some hulls could be more maneuverable (improved SPD performance), some would be more combat-focused (sleek, thin, harder to hit) but more expensive, and some would be slow and bulky but cheap (dispersed structures).
I also like the idea of ship-classes. Or hull-classes. Once you've built a given hull once or twice, you get a discount on building that exact hull again. Or hull-and-cargo-hold designs. Or complete ship designs, where the only thing that varies from one copy to the next is what you put in the cargo hold.
I can see the logic of armor stopping 20% of EWP.
I was proposing that armor be a much better or more effective way of protecting a ship than ballasting it with STUN/FOOD. Part of that would be to have an armor component (ARM), which can be researched. And part would be to reduce the effectiveness of STUN/FOOD at absorbing damage. Or have damage apply mainly to ship components and not cargo. It would take some fine-tuning.
In this model, I don't see a research path for STUN, other than making it lighter.
I think the idea should be taken in the context of "gameplay", not "physics". There is a counter-measure against EWP (which is ESH), so there should be a counter-measure against MSS. But of course there already is -- ANM. STUN and FOOD are merely used as ballast, to soak up damage that penetrates ESH and ANM.
To me, having ESH to counter EWP and ANM to counter MSS is good thematic game design. But having STUN and FOOD to counter incoming damage is a game exploit. It doesn't seem realistic, and it definitely doesn't fit the theme. When they built battleships in WWI, they didn't cover them with plywood and cheese to soak up damage. They built armor. The armor's only use was to block damage. It wasn't used to store cargo. And building cargo holds and hallways on ships took relatively little technology and materials, while building armor for gun turrets was very expensive, very heavy, and was researched and improved continuously.
Vern got rid of markets when he found out people were selling expensive items on their planetary markets to protect them from damage during attacks, and then buying them back later. He thought that was a game-exploit, and he was right. Along the same lines, I think shielding your ship with cargo holds and cheese is a game-exploit.
following up on this topic -- I was always excited by the esoteric detail that permeates this game, but there were other areas that overly abstracted things. In my opinion.
- only 3 mine-able resources (METS, NMTS, FUEL) - why not more? Atomics? Diamonds? Rare earths? Even ice/water?
- only 2 weapon-types (EWP, MSS) - what about romulan plasma torpedoes? different types of EWP? rail guns? ground bombs?
- FCT produce each component in 4 turns - why? (see first post)
- what about ship-carriers? this is in the old game WarpWar -- warp-capable ships that bring sub-warp ships into battle?
- what about fighters? luke skywalker?
- what about mine-fields in space?
It might be just me, but I would like to have to find low-yield diamond mines in order to build my special armor plates. Or build mine-laying ships to protect my OBC from ASC. Or build stealth fighters to sneak spies into enemy colonies with detection.
Maybe it's a big enough job just to get the game running again. But I do think we should keep an open mind on game development. Vern did!
This brings up a few issues:
1. Where and how to host -- on a server? VM? Cloud? We might keep this scoped down enough to fit within the "free tier" that some of the cloud hosts provide. And our data is pretty small compared to a typical media-heavy application.
2. How to share files and code? We could use google drive or something. Open a Git repository. Someplace to share .csv files until we get a database up and running
3. Should we have a new section of the forum focused on development?
I'll stay with the 30x30x30 light year volume of space for now, though in the future we should make this something to be changed from game to game.
I believe Vern had an algorithm that set up local clusters around each starting position, but you had to advance your HEN tech to be able to jump far enough to reach another player's local neighborhood. I think you needed HEN-4. Anyone else remember anything about this?
There was a chance for each star to be a double, triple, or even quadruple star system. At least I remember a "quad" system in EC. And each star in such a system had its own local orbits (which could contain planets), but they all shared the same "orbit 11". Do I have that right?
A star had up to 10 orbital slots which could hold a planet, and these were randomly assigned, right? Some orbits were empty? Some were gas giants, some were asteroids, and some were rocky planets?
Each planet had 0-40 mining deposits, randomly assigned? I might want to work on this -- gas giants could have mostly fuel deposits, for instance, and asteroids could have high-yield MET/NMT deposits. Rocky worlds would have lower yield deposits, but would have the possibility for HAB. Was there any difference in game-play between rocky worlds, gas giants, and asteroids? Thoughts?
I understand the idea of bringing down the complexity in order to bring in new players. But the thing that originally drew me to CW ("Empyrean Challenge" back then) WAS the complexity. That's why I signed up and kept paying Vern money. We can make the game simpler, but then it's a lot like many other games out there. CW is a game like no other because of this level of detail and simulation.
Another approach would be to embrace the complexity. Do whatever we can to keep it playable, yes. Improve the user-interface and the turn reports and add click-and-drag elements to make things easier. All good. But keep the level of simulation up where it is.
There is an old wargame called Campaign for North Africa that has been celebrated for years as the most complex game ever published. It supposedly takes 1500 hours to play, with 5 players on each side. There's another called A World At War, simulating all of WWII, that has hundreds of pages of rules, charts, and player aids. It's not for everyone, but it is magnificent. There's an old game called Magic Realm that has a cult following. It's ridiculously complex, but players love it for exactly that reason. And Dwarf Fortress (an obscure computer game) has such a crazy fan-base that people keep cloning and extending the game.
I'll support this project either way. I just want to make the case for keeping this game HEAVY.
Biggest idea is to make it so ships/colonies take multiple turns to construct, depending on size. It never made sense to me that it takes 4 turns to build a factory, but one 1 turn to assemble huge ships/colonies. Maybe base it on mass-number, so a mass-6 s/c (or smaller) takes 1 turn, mass-7 takes 2 turns, etc. Or add costs or people-requirements to do a rush job.
Also, factory groups that continue to build the same thing every turn could get efficiency bonuses over time.
And different components can take different amounts of time to build. STUN should be a one-turn thing in all cases. Same with CNGD or FRM-1. FCT could take longer. SEN or Beamers could take longest. Or maybe just base it on the size/mass of the component being constructed -- small ones take 1 turn, and the biggest take 6 or 8.
There are some "slow real-time-strategy" web-based games out there, where it takes a day for a ship to travel a light-year, for instance. You get notifications if you want, but the pace is slow enough that you can reliably check in once a day and be perfectly fine.
I'm on the fence about it. Turn-based is nice in that everyone stays on the same beat. RTS is nice in that you can always monitor and fine-tune and obsess over your stuff, and it makes "drop-outs" or "missed turns" less of a problem.
I have done loads of SQL Server and Oracle. MySQL would be no different. (The "noSQL" stuff would be different, but in the context of CW that would be unnecessary -- we are dealing with genuinely relational data sets here.)
I use JS randomly all the time, but haven't specialized in particular libraries or frameworks. I just use what the guy before me used, and read the docs as needed. I'm a meatball programmer.
I can write something to do universe generation. That seems like a good place to start. I'll see what I can frame up.
Just to be clear -- you're the architect. I'll adhere to your guidelines.