Delete this thread morons

[hiver]

feel free to delete the whole thread imbeciles.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Well I'm interested in watching how this will turn out. Best of luck to you.

 

[28.8bps Modem]

I'm vaguely interested in this, because it sounds vaguely like an RPG version of my favourite time waster, Fragile Allegiance. I'm a programmer with a long and grizzled history with C++.

I also have a long and grizzled history with distributed team projects, and can pretty much tell you now that you'll end up doing most of the work no matter who else you recruit. With that in mind, I hope you don't mind if I ask what your role is going to be in the team? Programmer, artist, sound tech, musician?

 

[Copper]

Well, I'm certainly interested in the concept, even if experience has burnt me on offering my services freely (generally, I don't have the time to commit, so I'm too unreliable). I can give interface feedback and design tips I guess, maybe quick & dirty concept stuff if you're interested.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Can help with proofreading and such if ya need.

 

[Johannes]

Why would a competent programmer or artist join your team, when you don't have almost anything to bring to the table yourself but a (ambitious and vague) concept? When on the surface this has miniscule chances of completing what do you have to convince someone proficient that it wouldn't be simply a waste of time to join your team?

 

[Baron]

Why would a competent programmer or artist join your team, when you don't have almost anything to bring to the table yourself

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Hiver my boy, I can create the soundtrack using my farts for a reduced price for you, since you're a codexer.

 

[Copper]

Well, the cold, radiation filled void is a much better start point than, say, Age of Decadence - more niche, maybe, but to start with all you really need is an empty space + physics objects + rpg framework.

Since I'm bored, here's some thoughts:

Backgrounds: False colour awesome or stars, lots of stars? Space not being black is a massive trope of the game genre (not so much for other media) because, well, it does suck a bit if every level looks the same. But a more hard sci-fi/local system game should avoid this, I think. There are still options for having wildly different ships, stations, etc, even mega-structures.Related to this - no asteroid belts like Empire Strikes Back unless game moves to Saturn's rings.

Time dilations: You need to have a way of compressing time on those month-long voyages, some sort of slider. On the other hand, you can have slow-mo for maneuvers, etc, under the rational that it's the high-speed AI, not the PC who is control there.

Sensible approach to law enforcement: This is a frontier, not a post-apoc word, so the law still exists, it's just far away and over-stretched. Still, it's hard to hide in space, so criminal acts need to be done under some sort of sanction, either as a privateer, or by bribing people to turn a blind eye. Random murder for the lols should have some sort of military effort to hunt you down like the Somali pirate you are, or at least an automatic bounty on your head.

Sensible economy - prices in the hundred thousands or millions for equipment, decent cargo yields, being screwed out of your bonus for not hitting quota, incentives for a bit of botlegging or black market skimming on the side. Life support equipment should be the most valuable thing for the frontier people, then cargo they can sell. Possible barter-based economy or faction-reputation economy (see Eclipse Phase rpg)

Environment should be a constant threat - asteroid impact, radiation shielding, fuel levels, O2 levels, systems failure due to wear and stress, all constantly threatening you with death or ejection into cryo-lifeboat.

Tech should be clunky, repairable in the field sort of stuff, no fancy easily breakable stuff.

Robotic exo-skeleton mining suit for awesome powers/HEV 'polite fiction' to explain character's increased durability, etc on level-up

Rogue AI with sensible motives, if present. Robots need neither the sun or oxygene, so organic life is no competition for resources so long as they're left alone. On the other hand, crazy people build crazy robots for fun.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Backgrounds: False colour awesome or stars, lots of stars? Space not being black is a massive trope of the game genre (not so much for other media) because, well, it does suck a bit if every level looks the same. But a more hard sci-fi/local system game should avoid this, I think. There are still options for having wildly different ships, stations, etc, even mega-structures.Related to this - no asteroid belts like Empire Strikes Back unless game moves to Saturn's rings.

Black as the darkest night. (though i heard that actual space has a bit more of a violet hue to its darkness, on account of background light from bazillions of stars and far away galaxies)
There will be no fucking nebula backgrounds.

No idiotic asteroid fields. I hate those with a burning passion of a thousand suns.
Realistic asteroid belt. There wont be any gameplay around Saturn - its too far away. Tangentially... Jupiter system (and it is a whole system into itself) will probably be the furthest you can go in the game - IF... you do certain things and get a passage on a faster, better big ship belonging to some multinational company or one of the nation states. Limited, unique mission to beyond the frontier of the new frontier.

I'll be honest, I hope I won't have to stare at a-black-as-darkest-night thing all the time. Creeps me out.

Robotic exo-skeleton mining suit for awesome powers/HEV 'polite fiction' to explain character's increased durability, etc on level-up

High level grade equipment... available only from various Zaibatsus and nation states military. And you can take a guess as how easy that will be.

What's the low-level grade equipment you have in mind here?

On the other hand, crazy people build crazy robots for fun.

What is "crazy"?

Well, packing off to live in an asteroid for one.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

1. Right, that really helps. Really really.

2. I was more interested in what sort of basic things they are- A space suit, a drill, a knife? I mean- What sort of items have you in mind for the basic space-drifter to possess for full functionality? Body suit indoors, space suit outdoors sort of thing?


As for the ship, depends on who the player's working for, no? Would make quite the difference between getting a basic beginning ship and a tincan-with-thrusters?

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

to OP.

Really interested and will follow it, but probably won't contribute cause lazy. best of luck though, With such a massive undertaking...you will probably need quite a bit of it.

 

[jcd]

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[ERYFKRAD]

You might want to see if some sort of Omnitool rig makes sense for the player character equipment. That way, whether the player wants to use a knife/vibroblade, or a drill, or a hammer, he'd have it all in one customizable tool. Swiss army knife (IN SPEHSSS!) basically.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

You might want to see if some sort of Omnitool rig makes sense for the player character equipment. That way, whether the player wants to use a knife/vibroblade, or a drill, or a hammer, he'd have it all in one customizable tool. Swiss army knife (IN SPEHSSS!) basically.

Implementation depends on how resource management and to its level of abstraction. Depending on how much focus goes into the actual space mining part, you could have a list of "standard" components for space miner kit the player begins with. Should he take a heavier hammer and skimp on the shovel or whatever as he upgrades his skills and kit.

Reality is more wonderful and amazing than any fiction, especially when it comes to a game like this one means to be.

Reality has plenty of documented play testing

Spoiler

It's reliability is questionable if you go into nomask7 territory of reality (which I do consider sometimes )

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I see your point, but is that far-fetched even in the future?

 

[jcd]

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[Gregz]

Reality is more wonderful and amazing than any fiction

True...but nothing is more boring than space, unless you remove the constraints of scale/time/space.

If you can teleport to the horsehead nebula, or next to a pulsar, or speed up time to watch a star transform into a red giant and then go nova, that's pretty cool.

If you're trucking mineral ore for 8 months through dead space (Alien), well...that's pretty boring without the alien.

 

[Monty]

Very ambitious idea, good luck. Finding a decent programmer will be the toughest part as I'm sure you're aware. With art, writing, etc people can chip in bits and pieces and I'm sure many people here will help out but to even get to a demo stage will take many hours of work from a programmer with the skills to pull everything together. Not easy to find someone who can put in the time needed and isn't already working on their own projects.

But as you said, one has to start somewhere.

It's always cool to start a game with very basic equipment and get the satisfaction from upgrading... but were you joking about 'picks and shovels'? For mining an asteroid in zero g? Hmmm. Yes, you do want to start at the most basic level but surely if you have a space craft capable of reaching an asteroid you'll have some sort of drill/suction mining device (which can be upgraded obviously).

Just a thought.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

hiver dude, how come I can't send you a PM?

 

[Severian Silk]

This is how I feel about hiver embarking on this ambitious journey:

 

[28.8bps Modem]

Why am i seeing your post on the first page, as second post in the row? And just now?

Because moderation. I lurk, rather than posting.

Anyway, I don't want to be too much of a damp squib on what sounds like a interesting idea, but I think it'll be quite hard to keep a team together when the lead is just the ideas guy. Everyone has ideas, and people who can execute probably already are. I know I've got several thousand lines of code of my own RPG on github right now.

On a more positive note, I'm happy to contribute some of the peripheral tools I'm already developing to your effort if you're interested. Something you may be especially interested in as design guy is the dialogue editor. I use mediawiki as a sort of version control for big chunks of text, and my dialogue editor/debugger is implemented as a plugin for that. It'd take me some work to make it less tightly coupled to my own game, but it's something I'd probably end up doing anyway. It'd be nice to make that open source to see if anyone else could make use of it.

When you get set up with your private forum and what not, I'd be happy to contribute what I can. I probably don't have much to say on the design front, I've got my own baby to look after, but I can certainly write code with the best of 'em.

 

[Copper]

More random thoughts:

The importance of mobility - inertia, thrust, etc. To my mind, a serious space sci-fi game needs to make maneuver and mobility the central focus of exploration and combat. Basic stuff like lack of inertia in near-vacuum, or the difficulty of control in a zero-g environment should change the nature of the game quite a bit, making speed and movement control critical factors in combat, both ship and personal. Obviously, different locations will have different effect, from atmospheric zero-g to low gravity near vacuum on the outside of a big rock. Anyway, this is a logical area where the character can skill up and become more competent, going from rubber-legged rookie to hardened spacer, buy better jets, etc. Another interesting but very tricky issue is mobility in limited environments - think about Apollo 13, how they had to move around inside the capsule and lander, really cramped together. This may be too hard - most games compress big distances but make small spaces bigger to avoid clipping, camera breaking, pathfinding in tight space problems, etc. Anyway, so long as people can spin off into space with a ruptured air tank.

Drones - possibly a more logical point of view is that a lot of the actual digging is done by robots, with human supervisers/technicians on location to guide the dumb machines in real-time, and repair them when they break. Of course, this is the corp side of things, the MC could be more of a bootstrap operator using human flexibility on the ground, possibly starting on a big rock that the main interests consider tapped out - a niche market, you might say. Anyway, putting the MC in a control room for drones as the start point could be good - a limited space, full of bored space-jocks, doing a few emergency drills as optional tutorials - imagine something halfway between being in the army and being a speculator on Wall Street. Lots of social interaction, dares, gambling, fights, favours, screwing people over for a bonus, etc.

Suits - I think having various different suit types for different functions would be good. Eg. Light suit = good dexterity indoors, only emergency air without extra pack, low radiation/impact shielding, lots of pouches, utility attachments. Hard suit = really tough, high impact/rad shielding, low attachment points, slow movements and very clumsy in gravity, very strong.

 

[Copper]

On visuals, a long time ago I talked to some people about doing a game on the moon - a little rover game as a test project. One of my main interests was obviously the environment, and making the moon more interesting / dynamic without being fantastical, cool as Chesley Bonestel's speculative work is.

There are two sides to it, I think. One is that landing sites tend to look boring because everyone wants boring when they're trying to complete a high-risk technical challenge. An exciting area, full of ejecta or crater rims, would be a deathtrap. So there's more to space rocks than boring plains, if you use the natural environment smartly. Any of the substantial dwarf bodies are huge entities that can add a lot of visual punch to scenes used smartl. The second is that human 'colonisation' can be used as a rational for more interesting features. Open pit mining is an obvious feature, creating canyons, etc., but also while you might not have trees, you can have solar panel arrays, radio masts, emergency shelters, refueling stations, pumps and cables, transit mono-rails, etc. With a bit of imagination and technical thinking you can create interesting exterior techno-spaces that still have a low-tech feel.

Here's a link to an artist's impression of sunrise on Ceres.

http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/ceres_1200.htm

And another one with some habitation in a double asteroid pair

http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/spacexp/se_asteroids_1000.htm

Lots more like that - not saying this should be the style, by the way, just examples of possibilities with the external environment.

 

[Johannes]

How does the basic movement system even work? You've mentioned the cavalier oblique perspective (why this over any other paraller projection), and turn-based hybrid combat. How do you model the realistic physics in that environment?