Ideal Space Empire game part 1

Tonight I'm going to do a blog post that is of no interest to anyone but me. It's discussing an ideal game I have in mind that I am well aware will never happen.

One of my ideal games is a 4X style space-empire sim game (in this case, Galactic Civilisations II) crossed with Total War crossed with Homeworld. The ideal is that you're guiding a space empire in it's development, getting into wars, resolving situations diplomatically, directing trade, etc. One of the major appeals of GalCiv II is the ability to design your own space ships, both aesthetically and functionally. So, let us consider how this 'design your own ship' idea could function in a game like this on a larger scale, especially for use in the RTS parts of the game

The first item to consider is research. The ship cannot be designed until it's associated parts are researched. GalcivII used a three-pronged battle research system where you could focus in either Mass Driver weapons, Energy weapons, or Missile weapons (and their respective countermeasures). While it took a great deal of research points, something I found interesting was how unchallenging it was to research ALL the type of weapons over the course of a long game. Let's consider ideal concepts for this ideal game.


1. Weapon Differentiation.

The different types of weapons should have genuine differences in gameplay and design rather then merely causing different types of damage. Energy weapons and Mass Drivers are relatively similar in function (direct fire weapons). Perhaps the difference between them could come in the direct effect of the weapons, with different 'classes' of energy weapons being better at their respective focuses and worse at areas outside that, while different classes of Mass driver aren't quite as good at their focus, but better at their weak area. Missiles would be different, since most of them would naturally be able to adjust course and target nearly any vessel. However, this higher accuracy would come at the cost of delayed damage.


2. Weapon Classes

Rather then merely putting the exact same weapons on different ships, let's vary it up a little. Fighter, Point-Defence, Medium, Large. With each degree of research, different 'classes' of weapon open up. Let's take Energy weapons as an example.

The player completes X degree of research and has opened up four different types of energy weapon, we'll call these Blaster (fighter class), Laser Turret (Point-Defence class), Laser Cannon (Medium) and Lance (large). The Blaster can be equipped easily on small fighter-class ship chassis very easily, but their lack of power and inability to be 'turreted' makes them poor choices for much larger classes. The Laser Turret is a naturally turreted weapon that can be equiped on all classes of vessel. On a fighter it is very large, taking up most of the space, while large classes of vessel could have dozens dotting them. It's main advantage is against fighter-type vessels, since it naturally has a fast turret, making it ideal to dot around large vessels to defend them from fighters.

The Medium class Cannon is too large for fighters, and only the largest corvette would be able to fit even one. At the cost of increased price and space they can be turretted, allowing them a larger arc of fire on the vessel, in which case their arc must be carefully positioned to allow the player to use them effectively. Finally the Lance would be a very large, very powerful weapon, restricted mostly to very large vessels, and very, very costly to put on anything but a quite restricted turret. These would be the primary armaments of capital vessels.

You can imagine this would be similar with Mass Drivers and Missiles. Larger versions of each would be available, going from anti-fighter missiles/gatling guns as point-defence weapons, all the way up to anti-matter torpedoes/Coil-Cannons as the medium or large weapons. Or alternatively the classes may be different for different research-types of weapons. Missiles may have "Light anti-fighter" as fighter, "Light anti-capital ship" for bomber-types, "Guided seekers" for point-defence, and "Heavy Torpedoes" for heavy capital ship weapons.

Let's go back to the energy weapon examples now. Let us say nowIf the player then researched further down the research tree for this specialisation and has unlocked two further techs. Laser Cannon II and Plasma Blaster. The Laser Cannon II is a relatively simple upgrade of the Laser Cannon tech and would be automatically applied to vessels with the Laser Cannon (possibly at a small fee). However, the Plasma Blaster is a completely new Fighter-class weapon, and new fighters would have to be designed to bring this weapon into battle.

As you see, this makes research very attractive without requiring very regular redesigns of ships. Galciv's "one research opens one better weapon" method worked for it, but for a more hands-on RTS style game it would need to be streamlined a little with different types of weapons that can be used. This means fighters aren't stuck with the same types of weapons


3. Research variety

It was a bit too easy to get THE BEST weapons in multiple areas in Galciv. Maybe instead the players should choose a focus. This would be determined by the first area they begin research. All subsequent research in that weapon area is a little easier, while research in other areas is a little more costly and time consuming. A relatively arbitrary artifical scaling would work. Opening weapon research costs X research units, while researching into a different area costs X1.5, and the final area would cost X2.

Hopefully this would mean that players wanting to specialise in one area can do so, while players wanting different types of weapons (for the advantages each offers) are still able to do so.


Next post: I'll explain what I mean by 'turreting', as I talk about actually designing the ships.

Yeah, sorry this is so dull, pretty much just doing this for me.