Rahakasvi
09-03-2008, 01:12 PM
Hello everyone.
I'm Rahakasvi from Finland. I'm spare-time game developer, some might remember me from somewhere, if not, that is okey, you are excused ;)
What I would like to discuss here is my idea for a game. It is still in design state althought some technical tests has been made.
I haven't came up a name for it yet but if someone has an idea let me know!
Main Idea And Type Of Game:
Game will be Online Multiplayer 3D Spaceship Simulator. Now the words "online" and "multiplayer" must not be confused with mmorpg idea. Idea of game is to build the most efficient space ship available and gather the most skilled team to fly it. Then one must compete with other shipbuilders in order to fully master the universah! Mwahaha.... *krhm* and back to the game... There is two kind of games actually included. Offline shipbuilding simulator and online 3d space shooter.
The Concept of Shipbuilding:
Player (from this forward called as The Manufacturer), when starting the game, will be given 10 million galactical ununium coins, (universal money).
Then the manufacturer must choose The Hull for the ship. The hull will come in different sizes, bigger size costs more but they will include more "spots" where objects can be placed.
Once bought the hull, manufacturer buys Outer Gadgets, such as Engines, Wings, Radars and Weapons of mass destruction[i]. Every outer gadget deforms the hull and changes the style of the ship. Once everything is in order, manufacturer will buy [i]Inner Gadgets, which are items, that can't be visible from outership. These includes items such as Corridors, Power sources, Shield generators, Cameras, Control devices and Cockpits.
Manufacturer designs and places the objects to the ships hull keeping in mind that every Gadget requires power, space and money. For example the more power given to Engines, the faster the ships moves. More power given to Shield generators more laser hits they take. Each of these items will be discussed later on.
The Concept of Dogfighting:
Manufacturer, as the ships owner, can assign other players (later refered as The Crew) to access the ship. The crew will fly the ship, control the weapons and repair ship as it takes damage.
Basicly there are three primarly tasks (while all of these can be done by one player). Piloting, Weapon operator and Repairman. Each of these will be discussed later on. Basicly Pilots will fly the ship from the cockpit, Weapon operators will use the weapons and repairmen will take care if the ship takes damage.
When the crew has been found (by irc-channels, forums etc) the team will challenge another team to teamfight, called the battle forwards. There can be as many ships in fight as the server can handle. Duels are the most common ones of course.
The Concept of Winning:
When won the battle, manufacturer will receive some kind of bonus, special gadgets or such. Money will always stay the same. Ship will be repaired automatically when the fight is over. No need to repair the ship after battle. The crew of course can give feedback to the manufacturer who will tweak the ship or remove completely some items that are no use or replace special gadgets (note: if these special gadgets gets destroyed during the battle, they are gone. and they can't be sold or traded)
The Graphical Concept of Everything:
Shipbuilding will be executed with The Sims style isometric view with 3d objects.
The Battle will be executed with 3d version of the ship, where the players run as in first person shooter (so if something gets broken downstair, one must actually run there!) The cameras, windows and such will depict the battle which includes other ships. There is no possibility to see inside other ships. Chatting with other ships is doable inside cockpit. So basicly there are lowres 3d versions of ships and highres version of the inside of the ship, actually only Inner Gadgets needs to be viewn from inside!
Players can build up their own characters as they want. Different skins, hairstyle etc. These can be quite low resolution.
When players clicks to control device, the screen changes to depict the controlling device, whether it is a camera or a weapon targeting system etc.
Inner and Outer Gadgets:
Engines:
Engines gives speed to the ship. Hard to destroy, takes up lot of energy and costs a lot.
Radars:
Radars gives information where other ships are, what kind of items they have etc. More money, the more information there is. These are usually fixed sized and fixed energy-consumers. Radars can be also used to jam other ships transmissions.
Wings:
These costs little much less than hull and one can place weapons and engines and cameras to the wings. These doesn't require energy but can be quite easily destroyed! So don't place any important items there!
Weapons of mass destruction:
Yeah baby! Lasers, particle guns, missiles, torpedoes, ioncannons, you name it, we have it! Energy, money, space consumers! There are fixed (fires to the direction of the motion of the ship) and turnable (used by weapon control devices)
Cockpits:
Every ship must have a cockpit. This will support a life in ship and it is used to pilot the ship. Batteries included!
Corridors:
Places where the crew hang around. Doesn't take energy at all. Damages easily but is easy to fix. Space depends on the size of the corridor.
Beds:
Amount of beds depends how much additional players the ship can hold. (Cockpit allows one)
Power sources:
Power! Unlimited power! More money, more energy. Hard to repair. Damage resistance good. Powersource is a hyperdrive engine at the same time. To fly in and out battle.
Shield generators:
Protect the hull from being hit by lasers and ioncannons. More energy, more protection. Damage resistance pretty good.
Cameras:
Ah. These small devices will depict the battle outside the ship. Nothing much more. Takes up little energy and cost a bit. It is bit hard to fly a ship if the cockpit is located inside the ship and it has no windows, mate! If hit, destroys completely.
Control devices:
Usually gadgets needs control device to work with. These can control the amount of power the gadget reguires and some can be used to remotely fix broken things via repair droids!
Misc gadgets:
Statues, tables, chairs, Little green stuff that makes a ship little more prettier <3
Overview of gadgets:
Manufacturer must find balance to build the most efficient ship in the universe. It is important to think about where to place the cannons. Try to balance the power equally (these settings can be overridden by repairmen, if there is a case that ship needs more energy to the shields during heavy repairing of engines)
Actually, in order to play a game, crew needs only Hull, Power source and Cockpit. That stub will not be able to move, but it is everything that is needed.
The Player Roles in The Battle:
Firstly, there are no restriction that one player couldn't do every task by himself. This is not a roleplaying game. Every skill requires real life skill.
Pilot:
Flys the ship. Communicates with other ships. Tries not to hit other ships. Pilot has cameras, radars etc. to help him navigate. He can also interrupt other players radars by doing a little text-console minigame.
Weaponmaster:
Aim and shoot. So simple it is. Of course missile-launchers must be loaded. Every shot takes energy and one can't shoot all the time.
Repairmen:
This is the most important job in the ship. Every gadget can have different states: "Hit but working", "Hit and not working", "Unrepairable". In order to fix a gadget, it must first taken offline, then repaired and taken online. If the repair fails: it might get worser than it is! The repairing is simple. Repairmen gets a little mini-game (if you have idea what kind this could be, please throw your ideas). Minigame is much harder and longer to complete the harder the gadget is to repair. Every gadget style (radars, engines etc) has their unique ways of fixing (repairmen must have real life knowledge, manual, notes etc to help him), and then there is a case fixing which requires intelligence and speed from a repairman.
The minigame could be like there is a circuit board, where every gadget has their own component arragement and sometimes components are missing, or links between them are broken etc and if you connect two wires at wrong time some other component could be gone etc. One repairman can repair only one gadget at time and one gadget can be repaired by one repairman at a time.
The Overview of Player Roles in The Battle:
The Repairmen can't be everywhere so it won't hurt if the pilot and weaponmasters do know something about repairing also!
Technical demos:
I don't want to show yet anything, but I'm developing with Delphi 6 using GlScene. I have done test with 3d fps environment and i'm happy with collision detection etc. Also I've tested how the camera system would work and that is doing great also. I haven't done any particle tests of weapons but I think it won't be a problem.
I have a quite a bit of previous exprience of multiplayer coding. I've done my own Ultima Online client-server clone in test purposes with old plain DelphiX. 3d card game called Bogusdeck using scripting language. Tons of little tests using GlScene, which is btw the best, what delphi has seen! I've done also 3d graphics, so modeling, texturing should not be problem. First of course I will do basic textures and rough models to get the idea. When done, I'm going to ask help to do the game more prettier.
Of course there is lot to be done, and I'm sure problems will arise and I can't do everything. So don't expect this to been finished soon or never. I will do this when I have time. Just for fun you know ;)
This little idea has been smolden in my brains like 7-10 years now (I'm 21 btw). Always wanted to build my own ship ;)
But that's about it. If you have questions about the game please ask, I will answer if I can. Name ideas are welcomed. Help is not required but if someone want's to help, I will not refuse ;) Ideas for minigames, more gadgets, overall discussion of design will be gladly taken.
Oh and please tell would YOU be interested in seeing this kind of game ready to be playable? Would it be fun? Interesting? Do you like the concept? Hate it? Steal it?
Yeah well, this is me and my current game project..
Rahakasvi alias Pauli
I'm Rahakasvi from Finland. I'm spare-time game developer, some might remember me from somewhere, if not, that is okey, you are excused ;)
What I would like to discuss here is my idea for a game. It is still in design state althought some technical tests has been made.
I haven't came up a name for it yet but if someone has an idea let me know!
Main Idea And Type Of Game:
Game will be Online Multiplayer 3D Spaceship Simulator. Now the words "online" and "multiplayer" must not be confused with mmorpg idea. Idea of game is to build the most efficient space ship available and gather the most skilled team to fly it. Then one must compete with other shipbuilders in order to fully master the universah! Mwahaha.... *krhm* and back to the game... There is two kind of games actually included. Offline shipbuilding simulator and online 3d space shooter.
The Concept of Shipbuilding:
Player (from this forward called as The Manufacturer), when starting the game, will be given 10 million galactical ununium coins, (universal money).
Then the manufacturer must choose The Hull for the ship. The hull will come in different sizes, bigger size costs more but they will include more "spots" where objects can be placed.
Once bought the hull, manufacturer buys Outer Gadgets, such as Engines, Wings, Radars and Weapons of mass destruction[i]. Every outer gadget deforms the hull and changes the style of the ship. Once everything is in order, manufacturer will buy [i]Inner Gadgets, which are items, that can't be visible from outership. These includes items such as Corridors, Power sources, Shield generators, Cameras, Control devices and Cockpits.
Manufacturer designs and places the objects to the ships hull keeping in mind that every Gadget requires power, space and money. For example the more power given to Engines, the faster the ships moves. More power given to Shield generators more laser hits they take. Each of these items will be discussed later on.
The Concept of Dogfighting:
Manufacturer, as the ships owner, can assign other players (later refered as The Crew) to access the ship. The crew will fly the ship, control the weapons and repair ship as it takes damage.
Basicly there are three primarly tasks (while all of these can be done by one player). Piloting, Weapon operator and Repairman. Each of these will be discussed later on. Basicly Pilots will fly the ship from the cockpit, Weapon operators will use the weapons and repairmen will take care if the ship takes damage.
When the crew has been found (by irc-channels, forums etc) the team will challenge another team to teamfight, called the battle forwards. There can be as many ships in fight as the server can handle. Duels are the most common ones of course.
The Concept of Winning:
When won the battle, manufacturer will receive some kind of bonus, special gadgets or such. Money will always stay the same. Ship will be repaired automatically when the fight is over. No need to repair the ship after battle. The crew of course can give feedback to the manufacturer who will tweak the ship or remove completely some items that are no use or replace special gadgets (note: if these special gadgets gets destroyed during the battle, they are gone. and they can't be sold or traded)
The Graphical Concept of Everything:
Shipbuilding will be executed with The Sims style isometric view with 3d objects.
The Battle will be executed with 3d version of the ship, where the players run as in first person shooter (so if something gets broken downstair, one must actually run there!) The cameras, windows and such will depict the battle which includes other ships. There is no possibility to see inside other ships. Chatting with other ships is doable inside cockpit. So basicly there are lowres 3d versions of ships and highres version of the inside of the ship, actually only Inner Gadgets needs to be viewn from inside!
Players can build up their own characters as they want. Different skins, hairstyle etc. These can be quite low resolution.
When players clicks to control device, the screen changes to depict the controlling device, whether it is a camera or a weapon targeting system etc.
Inner and Outer Gadgets:
Engines:
Engines gives speed to the ship. Hard to destroy, takes up lot of energy and costs a lot.
Radars:
Radars gives information where other ships are, what kind of items they have etc. More money, the more information there is. These are usually fixed sized and fixed energy-consumers. Radars can be also used to jam other ships transmissions.
Wings:
These costs little much less than hull and one can place weapons and engines and cameras to the wings. These doesn't require energy but can be quite easily destroyed! So don't place any important items there!
Weapons of mass destruction:
Yeah baby! Lasers, particle guns, missiles, torpedoes, ioncannons, you name it, we have it! Energy, money, space consumers! There are fixed (fires to the direction of the motion of the ship) and turnable (used by weapon control devices)
Cockpits:
Every ship must have a cockpit. This will support a life in ship and it is used to pilot the ship. Batteries included!
Corridors:
Places where the crew hang around. Doesn't take energy at all. Damages easily but is easy to fix. Space depends on the size of the corridor.
Beds:
Amount of beds depends how much additional players the ship can hold. (Cockpit allows one)
Power sources:
Power! Unlimited power! More money, more energy. Hard to repair. Damage resistance good. Powersource is a hyperdrive engine at the same time. To fly in and out battle.
Shield generators:
Protect the hull from being hit by lasers and ioncannons. More energy, more protection. Damage resistance pretty good.
Cameras:
Ah. These small devices will depict the battle outside the ship. Nothing much more. Takes up little energy and cost a bit. It is bit hard to fly a ship if the cockpit is located inside the ship and it has no windows, mate! If hit, destroys completely.
Control devices:
Usually gadgets needs control device to work with. These can control the amount of power the gadget reguires and some can be used to remotely fix broken things via repair droids!
Misc gadgets:
Statues, tables, chairs, Little green stuff that makes a ship little more prettier <3
Overview of gadgets:
Manufacturer must find balance to build the most efficient ship in the universe. It is important to think about where to place the cannons. Try to balance the power equally (these settings can be overridden by repairmen, if there is a case that ship needs more energy to the shields during heavy repairing of engines)
Actually, in order to play a game, crew needs only Hull, Power source and Cockpit. That stub will not be able to move, but it is everything that is needed.
The Player Roles in The Battle:
Firstly, there are no restriction that one player couldn't do every task by himself. This is not a roleplaying game. Every skill requires real life skill.
Pilot:
Flys the ship. Communicates with other ships. Tries not to hit other ships. Pilot has cameras, radars etc. to help him navigate. He can also interrupt other players radars by doing a little text-console minigame.
Weaponmaster:
Aim and shoot. So simple it is. Of course missile-launchers must be loaded. Every shot takes energy and one can't shoot all the time.
Repairmen:
This is the most important job in the ship. Every gadget can have different states: "Hit but working", "Hit and not working", "Unrepairable". In order to fix a gadget, it must first taken offline, then repaired and taken online. If the repair fails: it might get worser than it is! The repairing is simple. Repairmen gets a little mini-game (if you have idea what kind this could be, please throw your ideas). Minigame is much harder and longer to complete the harder the gadget is to repair. Every gadget style (radars, engines etc) has their unique ways of fixing (repairmen must have real life knowledge, manual, notes etc to help him), and then there is a case fixing which requires intelligence and speed from a repairman.
The minigame could be like there is a circuit board, where every gadget has their own component arragement and sometimes components are missing, or links between them are broken etc and if you connect two wires at wrong time some other component could be gone etc. One repairman can repair only one gadget at time and one gadget can be repaired by one repairman at a time.
The Overview of Player Roles in The Battle:
The Repairmen can't be everywhere so it won't hurt if the pilot and weaponmasters do know something about repairing also!
Technical demos:
I don't want to show yet anything, but I'm developing with Delphi 6 using GlScene. I have done test with 3d fps environment and i'm happy with collision detection etc. Also I've tested how the camera system would work and that is doing great also. I haven't done any particle tests of weapons but I think it won't be a problem.
I have a quite a bit of previous exprience of multiplayer coding. I've done my own Ultima Online client-server clone in test purposes with old plain DelphiX. 3d card game called Bogusdeck using scripting language. Tons of little tests using GlScene, which is btw the best, what delphi has seen! I've done also 3d graphics, so modeling, texturing should not be problem. First of course I will do basic textures and rough models to get the idea. When done, I'm going to ask help to do the game more prettier.
Of course there is lot to be done, and I'm sure problems will arise and I can't do everything. So don't expect this to been finished soon or never. I will do this when I have time. Just for fun you know ;)
This little idea has been smolden in my brains like 7-10 years now (I'm 21 btw). Always wanted to build my own ship ;)
But that's about it. If you have questions about the game please ask, I will answer if I can. Name ideas are welcomed. Help is not required but if someone want's to help, I will not refuse ;) Ideas for minigames, more gadgets, overall discussion of design will be gladly taken.
Oh and please tell would YOU be interested in seeing this kind of game ready to be playable? Would it be fun? Interesting? Do you like the concept? Hate it? Steal it?
Yeah well, this is me and my current game project..
Rahakasvi alias Pauli