Many types of objects in Legacy Worlds Beta 6 will have to travel the universe from one point to another. While this set obviously includes ships, many other elements such as probes, resource extractors or migrating populations will need to travel. It is therefore necessary to write rules regarding the method used to travel from [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Game design category.
Writing formulas – part 1
One of the most important and tricky aspects of Beta 6′s design is the creation of formulas. This series of posts (don’t ask me how many will be written, I really don’t know) will try to explain the process. In this first post I’ll present the different types of formulas that need to be written [...]
Intergalactic News Service
Beta 5 doesn’t include any notion of time flow. Nothing is really recorded and past events only remain as a part of the memory of players. However only relying on memory isn’t sufficient if we want to build up a real history. And history is what makes a game alive. As such we are planning [...]
Random events
In Beta 5 the only events which can occur in game are the direct consequences of some game actions performed either by yourself or other players. There is no surprise nor anything linked with the universe itself. Introducing alien factions controlled by the game itself is one way to improve the game dynamics. Another way [...]
Species: biological drones
Biological drones are the achievement of many years of scientific discovery and advancement; they are produced by humans as a general purpose, low-maintenance workforce. Appearance Biological drones were made to look like humans: they were designed to their creators’ image. They have a limited understanding to prevent people from getting worried about what would happen [...]
Space structures
In Beta 5 the only items which can actually be built are ships. Moreover the only “permanent” items a player can control are planets which are located at specific coordinates. With the introduction of real buildings it felt logical that a planet’s surface might not be the only location where permanent structures could be installed. [...]
Banking
In Beta 6, an empire’s primary cash reserve is limited to at most 2 billions. All cash earned after this limit is reached will be wasted. In addition, 75% of the empire’s main cash reserve is split between its planets, the exact proportions depending on the planet’s category. When a planet is taken by an [...]
Alliances
In Beta 5, alliances are only groups of players who have chosen to play together. There isn’t much which can be done at the alliance level. For instance the type of alliance government has an influence limited to the leader’s election; being a member of an alliance or another has no real effect on the [...]
Resources
We have already mentioned several times in comments that Beta 6 would include more resources than just money. There are in fact several types of natural resources which can be mined from various sources such as nebulae or asteroids. There are 3 different types of resources: gases, minerals and dark matter. While dark matter is [...]
Employment
While Beta 5 only featured three different types of buildings, we stated in an earlier post that Beta 6 will feature dozens. But that isn’t the only building-related change Beta 6 will introduce, far from it. One of the worst defects in Beta 5 was the “optimal factories” computation – it relied on nothing but [...]