In this post:

• Internationalisation
• Resource types
  • Natural resources
• Types of weaponry and defences
• Production and capability types
• Technologies
• Fleet strategies
  • Defence strategies
  • Attack strategies
  • Relative strengths
• Stuff that can be built
  • Building types
  • Ship parts

Internationalisation

All text that is independent from the interface used to access the game is stored in the database. Each string is identified by a code, and associated to translations in various languages. Each language is identified by an ISO code and a name (in the language itself). The set of translations available in a given language may be incomplete, for example when a new language is being added.

All definitions which require a name or a description in fact use the internationalisation system.

Resource types

The various types of resources which empire may possess and use are defined in the database. Each resource type is identified by its name; in addition, it carries a description as another string from the internationalisation system. It belongs to a resource category, itself identified by yet another string. All resources are given a value which is used to compute e.g. player rankings. Finally, advanced types of resources only become visible when some technology has been discovered.

Natural resources

Some types of resources can be found in the game universe and can be extracted through mining operations. These natural resources are added to the map when it is generated. Each type of natural resource has a non-zero probability of being found at a location; in addition, the map generator should enforce an average quantity and average extraction difficulty.

Types of weaponry & defences

There are three categories of weaponry (beam weapons, mass drivers and missiles) and their respective countermeasures (shields, armours and point defence systems). Each weaponry or defence category should be identified by its general type and by whether it is a weapon or a countermeasure. In addition, a name and a description need to be associated with each category.

Production and capability types

Productions and capabilities, whether they apply to whole empires, planets or ships, are described in the exact same way.

Generally speaking, a production or capability is identified by a code name. It possesses a display name and a description. It carries a flag indicating whether it is an additive or exclusive property – for example, ship components providing automated repairs have an additive effect, while mineral scanners are either present or not.

The value of a production may not be meaningful to the player. In order to display that value, a production definition includes a non-zero display multiplier, and may use a prefix and / or a suffix. If there is a suffix, then a suffix tooltip text may be included. The prefix, suffix and suffix tooltip text are of course internationalised strings.

While empire and ship productions do not include any additional data, a planet production or capability definition features a flag that indicates whether the production is local or global. A local production is used at the planet’s level only, while a global production is computed at the owning empire’s level.

Technologies

A technology is identified by its name. It carries a description, and requires an amount of research points to be accumulated before it is discovered. Each technology belongs to a technology category, identified by its name. A technology has an implementation price, defined by at least one type of resource and a positive quantity. Finally, a technology may only be researched once its dependencies (a set of other technologies) have been discovered.

In addition, a technology may provide some amount of an empire production.

Fleet strategies

Generally speaking, a fleet strategy is described by a name and a description. In addition, all fleet strategies include a probability of intercepting shots to other fleets, an advantage threshold used to determine whether ground armies should be dropped to the planet’s surface, and an advantage multiplier which indicates how much support a ship of size 1 gives to the ground armies. All strategies also include a probability of changing targets.

Defence strategies

A defence strategy is a strategy which can be used by fleets in defensive mode. In addition to the common strategy information, it also includes a probability of intercepting shots to the planet.

Attack strategies

An attack strategy is a strategy which can be used by attacking fleets. In addition to the common strategy information, attack strategies also include information related to attacking the planet: a weight modifier for ground structures, which determines how likely a fleet using the strategy is to target the planet’s buildings; a military objectives modifier, which indicates how likely the fleet is to target civilian structures, and a civilian casualties modifier, which will be used to compute civilian casualties when firing at ground structures. In addition, because planets do not have strategies, the information regarding attack strategies’ relative efficiency opposed to planets is included along with attack strategies. This information consists in 4 modifiers: aim and damage modifiers for the fleets, and aim and damage modifiers for planets.

Relative strengths

Each combination of an attack strategy with a defence strategy is described through 2 sets of modifiers: aim and damage modifiers for both the attacking and the defending sides.

Stuff that can be built

The database should contain the definition of all “buildable” items. Such an item is always identified by a name; it is associated with a description, and its construction requires a positive amount of work. In addition, all items which can be built carry a construction price and a maintenance price, both being a non-empty set of resource types associated with positive quantities.

Building types

A building type is a buildable item. It generates at least one type of planet production, with a maximal quantity associated to each type of production. Each type of building provides a quantity of jobs to be manned by the planets’ population, and possesses a maximal amount of hit points.

Buildings may also provide planet-side weaponry. A building may be associated with a type of weapon, along with weapon characteristics – accuracy, base damage, charge time and cool-down time.

Ship part types

A ship part is a buildable item. It belongs to a ship parts category identified by a name (a category may be a sub-category of another category).

There are different types of ship part types, which correspond to major elements of a ship’s design.

Rationale regarding the hybrid direct/meta modelling of ship parts: some of the ship parts’ characteristics are essential in that they provide the basic description of a ship design; most of these characteristics are used as constraints during the design of a ship (for example, available hull space must be greater than / equal to the amount of used hull space multiplied by the empire’s miniaturisation capabilities). In addition, these basic characteristics should not change in further versions of LW. However, other characteristics corresponding to various special abilities are not necessary in most operations, and are likely to evolve as development progresses. The latter are stored using meta-modelling while the former are stored directly.

Hulls

A hull is a type of ship part which provides space for other parts. It is either mechanical or biological in nature, and defines the amount of hit points as well as the basic manoeuvrability of a ship. In addition, a hull may provide energy. Finally, it may provide ship capabilities in various quantities.

Generators

A generator is a type of ship part which consumes space in a ship’s hull and provides energy. It may require the ship to be mechanical or biological.

Normal space engine

A normal space engine is a type of ship part which consumes space in a ship’s hull and requires energy. It provides thrust. It may require the ship to be mechanical or biological.

Hyperspace engines

A Hyperspace engine is a type of ship part which consumes space in a ship’s hull and requires energy. It provides Hyperspace displacement power. It may require the ship to be mechanical or biological.

Hybrid engines

A hybrid engine is an engine that is both a normal space engine and a Hyperspace engine.

Weapons

A weapon is a type of ship part which consumes space in a ship’s hull and requires energy. It is associated with a weapon type, and possesses a charge time, a cool-down time, an accuracy value (which is a probability) and a base damage.

Countermeasures

A countermeasure is a type of ship part which consumes space in a ship’s hull and requires energy. It is associated with a defence type and possesses an absorption probability, a maximal absorption value and a per-minute absorption recovery value.

Other ship parts

Any other type of ship part is a ship part which consumes space in a ship’s hull and may require energy to function. It may provide ship capabilities in various quantities.

Summary of ship part “types” and associated information

The table below is a summary of the information required by the various “families” of ship parts listed above.

Milestone 1 is definitely not a good game, in that there are no incentives for anyone to actually fight (which was also true of Beta 5, with the exception of corruption which never really worked as anticipated). If the next step had been planet management, as was initially announced, it would have made it even worse, as the relatively heavy Beta 6 rules on this point would have added complexity, but no incentive, and no reason to spend money on anything other than just “breeding planets”.

Milestone 2, reloaded

The (new) second milestone must therefore concentrate on bringing these two elements to the game.

First of all, the new ship design and fleet management system will be added. Ships will be capable of carrying three different types of weaponry (beam weapons, mass drivers and missiles), as well as their countermeasures (shields, armours and point defences, respectively). But since a weapon in space isn’t really much of a viable ship, other parts will be provided – hulls of various sizes and engines. Finally, a “special module”, the drop pod, will allow ground troops to be deployed. A few default designs will be provided, but you will have the option to customise the designs or to create new ones.

Why is this important? Because, by changing the fleet’s configurations, you might gain an advantage on your enemy. For example, if you are at war with someone who uses mass drivers and shields, you might want to construct or refit ships to use heavy armour and missiles. This constant need to adapt will cost money, which should take care of one of the problems mentioned above.

The second problem remains, however. Why would you go fight your neighbour if there is no actual reason to do so? The solution is relatively easy to find. Why are there wars, in the real world? The major reason for that is resources. As a consequence, the resource system which was planned for Milestone 4 will be added in the next release. However, to keep things simple for now, resources will only be found on planets (which will remain the only available map objects for the time being), and won’t come in too many varieties. Most advanced technologies will require resources to be used.

While what we just discussed hopefully took care of both major problems, they introduced new ones.

A consequence of the new fleet system is that the hastily designed, totally unbalanced battle system from Milestone 1 has to go. This is not a bad thing, it’s just worth mentioning.

Many ship parts, many new types of turrets (as they would have to follow the same pattern as ship weapons), mining facilities to extract resources… The line-based research system of Milestone 1 will not be sufficient to handle this. A graph-based research system, similar in structure to Beta 5′s, will be implemented. It will not feature any optional technologies at this point, as this would require some form of technology exchange. In addition, the “research budget” system used in Beta 5 will be replaced with a much simpler system allowing per-technology control.

In addition to the above features, which should introduce major changes to the gameplay, a few minor elements might be added, depending on how much time I have: a new user interface as well as replacements for both internal messages and the “normal” messaging system. The French translation may or may not be included.

Because of my relatively heavy schedule, Milestone 2 will be released sometime between April and June of 2011.

So, what about Milestone 3?

Milestone 3 has become more distant. It will definitely feature the new planet management system (from M2 in the initial post), the new economy and in-system objects (M4). It will also include forums, although its alliance management will remain simplistic – this will allow Beta 5 to finally rest in peace. It might also include the new universe structure, but that is a big “maybe”. A few alien races might be present as well.

Resources are extracted from mines on a planet’s surface, or using mining stations, which are specific space station modules equipped with mining ships; however, to ease the process, the empire never manages these mining ships directly. They are considered a part of the station.

Different types of minerals can be found on both planets and asteroids. To find minerals on a planet, owning it is enough; special agents can also obtain this information from planets owned by other empires, and probes sent to investigate a planet may be able to discover it as well. Minerals in asteroid belts can be located using probes or a mining station’s scouting abilities. Note that, to spot minerals other than titanium and copper, some technologies may be required. Some resources can be extracted faster than others due to their nature.

All of the game’s planets and asteroid belts feature some of these resources. However, the less common an element is, the smaller the amount of it which can be found and the lower its regeneration rate.

Gases can only be found in nebulae; in order to first discover a source of some gas, a player has to first send ships or probes to that location, or use a mining station’s scouting abilities. None of the gases are visible by default, they require at least one of the nebulae extraction technologies.

All types of gases are present in a nebula, but the less common a gas is, the smaller the amount. The rate of regeneration depends on the nebula’s class – class 8 nebulae will regenerate more than class 1 nebulae. This is balanced in the end as, the higher the class, the less common the nebula type is.

The final type of resource is dark matter. Dark matter can be obtained from the Oort cloud of systems neighbouring a black hole, provided the player has the appropriate technologies. Dark matter can be detected either by probes or by the mining stations’ scouting ability.

The amounts of dark matter available are relatively high around natural black holes, and much smaller around black holes created through the space-time drilling technology. In both cases, the regeneration rate is low.

Do you think there are enough resources? Too many of them? What do you think of the few details included about extracting resources?