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.

Stock market buildings

Of course, in order to use the stock market system, specific buildings have to be constructed. There are two categories of buildings that have an influence on the stock market system.

The first category contains the actual stock market buildings; only one such building can be constructed on each planet. The category contains four “levels”, each level providing higher benefits and lower risks.

In addition to the stock market itself, an economic simulator can be constructed (providing that one is available, of course); economic simulators are supercomputers which specialise in trying to predict the market’s tendencies, therefore anticipating problems and helping solve them. Like the stock market building, only one economic simulator might be built on each planet.

Regulating stock market usage

While the stock market’s output cannot be affected directly, players can control how it is used through two sets of laws. The exact names of these laws have not been determined yet, but the principles are described below.

One of the sets controls the nationalisation or privatisation of the planet’s industry. When the industry is nationalised, the state gets the full benefits from the factories’ production, but the stock market has no influence over these benefits. The higher the privatisation level, and the lower the direct benefits for the empire; however, since the stock market’s value affects the output, these benefits are sometimes heightened. With the lowest level of privatisation and the lowest level of stock market building, the benefits will range between 95% and 105% of what they would normally be; on the other side of the spectrum, the benefits will range from 89% to 135% of normal (the potential loss is higher, but it is more likely to increase the overall benefits). One last option remains – a law which can only be obtained by empires with the “Sneaky” alignment. This law allows the state to pretend the industry is controlled by the private sector, while actually owning it through a set of holdings and fake companies. In this case, the benefits will be between 96% and 145% of normal.

The second set of laws allows players to privatise their planets’ tax collection infrastructure. This will affect the planets’ base income, indexing it on the stock market.

Next time, on the LWB6 blog…

This post explained the basics of the stock market system – how it is enabled and how a player interacts with it. Next time, we’ll take a look at how it actually works.

Several buildings with either different effects or different levels of effect on the same parameters are available. These buildings are organised in several building types, each including several building categories.

Alliance buildings which can only be constructed on planets owned by alliances, which they provide with additional coordination capabilities.

Economy buildings can provide an empire with either money or work units to manufacture items or extract resources.

Environmental buildings reduce the effects of a planet’s industrial infrastructure on pollution.

Governmental buildings provide general government facilities improving the control over the population and the happiness of the population which feels like being cared about. These buildings can also feed the population with propaganda or increase the security of the planet, thus making it less prone to rebellion or corruption and harder to take over.

Health care buildings improve the population’s health, thus leading to a higher population growth on planets.

Housing buildings provide additional living space, therefore making the planet capable of hosting more inhabitants on the planet.

Military buildings contribute to the defense of a planet (to reduce the damage caused by an attacking force) or take part in the destruction of enemy fleets.

Recreational facilities provide the population of a planet with entertainment, thus increasing its overall happiness.

Science and education buildings allow for a greater scientific output of the planet.

Travel buildings are buildings which allow the population of a planet to move on the planet, to other planets of the same empire or to other empires and increase the efficiency of the transportation of raw materials and goods.

Each type of building as described above include about 30 different buildings for the smallest sets.

All these buildings have to be constructed, thus using part of the building place available on the planet. The room they use depends on their size. Of course there is a set of dependencies for each building, be it technologies or other buildings. As such not all buildings are available immediately – far from it. Moreover some buildings can be considered as different versions of others, which makes it possible to transform one building into another of the same type.

Construction of buildings includes of course a cost in money and occasionally other resources; it isn’t immediate as it was for Beta 5: the time to build depends on the size and complexity of the building, represented by an amount of work units, which are produced by inhabitants of the planets who are employed as construction workers. Finally, a building has a maintenance cost, which consists in a number of work units it requires to stay in good shape.

Buildings have hit points and can be damaged or destroyed through bombardments of the planet, or if the workforce assigned to maintenance is insufficient. Damaged building are less efficient and tend to generate more pollution.

Building destruction takes time too: it is again managed through work units which are provided by the construction workforce.

What do you think of having actual buildings? What do you think of the way we intend to manage them? Do you think the suggested categories are adequate? Can you think of others?

There are two main types of hulls. Standard, mechanical hulls are the most basic option, while it is possible later in the game to create biological ships if the proper technologies have been researched. Biological ships, while leaving slightly less internal space available, are more robust and possess natural regenerative properties; they also include a basic power generation unit.

In addition, it is possible to categorise ship hulls according to their size. Indeed ship hulls come in all sizes and shapes. The size of a ship hull determines how the ship will be used.

Ships using tiny hulls are appropriate as scouts, or later in the game, when miniaturisation has been perfected, as small fighters. Tiny hulls imply a high maneuverability but a low firepower and protection.

Small hulls make very good fighters. While still being highly maneuverable, they can support many more components than tiny hulls and are usually somewhat more robust. The default fighter design is based on a small hull.

Medium hulls are useful to make ground troops carriers, or high-power fighters. They are much less maneuverable by default than their smaller counterparts, but are clearly more robust.

Big hulls are appropriate for high-powered local defenses, or basic hyperspace-capable carrier crafts. They are about as maneuverable as a fridge, tho. However, they can take a beating before blowing up.

Huge hulls make excellent capital ships. Their size allows them to be outfitted with lots of weapons as well as hangar bays for smaller ships. While having a very low maneuverability, they are very robust.

Enormous hulls are, well, enormous. Whatever one might want to put inside a ship, it’s likely that this type of hull can handle it. However, their maneuverability is low, and while this is amply compensated by their great robustness, they will require a crew to fly.

Gigantic hulls are almost as big as possible. They are capable of carrying loads of equipment and are highly robust. They require a crew and are not quite maneuverable.

Colossal hulls are the biggest hulls available. Even gigantic hulls are small compared to these mastodons. Their maneuverability is as low as it gets, and they require a crew. But on the other hand, these can really be made into flying fortresses that can take as much of a pounding as an entire fleet of smaller ships.

The list of hulls players can use has been divided between mechanical and biological hulls. Both lists are ordered by size.

The first one deals with mechanical hulls.

The second list regroups biological hulls. None of these ships have direct equivalents in Beta 5, and none are available by default.

The first set of hangar bays is designed for mechanical ships. The various categories of hangar bays have different sizes, allowing to carry more or less smaller ships.

The second set is designed for biological ships. Their biological nature makes them all extensible, allowing them to store more ships than their mechanical counterparts.

Biological generators are generators based on biological reactions. They are of course only compatible with biological hulls.

Zero-point generators rely on advanced knowledge of the universe’s underlying structure. They are based on advanced concepts and considered to be compatible with both mechanical and biological ships.

In this first post we introduce the mechanical generators – which are of course specific to mechanical ships. A second, later post will present the other generator types.

Passive generators are generators that collect energy from external sources and convert it.

Nuclear generators are generators based on nuclear reactions. They are the most basis power source and the first level of nuclear generators is the one available to all players at the beginning of the game.

Anti-matter generators are based on matter / anti-matter reactions.

Missile countermeasures come in three different types.

• Anti-missile weapon systems (AMWS) are weapons that try to shoot incoming missiles to destroy them; this type of countermeasure uses a lot of space on board.
• Electronic missile countermeasures (EMC) try to fool an incoming missile’s guidance system to prevent it from reaching its target. They are much smaller than anti-missile weapon systems, however they are very demanding on the ship’s generators.
• Physical missile countermeasures (PMC – for lack of a better name) use advanced knowledge of the universe’s structure to get rid of incoming missiles. While these systems use quite a lot of space and energy, they are more efficient than EMCs or AMWSs.

Do you have other ideas of possible missile counter measures?

Do you have ideas of other categories of missile counter measures?

While this very powerful technology has quite a few inconvenients (it costs a lot and presents a variety of risks), it gives an alliance the ability to attack an alliance located on another layer without having to go through potentially dozens of supergates, which can be quite a lengthy process and could alert the target before it’s too late if the fleets are detected on their way.

To use the space-time drilling ability, the first requirement is the construction of ships equipped with space-time-drills. These very cumbersome, power-hungry and expensive pieces of equipment can only be transported by the largest ships. The space-time drills carried by the ships are necessary, but not sufficient to the use of the ability. A drilling control center has to be constructed in the system that will be used as the point of origin; this building can only be constructed on a planet owned by an alliance.

Once driller ships have been brought to the origin system and the drilling center has been built, the alliance must decide which layer the drill is to reach, as well as the approximative location of the fleets when they arrive. The distance between the layers determines the amount of energy drilling will require: the higher the energy, the more ships are needed. Planets in the system being drilled contribute to the amount of energy produced.

After the decision has been taken, the drilling operation is initiated. It lasts quite some time, depending on the amount of energy required. During the drilling process, space-time in the origin system is being heavily modified; any interruption of the process, for example if enough driller ships are destroyed, or the planet on which the control centre is gets captured, the whole system will be destroyed immediately and turn into a black hole.

Once the drilling is complete, all fleets in the system at the time (including enemy ships) are sent to the approximative location selected by the alliance’s commanders. However, some ships will be lost, some fleets will end up in the wrong layer … In any case, the origin system is completely destroyed and turns into a black hole.

What do you think of the possibility to go from one layer to another without using supergates?

Do you think the cost (in time, resources, potential losses), the complexity of the process and the required technological level are high enough to avoid having black hole flourishing all around the universe? What would have been the limits you would have defined?

Some missiles exist in different variants, depending on their guidance and propulsion systems. This is not the case for all missiles, as some of them really require advanced automation or powerful engines, while others are really too basic to be worth an upgrade.

The type of guidance system can be either automaton (A), which is the most basic, intelligent (I), where the missile uses artificial intelligence up to a “human” cognition level, or Hyperturing (H), where the missile is actually much more intelligent than you.

Propulsion systems for missiles include chemical propulsion (C), which is the most basic, ion drive (D) and graviton drive (G).

Do you have other ideas of missiles?

Do you have other ideas of missile guidance systems? Do you have other ideas of missile propulsion systems?