Fleetops Persistant Game

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 6:04 am

Don’t you hate it when you lose all your amazing leveled up ships at the end of a game? Does it strike you as odd that ships take years to be built in Star trek yet they are built in a few seconds in FO? Do you wish that your admiral could have unique properties and gain experience? Can you manage to micro your ships or manage your macro game but not both at the same time? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions I may have an idea that would appeal to you, a persistent FO game that would play out much like risk. Simply you would build a base in a certain region gather supplies, build ships, and then warp your ships to battlezones and fight.

In this game you would have control over what ships are built, what technologies are Researched, what crew and officers get assigned to the starships. You would have control over everything that a normal admiral would have to deal with. Your admiral would rankup and gain experience based on his/her performance in battle and maybe out of battle too.

Now you might think that this would be a lot of work and be somewhat of a far-reaching idea and at first that’s what I thought too. However im not sure that it would be. Here is my thought on how it could be done. Your metagame/4X would be played in a special program that would create a custom game using MMM based on what ships you have and what enemies you will be facing. After you get done playing the game the program could use the log to see what happened in the game.

I think that multiplayer could consist of both players vs AI and players vs players.

My brain is kinda fried now maybe ill write some more later.

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 9:21 am

Sounds very interesting.  Also sounds like it wouldn't be an RTS but a turn-based strategy that might involve an RTS sub-game for combat or what-have-you.

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 10:51 am

I have a confession to make <.< I used to board enemy ships in FOps and alt tab to Star Trek Away Team and pretend I was boarding it. The only thing that was missing was a game to substitute for planet battles.

Imagine how cool that would be, something like Empires at War for space and land battles + Star Trek away team so you have 3 different type of RTS's all merged in-to one game. I can dream 

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 11:30 am

Possible, I think. What we need is serialization for in-game objects, and I think Chris could do that with MMM.

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 2:59 pm

I sort of had a go at something sort of similar in MMM, where you play on a hex map and move fleets (represented by single ships for each fleet type) around. When a fleet enters a hex you can do certain missions - freighter might do a mining mission, warships would do convoy escort/raid depending on if it was an enemy hex, stuff like that. Haven't got that far on it yet though as it's a lot of work. Also single player only at this point.

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 4:21 pm

I sort of had a go at something sort of similar in MMM, where you play on a hex map and move fleets (represented by single ships for each fleet type) around. When a fleet enters a hex you can do certain missions - freighter might do a mining mission, warships would do convoy escort/raid depending on if it was an enemy hex, stuff like that. Haven't got that far on it yet though as it's a lot of work. Also single player only at this point.

I know that it's pretty hard to do anything like this distributed. I've written a few network games in the past, there's a lot of data the two sides would need to exchange that aren't handled by A2. What one would need is a separate TCP connection, over which all the necessary MMM data is exchanged.

[_Zap_]

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 4:28 pm

Last edited by _Zap_ on January 22nd, 2012, 5:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not that I wouldn't absolutely love the idea of that, but FO as it is at the moment would probably not make for very interesting mining-missions. Unless there are enemy assaults that try to prevent you from mining, researching and preparing for battle it would probably be all the same and kinda boring. Maybe one could choose from a special menu all the researches and ships one wants to have, limited by a set amount of ressources that would have been gathered if you would have been sitting there for 10 minutes staring at your miners.

Edit:
Also, a big part of the game is to shift production ingame from a unit that is being countered by the enemy to an unit that counters him, so if you prepare for battle with an intrepid-fleet you might find yourself at a slight disadvantage when encountering laevahl. Also, gameplay as it is now with raiding, bases and expansions that are being built, fought over and raided would not be possible if you have no mining ect. o protect in combat-missions. The focus of the game would need to shift to something like holding/conquering certain positions or units.
And the value of a ship would probably be higher then it is now. If you lose 15% of your ships at each engagement, even if you utterly destroy the enemy, you might find yourself severly weakened when getting to an enemy base.
Maybe other economical elements can be put in, like a global resource pool that global researches can be made from? Guess where my thoughts are going, that would need a totally new game.

Remember SW:Empire at War Campaign Mode? You would start out with a System or a couple, and you had the ability to spend money on their buildings to either increase your income or give you the ability to produce certain units, or to tech up. You could build on planets and in space, better infrastructure giving you access to more units.
This, more complex and thought out might make for a nice game.

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 4:46 pm

I know that it's pretty hard to do anything like this distributed. I've written a few network games in the past, there's a lot of data the two sides would need to exchange that aren't handled by A2. What one would need is a separate TCP connection, over which all the necessary MMM data is exchanged.

Yep, I can do it, just making it so that the game knows what is going on and doesn't go out of sync is the bit that is a problem.

Not that I wouldn't absolutely love the idea of that, but FO as it is at the moment would probably not make for very interesting mining-missions. ...

The details weren't really nailed down, was just a general idea of a mission that had something to do with getting a resource or something. I wasn't going to make people to sit there and mine 10000 dilithium or something

posted on January 22nd, 2012, 8:28 pm

I sort of had a go at something sort of similar in MMM, where you play on a hex map and move fleets (represented by single ships for each fleet type) around. When a fleet enters a hex you can do certain missions - freighter might do a mining mission, warships would do convoy escort/raid depending on if it was an enemy hex, stuff like that. Haven't got that far on it yet though as it's a lot of work. Also single player only at this point.

YES. Yes yes yes. 

posted on January 23rd, 2012, 3:26 am

Cool ha im just glad that i can be done

posted on January 23rd, 2012, 4:13 am

One possible model for such a game mode is the single-player campaign in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. It managed to blend the two styles quite well, in my opinion.

posted on January 23rd, 2012, 7:24 am

In anything, I'd hope for something more like SFC... fewer ships, limited but tense encounters, a persistent sector map with a faction-control mechanic...

posted on January 23rd, 2012, 9:46 am

Hmmmm... I think you've been playing the total war series too much.... yeeees!

FO is a realtime strategy game and that's how it should stay!

posted on January 23rd, 2012, 12:41 pm

The trouble with persistent gameplay in a single-player campaign would be that you'd have to have a dynamically-scaled AI fleet on the opposing team ...

If you've made some great choices in Mission N, for example, got 16 Veteran-rank Sovereigns, but the AI in Mission N+1 isn't very strong, Mission N+1 will be far too easy. On the other hand, if the AI strength is high, yet you've not managed to get a very good group together to carry across from Mission N, it could make Mission N+1 impossible.

... and unfortunately, the AI in Armada² just isn't that sophisticated, to be able to scale itself like that.

[Anonymous]

posted on January 23rd, 2012, 1:34 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on January 23rd, 2012, 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I really like the idea of having a longer term game that took place over several sectors.  Someone should come up with a galaxy map based on current playable FO maps.


It could be similar to the way that Galactic Conquest worked in Battlefront, where you see a map of sectors which are connected by almost randomized lines.  Players start at opposite ends of the map and have to fight for each sector.  At the end of the battle, points can be used to purchase perks that may be used in the next, or all future battles.

Here is a vid.  In the beginning you can see what I am talking about.

       Star Wars: Battlefront II - Galactic Conquest Pt. 1
     - YouTube