I'll play this more when I have time. What kind of suggestions do you want? Like do you have vision of alien species or do you want ideas? Do you have a framework for espionage? Want ideas about random events and unique planet finds? Ideas about internal politics I suggested? Just mechanical suggestions? I'm always brimming with ideas and I don't want to seem like I'm imposing them on you.
To be honest, even the initial impression you shared is very valuable, as it shows a new player experience and spots problems that are not obvious for me or those who already know the game well enough.
So, most important suggestions are:
1) UI and convenience related things - what to emphasise, how adequate is the Tutorial, how easy it is to understand the basic game concepts (build a ship, colonise a planet, research new technology), etc
2) Game mechanics suggestions - those you listed, basically - random events, politics, etc - but this requires some understanding of what the current gameplay is. And this is why:
Take the espionage, for example. The common concept is to build or hire dedicated spy units and assign them some task.
My concept is a bit different. Instead of hiring spies, I am going to introduce three type of modules to install on ships. These are: "spy base module", "spying probe module", "cloaking device".
When you install a "spy base" on any ship you get your spy ship. If you have open borders with another race, this spy ship would just fly and do spying. If borders are closed, you need a "cloaking device" to be installed additionally. Effectiveness of this "cloaking device" is defined by your spy ship experience and amount of energy your ship dissipates. So, theoretically you can cloak a dreadnought full of guns, but practically it would be nearly impossible due to enormous amount of dissipated energy.
"Clocking device" when it works gives you the possibility to hide in an enemy territory until you attack someone with this ship, fail a dedicated spying mission or your ship is discovered by enemy counterintelligence.
There will be two kinds of a spying activity:
- Passive
- Active
Passive spying is a background process that does not require much attention from a player. In general case this is the gathering of information. Information in the "passive" spying mode is discovered by small potions, i.e. a cloaked spy entered an enemy system will not get the exact information about enemy fleet composition instantly, but will be receiving it gradually.
There is different type of information that can be gathered and it depends on a planet the spy is investigating. For example, if we spying a Research planet, we can get the list of technologies an enemy has, if we just spying a big planet rich in population, we will most likely get information about other systems of this race, routes to those systems, fleets at those systems, etc.
To avoid having a spying ship constantly orbiting some enemy planet, we can use a "spying probe module" to leave a probe in some system.
Enemy passive activity can be discovered only by counterintelligence.
Passive activity would not get more that two spying experience points.
Active spying is a different thing and is performed only when ordered by a player.
Active spying can be sabotage, steal of technology, inciting to riot, counterintelligence, etc.
Such kind of mission can fail and leads to uncloaking of a spying ship, so enemy can attack and destroy it.
There is also a "counterintelligence building" that can be built on a planet. It costs upkeep, but gives a probability of detecting passive enemy spies and lowers enemy chances on successful active spying.
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So, to summarise, any kind of ideas are welcomed and I can promise I answer them in either accepting and telling when and how I am going to implement them, or telling why exactly I think they do not fit well in a general design
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Topic: Galaxia: Remember Tomorrow - 4x space strategy game (Alpha15D) (Read 86148 times)