User:Epyon/EliteSec

From Thousand Parsec Wiki

Contents 1 Abstract 2 Idea Source 3 Deliverables 4 Implementation Details 5 Project Schedule 6 Brief Bio/Resume 7 Detailed timeline 7.1 April 21 -- May 25 7.2 May 25 -- July 7 7.3 July 13 -- August 18 7.4 August 11+ 8 Comments

Abstract

There were space games and there was Elite.

The goal of this assignment would be to create a ruleset for Thousand Parsec that would be in a similar spirit as the Elite series with inspirations from Traveller, Frontier, and other "me vs. the Galaxy" sources. Contrary to the typical TP ruleset, the player would not be in charge of vast fleets and owning many planets, but rather be based around a single ship, with the possibility of recruiting a small amount of helpers. To further make the proposal and game interesting, let's go the Elite way and generate content randomly, including, but not limited to planet positions, names and descriptions, trade routes, economical/political situations of planets, etc. The universe should feel alive without the players actions.

Each player starts just with his ship and a fistful of credits. From this point on he can pursue any career he'd like. Buying new ships, hiring escorts, and creating a trade empire by first buying offices at, and then whole space stations could allow him pursuing the trade path. Recruiting various scum, and traveling across known lanes would make him pursue the adventurous path of the pirate. But he should be wary that piracy is illegal, and sooner or later, a bounty would be placed on his head, either by fellow players, the police or the military. Another type of players could pursue the bounty hunter path, and try to catch those players with bounties.

Possibilities are endless, and the game can be brilliant, as long as we keep in mind the spirit of Elite/Traveller, and the fact that it should be a truly multiplayer game, allowing as much interaction between players as is possible in a turn-based environment.

Idea Source

A similar idea was presented last year by nash and myself, though solely based on Elite. It has since then been discussed about a little and has a page on the wiki: http://www.thousandparsec.net/wiki/Traders

To ease writing, I will in this document call the proposed ruleset EliteSec.

Deliverables

A ruleset module for TP implementing a interesting and balanced Space Exploration game. Also required extensions to the server, and proposals for enhancements to the protocol/client (if needed in the design). Along the module I will deliver all it's datafiles, each one with solid and complete documentation for anyone wanting to do a modifications.

As an additional delivery, I plan to keep all the content generators (planet/ship names, planetary descriptions, system descriptions, events) in a separate universal module to allow re-usage of it by any TP-based game.

If a graphical 3D client (or 2D even) will be developed this GSoC, and it's creator will be interested in making it compatible with EliteSec I'm also willing to supply the media for EliteSec (ship/station/planet) models.

Implementation Details

The ruleset will be developed in C++.

The following features will be included in the project, separated as much as possible for reusage:

• dynamical economy model (that wont allow abusing good trade routes)
• combat (it would have to be interesting, but still adhere to the turn count and hands-off principle -- probably allowing escapes and detailed ship damage)
• trade "empire" management (allowing the hiring of proxies to do stuff, allowing buying of immovable property, but on the other hand somewhat restricted, so the game doesn't turn into boring micromanagement)
• ships/ship upgrades (customization of ships would play a major role in the game, just as research plays in 4X games)
• special events (like disease outbreaks -- quarantine and rise of medicine price in a system, war -- hiring and dangerous to travel through, revolutions -- illegal arms smuggling for big profit, etc)
• information propagation (I really like nash's idea that information travels at lightspeed, so it's not instant. Information/rumors would spread from point of origin, and might come to the desired place too late)
• reputation -- one of the most important information types. Reputation travels even more slowly than information, so you may still be able to pass through a system where theoretically you should be considered an outlaw already...

The player will be able to choose a gameplay path, but will not be bound to it (he will be always able to change it at whim just by making other choices). This way the player will always find something interesting to do:

• trading -- the primary path, especially for the pacifist. Except of always searching new trade routes (old ones get less and less benefactory as economy adjusts itself to the action of the player), he has to fend off pirates, buy better ships and establish a trading empire. Of course you can always try to transport less then legal cargo...
• piracy -- the flip coin of the traders path -- you can pirate on passing spaceships by maintaining a good ship and some minions. Passing spaceships may include players too...
• bounty hunting -- where there are pirates there are also prices on their heads. The bounty hunter collects those. His enemies are both computer ships as well as player controlled entities. The shady side of the bounty hunter is of course the assassin, but he should watch out for...
• military -- you can also do missions for the one of the empires. Better not try to do them for more then one, or you may become a traitor.

This is just the tip of an iceberg, other occupations that may be thought about is scouting and mining, for example.

Project Schedule

I plan on working on the project fulltime during summer -- I have no summer job, nor school responsibilities. I plan to maintain a blog with progress update.

In the case of a ruleset implementation the first part of the development will be creating a complete and thought through design document of the ruleset that takes into account balance, fun and that is in the scope of the 2 months time (with a possible section on "further" improvements). The game realized in the 2 months timeframe must be complete, playable and fun.

The design document will be finished before the official coding time starts, and will be presented to the community in the form of wiki pages that anyone can comment on. Design will be then finalized and frozen before the deadline of May 28. Also up to this date I assume to learn the details of the TP system in it's current shape, and submit proposals for enhancements if needed.

The design will define a midpoint project -- a PLAYABLE game with basic capabilities. At this point I will probably be trying to find playtesters so we can see how the game handles in real life.

The coding time will be divided into two parts -- first one will implement the midpoint project. At this point I start to run games and gather as much feedback/bug reports as possible to be included/fixed in the second part of the project. The second part will have new versions of the ruleset uploaded for testing at least weekly, and I'll be constantly monitoring feedback during this time (if the amount of people interested will be large I might need someone to help me organize all the stuff).

Brief Bio/Resume

I'm a Computer Science PhD student (1st year) at the Wroclaw University, Poland. My interests lie in Game Programming and Design, with a special hunch for Real-time Procedural Content.

I've successfully taken part in last year's GSoC creating a Procedural City Generator for BZFlag ( project homepage, out of date, http://bzflag.chaosforge.org/ ).

I know several computer languages, tough I favor FreePascal (Delphi) and C++ that I currently write my own projects in. These include the beginnings of a 3D game engine ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/libvalkyrie ) in C++, and an unannounced space combat/trading game (codenamed StarDreamer), which heavily is inspired by Elite and Frontier.

I am a big fan of roguelike games, due to their randomness, and the focus on gameplay over presentation. I have managed to write several roguelikes up to date, the most famous one of them being DoomRL ( http://doom.chaosforge.org ) that did even get mentions in contemporary gaming magazines. I also know how to do game designs and organize my time and work, having taken part in three 7DRL Competitions (aimed at writing a playable and fun roguelike game in 7 days), and managed to finish them successfully each time.

Rules design is something that I needed to learn well, because good, balanced and interesting rules were the only way to get attention to a roguelike game. I always given high value to user submission evaluation in my projects, what can be seen on my games' forum ( http://forum.chaosforge.org/ ).

• Homepage : http://chaosforge.org/
• IRC Nick : Epyon

Detailed timeline

A detailed timeline is hard to write without a good plan of implementation and an extended knowledge of the TP framework, hence this is just a guideline that is subject to change before May 25.

April 21 -- May 25

Design, planning and research.

May 25 -- July 7

• May 25 - May 31 : application framework, basic class structure, and the ability to handle connections -- basic framework, possibly Lua support
• June 1 - June 7 : basic world generation (names, descriptions, systems, trade info), sending them to the client (and if necessary, changes to one of the clients)
• June 8 - June 14 : basic orders (trade, movement, ship upgrades), trade system, combat code
• MILESTONE 1 (June 14) - game needs to be operable by multiple clients, with full information for all
• June 15 - June 21 : events (combat events, planetary events, information events), event generation, message generation
• June 22 - June 28 : non-player organizations (generation, AI, ownage of systems, system conquering, reputation system, and display to the player)
• June 29 - July 5 : missions (random generation, descriptions, rewards and completion and progress checking)
• July 6 - July 12 : preparations for a open testing server (polishing and documentation, server setup, testing, client modifications, eventual additional media for the graphical clients)
• MILESTONE 2 (July 12) - server will be playable and open to people, a discussion forum, or other medium will be set up to playtest/discuss the game. I will also provide some initial beta-testers ;)

July 13 -- August 18

• July 13 - July 19 : additional rules (information propagation, NPC helpers (see below) implementation))
• July 20 - July 26 : roles revisited (balancing and additional content rules for the trade, piracy, bounty hunting and military career paths)
• July 27 - August 2 : lategame improvements (buying fixed world elements, like hangars, bases etc, rules for them)
• August 3 - August 18 : polishing up, finalization, documentation before the final deadline. Additional buffer time for an unexpected delay.
• MILESTONE 3 (August 18) - the basic game features are complete, the game is initially balanced, no longer in testing, but a beta.

August 11+

This is one of the games that if executed well always has room for improvement. If it will work, and start gaining players, I'm sure to work on it more (including maybe even a dedicated graphical client).

Comments

Nash:

• You mention quite a few nice features:
  • How are you going to implement them? How are you going to model a dynamic economy for instace?
  • Algorithms would be nice.
• Helpers - what can they do?
• Can you tell me how it would compare to things like http://www.aatraders.com/ (and it's many many relatives)?
  • Why will this be better?

Epyon:

Economy

Economy isn't that hard once you think about it. There will be a "natural" state of economy for each planed (hence a natural state for the galaxy) which will only be influenced by global events (famine, food shortage, mineral discovery, war, etc).

Now in a nutshell the algorithm will work the following : If a player buys something at a planet, the given goods price will rise a little bit. If he sells something, the price of that good will fall a little bit. Hence, repeating the same route will get less and less profit. If no trade with the given article will be done in a given turn, the articles value will very slowly revert to it's original (galaxy) state. So exploiting a given price difference wont be possible, because it will after a time get unprofitable. However, you will be able to leave that for a longer time, and remeber to come back once the price difference is again profitable :).

Moreover because of the slower than light information speed and the fact that the universe is random you will not be able to just check all the planets for the best deals -- you will have to go there yourself and search the deal for yourself. Of course once you earn some cash, you can setup an agent on the planet that will send you reports about the current prices.

Helpers

There are several ideas for these, helpers may include (but are not limited to)

• market agents (as mentioned above) that will be able to send you economical reports and keep you updated
• informants -- especially useful for bounty hunters and pirates -- will send information on ship movements in a given sector
• mercenaries/pirates -- additional escort ships that will tag along with your ship increasing your military defensive and offensive power

Comparision to other trade games

You suggest that it will be better, and I never said such a thing :P. But yes, I'd like it to be better. I never played the linked game, I read about it a little and can point out the few unique features that EliteSec will have:

• the random universe with random events -- in the spirit of Elite and it's successors the game will have a universe built algorithmically, that will be different each time that started anew. Random events will provide the needed freshness of things happening.

• EliteSec will be on a much smaller scale -- you manage one ship and it's entourage, and possibly some outposts, not a trade empire. I far more prefer managing the story of my own ship than a gigantic empire that's boring to micromanage. In EliteSec you will wander around a living galaxy, not run the otherwise dead galaxy yourself. The goal is to provide the feeling of a living galaxy and freedom to explore it as was seen in Elite.

• EliteSec will allow more freedom and more choices in the paths to be taken by a player, as stated in the initial proposal. What you do, will depend entirely on you -- there will be no "best" path. It's not just trade, civilize and conquer. You don't have to micromanage if you don't have to -- you can explore the galaxy as you will.

• In EliteSec you will be able to receive missions, from various sources (Military, Civilian, Criminal, Trade) with growing hardness and benefits, the more of them you do. An increase in playability factor ("one more mission..."). The fun part is that missions will be available until someone completes them, and considering that some of them might be galaxy wide, there may be often a situation involved that many players are competing who finishes a mission first.

• In EliteSec it's not you who's running the show, there are many factions, both military/political (Empire, Federation, Alliance) and other (crime syndicates, trade syndicates, bounty hunter agencies -- possibly regenerated each time anew). You have a standing with each of those factions, and that determines your standing with them (better not hang in imperial space if you're doing a lot of missions for the alliance...). The reputation system I hope will be quite interesting, and provide an incentive to play :>.

I have to admit, that most of this came from the design of StarDreamer :).