9 Oct

Shadow Wars - Designing a Game - Part 4

Category: Uncategorized

Non-Combat Ships

There are four non-combat ships. The colony ship is important early on in the game, allowing you to expand your colonies to the planets and asteroids surrounding your homeworld. The trading ship provides a means of transferring much needed resouces between those worlds.

As the game progresses and you start to encounter hostile fleets and worlds, you may wish to build up forces to invade those worlds. The drop ship carries troops to invade hostile worlds.

Finally the jump ship is a special ship only worth building later on in the game. It can establish new wormholes between planets. If protected heavily and deployed where most needed, they could easily tip the balance in a long running game.

Colony Ship
- Create new colonies on neutral planets/asteroids

Trading Ship
- Transfer Mass & Energy between colonies

Drop Ship
- Capture hostile colonies

Jump Ship
- Very Expensive
- Establishes Planetary Jump Gate at a Colony
- Can be used to travel to any Planetary Jump Gate in any adjacent system

Colony Types

A planet is large, with the most room to build all the different structures, but has a low abundance of Mass & Energy. An asteroid on the other hand is relatively small with little space for structures, but has a high abundance of Mass & Energy.

Planet
- 80 structure spaces
- Standard mass abundance (+100)
- Standard energy abundance (+100)

Asteroid
- 40 spaces available
- High mass abundance (+150)
- High energy abundance (+150)

Colonization
- Settle uninhabited planets/asteroids
- A single Colony Ship is required to colonize a planet/asteroid
- Must have a Planetary Governer available

Invasion
- Capture Colonies from hostile players
- Fleet must be in the same square as the hostile Colony
- No hostile fleets present in the same square as the Colony
- Only Droids can invade a Colony
- Only Drop Ships can carry Droids in a fleet
- Must have a Planetary Governer available

Inter-Planetary Travel
- Inter-Planetary travel is travel between two locations in the same system.
- Within any system travel time is 4 turns

Inter-Stellar Travel
- Inter-Stellar travel is travel between two jump gates in connected systems.
- Travel time to an Allied system (allied colonies, no hostile colonies) is 4 turns.
- Travel time to a Contested system (allied & hostile colonies) is 6 turns.
- Travel time to a Neutral system (no colonies) is 8 turns.
- Travel time to a Hostile system (only hostile colonies) is 8 turns.

Posted Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Filed Under Category: Uncategorized
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Responses to “Shadow Wars - Designing a Game - Part 4”

Cova Lue || October 12th, 2008 at 3:05 am

I liked the way you are going to handle the e-mail.

the addision of the three other noncombat ships will make the game more fun, and the jump ship is a good idea to add.

waster || October 12th, 2008 at 8:47 am

ok, but what exactly will the systems look like?

and there is a serious problem that i see with this linear travel. what if you start on the far left side of the galaxy? getting toward the action would be very difficult/time consuming. also you would be safer (safer=bored) from enemy attacks than someone that was in the borderlands and would not have easy access to the juicy neutral planets. and if you start at the edge of the neutral zone you would have a serious advantage from the close proximity of the neutral planets and a serious disadvantage because you would be the first one to get hit by the enemy.

you need to give everyone equal travel time from the faction to the neutral areas and limited growth(each player can only build in his starting system and neutral territory) and protection in faction territory(enemy cannot enter factions starting territory/call the game won when the neutral territory is completely owned by one side) or else i do not think that the game will work.

waster || October 12th, 2008 at 9:03 am

sorry to be so critical. i know you guys are putting a lot of effort into this and i want you to know that i really do appreciate what you are doing.

but i am working this game flo out in my head and…as i understand the game layout if you started on the edge of the neutral zone you would have a major advantage. more so than i stated earlier. you would have the SAFEST neutral planets becuase you would be able to claim the systems closest to your factions zone. people further out would be forced to take the systems further out (slowing down their growth even more) and they would then be shielding the folks that had first claim.

players that sign on later would be forced to either A:take systems that are on the front or B:take systems that are owned by the enemy, who in this situation would already have the advantage in terms of development. severely limiting planets (by implementing governors effectively) may encourage established players to assist newer players (who have planet limit available). but this could still be a major source of frustration for new players since the place for new players is NOT on the frontlines(whether or not they are in the relaxed or dedicated game).

waster || October 12th, 2008 at 9:12 am

deleting inactives will be 100% nessasary for the success of this game. with the addition that only new players be able to colonize planets that are behind friendly lines. people that have played for less than 100 or 200 turns for example. (i dont know enough about the game mechanics to set a real turn number) without a feature like this you will see the same diminishing returns that you did with dg. new players will simply not hang around long enough to build a player base. by forcing established players to the front and allowing late starters the same access to ’safe’ systems as those that signed up first you would have a far better gaming experience for everyone.

k. i am done for now. luv ya!

waster || October 12th, 2008 at 9:15 am

btw what i just said would be easier to do than it sounds. just tag the systems of deleted players as ‘newbie only’ when the player is deleted.

Dolon || February 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 pm

It would be refreshing to see a bit more organic design, perhaps using a random number generator system. Some systems could have 3 habitable planets and 7 asteroids, others could have only 2 planets and 3 asteroids, others could have 5 planets and 8 asteroids, etc etc. The distance between these “gem systems” (the lifeless systems with no possible landing points or valuable resources (dwarf stars, etc.) would be ignored for game purposes of course. Giving the feel of exploring the actual galaxy would add an element of realism which I think many people crave in a space strategy game.

Dolon || February 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 pm

Furthermore, I think this is what DG lacked. It seemed so artificial, neat little boxes and rows of systems with the identical number of planets, the only variation being the statistics of the planets you found once you scanned them…. :D It’s really nice to see the creative juices flowing (/me hides behind a tree and chuckles)

FrostyCoolSlug || March 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

We are going to have varying numbers of planets / asteroid fields on a per-system basis, just to mix things up a bit.

We are hoping to add a way for players to move forward through friendly territory faster than moving backwards, this will allow people towards the back to get to the front quickly. There is, however, a strategic advantage to staying at the back.. You’re going to be safer at the back than at the front.. there’s a risk/reward thing with positioning.

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