Chris - As for Java, the previous front end was generated using PHP, this time Java Servlets are being used and in the near future GWT.

One of the more interesting things about shadow wars though, is that it’s not about what fleets you have, it’s about how you use them.

Jumpgates make for an interesting strategy in themselves, there could be an all out war on the front lines in which one team has the upper hand, but all it would take is for a jumpgate being escorted by a large fleet to make it into enemy territory by sneaking round the back, invade a planet and set up shop, giving a direct route into the back lines (although transport through them wont be free) at which point one faction could suddenly find all their hws are being stolen from under them leaving them surrounded on both sides.. Even with the superior military force, this is a *BAD* position to be in!

We’re hoping to develop a game in which an ‘all-in’ approach will work, but without sufficient planning has the chance of blowing up in your face.

The black market also introduces another interesting dynamic, sell all your resources, and buy lots of ships with the cash you make, obviously this will devastate your economy potentially to a point where you will never fully recover, but has the potential to not only destroy the opposition, but mount a counter-offensive to take back systems and land.

We’ll see how it all goes

Just kidding, can’t wait to see this running… i miss this/these game/guys.

So if everyone becomes a war general, they all have amazing ships which are unbeatable, but it’s not really that much of an advantage anymore because everynoe else has them too… (extreme case where even with some kind of implicit self-balancing leads to everyone choosing one route)

maybe a better example would be if there was a pirate/scavenger rank, where a new ship type became available which harested resources from destroyed ships.(so you send you fleet to a battle but not to fight just to watch other and collect the debris)

if everyone chooses this rank then they are splitting a limited resource (the number of ships being destroyed) among a large number of player. Thus this new ship type is less useful. If only one player chooses this rank he gets large amounts of resource for every battle which he sends his/her scavenger too… (a third rank system adds to the complexity, and may be unneeded, i only mentioned it because i couldn’t think of a good example using your current ranks off the top of my head…)

but how does this scale up to larger (2000 system) galaxies?

is a random number of connections preferable? (maybe 2-5, maybe 1-6 and perhaps with an uneven weighting…)

in a strategy war game it feels like the conomic stuff should be minor. (important for unit production(say), but fairly simple and clear how to get the best prodction from your available resources(even if which units you choose to build is more of a choice rather than a problem to solve).

So giving babysitting these powers seems a little pointless. Complete acount sharing would give an advantage to the team of players who work well together (you migth find yourself fighting one player, but you would be aware that this group acted under one commander) it amount to support for account sharing, but mean the multi-ing is at a disadvantage (one player controling many account is more difficult than many players - if the are well co-ordinated - playing many accounts) on the downside, if as a player i log in to find my ships are involved in a fight, and i don’t need to be online to help or part-take i would quickly lose interest in a game. When one player takes over all control it hurts the participation of other players…

1 rambo should be able to kill at least 10 other soldiers before he goes down. this would be interesting to make people think before they throw in all their stuff for invasion. A slightly better army should give a better result in %.

Really the game is sounding Better and Better.

Thanks for all the work.

Cova Lue