passed the 4k

[ssilk]

- The lack of real consequences is a good point. We were talking about the pollution killing the trees in the long run. Maybe there should be other "more permanent" effects.

When I read Garm's note about consequences, my first thought was a "final enemy". Some giant bug. Or a really, really big worm. I thought about the game "snake" (everybody knows it) and the worm is such a big thing, than he can eat two trains at once. And when he does that, he gets longer. But he is slow and the radar warns really early.
I also have always the special weapons of Supreme Commander in my mind. I loved the enormous differences in size. I loved the bug-thing there: slow, but powerfully and good shields.

Because when speaking of consequences: a really big enemy can pop up and every time he come, because too much pollution, he will be stronger. Some kind of tower defense can stop him.

- The "motivation to play" has been something we have in mind from the beginning. Actually that is the main reason why there is the fight in the game in the first place. On the other hand we found that it is quite interesting "just to manage the big factories": walk around, see how things are working, do small optimizations, etc. Anyway the examples you gave are good inspiration.

Well, one of the things the game needs to find out and start scripts which does make some things happen. Just a list:

* is the player good or bad?
* how fast?
* how much standing around watching (afk) or always running?
* does he like fight or more build?

And so on. The point is, that depending on that, the game tries to create "tasks". Too less research? Award a bonus, if he researches X. Too less power? Well give him something, which needs really much power, so that he must learn to built it. To much pollution? A vulcano appears, which increases it. Pollution too low (too less miners)? Add some a course to his mining fields, which constantly decrease their amount. Right pollution? Never! Either too low or too high.

And so on. Well, the examples are too hard, but logic isn't needed, to start a task. We only need some semi-logic trigger. the tasks are just ... tasks and they should only help the player learning the game better.

Hmmm. There could be mods, which use this mechanism to offer their own tasks.

[ficolas]

And so on. The point is, that depending on that, the game tries to create "tasks". Too less research? Award a bonus, if he researches X. Too less power? Well give him something, which needs really much power, so that he must learn to built it. To much pollution? A vulcano appears, which increases it. Pollution too low (too less miners)? Add some a course to his mining fields, which constantly decrease their amount. Right pollution? Never! Either too low or too high. :)

Why?
The player should choose his way of playing, I like to not pollute much so creepers attack less, so I use solar pannels.
Also creepers attack because the character is polluting, if the cause is the volcano... Why would they attack the player?

However the "boss" enemy is cool and I thought about an idea of a boss enemy for my mod, but I didnt add it because biters dont seem intelligent enought.

[ssilk]

Why?
The player should choose his way of playing, I like to not pollute much so creepers attack less, so I use solar pannels.
Also creepers attack because the character is polluting, if the cause is the volcano... Why would they attack the player?

Well, of course the player should play "his" game. But all my experience with such games told me, that most players - once they find a strategy to win, to fight etc. - try to repeat this strategy. So the game gets boring.

But O.K. Some events should be optional. For example: A player who tries to fight with low pollution gets a big reward, if he tries to do it differently. Why not? The player can still choose. I don't see that as a disadvantage. It's an option!

And some (seldom!) events force the player to change his strategy. Maybe he can switch that off, before he start?

[For example where this worked absolutely perfect was in Rollercoaster Tycoon. Every level had a task, for example get 1000 visitors in the park or you cannot build higher than the trees. And you need to take that to come into the next level. But in the game you where free to built everything you wanted within the rules. And you wanted to build always a successful Rollercoaster. Or a fast one. Or you wanted one, which looked like a ghost train. Or want to make a very big train. Or a mountain landscape. Endless. My biggest park had 30 rollercoasters...]

However the "boss" enemy is cool and I thought about an idea of a boss enemy for my mod, but I didnt add it because biters dont seem intelligent enought.

Well, the AI must be completely different... Perhaps this doesn't go to the biggest pollution, but to the largest energy concentration and it grows with each destroyed accu...

That would be really cool to fight such a thing...

[Garm]

Allow me to expand my points a bit more:

1. There is necessity to build turrets, and there is turret spam one is quite different from other.

2. Biters spawning close: I had biters spawn inside my perimeter when i deconstructed an area in order to improve the design, I also notice biters spawning awfully close to walls and defenses. Having a beacon or some sort of enclosure would greatly help, Otherwise it is really bothersome to plan new base, when biters spawning left and right out of thin air.

3. Consequences...oh boy. What I meant with that word was rather broad - I wanted the world around player to reflect and retain some of the consequences of the player's actions. This does not mean bad actions only. More like small details, that player will see and remember why they happened and for what reason. This will add uniqueness to the world as it will be somewhat shaped by each player.

Here are general examples:

Intentional, Immediate effect

- Craters "See that hole? Well there was a huge biter infestation there, which was too strong for me to eliminate using conventional methods. Nukes have been used instead."
- Open-pit quarries "Yeah readings suggested a huge deposit of copper there, but surface amounts were not sufficient"
- Waste fields "I wanted cleaner air around the base!"

Unintentional, Immediate effect

- Mass biter graves "I kid you not, like 100 of them ambushed me there!"
- Car/Train wrecks "Oops...well there was an accident last week here, he he"
- Forest fires "I just wanted to scorch one biter base...I didnt know that forest was 10 kilometers wide!"
- Pollution spills "Derailing train full of waste was not smart...at least not that close the the base entrance - smells disgusting!"

Intentional, Long exposure effect

- Player planted forests to curb local pollution "I was annoyed at constant biter attacks on my powerplants - decided to plant some trees so it would appear as everything is clean outside"
- Acidic rains "I burned metric tons of coal here, not that I intend to stop"
- Polluted lakes (new water biters? useless as source of water for steam?) "I didnt need that lake anyway"
- Badlands "No wonder nothing grows here! My mining machinery left nothing but fine rock dust"
- Swamps "No wonder so much stuff grows here - whole place is like 3 meters deep in rotting biter flesh"

Unintentional, Long exposure effect

- Unique waves from afar "I guess some new species of biters didn't like the air today...I guess I have to explore in that direction and wipe out their base, otherwise they wont stop"
- Bosses "Well dumping so much waste and rotting flesh into the lake was a bad idea after all, oh well something to do for my turret defence"
- Forest infestations "I just wanted few extra trees! *Sigh* where is my flamethrower?"

And so on. The intention here is to write history into the world itself. This will make worlds unique and make players more attached to the world they currently inhabit - This increases amount of hours average player will spend on a single world.

N.B. Event though I've described mostly "bad" effects the game should not excessively punish players for their choices. Making the game tell player "pollution is bad; solar panels are good" is not a good approach imho. Each effect should be caused by something that is believable so players can predict and plan ahead. The main intention of balance is to reward player who knows how much his base can handle and utilities it to the maximum. As such main thought in player head should be not "I need to decrease pollution" nor "I am evil so I will amp the pollution to the max!" but instead "what is the optimal amount of pollution my base can handle now?"

Also as game grows there could be another "pollution": Player converting planet to the "Earthen standards" - Greener fields, flowers, trees, earthen animals. Granted biters will treat this as pollution too. These Could also add to the amount of consequences of player actions. Will you make the planet an industrial paradise? or lush green world? Either way biters will be pissed


4. Motivation to play. I am against any punishments to the player - if one designed a true self sufficient complex he should not be punished because one no longer micromanages it. But Player actions could always give an extra edge here or there to the complex or to the base in general.

[ssilk]

A sack of ideas, but I like

to write history into the world

most.

[Darthlawsuit]

One thing to note, this is a sandbox. Your story is whatever you want it to be and doing anything less than that is bad for the game. I do like the idea that GARM has for consequences to your actions, infact I thought my pollution would stop me from being able to suck up water (doesn't happen now but I prepared ).

Garm: The thing that is missing from this sandbox is something to do. I love building a super massive city and mass producing everything while stripping the lands around me to get resources, but there isn't much to do with them or any real challenges besides waves of enemies. We are INVADING a planet to prepare for INVASIONS. After the natives learn of our hostile intentions (Kill so many spawning huts, to allow the player to control the difficulty) they could start to attack us in larger waves. When zerg rushing from multiple sides fails they could do something else. Perhaps they could start waiting and getting larger waves, or attack with "leaders" or elite units. When that fails and the invader keeps stealing land (killing huts) they could bring in siege weapons (Worms, trolls, giants, etc),boss level units attacking. These units could be spwaned from a certain location; as in if you find their base and destroy it they cannot send any more of those units at you for a while.

Maby those boss level units would be spwaned from an alien city. The city contains random alien tech that you can steal and research for yourself (fight to get alien tech then you are able to research it). Maby that tech you got is unusable until you get another alien tech, so then you would want to go out and find another city to steal from. Killing another city which was peaceful towards you would alert other cities and cause mass retaliations from multiple directions. Set it so that the player controls the difficulty through their agressive "invader" actions. The more agressive they are the more the natives fight you. If you piss off too many people all at once you will be overwhelmed, or maby you will escape to a little corner and rebuild.

We are an invader on this planet, build the concepts around that idea. Perhaps nations exist in this world and if you assault one you will have declared war on a large area that combines their forces to fight you. Of course some stuff may be far too complex to do at release, but you could always release expansions to add unique player desired content later on

This game has endless potential, it just needs something for the player to do so it feels like your giant factory has a purpose. Something to use all the resources you obtain on. This game can easily become it's own little niche game with a dedicated following if it is made right.

[111000]

This game has endless potential, it just needs something for the player to do so it feels like your giant factory has a purpose

Agree, maybe something like a global (intergalactic) trading platform or stock exchange to buy/sell produced stuff

[TGS]

One thing to note, this is a sandbox. Your story is whatever you want it to be and doing anything less than that is bad for the game. I do like the idea that GARM has for consequences to your actions, infact I thought my pollution would stop me from being able to suck up water (doesn't happen now but I prepared ).

Garm: The thing that is missing from this sandbox is something to do. I love building a super massive city and mass producing everything while stripping the lands around me to get resources, but there isn't much to do with them or any real challenges besides waves of enemies. We are INVADING a planet to prepare for INVASIONS. After the natives learn of our hostile intentions (Kill so many spawning huts, to allow the player to control the difficulty) they could start to attack us in larger waves. When zerg rushing from multiple sides fails they could do something else. Perhaps they could start waiting and getting larger waves, or attack with "leaders" or elite units. When that fails and the invader keeps stealing land (killing huts) they could bring in siege weapons (Worms, trolls, giants, etc),boss level units attacking. These units could be spwaned from a certain location; as in if you find their base and destroy it they cannot send any more of those units at you for a while.

Maby those boss level units would be spwaned from an alien city. The city contains random alien tech that you can steal and research for yourself (fight to get alien tech then you are able to research it). Maby that tech you got is unusable until you get another alien tech, so then you would want to go out and find another city to steal from. Killing another city which was peaceful towards you would alert other cities and cause mass retaliations from multiple directions. Set it so that the player controls the difficulty through their agressive "invader" actions. The more agressive they are the more the natives fight you. If you piss off too many people all at once you will be overwhelmed, or maby you will escape to a little corner and rebuild.

We are an invader on this planet, build the concepts around that idea. Perhaps nations exist in this world and if you assault one you will have declared war on a large area that combines their forces to fight you. Of course some stuff may be far too complex to do at release, but you could always release expansions to add unique player desired content later on

This game has endless potential, it just needs something for the player to do so it feels like your giant factory has a purpose. Something to use all the resources you obtain on. This game can easily become it's own little niche game with a dedicated following if it is made right.

I think Multiplayer will help a lot in this regard, but ultimately what you're talking about is just a matter of content direction. I think... they already have a lot of that covered in idea form already. They just need to solidify the ideas and implement them. I think that once MP is added and they add the deeper liquid mechanics and start adding additional energy sources the 'content' and direction will simply flow. The 'RPG' and 'RTS' aspects have a lot of breakthrough potential with regards to multiplayer. IE playing Coop against the hoards or going against the other player(s) 'competing' for the planet and its resources. Things will kind of come naturally in that I hope.

This game has endless potential, it just needs something for the player to do so it feels like your giant factory has a purpose

Agree, maybe something like a global (intergalactic) trading platform or stock exchange to buy/sell produced stuff

I'm really not exactly sure what you are getting at except maybe in the capacity of a multiplayer feature? But I can't see such a feature ever really serving much point as everything is pretty progressive and really there are only 4 foundation materials for pretty much everything else. Coal, Metal, Copper and Stone. Everything is created from those. So short of say Player 1 having researched a different path to Player 2 and wanting to trade for something he/she doesn't have access to there really isn't much point. Unless of course you mean just a system to trade resources for other resources in which case it kind of becomes a situation again where you can get anything for anything. Say you have a massive amount of one resource but not another. Just trade for it at that point.

Not trying to shoot down the idea, but it kind of doesn't work in this sort of game. Without a 'currency' to back it anyway. It would be an interesting idea in MP down the road if the tech tree got a lot bigger and more fleshed out. And say... the balance was tweaked so that some players might have more of x than another player. Influencing the need to trade. But then again you don't need a marketplace for that. You could simply trade by saying "I'll give you 50k copper if you give me 40k oil". etc.