wildfire@aix01.aix.rpi.edu (Douglas B Rusch) (02/23/91)
Ihave been working on a game like Spaceward Ho! for years in my spare time. When I saw Spaceward Ho! come out, I rushed out and got it to see what other people have done. Anyways after getting over my addiction to Spaceward Ho! I decided to start up on my game again. Anyways there are several things I would change but I'd like some input on this. 1st - I think there should be tankers. Its a pain in the ass to have to build a whole colony ship just to get some ships off a useless world. It would be a lot easier just to build a cheap tanker which is expendable rather than risk the expensive colony ship. 2nd - I would have Shipyards. Spaceward Ho! makes every planet the same, they have little importance strategically except in the beginning when you may only have one or two planets. Shipyards while making a game more intricate give some planets a much greater value than others, so now you have something to protect other than a shapeless interstellar empire. These are my two first big changes, amoung others I would like shorter turns (in time, 10 years is just too long for any tactical situations). Repair bases similar to shipyards ( and of course this implies damaged ships). Also I have been toying with the idea of removing the metal requirement and replacing it with a maintanence cost to keep a fleet operating. Some of these ideas come from other board games like Axis & Allies and Federation & Empire. The idea is to make a game with many levels of intricacy without adding too much towards the bueracracy of completing a turn. Well those are some of the ideas I have had. Now, if I should finish this game, how do I go about making it available (probobly as shareware, but maybe just available for free). Most importantly, do I need to get permission and/or copyright inorder to make the game available for widespread beta testing? Wildfire@AIX.RPI.EDU
jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) (02/26/91)
In article <Y5`&36@rpi.edu> wildfire@aix01.aix.rpi.edu (Douglas B Rusch) writes: >Ihave been working on a game like Spaceward Ho! for years in my spare >time. When I saw Spaceward Ho! come out, I rushed out and got it to see >what other people have done. Anyways after getting over my addiction to >Spaceward Ho! I decided to start up on my game again. Anyways there are >several things I would change but I'd like some input on this. > >1st - I think there should be tankers. Its a pain in the ass to have to build > a whole colony ship just to get some ships off a useless world. It > would be a lot easier just to build a cheap tanker which is expendable > rather than risk the expensive colony ship. I mentioned this to them in my feedback. >2nd - I would have Shipyards. Spaceward Ho! makes every planet the same, > they have little importance strategically except in the beginning > when you may only have one or two planets. Shipyards while > making a game more intricate give some planets a much greater > value than others, so now you have something to protect other > than a shapeless interstellar empire. > Possibly, but there are other things I think it could use first. Other things I mentioned in my feedback were: I'd like to see it possible for the various players to form some sort of allia nces with each other. This can be as simple as a 3-stage relations variable for each other player (Friendly, Neutral, Hostile), which allows players who are fr iendly to stop over at each others' planets and refuel, share common cause again st a foe, etc. Perhaps all that should be allowed is for Friendly players to be able to refuel and 'hop' on friendly planets; perhaps allied attacks should als o be possible. If alliances were implemented, there might need to be a lag-time between changing alliance status and being able to attack. Perhaps you have to wait across an update (or 2) so that you couldn't declare yourself friendly, mo ve in, then do a surprise declaration of hostile and attack when your pal's pant s are down. Then again... On the other hand, you could break off ties with a (former) ally by changing your status with her, thus causing their fleets around your planets to be bumped back to the nearest home planet or some such (this wou ld be tough because there's no concept of being "in space" in Ho!). You should be able to change your password whenever you want. If a friend has guessed or knows your password, they can keep checking on you when you're not around. If you have a "Change Password..." option, then if they changed your password, at least you'd know it. Otherwise, when you changed you rs, you'd be safe again. An obvious problem is that you allow People to use the same Login name (I think). If so, they cannot be allowed to change their passw ord to one in use by a same-named player (but this would let them know the other player's password). Ah well, there are ways around that. You should gain some portion of the planet's stockpiled riches when you take a planet. Perhaps you should get a percentage of the conquered player's metal st ockpiles equal to the percentage of total income provided by the conquered plane t. I don't know. I just think there should be some benefit of taking a planet. Eliminating a player: Even if you can't do the above (because metal is not really located anywhere s pecific), you should definitely get all of an eliminated player's metal reserves and income when you wipe him o ut. A problem here is what if 2 players each attack and take the last 2 planets of a player--do they split the spoils? Could be. I think that ships should be allowed to pull out of a combat if they feel they are getting trounced. For instance, maybe set a flag for each fleet that says when it will retreat, and to where. Retreats could be called when half the flee t is destroyed, when the first ship in a fleet is destroyed, when outnumbered, etc. Spy Ships: Related to this idea is the idea of a new kind of tech and/or ship: a Spy Ship (or Stealth tech). This allows you to creep into a system, scope it out, and l eave, without getting into battle. Maybe if you're noticed, you have to pull ou t, and you can only get so much information on a star per update. Distant Early Warning: If you had some notice when ships were approaching (maybe all you know is when s hips other than your are in the vicinity), it would be helpful. Even if ships j ust pass by your system on the way to another, you might get false alarms, but i t'd be fun. Anyway, those were my thoughts. jas -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey A. Sullivan | Senior Systems Programmer jas@venera.isi.edu | Information Sciences Institute jas@isi.edu | University of Southern California