Galactic War 2.0

[D4E_Omit]

It had a memory leak and zep had no time to work on it so it was shut off for a period untill zep had time again, it was supposed to come back end 2014 or jan 2015 but never did because zep still had no time.

[RoLa]

I remember there were a problem with factions player numbers. So maybe the faction should be automatically selected based on numbers, rating and activity. So it should be more balanced.

I like idea of less planets but several maps per planet.

Just some other ideas:
- 5th faction of mercenaries/pirates (can be hired to fight). If you want to play as mercenary you need to have a medium/higher rank and you need to win against a mercenery in a game without recall. The map is picked by the mercenary. Mercenaries dont have recall but can upgrade their ACUs permanantly(their type of ranking) so they get very powerful. The more powerful the higher the cost to hire. They can attack any planet but the home worlds and pillage/ destroy fortifications / planet upgrades. To get higher ranking they even can fight against each other There shouldn't be more than 1-3% of them. You can also hire them killing each other.

- all players of a faction continue to play as vassal or maybe choose to try as mercenary even if lower ranked.

[speed2]

If its not possible to switch factions then you cant force anyone to play faction they dont want. And if you can switch factions then GW would be boring.

As long as Gyle isnt crying in every cast how UEF is losing it will be fine

[rkrempel]

I added some comments/ideas to the Google Doc.

I'm sorry to say that I was somewhat negative.

To Sum it up:

- The whole class system to me seems doomed to fail from the start. It adds a lot of complexity that i found utterly uninteresting. It claims, but fails to show, how it adds (strategic ) depth.
- The investment/effect of battles on map control is bad. It is too advantageous to attackers. I added some ideas that might mitigate this.
- The reward system for battles is bad. It will promote ability gaps between players. This means your ability to participate in GW is determined by how good you are. We want all levels of players to feel they can play. I added some ideas that might mitigate this.

[Lu_Xun_17]

To be exact and not forget the job done from other players in the past, this topic should more be called Galactic War 5.0

[speed2]

I didnt see many problems there, lower skilled player getting some reinforcements and beating better players no problem. It was just about if you knew when to recall.

Lulu is being productive as always

[Dragonfire]

The main problem is this:

There is no clear vision of GW

Everybody has his own idea.

###

If we have x developers that want to implement GW.
What should be the first steps?

Let GW 2.0 envolve over time
Start small, make little steps.

I added a new section "Let GW evolve over Time"

Code: Select all

Let GW evolve over Time (Dragonfire)

Sprint 1: Factions

As a user I can choose a Faction
choose is final?

As a user I have an avatar with a cool random name.

As a user I can communicate with other Faction members.


Sprint 2: Battles

As a user I see x planets.
Each planet is controlled by a Faction

As a user I can attack a planet.

As a user I can defend a planet.

As a user I can play (game starts) if we have enough attackers/defenders


Sprint 3: Ingame & Rewards

As a winner of the battle I get a reward for my faction.

As a winner of the battle I am the new owner of the planet.

As a loser I get a little punishment.

As a defeated Avatar I get a higher puishment.


[RoLa]

There is no clear vision of GW
Everybody has his own idea.
###
If we have x developers that want to implement GW.
What should be the first steps?
Let GW 2.0 envolve over time
Start small, make little steps.

I added a new section "Let GW evolve over Time"

Well, what happens if you start small and let evolve things over time is:
you end up making GW 3.0 all over again.

Things like maps / planets / systems / the galaxy structure and relations should be clear before starting new. Will there be more than 4 factions maybe ai controlled (pirates, 4 rebells factions, the confederation of independent worlds...) ? What types of metagames could be implemented? Superweapons, spying & counterspying, offensive & defensive traits. A lane shouldn't go through a planet, right? So do we need a physics engine later? Should the galaxy be generated automatically with lots of config params? Or should it be designed?

Every developer wants to make his master piece as simple as possible. The problem occurs when you need to change existing functionality / data structures because it's not possible to extend them anymore. Maybe that's one point why ZEPs code is so broken. Even the best coder needs a plan which is good enough to prevent problems before they need to be solved. In chess this is called "strategy".

[Dragonfire]

Ofcourse you should think before you develop, but you need the right balance
But also if you planned a lot, the case you miss while planning will occure in the future

[Hawkei]

Hello Ice,

Glad to see people haven't forgotten about GW. I really hope to see this working again. I've been taking an extended break from FAF, but GW sure would bring me back. I actually got to thinking about how GW was implemented last time, as well as the ideas you were telling me about.

Firstly, would it be easier to implement GW outside of FAF? If FAF-GW became it's own executable, then it might have less compatibility issues with FAF in general. Though I am not a programmer, and this is hardly my area of expertise.

The second idea I was thinking about was reducing the number of planets and having concurrent battles on each planet. I was wondering if, perhaps, a collection of maps with similar title sets (textures and terrain) could be linked together to create a consistent feel for the planet. As though those battles were happening at different locations on the planet... Just a thought.