Hi everyone, i looked through this section and i didn't see anything like that discussed here so i decided to share this idea with you

I think it would be really cool to add something like a new game +, not in the boring, "artificial content" way we usually see, but something really linked to the overall concept. Basically, what would be really great is that once you are "done" with your universe, once you are on top of the food chain, ruling the whole (known) galaxy with your immense fleets and nobody can challenge you, you can restart a new game BUT in the same universe, and be a rookie captain again but living under the rule of your "previous you".
I think this feature would add depth and a sense of history, and i don't know anything about game design but it seems to me that it wouldn't be too hard to make (correct me if i'm wrong, like i said i really don't know what i'm talking about).

You could for example, become a pirate and gather power during hundred hours of gameplay, and finally become this all-powerful galactic mafia mob, and then start again as a simple pilot and set yourself the goal to overthrow this massive criminal empire YOU had created in the first place.
Or you could create so many alliances that the galaxy has become united under a single government, and then, in a new game, using the factions system, climb your way up this intricate political system that was entirely created by your "previous you".
Or i don't know, you could become a big fleet admiral, with hundreds of ships under your command, and then start a new game to become a fighter pilot, lost in the middle of this big army your "previous you" had created.
Another example, you could, as a merchant, gather tons of riches and hide them on a single "treasure planet" far away in the universe, and become a treasure hunter to find the hidden stash.

This feature would take advantage of the procedural content generation, as well as giving you the chance to live exactly the universe you want. You could use your first playthrough to build the context you want, and the second to enjoy it. Also, if you love what you created, but get bored playing it, you can get a new perspective by using this.

Well, let me know what you think, and sorry for my english (i'm not a native speaker) i hope you get the idea

The biggest obstacle I see to this idea (which is a totally awesome concept, BTW!) is that it requires the game to basically save everything you did, 'forget' that you are you, and yet still continue to treat the world as though you influenced it. It has to keep all of the save data from the first round of exploration and calculate what would have happened in the areas you explored as 'Bob', how you changed those places, and generate results based on that whenever you 'discover' a new location while you are travelling around as 'Dan' seeing the world for the 'first time'.

Is that possible in the kind of setup that LT intends to operate within? My understanding of procedural generation (which is admittedly limited) suggests that the creation of areas is based in algorithms stored within the seed, and you would basically be creating a new 'seed' with modified algorithms to start from?

I could be totally off-base on my understanding, of course. :/

Kayse wrote:The biggest obstacle I see to this idea (which is a totally awesome concept, BTW!) is that it requires the game to basically save everything you did, 'forget' that you are you, and yet still continue to treat the world as though you influenced it. It has to keep all of the save data from the first round of exploration and calculate what would have happened in the areas you explored as 'Bob', how you changed those places, and generate results based on that whenever you 'discover' a new location while you are travelling around as 'Dan' seeing the world for the 'first time'.

Is that possible in the kind of setup that LT intends to operate within? My understanding of procedural generation (which is admittedly limited) suggests that the creation of areas is based in algorithms stored within the seed, and you would basically be creating a new 'seed' with modified algorithms to start from?

I could be totally off-base on my understanding, of course. :/

I don't know if it would be as difficult as you describe. The game is already going to have save files for your first game, so the changes that you make will already be logged. However, any future exploring doesn't necessarily have to be done in the way you would have done it. Ex:
After you have become the untouchable pirate leader 'Bob' you quit that profile and start a new one as a lowly combat fighter 'Dan', which loads all of the Bob save data but there is now a new profile in that particular universe. Instead of trying to predict what you would have done just substitute Bob with a normal NPC AI and let him behave as any NPC would with a massive pirate army following. Then you could play as Dan and try and take out your old self, if you are so inclined.

Actually, I think this is a fantastic idea. And I am pretty sure its completely feasible. Basically you would fool the game into re-identifying the previous "you" as faction X(a) and thus all the history "you" had written will still be there only it will appear as if it had happened procedurally by faction X(a) NPC. Albeit, it would be a modified faction as perhaps you only were one player or only had 100 ships (mostly comprised of NPC btw.)

But as far as I understand it, this would not be very difficult at all. Hopefully, Josh will stop by and give some input. I think this is a huge gameplay bonus with relatively little effort. Notice I said relatively...as I have no idea how to code. I am but an untrained pre-padawan coder.

I'd very much like to see Josh reply to this, it's a great idea and shouldn't be too hard to implement, I think?

Bele wrote:I'd very much like to see Josh reply to this, it's a great idea and shouldn't be too hard to implement, I think?

+2 (brother loves this idea as well XD )

Actually, a profile system like that might be a doorway into a multiplayer system.
But multiplayer would probably need to be more LAN-based, where you start a singleplayer world and open it to local connections (which can be faked with Hamachi of course), and another player can create a profile in the universe.

It would also work as asynchronous multiplayer, where people can just swap maps and play in the environment someone else created without having to use the same ship.

It's actually a really neat idea, and I like it As with everything else, I won't make any guarantees with respect to the first release, but it's certainly one of the cooler ideas that I could toy with post-release.

Yes, saves will get mighty big, especially if you do this process multiple times (i.e., keep restarting without wiping your progress). It'd be kind of interesting to live in a universe where your former self is in control of a large army and going to war with..your former former self, who is currently in trade negotiations with your formerererer self.

The biggest challenge I see is smoothly getting the AI to take over control of your assets in a sensible way. Probably won't be much of an issue. But you would want to make sure that the AI in charge of the faction kept playing in roughly the same way, i.e., you wouldn't want your hardcore pirate faction to suddenly sell all of its pirate ships and start recruiting pansy miners.

Anyway, cool idea!

It reminds me of the way Hearts of Iron 1/2/3 did their saves.

There, you could play as one nation, save, switch to some other nation, and the computer would take over your previous nation in whatever state that you had left it. (Although in this case your 'switch' would be permanent, there'd be no way to go back to your previous character, while in HoI you could swap back and forth between different nations at will.)

I love this idea too.

My understanding would be that a simple implementation of this that didn't try to specifically continue as you would have, but instead just ran a normal NPC (which as Josh said may just sell the pirate ship empire) would be way easier than trying to get it to follow on in your footsteps.

So if that is possible for first release then maybe do the simple case, and make the more advanced follow in my footsteps type functionality a future add on. At least then people could experiment with it.

Another thing this would allow is the ability to give your friend your saved game that you have set up in a certain way for them, i.e. you have control over how their game will start, maybe right in the middle of a faction vs faction battle. You could set up quests, or any number of things.

Another thing this would allow is the ability to give your friend your saved game that you have set up in a certain way for them, i.e. you have control over how their game will start, maybe right in the middle of a faction vs faction battle. You could set up quests, or any number of things.

I love this Idea, Sure the saves might get huge, But getting to create a questline or story for someone else to play trough really exites me.
But that would of course require some way of creating quests for your self in a normal game I quess.
Maybe there could be some sort of "creator-mode" in LT.

Yes of course i forgot to mention how great it would be to share those saves with other people and create a multiplayer feel in a single player game, thanks for pointing that out ! I don't think creating a whole questline would be possible, or even relevant, given the type of game Josh is creating. We don't need a scenario ! Personally, I think it would be great enough if we were able to create a clear setting and let people play around with it the way they want. And then, no need for a "creator mode". That, i think, would require a lot of work from Josh and would not be exactly in touch with what (i assume) he wants Limit Theory to be. Keep it simple !

rickisen wrote:But that would of course require some way of creating quests for your self in a normal game I quess.
Maybe there could be some sort of "creator-mode" in LT.

That would require a full blown script parser because in a dynamic universe, even the most simple a quest requires the handling of a crapload of eventualities.
The courier you're tasked to intercept may have already run into a band of pirates. Or a task force of the arcturian 3rd fleet may be traveling the same way, making an "intercept" nothing short of suicidal.
The target station of a delivery mission may have been destroyed.

Building a campaign / mission tree is much more difficult - not in principle but because there are far more possibilities for chaos to seep into the system. =)

So if you started 10 different characters, and then started playing the game, the other 9 characters would be somewhere in the game?

rickisen wrote:I love this Idea, Sure the saves might get huge, But getting to create a questline or story for someone else to play trough really exites me. But that would of course require some way of creating quests for your self in a normal game I quess.
Maybe there could be some sort of "creator-mode" in LT.

at some point i remember reading about save files and formats and size and josh basicly said that save file size would be a non issue. even for as much information is actual being stored you have to remember that its all being 'unpacked' from a seed all a save file needs to realy track would be seed # + player variables which even after several hundred hours of game play would fit on the cheapest of flash drives and have room to spare 100X over I would imagine.