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Re: Factional Organization Management

#31
That's a good point. We've been talking about player control of factions (PCF?) features for a while now, but I'm not sure we've ever asked: why would anyone want to control a faction (or, in smaller cases, an organization)? That's what ought to drive feature suggestions, really.

So why do we want to control orgs/factions? Maybe:
  • I want to lead multiple fleets
  • I want to manage a production company
  • I want to grow an org into a star empire
  • I want to torment NPCs like a pointy-haired boss
  • I want to play around with factional mechanics
Did I miss any? (I know that "lead fleets" was at one point planned for LT 1.0 as a basic feature that's related to but distinct from PCF.)

In addition to deciding which of these (and/or others) is a proper design goal, there's also the question of how PCF scales as an org grows into a faction and beyond. This is basically what you're concerned about, mcsven, correct? Having to implement too many options when a faction gets too big?

That's a good question in itself. What PCF features are appropriate, and must be coded (and tested), for players to enjoy when their faction exerts political control over 10 or 100 star systems?

Should LT itself, at some point, tell the player, "Nope, you're too big, I've run out of new things for you to do?" Or should the game simply set an artificial ceiling on faction size?
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#32
The tools Josh gives us should be able to scale and work across any number of systems. Josh has already introduced projects where resources are allocated and then used by the AI. When we are talking about a faction we are really talking about a number of projects that are setup with an end goal in mind.

I imagine a screen displaying all of the player's projects and allowing funds and resources to be added and withdrawn from them. This screen could also manage trade routes if necessary.

I think this is the most elegant solution to the problem.
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#33
Mmmh. Interesting point. Time for some instrospection in what my favorite approach would be...

With such graphics, ship driving experience and so on: LT is foremost a first-person driving game. Mining, small pirating, transport for others. The upgrade ship, get a bigger one, and so on. No Factional Management at all. This could we LT 1.0.

Getting richer, we can start defining our own missions to have NPCs ponctually protecting us /mining for us/ transporting for us.
Level 1:
  • define missions for NPC, objectives and rewards.
  • interface which shows on a "galactic" view what missions are active/pending.
At some point, we may be able to hire other pilots/ships to constantly work for us ("minions"). This can be partly (mining/transport) done with a list of "missions" (level 1) in loops with a flat rate. For fightings, it needs a RTS-style ship tactical control like LT has shown previously, where you can order your ships around and set them targets / formations.
Level 2:
  • interface for managing a list of mission for each minion (with sequences or priorities and loops) and flat rate payment. As well as a notification system when something goes wrong (e.g. the npc got killed).
  • RTS-style tactical battle management.
  • improve "galactic" view to show permanent employees in another color
At the next level we may want to build infrastructure to serve local operations. So we have minions with the "looping" permanent missions (e.g. mine A, bring to port X, mine B, bring to port X, repeat; another is: defend port X) that actually uses your own port. This port would be placed/moved by the player, and would automatically take his assigned minions with him.
Level 3:
  • interface for buying/building larger structures.
  • interface to bind minions to a structure
  • interface to move structure (using its own engine if available, or dedicated towing ships).
Further down the road, we may want to have minions actually independantly reacting with higher level objectives. This would require hiring "bosses" AI and defining high level budget and objectives. The boss would be allowed to hire/fire "minions" on his own, to build structures and move them around.
Level 4:
  • interface to set higher-level objectives and conditions (e.g. monthly cost, start-up capital)
  • interface to set level of independance (e.g. can the boss use x% of the revenue he generates for growth toward the objective? Or can he take debt from the player's fortune? and so on)
  • high level reporting .
I would not go further... this is already going quite far, mostly based on infrastructure, mission system and RTS fleet management, so 3 main interfaces... Further development lies on defining more and more complex "objectives" for the bosses with more and more options and precision.
Last edited by CSE on Fri Feb 03, 2017 8:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#34
CSE wrote:Mmmh. Interesting point. Time for some instrospection in what my favorite approach would be...

With such graphics, ship driving experience and so on: LT is foremost a first-person driving game. Mining, small pirating, transport for others. The upgrade ship, get a bigger one, and so on. No Factional Management at all. This could we LT 1.0.
I disagree. Plus, Josh has already stated that LT 1.0 will include more features than originally intended IIRC including faction stuff.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#35
Black--Snow wrote:
CSE wrote:Mmmh. Interesting point. Time for some instrospection in what my favorite approach would be...

With such graphics, ship driving experience and so on: LT is foremost a first-person driving game. Mining, small pirating, transport for others. The upgrade ship, get a bigger one, and so on. No Factional Management at all. This could we LT 1.0.
I disagree. Plus, Josh has already stated that LT 1.0 will include more features than originally intended IIRC including faction stuff.
What I mean is that we have a game without faction management. This is "level zero" and is a fully playable game - and should be the first step to actually get something out. I absolutely hope that it will go beyond there, and that some levels may even be "free updates" for us good'old backers :twisted:
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#37
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Black--Snow wrote: IIRC including faction stuff.
i remember differently :P
Jan 17 14:04:16 <node> Black--Snow the only thing I can think of that might not be present is OS X support on launch. Other than that, the feature list is strictly greater than what was promised (a LOT greater than xD)
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#38
Black--Snow wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Black--Snow wrote: IIRC including faction stuff.
i remember differently :P
Jan 17 14:04:16 <node> Black--Snow the only thing I can think of that might not be present is OS X support on launch. Other than that, the feature list is strictly greater than what was promised (a LOT greater than xD)
Is that supposed to disagree with me?
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#39
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Is that supposed to disagree with me?
Not necessarily, I was just quoting what Josh said. He makes it sound like most of the major features are implemented.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#40
Black--Snow wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Black--Snow wrote: IIRC including faction stuff.
i remember differently :P
Jan 17 14:04:16 <node> Black--Snow the only thing I can think of that might not be present is OS X support on launch. Other than that, the feature list is strictly greater than what was promised (a LOT greater than xD)
This is a catastrophe. :(
I only use macs. :thumbup:

I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!! :x

:roll:

Or I could wait for the mac release.... :wave:
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#44
Dinosawer wrote:Ubuntu is arguably more user friendly than windows these days :P
MINT Linux...

However windows is not really out of scope.

Mac, now thats an operating system that is out of scope. At least on windows you can get shit done. :crazy:
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Re: Factional Organization Management

#45
Silverware wrote:
Dinosawer wrote:Ubuntu is arguably more user friendly than windows these days :P
MINT Linux...

However windows is not really out of scope.

Mac, now thats an operating system that is out of scope. At least on windows you can get shit done. :crazy:
Mint is an Ubuntu derivative, or in the case of LMDE, a direct Debian derivative (and Ubuntu itself is a Debian derivative). It's really just Ubuntu with different (and more, I think) applications included with a more Windows-like desktop environment (Cinnamon, or if you hate yourself, MATE).

I dual-boot Windows 10 and Linux Mint on my laptop, I run Windows 10 with the Ubuntu Subsystem on my desktop, and I've recently set up a little media center/Minecraft server utility computer in the living room running Ubuntu. They all play pretty nicely with each other.
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