Return to “Suggestions”

Post

Galactic lore and prodecural history? Some ideas.

#1
Hey there fellow scifi fans, and scifi game developers :)

Over the years I've always dreamt of a largely procedural space game like this, with a creator who has played the games I have and who has a desire to see the things I'd love to see, and so it's possible these have already been thought of, I would love to put them out there anyway, so to speak.

One thing that always immerses me the most is the feeling of great age within a galaxy, how many things could have transpired before my race had even evolved. I was wondering firstly if established history has been considered within the generated universes. Things like derelict ships of all sizes floating through space, orbiting some star system that was lost long ago, with abandoned or extincted planets consisting of secrets and special technology or resources to discover, or perhaps an ancient computer system containing coordinates to some other interesting thing, like the location of a hidden colony belonging to the long dead civilization, where an old cruiser is waiting for you to salvage it or something. (Hi Stargate fans).
Something to create endless mystery, mysteries that beg to be solved. In a universe of ultimate freedom, choosing a path of exploration and research/xeno-archaeology would be a very interesting and unique feature, I feel. You could trace fragments of clues across the galaxy just to find out what happened to them. I'm unsure how flexible your procedural techniques are, but from what I've read and heard, it's quite powerful. Would it be possible to add in this type of content dynamically?

Will time play a role within your universe, by the way? Is it a static galaxy or are there simulation factors as well?

Oh and I had also wondered about random encounters, such as distress calls and spatial anomalies pulling you into unexplored space.

I'm sure there was more I wanted to mention but this'll do for the moment.

Happy Christmas, all.

Edit: Oh yeah I remember one of the other ideas I had, probably kind of irrelevant for most people, but maybe it'll spark an idea. I presume there'll be the possibility to upgrade technologies and you'll likely start with a reasonable array of it onboard your own ships. One thing I've liked in Scifi games were scanners/sensors, and the ability to scan objects and planets to see what they're comprised of. It would be neat if we could be presented with vast amounts of mostly useless data regarding the composition of anything we aim our 'What is this' beam at. What is the atmospheric condition of this planet below me? Who cares, right? But a space ship on a mission into the galaxy for exploratory reasons would certainly have this kind of analytical technology on it. My favourite bits in scifi is the large amount of technical info that's presented, it grounds you in interesting science and makes you feel you're really in this reality. I suppose all you really need is a system of tags for materials that could be switched out of a large list of possibilities, accompanied by some generic statistical data, to whatever level of detail you think would be best.

Oh and the ability to discover new materials, elements, unscannable artificial alloys and such.
Last edited by Alex on Tue Dec 25, 2012 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post

Re: Galactic lore and prodecural history? Some ideas.

#2
That sort of thing is definitely possible, it's just a matter of getting the code working right and tweaking things so that they make sense but also have a nice range of variation.

Now as for how possible it is for Josh to do that in the span of a year... well, I have no idea. :U

I`m personally hoping that it works like Dwarf Fortress, where you basically choose the age of your world, and then the game runs through that many years in simulation before you start playing.
And more than that, once you create a universe, you can play different characters on it, maybe have a function where when you die or when you choose to end a character they integrate into the universe and you can go back to that universe with a new character and potentially encounter traces of your previous one.

Again, not sure of how hard that`d be to integrate into the game, but it would be hella cool.
Post

Re: Galactic lore and prodecural history? Some ideas.

#3
True true, time is an important factor, but from what I can tell most of the coming months will be for all of this cool stuff seeing as most of the core engine is complete. The DF idea is cool, I have a friend who plays that a lot, it seems like a nice idea to know that the condition of the universe is from 'actual' events.

Being able to respawn within your existing universe would be very cool, as well.
Post

Re: Galactic lore and prodecural history? Some ideas.

#4
Hey Alex, thanks for your ideas!

I've responded to a similar remark on a similar thread - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=267.

On that thread, you'll see that I've given a response to the notion of "procedural history" as in DF. Here's the short answer: absolutely, yes, I would love to do this, to make the universe feel as rich as possible! Naturally, the question is whether or not there will be time :) But I sure hope so!
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford

Online Now

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests

cron