"Free State" game would simulate 2050 New Hampshire

[Errol]

Updated with a version that you may adjust.

Same link as before.

Additionally, I got sick of seeing all the drones clump in the corners. The drones aren't anymore intelligent than before, but have some maneuvers now (full ahead, full reverse, full stop, shoot ten shots, turn around). It may give the illusion of some AI, but they are still behaving randomly.

Let me know what values you like.

[Errol]

Forgot to mention.

For the moment, the player can take 100 hits. It gives you the ability to observe the game play.

[Dave Ridley]

Starting to check it, looks great so far and you are repeatedly thanked.....  I do think reducing the rate of fire or making it adjustable is still important.  Slower rate of fire will allow dodging techniques to become more valid, adding more richness to the gameplay.

And can you make it so that holding down the fire key results in it continuing to fire?  don't want to give anyone arthritis of the thumb...   another change that is probably important to make before long is coloring the shots to match the color of the team.  Hard to know which shots to dodge otherwise.

[Dave Ridley]

I"m thinking an ideal rate of fire (if you can't make it adjustable) would be about 1 round per second for each EMP gun. (Currently there's only the one per drone obviously).

[Dave Ridley]

i think for max ship forward speed i like 3.  for backward I guess I would want 1.5

at first blush it seems like 7 is a good shot speed.    I realize we'll be doing a lot of talking to ourselves until the game is actually mutliplayable with the persistent element, but does anyone else have any preferences?

[Dave Ridley]

By way of other feedack I generally find myself  liking the population density that results near the beginning if I select about 15 players per team in this map I guess. Also... I've been giving more thought to what a player should have to do when their ship dies.
I liked the idea of a human figure having to leave the base and pick up the drone.  Although I was worried we might not be able to make it an interesting element of game play , I liked it because it was philisophically pleasing.   Now, before you put too much work into that feature  I have what may be a better idea that is both philosophically pleasing and adds an enjoyable element to the game.   I got the idea from watching your a.i. drones deactivate.  What if, when "deactivaded"....the drones become sort of like invulnerable powerless ghosts.  They would fly just like normal except with a top speed of 1.  when they run into a friendly base or operational drone then they re-appear at base with their drone fully operational again.  Many players would simply aim them toward home and take the time to observe the strategic situation, maybe send some chat messages in the game or briefly do something outside the game while waiting for the drone to make it home.   Other players could teleport the "ghost "  home by running into it with their operational drone.  This would actually be an important role for a team with more than 5 people on it...  one guy could be on drone rescue duty.  I've seen this be fun in other games, although I see flaws in the way other games implemented it.  Our set up can avoid these.

If you've already made good progress on the original plan of "going out to get your drone" then we'll go with that for a while. but I think this will just be better as it provides more richness to the game play without  seeming too unrealistic. 

Another suggestion to implement at leisure:  With the slower firing EMP guns, we'll probably need them to have more range.  I think a 75% increase in the range would be about right.  This will create the tactical option of loitering outside dogfights and sniping into the furball from a distance. 

[Errol]

Next Evolution.

The bullets/EMP pulses are colored to the team.
Bullet Range increased 75%
Speeds are set.
Also added a shooting limitation. The EMP guns recharge 1 shot every second up to a maximum of ten shots (the drones will start with a full charge).

I haven't done the respawn/reactivate thing yet. I had to do a slight redesign of how it was put together to make it easier to add features later on.

I think I try to create a chat application before implementing the multiplayer aspect as it might provide some insight.

I think I like idea flying home or reactivate your drone, or tag your teammate. It would be easier to do. How about towing your teammates back to base to reactivate them instead of tagging? Or perhaps if they tag, then the deactivated drone absorbs one hit worth of energy from the one who tagged them. Drones could be given the option to recharge their health at base whenever they need. Maybe not an instant recharge, but lets say about one second per health point. We could also tie that recharge rate to the number on functioning antennas, creating a second reason to protect them. Just some ideas.

[Dave Ridley]

Looking good .... I would say...

) the rapid fire needs to go away more competely... 10 shots should be all you can get out over a 10 second period and 2 shots should be all you can get out over a 2 second period, etc.  With such a huge number of shots it's just sensory overload as opposed to richness. 
) The drones, at least mine, still seem to move too fast... which is probaby my fault since I set the speed parameter. 
) I like your "hauling teammates home" idea.  it adds a new "skill" - philanthropic flying.  And it adds it to a greater extent than just teleporting your buddies home would.  Ideally, players should be able to pick up multiple wounded this way.   
) Non-instant recharge at base sounds great, tying it to number of antennas sounds great (although that latter probably shouldn't be a priority ).

Tell me if I get too micromanagerial or if you need to do something in the game more completely of your own creation....later on I think things will get more open ended after the initial vision is achieved.  I love to delegate but on the other hand I have such a specific vision and so many ideas it's hard not to get somewhat detailed with instructions.  I've got like 20 really wild ideas I'm forcing myself not to spew right at the beggining here for fear of making this too complicated.

[Errol]

http://www.errolpelchat.com/DroneGame/

Updated again.
Not much this time.

Limited the firing rate to one charge, with a recharge every second.

The next version I'll reduce the top speed, and add health recharging at the base.

Not to micromanagerial. It helps to have a vision of an end product.

Did you have any graphical or visual style in mind for this game, or did you want to be surprised when it gets to that point?

[Dave Ridley]

I don't really care much about graphics but as it gets more realistic looking i do have one stylistic concept to share.  The movie Gattica was very low budget so they decided their sci fi look would just be modeled on the 1920-1950s.  they figured those years were so "attractive looking" and timeless that they would age well....   X-com apocalypse and x-com interceptor used a similar approach by modelling on the 50s.  I think it worked very well stylistically and will never look embarrassing. I think we would do better to do that than make our own look.   maybe Nashua 2060 should look a lot like nashua 1925 or 1950 in some respects.  especially the people , styles, clothes , vehicles....

[Errol]

http://www.errolpelchat.com/DroneGame/

Another update.

Changes:

• Drones can repair/reactivate when they return to base of matching color.
• Antenna's can take 30 instead of 50 hits.
• Drone bots will turn and fly toward their base when deactivated (the first bit on AI they have), and once reactivated they will resume their random behavior.

[Dave Ridley]

Great Errol!   BTW could you give me a ring some time and pronounce your first and last name into my voice mail?   I still don't know how to say your last name.  As for the latest update I think the existing request list covers what things still need to happen...with one exception.  I may not have mentioned in writing the importance of allowing the ships to shoot out both sides.  we'll have to have that before it's really playable, as it's actually not much fun to play it shooting out just one side.

[Errol]

No problem

Just updated

1 button = shoot left
2 button = shoot right

[Dave Ridley]

This version is starting to get fun and challenging enough to play just for the sake of playing.  I have to handicap myself some.   I set it to 25 players and add a rule that I can't start shooting until I've spent a total of 4 minutes inside the enemy base-circle.  Or that I can't start shooting until I've docked with 5 disabled friendlies.  The first part of the game thus becomes "dodgeball" for me lol.   And it gives the a.i. side a chance of winning.

Top priority should probably be this:   forward Speed is still too high.  probably should be reduced by about 35 percent....same goes for flying-home speed.   Later maybe we can add a limited or short duration turbo booster feature that players can use if they stop firing.  That way speed will be there to prevent boredom and aid in escapes/pursuits.  But it won't make combat too fast to process.

I guess it will be important before long to do some things that makes the game more dangerous for the human flier.  The obvious simple one would be be having the opposing towers fire at random in random directions.  Another change we'll need fairly soon is for shots to make some sort of explosion and sound or something when they hit.   Currently it's hard to tell whether you've hit something... so no real satisfaction results when you do.  And no fear happens when I get shot since I don't even notice.

Shot speed appears to be perfect, just slow enough to dodge but not slow enough to *easily* dodge. 

I don't think we should provide points to a team for simply hitting an enemy drone or tower.  There should be some reward for *deactivating* it; a reward that adds toward overall victory.   but not a point for just hitting it.    that gives the target player a special incentive to race home as she's getting low on health.  and a reason to chase her.  This should create some "escape attempt drama" especially after we eventually add forward firing guns. 

Flying it for a while and practicing pretend rescues....has led me to believe that the idea of hauling disabled drones home will not work within the current or imminent game models. unless you've already developed "haul home,"  let's go with teleportation.. you run into a disabled friendly and it reappears un-disabled at home base with low health.

We should probably reduce by half... the speed with which friendly bases repair their  team's units.  the current repair speed would make you almost invulnerable inside the circle, even against lots of real players. cutting it by half would still let a friendly player sit still on the base and act as a reinforced "turret" , but it would keep her from being invulnerable.

You know....if the a.i. issue is still something of a blank slate.... and if you're still looking for a way to solve your a.i. puzzle...  I wonder if there's a way you could set the computer players up so that they start with variying behavior stats but reproduce or mate in some way after accomplishing certain things and living for a certain period of time? their stats would be like genes and would be copied or something when they reproduce.    a survival of the fittest evolution type thing, maybe modeled on biological life.  There would have to be a way to address the overpopulation issue this might create later in the game. and as long as the game is so non-persistent the units would have to carry over from one match to the next or the evolution would keep starting over. but we may eventually be doing this "life creation" thing anyway as part of the possible "access for blind people" feature.   maybe adding it now would hit two...drones with one stone lol.    There's also the advantage that this is fairly uniqe and might give us better, unpredictable a.i.

I guess this "life creation model" should be implemented soon only if it would not be significantly more complicated than a conventional a.i. approach.  If it's significanlty more complicated...we delay it.

[Errol]

The only AI so far is that the bots fly home when deactivated. I think I'm going to move the AI up the priority list and attempt to make the game more playable. Any AI may drastically improve the game at this point.

I'm thinking of having the bots take on roles to start with.

Defenders - Stay close to base, and attack enemy drones near base.
Hunters - Seek out and attack enemy drones
Attackers - Attacks enemy antennas

I suppose I can evolve the best mix of these roles for a team to have, but allow some random element to vary the number of drones in each role to keep the each game slightly different.

So far what the game is doing is all I've implemented.

I like your idea for a change to the point system, and will implement that in the next version. I will also reduce the drones top speed again.