- empires != species. multiple imperial species may add their ships to an empire
- Diverse hulls are available to all empires: everybody can build asteroid, energy and bio hulls. It is not possible to fit all of those into a recognizable species style.
- Many species will probably have no fleet bonus/malus so a different ship skin will simply make fleet management of functionally identical ships more difficult.
Species Specific Hulls?
- eleazar
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Species Specific Hulls?
There's been a long-standing idea that species ( or at least major species) would get their own hulls. I never understood how this fit with the rest of the game, where:
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
There is one option where they could be used:
Once we have unlockable techs some species can have one or two exclusive techs giving exclusive hulls.
Once we have unlockable techs some species can have one or two exclusive techs giving exclusive hulls.
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- eleazar
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Re: Species Specific Hulls?
The Civ unique unit approach. I guess that's a possibility, though it seems a better fit for Civ. What's the generally applicable rational for certain ships only being useable for certain species in the same empire?Sloth wrote:Once we have unlockable techs some species can have one or two exclusive techs giving exclusive hulls.
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
I wouldn't add any species restrictions to the hulls. If you have the right species you can research the tech and you get the hull. Otherwise these hulls won't be different from others (if someone really insists on a hull only being usable by one species he can add a script that enhances the hull if said species is present).eleazar wrote:The Civ unique unit approach. I guess that's a possibility, though it seems a better fit for Civ. What's the generally applicable rational for certain ships only being useable for certain species in the same empire?
All released under the GNU GPL 2.0 and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licences.
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
I don't think we planned to create species specific hulls for asteroid, energy or organic hulls. This does sort of put a bias towards constructed hulls, at least from a graphical perspective. I would consider perhaps mirroring that from a gameplay perspective in that nearly all empires should be using constructed hulls, and certain empires will additionally choose to use asteroid, organic, or energy hulls, depending on their playing style. This may not be the way we want to go, but it's something to consider. I've always liked the idea of each species having its own style of constructed hull.
Even if we don't do this, the idea that different species would produce vastly different ship designs given total freedom of design (Constructed Hulls) and somewhat similar (i.e. identical) ships given the constraints of building with asteroids/energy/organic materials, doesn't seem terribly far-fetched.
Also, I don't see your point about species != empire... what's the issue with the same empire building different ships with different species, and having them be displayed with a different graphic?
One could make a similar argument about why each species should/shouldn't get its own combat music, but getting species-specific combat music still seems like a much more appealing option to me. It's another way to represent the character of a species in-game, which is artistically interesting and hopefully very cool visually/aurally for the player.
Even if we don't do this, the idea that different species would produce vastly different ship designs given total freedom of design (Constructed Hulls) and somewhat similar (i.e. identical) ships given the constraints of building with asteroids/energy/organic materials, doesn't seem terribly far-fetched.
Also, I don't see your point about species != empire... what's the issue with the same empire building different ships with different species, and having them be displayed with a different graphic?
One could make a similar argument about why each species should/shouldn't get its own combat music, but getting species-specific combat music still seems like a much more appealing option to me. It's another way to represent the character of a species in-game, which is artistically interesting and hopefully very cool visually/aurally for the player.
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- eleazar
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Re: Species Specific Hulls?
A stronger argument. While it is not jarring to have multiple ship designs on the screen, you can only play one music track at once. By what criterion do you decide which species music will play? Is it going to feel any different to the player than randomly shuffling music tracks? I don't see how the average player is form an association between music and the species.Bigjoe5 wrote:One could make a similar argument about why each species should/shouldn't get its own combat music, but getting species-specific combat music still seems like a much more appealing option to me. It's another way to represent the character of a species in-game, which is artistically interesting and hopefully very cool visually/aurally for the player.
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
Well, there could be some way to determine the dominant species in a fleet, either by the number of ships crewed or by some weighted sums (ship size or fire power could be a factor). And by 'dominant' I don't mean 'in charge', just 'most representative'.eleazar wrote:A stronger argument. While it is not jarring to have multiple ship designs on the screen, you can only play one music track at once. By what criterion do you decide which species music will play? Is it going to feel any different to the player than randomly shuffling music tracks? I don't see how the average player is form an association between music and the species.
Then again, this could get boring during a long war against a single species empire.
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[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
That was my intention, yes. The client would pick music for either a representative species in his own fleet, or one in one of his opponent's fleets.em3 wrote:Well, there could be some way to determine the dominant species in a fleet, either by the number of ships crewed or by some weighted sums (ship size or fire power could be a factor). And by 'dominant' I don't mean 'in charge', just 'most representative'.eleazar wrote:A stronger argument. While it is not jarring to have multiple ship designs on the screen, you can only play one music track at once. By what criterion do you decide which species music will play? Is it going to feel any different to the player than randomly shuffling music tracks?
Because the (my?) plan is for each species' main theme to play when you're in diplomacy with them (and yes, that idea suffers from the conflation of species and empire as well; everything is fine if a species can have diplomacy as one of its "roles", otherwise things need a little more re-thinking). It should be obvious to the player the species to which a particular battle theme belongs if he's heard that species' main theme before.eleazar wrote:I don't see how the average player is form an association between music and the species.
It might require a bit more work/thought to keep the selection of music from seeming arbitrary in some cases, for example when your opponent has different species on diplomacy from the one that pilots most of his ships, but I don't feel like that's a major problem.
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Re: Species Specific Hulls?
For version 1, no. All should be the same hull. No need to have a lot of graphics for this game.eleazar wrote: Can somebody describe usage of species-specific hulls that makes sense with the game we are making?
However, one flaw with games of this type, and a lot of strategy games, is having a back story and/or predetermined properties to each species. I think species should be nothing more than your appearance. The play style of your empire should not be determined by your species. It should be determined by you. MOO had back story and stats for each species, and I think it restricted player's choices. People chose how they thought they would play the game, before it even began.
It would be great for a game like this to allow you to choose your species appearance in icons, diplomacy, ship hull style, etc. People who play as warlords may gravitate towards aggressive and feral looking species. While players who favor technological research may gravitate towards peaceful and refined looking creatures.
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
Well, a very important feature of FreeOrion is that empire != species. You can pick up more species through conquering planets with them. This means that your starting species can have little effect on your end-game, depending on your strategy. Of course, your starting species will affect your starting play, but since you can make any species you want, I don't think that matters so much.Gorbulan wrote:For version 1, no. All should be the same hull. No need to have a lot of graphics for this game.eleazar wrote: Can somebody describe usage of species-specific hulls that makes sense with the game we are making?
However, one flaw with games of this type, and a lot of strategy games, is having a back story and/or predetermined properties to each species. I think species should be nothing more than your appearance. The play style of your empire should not be determined by your species. It should be determined by you. MOO had back story and stats for each species, and I think it restricted player's choices. People chose how they thought they would play the game, before it even began.
It would be great for a game like this to allow you to choose your species appearance in icons, diplomacy, ship hull style, etc. People who play as warlords may gravitate towards aggressive and feral looking species. While players who favor technological research may gravitate towards peaceful and refined looking creatures.
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Re: Species Specific Hulls?
The only thing I can think of is a small bonus to existing ship hulls from species alignment. IE a robotic hull piloted by exobots gets some kind of bonus because both are robots. An energy hull gets a bonus with a phototropic species... etc.
I'm not crazy about the idea, but that would be one way to distinguish things.
I'm not crazy about the idea, but that would be one way to distinguish things.
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
It does not. Which is why I think it should purely be for appearance. But making an alien cargo ship recognizable as a cargo ship can be hard. Sure, a terran freighter is obvious, it probably resembles a semi truck. But an alien freighter is harder to recognize if it takes a different shape than the terran one. It has too look "alien" and so players may not recognize its function.qsswin wrote: Well, a very important feature of FreeOrion is that empire != species. You can pick up more species through conquering planets with them. This means that your starting species can have little effect on your end-game, depending on your strategy. Of course, your starting species will affect your starting play, but since you can make any species you want, I don't think that matters so much.
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
It's more clearer to me now,I'm also wondering about the usage of species-specific hulls..thanks for your inputs!Gorbulan wrote:For version 1, no. All should be the same hull. No need to have a lot of graphics for this game.eleazar wrote: Can somebody describe usage of species-specific hulls that makes sense with the game we are making?
However, one flaw with games of this type, and a lot of strategy games, is having a back story and/or predetermined properties to each species. I think species should be nothing more than your appearance. The play style of your empire should not be determined by your species. It should be determined by you. MOO had back story and stats for each species, and I think it restricted player's choices. People chose how they thought they would play the game, before it even began.
It would be great for a game like this to allow you to choose your species appearance in icons, diplomacy, ship hull style, etc. People who play as warlords may gravitate towards aggressive and feral looking species. While players who favor technological research may gravitate towards peaceful and refined looking creatures.
--elle
Last edited by elle23 on Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Species Specific Hulls?
i'm not sure i agree with this statementGorbulan wrote:MOO had back story and stats for each species, and I think it restricted player's choices. People chose how they thought they would play the game, before it even began.
to which MOO are you referring?
aside from the darlocks[r] in the first one i find it impossible to agree with that statement where MOO1 is concerned
there was no more backstory per race in MOO1 than there is here
but that's the only MOO i played more than once.
any type of static bonus **will** influence how one plays the game
being able to create/define your own race isn't too crazy and if everything is balanced within a range: personalization would really be no different than choosing your flag/color
thanks for a great game.
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Starcraft, Syndicate, Populous, Star Control II, Master of Orion, Master of Magic, X-COM UFO Defense, Spacehulk: Vengence of the Blood Angels.