Combat Requirements Doc - Preliminary
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 8:20 pm
Hi folks,
Been away for a while but working a bunch on FO in the last week. Right now, we're in the process of writing a separate design document for the tactical engine (which I have been calling the FreeOrion Tactical Combat Engine, or FTCE, since it makes me feel important). This document is going to be looked at and tweaked by the design team before it hits these boards (so it may be a little while yet) but I thought I'd get some of you talking about a few of the goals that may or may not end up in there. The format of the document is that I'm coming up with what we want to achieve and reducing these achievements to short sentences, and then working on implementations of those objectives -- sort of a series of things we can use to measure both our progress and our success at making what we've decided is a 'fun game.'
Here's a short list of some of the requirements that are under consideration. What would you add to this list? What would you remove? Keeping with our first rule of design (keep it simple!), if what you're talking about can't be expressed in a sentence or less, you're dealing with too much specificity and that's probably an implementation rather than a requirement.
Note that this is not a public review and the only reason this thread isn't in brainstorming is because it should be kept fairly neat and ordered. I came up with these in an afternoon and nobody else has seen them, so before you flip out and go 'OMG aquitaine is going to ruin freeorion combat' then realize that the 'official' document has a long way to go before it hits these forums. But instead of putting out a document and immediately revising it with something stupid I missed and should have thought of, I thought I'd get you all talking about it now so I can consider what questions we should be answering from some other angles. I'm also going back and playing MOO3 with some community patches and mods, since it's been a couple years since I touched it.
Some sample requirements:
Requirement 1: Combat must be epic in scale.
FreeOrion is a Space Opera. Combat must ‘feel’ epic.
Requirement 2: Combat must support at least 4 sides.
If each ‘side’ is considered ‘one fleet,’ combat must support four fleets simultaneously
Requirement 3: Combat must support any combination of human and AI empires.
The engine must allow human versus human, human versus AI, and AI versus AI.
Requirement 4: Rules must be effectively understood by the AI.
Any rules or business logic that affect the combat engine must be reducible or comprehensible by the AI engine.
Requirement 5: Combat action must be easily understood by the player.
A clear understanding of what is going on in any part of the combat engine should require only a couple seconds’ attention to the units involved.
Requirement 6: The player must be able to design the ships in the fleet.
Control over the appearance and function of the players’ ships is an integral component of FreeOrion.
Requirement 7: The player’s control must not circumvent the rules.
The player must not have so much control over ship design or fleet composition that it becomes possible to ‘game’ the system.
Requirement 8: The field of combat must be apparent to the player.
Any strategic elements to the battlefield must be obvious.
Requirement 9: Combat must support three-dimensional movement.
Whether it’s through a fully 3D movement, the use of terrain, or some other solution, combat must take advantage of all three planes.
Requirement 10: Combat interruption is permitted to control fleets.
Whether through the use of timed turns (in multiplayer) or a pause feature (in single player) or both, some mechanism must be provided to pause the flow of combat and give orders.
Been away for a while but working a bunch on FO in the last week. Right now, we're in the process of writing a separate design document for the tactical engine (which I have been calling the FreeOrion Tactical Combat Engine, or FTCE, since it makes me feel important). This document is going to be looked at and tweaked by the design team before it hits these boards (so it may be a little while yet) but I thought I'd get some of you talking about a few of the goals that may or may not end up in there. The format of the document is that I'm coming up with what we want to achieve and reducing these achievements to short sentences, and then working on implementations of those objectives -- sort of a series of things we can use to measure both our progress and our success at making what we've decided is a 'fun game.'
Here's a short list of some of the requirements that are under consideration. What would you add to this list? What would you remove? Keeping with our first rule of design (keep it simple!), if what you're talking about can't be expressed in a sentence or less, you're dealing with too much specificity and that's probably an implementation rather than a requirement.
Note that this is not a public review and the only reason this thread isn't in brainstorming is because it should be kept fairly neat and ordered. I came up with these in an afternoon and nobody else has seen them, so before you flip out and go 'OMG aquitaine is going to ruin freeorion combat' then realize that the 'official' document has a long way to go before it hits these forums. But instead of putting out a document and immediately revising it with something stupid I missed and should have thought of, I thought I'd get you all talking about it now so I can consider what questions we should be answering from some other angles. I'm also going back and playing MOO3 with some community patches and mods, since it's been a couple years since I touched it.
Some sample requirements:
Requirement 1: Combat must be epic in scale.
FreeOrion is a Space Opera. Combat must ‘feel’ epic.
Requirement 2: Combat must support at least 4 sides.
If each ‘side’ is considered ‘one fleet,’ combat must support four fleets simultaneously
Requirement 3: Combat must support any combination of human and AI empires.
The engine must allow human versus human, human versus AI, and AI versus AI.
Requirement 4: Rules must be effectively understood by the AI.
Any rules or business logic that affect the combat engine must be reducible or comprehensible by the AI engine.
Requirement 5: Combat action must be easily understood by the player.
A clear understanding of what is going on in any part of the combat engine should require only a couple seconds’ attention to the units involved.
Requirement 6: The player must be able to design the ships in the fleet.
Control over the appearance and function of the players’ ships is an integral component of FreeOrion.
Requirement 7: The player’s control must not circumvent the rules.
The player must not have so much control over ship design or fleet composition that it becomes possible to ‘game’ the system.
Requirement 8: The field of combat must be apparent to the player.
Any strategic elements to the battlefield must be obvious.
Requirement 9: Combat must support three-dimensional movement.
Whether it’s through a fully 3D movement, the use of terrain, or some other solution, combat must take advantage of all three planes.
Requirement 10: Combat interruption is permitted to control fleets.
Whether through the use of timed turns (in multiplayer) or a pause feature (in single player) or both, some mechanism must be provided to pause the flow of combat and give orders.