@Krikkitone & Guiguibaah: I
think the idea is that there will be a shed load of "game engine parameters" such as you've been listing, and there will be an indeterminate (but large) number of things the player can alter or influence or just be lumbered with (such as race picks, build choices, mineral richness of planets, government types?, focii of planets etc.) and that the "inputs" will be connected to the "ouputs" via one or more of these "meters", thus simplifying the design.
For example:
Mining stuff:
Inputs: race picks (super miners/avian etc./lithovore), ethical choices (e.g. strip mine planets yes/no), mining focus on planets, mineral richness
Outputs: Minerals produced, Food produced, Terraforming of planets
Meters: Mining, Food, Environment
how do we connect I to O via M?
Race picks: super miners (+1 to mining meter)
avian( -1 to mining)
lithovore (-1 to mining, +1 to food)
Choices : Strip Mine - no = no effect, yes = +1 to mining, -1 to environment
Focus of planet (using current numbers : if mining primary focus = mining+6, +3 if balanced, 0 if focused on something else, secondary +2,+1,0 respectively)
Mineral richness, maybe -2 to +2?
So if you are a lithovoric, super mining race, who've taken the Planetary strip mining special choice, and have a mining/balanced mineral poor (-1) ocean world, your inputs go
Code: Select all
Item Mining Food Environment
lithovore -1 +1
super mining +1
strip mining +1 -1
mining/balanced +7 +1
mineral poor -1
terran -1
result +7 +1 -1
so you then map the result to the output tables and get: +7 mining = 7 minerals per turn per unit of population, +1 food = 1 unit of food per turn per unit of population, -1 environment = Environment of planet decays by one step every ten turns.
But note that each meter could have multiple effects, and game effects could be determined by the combination of two meters, e.g. population growth might be determined by the sum of food and environment, so in this case pop growth could be 0.The probability of getting a 'environmentalists sabotage mines' event could be determined by the sum of the mining meter and the environment meter, i.e. +6 mining is not worth -8 environment.
So for the combat related effects, there would be a more limited number of meters (e.g. aggresiveness, military tradition, natural skill) these could then be combined in differing ways and proportions to give the output factors:
e.g.
weapon accuracy modifier = natural skill
evasion ability = 4 parts natural skill + 1 part miltary tradition
ship morale modifier =aggresiveness + military tradition
ship experience bouns = military thinking
Ground troup effectiveness = 2*aggresiveness + 1*military tradition + 2*natural skill
Chance of following orders to disengage= 2*military tradition - 1*aggresiveness
This way you could have a myriad of race picks, choices, events and technologies that change the three meters, and a myriad of effects resulting from those meters, without having to change everything in the game every time you change one of the choices or effects: so long as the meters remain unchanged nothing else gets broken by a change to an input or output. (except perhaps game balance).
N.b. Things like weapon strength would be entirely dependant on technology, so no other factors can affect it (a plasma beam has the same damage rating whoever uses it, wherever, however). The same reasoning applies to ship durability. Things like these would of course not be part of the input-meter-output idea.
EDIT: I'm now getting the impression this is NOT what other people (e.g. Drek initially) meant when they were talking about meters. so treat it as a suggestion not an explanation.
