FreeOrion Roadmap

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Bigjoe5
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Re: FreeOrion Roadmap

#46 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:...there's enough of campaign mode actually planned, and we actually have enough of FO done to make some initial campaign programming meaningful.
What sort of "campaign programming" did you have in mind?
I suppose a way to create a customized galaxy and starting conditions in a text file and access them in game through some sort of "campaign mode" option would be appropriate. There would need to be a way to make specific events happen on specific turns or when a specific goal has been accomplished in a specific scenario. This could be accomplished by allowing the scenario itself to be part of the activation condition for effects, or more likely, simply by including an invisible object which is specific to each scenario and has effects groups dependent on the turn or other relevant conditions in the galaxy.

Currently, such modifications could presumably be made to a save file, but they aren't quite as friendly as most of the FO text files.
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

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eleazar
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Re: FreeOrion Roadmap

#47 Post by eleazar »

As we are working on the "Simulating Citizens" and "Diplomacy Preliminary", the indefiniteness of all the topics in the last half of the roadmap are becoming more of a problem. Sure, we can't do everything at once, but a lot of the future road-map items are more closely linked than some of the stuff we've done already. Espionage, governments, leaders, species, and diplomacy can't be as easily considered in a vacuum as space combat or production could be.

The simulating citizens thread necessarily starts nailing down a few more things about alien species which is fine, since it is clearly in the scope of the question. But a lot of effort has been wasted in making and defending assumptions about other ground combat or civics, or even in arguing that the player shouldn't have civics choices. Even if people aren't flying off on tangents, it's a lot of extra work to try to design a game mechanics that work just as well with with any conceivable implementation we might make of ground combat or civics, etc.

:arrow: It would simply be a lot easier to make progress in the design threads if we had a clue about what the rest of the game will look like.

Even when bits of what future design decision seems obvious to me based on past decisions and our philosophy, it's still doesn't do much to help focus the current design discussion since everybody has their own ideas, and any new-ish contributors don't have the background knowledge necessary to see how a proposal for Espionage might not work with what's already been established.


What i would like to see is a version of the roadmap with some detail to it. I don't want to try to design the whole thing in advance, but there are parameters we can place on future features, and we can declare goals we would like to achieve. This would give us something to aim for. Also it would be useful to declare which features are necessary for 1.0, and which might be put off until later.


For example:
* i'd list as optional: Leaders, Space Monsters, and Random Events.
I'd love to see these included, but i'd also love to see 1.0. "Optional" simply means current design decisions should not rely on the presence of these features.

* For ground combat we might say that it should require minimal (if any) player direction so that it can play out concurrently with space combat. I.E. if your space marines take control of a planet while the space battle still rages, they can turn the planet's weapons against their former rulers.
You might hate this idea, but it is a clearly defined vision for ground combat, that makes it much easier to make guesses about how another feature would interact with ground combat.

* Under species, i'd list a few things that have already been nailed down:
** only one species lives on a planet at a time
** each species has an EP
I'd also want to include Goal statements like:
** "FO should be friendly to the creation and inclusion of multiple custom species." This statement doesn't get into implementation-level details, but it's a goal that could be referenced to guide implementation. For instance an implementation where species balanced is highly dependent on species being present in the galaxy in just the right combinations wouldn't meet this goal, because adding player-created species to the mix would ruin the balance.


I'm not expecting everyone to rally around what i've put down under "for example", those are just examples of the kind of top-level information i think we need about future game features.

I think RonaldX's post here, expresses well some of the problems that sketching in some detail to the roadmap would solve or at least mitigate.

I don't know if we need an offical meta-design thread or what, but if we are going to progress efficiently we need something.


P.S. in a vaguely related topic, we have
"...the FreeOrion team is dedicated to the construction of a living, breathing universe in a 'grand campaign' model" on the vision statement. But i don't see where anything like "grand campaign" is on the roadmap.

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utilae
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Re: FreeOrion Roadmap

#48 Post by utilae »

Hi everyone, I have taken the road map on page one of this thread and made a few adjustments,
incorporating the verson 0.4 design pad in the detailed version 0.4 section.
Included here is stuff we have already done - please let me know if there is anything I have missed.

Let's get acceptance on the roadmap as it should stand in 2015 !
We also need to look at what is left for version 0.4 to complete.

Completed in v0.1:
Network and player
Basic galaxy map
Splash screen / save game / load game
Basic planet screen
Automated combat resolution
Fleet movement and capturing of planets & star systems

Completed in v0.2:
Galaxy generation routines
Planet classification
Population growth model & population cap
Industry / Production model
Starlanes
Environmental preferences
Basic Planet Specials
Minerals and Stockpiles (Optional)

Completed in v0.3:
Buildings / Infrastructure model
Planetary resources, Economy model
Supply / Range model
Industry / Production model
Tech tree beginning (Empire level stuff)
Secret Projects (Optional)

To be completed in v0.4 (Detail):
**Space combat model**
**Ship design model**
**Tech tree update (Combat, Ship Design stuff)**
Detail:
Ship Sizes and Shapes (Slot Sizes, Facings, Supply/Range/Fuel, Travel Speed, Battle Effectiveness)
Engines (Interstellar and In-Battle, Engine types: different speed, stealth, fuel use)
Non-ship Objects in Combat - Planets (Planetary Shields, Planetary Weapons, VS Ship weapons, VS Ground troops, Non-Military Buildings)
Non-ship Objects in Combat - Other In-System Objects (Shipyards, Defensive Orbitals, Asteroid mines)
Battle UI (Informative Overlays, Order-giving Interface)
Battle map layout (Object scale on screen, Starlane openings, Terrain effects)
When to fight (Single player, Multi player - if multiple battles occur simultaneously)


To be completed in v0.5:
Diplomacy model (EU2-esque diplomacy model)
Tech tree update (Diplomacy stuff)
Diplomacy model AI (Considerable amount of work)
Victory conditions
Happiness, Influence & Allegiance (Optional)
Morale, unrest & rebellions (Optional)

To be completed in v0.6:
Ground combat
Tech tree update (Ground combat stuff)
Space Monsters (Optional)

To be completed in v0.7:
Espionage
Tech tree update (Espionage stuff)
Planet Specials
Random Events (Optional)
Conquered species assimilation (Optional)

To be completed in v0.8:
Governments (SMAC-style government model)
Races & Race picks
Tech tree update (Governments, race-specific picks stuff)
Leaders (Optional)
Story & Campaign stuff (Optional) - Scripting engine

To be completed in v0.9:
Game balancing, extensive playtesting (Alpha release geared towards playability)
Translation of game content into officially supported languages (Volunteers?)
Story & Campaign stuff (Optional) - Campaign creation (Volunteers?)

To be completed in v1.0:
Polish and final bug squashing
Final graphic, FX, and music work
Editing everything for grammar and spelling (content) and readability (code)
No new features in v1.0

To be completed in v1.1 (Optional):
New features (Optional)
Bug fixes (Optional)

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Vezzra
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Re: FreeOrion Roadmap

#49 Post by Vezzra »

utilae wrote:Hi everyone, I have taken the road map on page one of this thread and made a few adjustments,
incorporating the verson 0.4 design pad in the detailed version 0.4 section.
AFAIK this roadmap has been declared obsolete and been replaced by a more "dynamic" one. The current version of the roadmap can be found here. It too hasn't seen an update in a long time, though...

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utilae
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Re: FreeOrion Roadmap

#50 Post by utilae »

OK thanks. However, looking at that roadmap, there is no plan. The things to be done need to be defined version by version. Otherwise you don't know the scope. You will be working on version 0.4 forever until it is spontaneously decided that you are on version 0.5.

I think there needs to be more of a structure and more of a plan. Mainly, what is left to complete in version 0.4 ? And what are we working on in version 0.5 ?

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MatGB
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Re: FreeOrion Roadmap

#51 Post by MatGB »

FreeOrion • View topic - Plans for 0.4.5

Specifically Geoff's post, 4th in the thread, sets out what he thinks should be completed in order to have 0.5 ready. It should, probably, be compiled into a roadmap of sorts to show what we've planned, but as some aspects of what's planned has been dumped from the project completely and some is very relian on the interests of specific devs with specific talents saying "we must have this for 0.5" if X is something that has to be done by one or two people isn't the best plan overall.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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utilae
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Re: FreeOrion Roadmap

#52 Post by utilae »

Thanks for that. Yes, you are right that we rely on the devs as they are the
ones that move the project along and because of that a more dynamic plan is suitable.

People aren't going to stick to a plan when the planners have left years before.
It is the current generation of contributers that define the plan, even if the plan is just the next step (version).

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