Contents |
This is the main gameplay page where each facet of gameplay will be detailed.
Different technologies will play a very large role in this game. If you don't keep up with the technology race in some form, you will probably lose... and badly.
I hope to eventually have a gigantic amount of technologies to research, covering many different archetypes. Anything is possible.
Research is accomplished by first building some Research Centers on planets or starbases and then designating one or more ideas you want your researchers to investigate. Depending on your race traits, you may be limited on how many or how few research projects can be active at a time. For example, a Federation is most efficient researching multiple types of technology. While a federation can (in theory) focus on a single topic of research, the overheard due to cultural and distance barriers increase rapidly. Elsewhere in the same galaxy, a Hivemind empire has difficulty researching more than 1 project at a time. Once built, Research Centers generate resource points, or RP. Each turn, a certain amount of RP is generated and split amongst all your active projects. (For a more in-depth description of how RP works, see the RP page.)
However, it's not just easy as asking your researchers to "make us a new weapon!" and getting a new laser next year. First of all, a researcher's clever new idea might not be useful for a laser weapon... but might be well suited as a new power source. Such serendipitous breakthroughs can lead to new things to research later, helpful tweaks, or even a better technology than you first intended! While such 'mistakes' are essentially random, the chances of a researcher to recognize the potential of a failed experiment as something useful is based on many racial traits and how many separate projects are ongoing (when everyone is focused on making one thing as fast as possible, anything not having to do with the desired outcome is often discarded immediately).
Once a certain technology is finally researched, it may unlock new devices to build like spaceship parts, give a general bonus to your empire, unlock more possibilities for your researchers to look into, or all the above.
In a nutshell this is how you research:
All research takes place on a Path, which splits the various technologies into different areas of research. Basically, a path is like a miniature tech tree.
Each path only has so many technologies in it, but each technology may have one or more sub-paths that can branch from it. Such sub-paths can be unlocked by attempting to research ideas from it, contacts with alien technology, or through serendipity such as breakthroughs. Sub-paths may require another technology to be researched before allowing itself to be unlocked.
Before actual research can take place, your researchers must have an Idea. An idea is a simply that- an idea of a possible technology you could have if you put your researchers on the project. Ideas themselves give no benefit to your empire until they are actually researched. This usually entails lots of experimentation, mathematics drawn on napkins, or whatever else those eggheads do.
Ideas occur in paths. Your first idea in a new path is relatively cheap. However, each subsequent idea you ask your researchers to come up with in a path incur heavier and heavier RP costs. This allows empires a bit of control over what research they get, but still encourages them to try out what they start with and hopefully develop new tactics and gameplay styles. For example, your researchers come up with an idea for a Warp Drive in the Propulsion path. However, you think something else would be better for the tactics you had in mind and ask them to come up with another idea. This second idea takes longer, but they eventually come up with a Gravity Drive; you think this is dandy and tell them to make it happen.
Besides your own researchers, the other major methods of getting new ideas is alien races. Old technology from long-forgotten dead races, schematics your spies bring back, or even researchers reviewing sensor logs from spacebattles, although the later two may only provide ideas on how to counter the technology, not understand it enough to use it.
Techs themselves are researched like they are in most other games.
Tweaks are simply enhancements to already known technologies. They are researched and used in the same way as any other technology, the only difference being that they only enhance the technology they apply to and will never unlock new paths. However, while they will not help you progress further in a particular path, they are much cheaper than researching a new technology.
For example, if you have red lasers researched and want more damage (who doesn't), you can either research a new, more powerful weapon further in the path like green lasers, or you can try for tweaks that help focus your already existing red lasers for more damage. Tweaks will get you more damage faster, and can usually be applied to smaller ships that may not be able to support a new, more power-hungry, weapon. However, they don't help you progress in technology and thus offer less damage in the long-run.
Breakthroughs occur when a researcher serendipitously realizes that a failed experiment is not a total loss and would be useful if applied in a different way in another technology.
In game terms, this means you may suddenly unlock a semi-related technology, along with a research bonus of 20%. If the technology is unlocked, but not researched (i.e., the idea is known) you will still get the research bonus. If the technology is already researched, there is a chance it will unlock a tweak instead.
The chances of your empire getting a breakthrough are influenced mainly by your government type, how many projects you are currently researching (more projects = more breakthroughs on average), and the number of research labs you have.
Thinking isn't the only method a coming up with new technology. Acquiring what you need from another race through theft, trade, or conquest is easier than making it up yourself. However, just having the designs will not be enough for your engineers to start building stolen weapons of mass destruction. Researchers will still need to study the designs or prototypes in order to understand it enough to copy it. The RP cost of this studying depends on the method the designs were acquired: 90% for espionage, 50% for Salvage, 40% for Conquest, and only 20% for Trading.
Newly acquired alien technology is basically treated like a breakthrough. A new starting path in your technology tree may open up, allowing you to request research along that new tree.
Oftentimes, working bits of alien technology will be left floating in space after a large battle. Ships with the required equipment can identify the salvage worth towing back to the nearest research facility. Salvage over a certain size will need to be delievered to a research lab on a Starbase, or possibly investigated by special ships with the required research equipment?
Your spies can steal research from other races for your own uses, possibly even denying the information to your enemies by stealing it immediately upon completion and destroying research before fleeing.
Successful invasion of a planet will result in the capturing of any still-standing research labs. Upon searching these freshly acquired labs, you may find designs detailing alien technologies. In addition, you will receive a research bonus on this planet due to all the left behind parts & gizmos (similar to the Ancient Artifacts planet trait. This bonus will depend on how technologically advanced the other race was.
Technology can also be traded to another race. Trading is one of the fastest ways to acquire alien technology- instead of your researchers trying to understand alien schematics or dissect a battle-scared piece of salvage, they actually get translated schematics, prototypes to play with, and more importantly, access to the alien race's researchers to ask questions. All this translates to an RP cost that is only 20% that of the original cost. However, all that knowledge and help understanding it quickly has to come from somewhere- the alien race that supplied the technology must pay 60% of the RP cost again to signify the time your researchers have to spend on making prototypes and teaching the other race. 40% of this cost must be paid up front, before the benefactor begins research. After the 40%, both races must then contribute their last 20% together to research it. The research is not finished until both races have contributed their full 20%.
The UPC will ensure that the alien race is supplying enough RP and not lagging the process.
There will be many types of racial traits to choose from when creating a new race. See the Race page for all the numerous traits that can be selected.
Each empire has its own form of government. All have various pros and cons. Again, see the Race page for more information on this topic.
In order to expand your empire, you will need to colonize planets and/or build structures in space like starbases.
Besides starbases, a few other structures may be built off-planet; e.g., structures to aid in FTL travel.
No matter how large or resource rich your home planet is, you'll eventually want to begin colonizing other planets or moons.
In game terms, there are no differences between a planet and a moon. Moons can be colonized just like any other relatively large body, assuming the climate is agreeable with the race.
Also, with the right technology, resources occurring on non-inhabited moons orbiting around a colonized planet (or the parent planet itself and its other moons, in the case of a colonized moon) may gathered by that colony, albeit with a reduced efficiency that is dependent on the gravity and distance.
Colonies can be instructed to build a variety of different structures both on the planet and in its orbit. Structures can effect many things like providing various bonuses, allowing you to build larger classes of starships (at that planet), allowing / increasing research, terraforming, planetary morale, planetary defense, and many more.
Most structures will have both research prerequisites and require previous structures be built before allowing work to begin. All structures will also have a size associated with them. While most planets can support many structures, there is still a finite limit.
Colonies can only build one structure at a time, but the game will support queuing to help alleviate having to manage the structure building process at planets every turn.
There is no need to "place" structures on the planet- they will be placed automatically for players and placement will have no bearing on gameplay.
Planets can only support so many beings, although this number depends on the size of the planet and where the race(s) living on the planet dwell. Technically, each planet has different habitable zones: the Atmosphere, Subterranean, Surface, and Oceanic- although not all planets will have capacity in each zone (ie, planets with no hydrosphere will not have an oceanic zone).
The player will have a slider for each planet allowing him/her to set the desired population density. Since changes in the population density are largely dependent on attrition, the player will not see intimidate results but will instead have to wait until older members of the population die off for a decrease in population. Large changes in this slider will result in "baby booms" or "baby crashes" and may have future side effects for that planet.
The population density of a planet has many effects. Generally, the higher the population, the higher the:
Unlike colony structures that are built on or nearby planetiods, starbases can be built nearly anywhere. They are an important tactical option, allowing you to establish a presence in systems with no habitable planetiods, or out in the void away from stars.
Starbases are expensive affairs, both to build and to maintain. Although certain research can help offset the maintenance, starbases will always need to have semi-regular resupplying, usually involving massive transports hauling fuel, food, and other resources from one or more planets.
Starbases start out as little more than a floating toilet attached to a docking ring. However, by building structures and though various upgrades, they can become powerful forces in the universe. For example, building extra space docks and civilian structures like living quarters and cargo bays will create a merchant's paradise, attracting traders from all over the universe and influencing trade routes in a vast area.
Like colonies, starbases can also build structures. Careful consideration will need to be taken however- starbases generally have less resources to work with and far less space than planetiods. On the positive side, they can be upgraded to increase their capacity, unlike planets.
Starbases can be upgraded to increase their size. These are large-scale efforts- upgrade resource costs fit an exponential model.
While smaller starbases will likely only have a military crew, larger starbases will also have large amounts of civilian population, especially if it becomes a major trade hub. This will earn you large amounts of trade income, and your spies will garner much information about the surrounding empires from talking with travelers. However, it will also make the starbase much more susceptible to hostile spies.
Your fleet of various starships will be crucial to playing the game.
Graphically, users will be able to create their own tiles to use for starship graphics.
Ships will be easily customizable in the game, allowing you to build nearly anything to meet the needs of whatever tactics you employ. Want a transport ship that has the ability to colonize planets while carrying large loads of supplies to give your new colony a head start? Perhaps intelligence reports indicate the enemy has been focusing on carriers bristling with bomber wings; designing some long-range ships with plenty of point defense guns to repel the bombers may be the difference between a crushing defeat and a huge victory.
Players will be able to supply their own graphics for their ships, which will be viewable by other players. This will only be changeable during the game setup phase, before the actual beginning of the game. The client will include options to turn this feature off if the player desires to stop seeing space penises.
During the design, players will add any component they want in the ship, limited only by the capacity of the hull itself (although many of these components still add to the mass / power requirements of the ship). Each class of hull of has its own capacity rating, which may be further modified by research. Unused internal capacity is used as storage for supplies- there is never any wasted space.
There will be the usual assortment of hull classes in the game, ranging from scouts, corsairs, battleships, carriers, all the way up to Death Star type 'ships'.
There will be no need to assign certain weapons to point defense or things like that- if the mount is fast enough to track an incoming missile or whatever and shoot it, it will.
Some equipment, including most weapons, must be mounted on the outside of the hull.
Unlike internal hull design, players are not limited by capacity on the outside of the ship. However, the ship mass, power requirements, and computing requirements are still issues.
Conducting research will unlock the ability of your assembly lines to mass-produce the various equipment your ships will use; however, this isn't an empire's only option. When the situation calls for it, special equipment may be created at an inflated cost/production time.
These special orders may simply be more powerful prototypes of the base model (e.g., a laser cannon with +20% damage) or something completely different by adding different effects and modifiers to the equipment. Empires are limited in what they can create by their engineering technology- more research into the engineering tree will enable equipment more more and increasingly potent effects.
This works similarly to creating magically enchanted equipment in magical strategy games.
Weapons on ships are grouped into one of two main groups:
Sub-groups may be created to aid in creating advanced battle scripts.
Also, weapons in a group may be 'linked' to fire simultaneously if power allows. Usually fire rates are managed by the computer, but if you want to make sure Weapon A and Weapon B always fire together, you may.
Ship hulls have four 'resources': capacity, power, mass, and computer power. The only 'hard' limit is capacity- ships only have so much empty space. The others are not a hard restrictions, but instead will effect the capabilities and efficiency of the ship in its roles. For example, placing a thousand lasers on your small ship might seem like a good idea, but the power required to fire them all will likely not exist, causing slow fire rates and/or low damage. The computing power to track and aim all the hardpoint mounts will cause aiming to be extremely slow and will lower the accuracy. And finally, having all that mass on a small ship will likely cause it to have extremely slow movement rates and have no evasive capabilities, meaning it will get picked off by larger craft easily.
After you create the design of your new ship, a team of researchers, engineers, and military specialists begin banging out just how they're going to make your creation a reality. Depending on the size and complexity of the ship, this may take a lot of time and/or resources.
As military personal use your ships in combat, they will gain experience with their ship. Experience boosts all attributes of a ship's operation- speed, damage, defense, everything is boosted to some extent. A battle-hardened, experienced crew will be able to squeeze more power out of a ship than the original designers had dreamed of. (This type of crew experience will have to work differently for hivemind type empires.)
Your empire as a whole may also begin to increase their experience with a ship through the use of training programs, etc. This is a far slower process which will increase the default experience a crew in a new ship will have.
Both forms of experience are tied to the ship design. Crew members piloting a new ship design will be completely green.
Also linked to the specific design of a ship is the experience other empires gain in fighting ships of that type. As enemy empires battle your ships, they gain experience in its capabilities and its weaknesses. The more experience an empire has fighting a design, the more damage they deal, the better their accuracy, and better job their battle computers will do selecting targets (i.e., a ship that has already proven to be ineffective versus your design will attempt to target something else instead). Improvements to a design do not effect this experience, although certain improvements (such as a speed boost by a better engine) may require battle computers to relearn which targets to favor if ships that used to be viable can no longer catch an improved design.
Technology changes rapidly- thankfully you don't need an entirely new design just to change out an aging weapon for a newer, modern one. Trying to equip a gun that can blow up entire suns might be stretching it, however.
Upon initial creation, each design will have a tolerance stat in a few different categories like speed, damage, and power. This stat will be a rough percentage of how much better a component can be and still fit in the original design. For example, if you have an engine tolerance of 10%, you won't be able to place a new engine that is 20% faster than the original design had.
Tolerance is something that can only be increased by researching various new methods of engineering and production.
The game will need to support at least a fairly robust queuing system which supports patrols (or more correctly named- repeating commands). While telling a fleet of ships to follow a set path and keep following it forever is simple fairly common, other ships such as transports could use this as well to set up repeating resupplies of starbases, or perhaps sending extra supplies from other planets to one near the frontlines of a war for extra production speed.
Every command will get entered into the fleet's queue. The fleet then performs action #1 and when finished, deletes the command. If the command has a REPEAT flag set, the command will be moved to the end of the queue instead of deleted. Repeat flags can have a number associated to them, so they only repeat so many times before expiring.
To help support setting up timed queues, there will also be a simple Wait command that just makes the fleet wait a certain amount of time.
Interstellar ship movement will not involve "star lanes", except maybe where required by certain types of interstellar ship drives. What this means is a ship can travel from one system to any other system in the entire galaxy it wants, provided the other requirements of the star drive are met, like range or fuel.
This means that you can't just build some defenses on the outer rim of your empire and expect them to deter invading forces, as the invaders will simply travel past those defenses and less defended systems.
A wide range of movement types is currently planned for the game to increase tactical variety. This list may change or shrink to one at some point during balancing.
An important note is that nearly all interstellar drives are unable to function within powerful gravitational fields, such as those created by stars. This makes planets nearer to stars more defensible, as invading fleets will need to stop using their FTL drives at the edge of the soloar system and use sub-light drives to cover the rest of the distance. Different drives will have different tolerances to gravity.
While taxes can help provide your empire with credits, it's nowhere near as lucrative as interplanetary trade.
Trade is something that happens naturally., mostly out of the player's control. However, there are various acts players can perform that can greatly influence trade over far distances by remembering that merchants are extremely greedy.
As planets and other empires begin to contact each other, merchants will begin buying various products on one planet and selling them on others in their never ending search for profit. Depending on the size of the galaxy and length of the game, there may be many millions of merchants, all doing their own thing. Where many of these merchants travel, a trade lane is established.
Trade lanes are important areas for an empire; controlling one gives an empire a large boost in tax income. However, trade lanes must be protected from pirates and other hazards; merchants will not usually risk their precious cargo by traveling in unsafe areas of the galaxy. The owner is responsible for protecting the merchants as well as setting the taxes. Set the taxes too high, and the merchants will seek other routes or chance unprotected space.
Merchants start their careers at their home planet and set out from there, usually returning home when convenient. They will usually start out small and, as their wealth grows (and civilized space expands), expand into further and further reaches of space.
There will be an algorithm used to create merchant routes, based mostly, if not entirely, on greed. It looks something like this: (money they'll make at a planet) - ((distance to planet) * (fuel cost)) - ((time since last trade with planet) * (some sort of logarithmic equation to generate diminishing returns)) - (docking fee with planet) - (any tariffs along the way)
They also factor recent pirate attacks and other space battles into their planning. They won't usually go anywhere that may risk their precious cargo, although if a player sets tariffs too high they may risk unprotected space if the payoff is good enough.
There will be only one type of resource in the game to manage at the empire level- Credits. Most of an empire's credits will come from taxes and trading. Credits will be used for maintenance, research, and construction projects, among other things.
While credits will be the primary resource at the empire level, each planet will still have its own set of resources. These resources include food, metal, crystal, and power. While these resources will be managed automatically, the player's decisions will directly influence the resource levels. For example, building more or larger power plants will increase the power and building more farms or reassigning more of the populace to farming will increase the food production.
Each project initiated does not incur its full cost up front, but the total cost is divided by the build time to get a resource cost per tick. All the various costs per tick are added and subtracted from the total income per tick to get the net change of that resource per tick.
Each resource has different amounts that can be stored. An infinite amount of credits, a large number of metal & crystal, a medium amount of food, and a very small bit of power can be stored. These can also be increased by research and upgrades.
Another resource planets have is population itself. Powerplants and huge starships of mass destruction don't build themselves- they require labor.
Each planet's workforce may be split into multiple categories: Production, Farming, Research. Any rebels or dissidents on a planet are subtracted from the total workforce and are nonassignable.
Starbases are a bit different than planets since they can't normally generate their own resources and need to be supplied externally. Certain upgrades will help make starbases more self-sufficient.
Normally, massive transports will need to deliver expendables to starbases semi-regularly to keep them stocked. Both metal and crystal are used as fuel and construction projects, and food for the population (if needed). Transports are usually quite weak and need escorts or they will be picked off by an enemy or pirates.
This is also the major weakness of starbases, at least early on. It doesn't take many ships to blockade a starbase and prevent transports carrying vital resources from reaching it.
Combat in all forms will be one of the major focuses of the game.
There will come a time when you'll want to take a planet from the enemy for your own uses. Unless you can threaten or coerce them into outright giving it to you, you'll have to take it by force.
Planetary Battle replays are provided for all battles the players take part in as long as one of these two conditions are met: You win, or you have ships in orbit around the planet that are not in their own battle. Also, anything that blocks communication will also prevent players from viewing the details of the battle.
Just like starbases, planets may be blockaded. This act will prevent ships from entering or leaving the planet's atmosphere without being fired upon, with possible exception of diplomats. This may also be considered a siege for planets that aren't self-sufficient.
With the correct technology, blockades will also block communication to the planet. This means players will be unable to give orders to the planet.
Order your capital ships to train their largest weapons at the planet's surface. Successful bombardment will cause immense damage to the planet's infrastructure, population, defenses, and ecosystem. Planetary Bombardment is a useful tactic when you don't care about preserving the current planet's infrastructure or need to soften a hardened planet's defenses before invading, or you know you couldn't defend it and want to ruin it for others. Having ships with giant death rays capable of killing entire armies orbiting overhead doesn't hurt during an invasion, either.
The actual effects of a bombardment depend heavily on the types of weapons used, and the usual habitat of the race(s) inhabiting the planet. For example, a weapon that ignites the atmosphere of a planet isn't going to directly hurt a subterranean race, although it may have other effects that may make the planet unlivable at a later date. (Each weapon type will have a stats on how it bombards planets, although surface bombardment will probably be the most common.)
Depending on how many ships you have, their weapons, and the size of the planet, the amount of time required to completely raze a planet will differ.
Invasion involves sending your own forces down to the planet in order to destroy. By default, your invasion forces will only attack hostile defenders, but you have the option of attempting to wipe out the civilian population as well. Attacking civilians will severely impact your relations with that race, however.
After all hostile forces are wiped out on the planet, the conquered aliens may be enslaved for your own construction projects.
Projects enacted on enslaved planets cost 90% less credits, but take 20% longer to complete. Also, due to the severe strain on relations, spies are a much bigger problem.
Some sort of method for keeping the slaves in line must be used, or an uprising is sure to take place otherwise. A military presence is the simplest option, although this takes resources. Technology like mind control and the like will help in this regard.
Large scale, epic space battles will be fairly common as empires fight over trade lanes, planetary resources, and other things. However, being a simultaneous turn based strategy game, battles will be resolved by the server.
While the players will not be able to control every aspect of space battles, they will still be able to issue orders for their ships to carry out during combat via a simple scripting method of queuing up orders. There are two areas in which you can assign orders- the fleet and individual / groups of ships.
Due to the massive interference generated by massive weapons firing, explosions, and all sorts of electronic counter measure devices jamming signals, communication with ships or planets outside the scope of the battle is impossible. Because of this, players will only get full replays of space battles they win or successfully retreat from. Battles that result in total annihilation of a player's fleet will simply get a report saying they lost contact with that fleet.
Fleet orders will mainly deal with the posture of the fleet- if and when to attack, how far to pursue the enemy, and when to retreat.
If a fleet has a hostile posture, any ships entering its attack range will be pursued and fired upon. By default, your fleet's attack range is the its maximum sensor range, but this can be easily controlled.
This lets you control how far from their origin the fleet will pursue and attack a fleeing enemy.
Once in a combat situation, ship orders become more important, since each ship will likely have its own tactics- some may want to hang back and use long-range weapons, some to rush in and attack with shield depleting energy weapons before switching to more conventional weapons, while others may be ordered to hang back and protect some vulnerable carriers.
Just like the traditional fleet commands, these go into a queue and are carried out one by one.
There are three selectable values that make up each command: the command itself, the target to apply the command to, and the weapons to use.
| Command | Description | Valid Targets |
|---|---|---|
| Attack from optimum distance | Ship will move in and attack the enemy ships from the distance that will allow it to use most of its weapons. | Farthest Ships, Nearest Ships |
| Attack from maximum distance | Ship will move in and attack the enemy ships from the furthest distance possible. | Farthest Ships, Nearest Ships |
| Attack from minimum distance | Ship will move in and attack the enemy ships with no regard for staying back. | Farthest Ships, Nearest Ships |
| Flank | Ship will attempt to flank around the main force and attack from the sides or rear. | None |
| Guard | Ship will attempt to guard its target(s). | Individual Ship, Squads |
| Retreat | Ship will immediately retreat from battle. | |
| Spread | Ships will spread out from one another. |
Users will be able to assign labels to ships in the fleet, which will help categorize ships into squads.
A large warship with heavy cannons hitting a small, highly-maneuverable fighter is unlikely, much less chasing it down. Likewise, most small ships with weak weapons will have little luck blasting through the strong shields on large ships.
Ships have two ways to pick targets: Automatic selection based on known data of the enemy, and a target size restriction managed manually at the squad level.
Ensuring that the ship doesn't waste time in a heated battle by attempting to target a ship it is unlikely to deal damage to is the computer's job, although crew experience also plays a role. However, before the onboard computer can guide the ship in battle, it will need data on enemy ships.
Gathering this data can prove challenging, however- especially when the enemy is constantly upgrading its technology and ship designs. Spies are probably the best method for getting up-to-date information; if you can get one that produces ships for the enemy empire. Superspies also have many ways to gather such information like infiltrating a shipyard, getting close enough to an enemy ship and scanning it, or just outright stealing a new prototype. Battles your ships participate can be studied (assuming you have survivors! Constant communication interference during battles makes it relatively impossible to send long-range transmissions) afterwards and enemy ship's specifications can be extrapolated from the data. It is also possible that a member of a dying race may choose to help your empire by revealing their destructor's weaknesses. Data that is collected in the above manners will be entered into a library of known enemy ships that can also be perused by the player to read up on the types of loadouts, capabilities, etc. (A pie chart or something that shows known composition might also be helpful- 50% figheters, 20% bombers, etc.)
Ships entering battles will be able to asses enemy ships in the sector with enemy ships in the library. Known ships will be correctly targeted by the shipboard computers. New versions of ships will be assumed to have the same stats as the last known version until the onboard computers can reassess their stats; at this time targeting priorities may shift.
Ships entering battle with a host of unknown ships (for instance, two empires meeting for the first time) will instead target the closet ships their orders allow and attack. As the battle progresses, each ship's computer may pick better targets as they learn more.
It should be noted that only the primary guns will attack the ship's appointed target. Other guns (for example, point defense lasers) will attack other targets as the computer sees fit.
Boarding Parties attempt to take over a ship from the inside, potentially saving you from having to slug it out in an epic space battle. Such acquisitions are risky, but a payoff is worth it; not only is it one less ship to fight, but you get a ship filled with all sorts of alien technology for your researchers to pour over.
There are two main methods to get a boarding party from your ship to an enemy ship:
Since this is meant to be a multiplayer-only game, there will be a heavy emphasis placed on letting players form their own diplomatic relations with other players without forcing them into roles based on in-game factors. Players will be able to coerce, threaten, and bribe other players into accepting their demands, but will have to rely on in-game messaging & trading system to accomplish it.
With each message sent, players may elect to offer and/or demand a multitude of treaties, resources, planets, technology, etc along with the message. When the receiving player replies to the message, they may reject, counter, or accept the offer. Accepted agreements are enforced by the UPC.
Before an empire can communicate with another empire, they must send a diplomat. This diplomat stays at the other empire's seat of power (home planet or some such place) and helps organize treaties, trade, and relay messages in general.
Diplomats, like super spies, are hand-picked from your own populace and trained from a young age. They are expensive and take years to train. Because of this and their strategic importance, they are often targets of kidnapping, assassinations, etc. While the UPC prevents the destruction of any ship with a diplomat on-board during peaceful times (this protection ceases when at war with the empire the diplomat is from), pirates, spies, and empires who have left the UPC will often target them.
Empires never have to accept a diplomat and can turn them away when they arrive as well as evicting a diplomat that had previously been accepted. Likewise, players may choose to have their diplomat leave another empire (this move should always be viewed with suspicion by other empires). When at war, players may elect to kill any diplomat they encounter of the offending empire- newly arrived and old alike.
Super spies will often disguise themselves as diplomats because of the safety the title provides, so accepting a diplomat from another empire is a risky endeavor; the strategic payoffs can be worth it, however.
For effective player-to-player communication, two diplomats are needed- one from each empire stationed at the other empire. If one empire does not have a diplomat, they may still respond to messages; however, they may not initiate them.
Diplomats are also responsible for casting a vote during the UPC meetings. Without a diplomat present, you cannot cast your vote. If another empire uses underhanded tactics to remove or delay your diplomat, you will not be able to vote.
The United Planets Council, or UPC for short, is a governing body that gives some measure of order in the universe. The council is entirely made up of members of sentient races from various empires. Every so often, the council meets to discuss various issues and enact laws.
Besides coming up with new laws, the UPC also enforces a loose set of rules on all empires that call themselves members. These rules help keep some semblance of order in the universe, and are mainly meant to foster trade between empires and protect innocent civilians. Among other things, the UPC:
Players may elect to leave the council if they wish. Empires that do not recognize the UPC are free to do as they please, using all manner of technologies and underhanded practices. Players that leave the council may never rejoin however, and other empires will very likely view them with suspicion as they cannot be trusted to do what they say they will do. Space "owned" by an empire that does not recognize the council's authority tends to be lawless, the only moral code being that might makes right. The following are some examples of how this changes the gameplay:
If the amount of empires belonging to the UPC drops below a set amount (default is 20%) the UPC will dissolve. At this point, there will be almost no order in the galaxy.
The amount of votes your empire has to use to vote with are determined by the average percentage of credits donated to the United Senate Council each turn, or the total amount of credits donated since the last hearing- whichever is less. This will help keep the voting somewhat even and prevent powerful players from outvoting everyone else.
Political power will come from a player's diplomatic skills instead of some mythical diplomatic resource as in other games. Not to say that more powerful players won't have a slight edge- they may have more to offer other empires after all.
The laws that come up for voting will be mostly random, although players will have the ability to create their own laws. Most laws will have two possible effects: one if it is passed, the other if the law is voted down, although this does not have to be the case. Typically the two effects will be opposite in nature, with the against-effect being slightly less powerful.
The the next law up for voting will be communicated to all players in the UPC at about the half-way point in-between sessions. This way, players will have plenty of time to discuss, bribe, set up spies, and/or coerce other empires into voting their way, yet still give players who have been donating extensively to the UPC to get extra votes and advantage over others that may want to ramp up their donations after seeing the next law up for debate.
Once a law is passed into effect, it is permanent until it expires (if there was a time limit), it is removed by another law, or it is superseded by another law passed. Of course players may always elect to leave the UPC if a particularly distasteful law is passed.
Players will be able to devise their own laws, which will be voted on just like any other law.
Like creating a playable race at the beginning of the game, laws will be comprised of one or more effects chosen from a list of many- each with their own point values. These points come out of a pool that each player earns as the game progresses; each time the UPC meets, each player will be given an amount of points equal to 1/10 (rounded down) of the votes they get. However, just having many points only allows you to create more elaborate laws for players to vote on- make it too harsh and it will likely not pass.
After a race develops FTL drive technology, traveling to distant stars and meeting alien cultures suddenly becomes possible. This usually has two effects: Your own race's culture becomes more solidified- the old schisms separating your race by class, color, family trees, etc suddenly aren't as important now that there are actual alien beings in contact with your race. Second, your empire's culture starts to mingle with that of other empires, and vice versa.
Alien cultures mingling with your own has both positive and negative effects.
The greatest contributor to culture spread is trade. Merchants, eager to sell their popular wares to a new untapped market, swarm the newly discovered alien race with trade goods. While instituting a high tariff can slow this down somewhat, it is virtually impossible to completely halt.
Far behind trade, but still powerful enough to take notice, are different forms of media. This includes art, music, and other forms of communication like propaganda or missionaries preaching a new religion. Both propaganda and religion can be especially potent at inciting rebellious groups.
Thirdly we have tourists and immigration. These are the easiest to control, but also happen to be responsible for spreading the least amount of culture.
Many statistics are used to factor how much a culture will accept mingling. Ranked from highest to lowest, they are:
Both user-created maps and on-the-fly created random maps will be supported. The size of maps will be dictated using various categories: Small, Medium, Large, Huge, and Infinite. Small and medium will usually be single-galaxy maps, huge may be either one huge galaxy or multiple small galaxies, and infinite can be as large as the map maker wants.
The locations of stars in the map will be recorded using a simple polar coordinate system with the center of the map acting as the origin. Planetoids will use their parent's location as the origin. Because of this simple system, maps can be as large as needed and can even expand or contract dynamically.
By default, space is curved. Head off the left edge of the screen and you'll find yourself on the right, etc. This can be disabled in the game settings, although maps can specify defaults.
Space is a large place. Here are some of the naturally occurring things that may affect tactics:
While the UPC may keep things civil between players (at least for most of the game), what takes place in dark back alleys is very different. Sabotage, theft, assassination, spreading propaganda and disinformation, as well as simple intelligence gathering are always taking place.
There are two main types of spies- normal, regular spies that were once usually members of the other empire but now work for you, and super spies, which are highly skilled employees of your empire given immense amounts of money & technology to make things happen. While both have some overlap in areas, they are very different in how they are implemented, and have different areas of expertise.
Spies are usually organized into numerous cells. Keeping them separate lowers the chances of losing an entire espionage network due to a single problem.
Recruiting spies from another empire is a costly operation, in both credits and time. Most beings aren't willing to risk their lives working against their government for nothing- even if they may dislike that government. Likewise, attempting to recruit new spies takes some guile and tact. Pushing too hard will likely only alert the other empire to your activities.
Each mundane spy will usually have some sort of job, some of which may increase their effectiveness in certain areas.
Super Spies are an entirely different animal from regular spies. Instead of slow, secret, and expensive, super spies are oftentimes fast, blatant, and hideously expensive. While this may make them a sub-par choice for regular, run-of-the-mill information gathering, their training, expertise, and charisma make them excellent tools for when something absolutely must get done quickly and you don't have time to set up a spy network.
Recruiting super spies is radically different than mundane spies. Instead of recruiting unknown beings from difficult to understand alien species, super spies are recruited from your own population, making them infinitely more trustworthy and infallible than other spies. Super spies are found and trained at a young age, after which they usually perform counter-intelligence tasks in their home empire when not on missions in hostile lands. Their close ties makes them immune to being turned and used against you by the enemy.
Using a super spy is also very much different than normal spies. Since they are oftentimes on one of your planets to start, they must find a way into enemy territory before they can start their mission. Personalized small, fast, starcraft are normally used by super spies to get into enemy space, but they can use other methods in emergencies, like hitching rides or stowing away on transports.
Super Spies may also undergo Diplomat training which allows them to also perform all the functions of diplomats. This is an expensive and time consuming process. However, spies that undergo this training are able to easily pose as diplomats from any empire, usually granting them an easy time of penetrating the enemy (as long as they're not refused entry based on diplomatic reasons).
Both types of spies can perform many actions, although some types are better than others at different tasks. Actions are organized into missions, which can contain multiple actions in a certain order. A perfect example of this is stealing research documents and then destroying the research building to cover the theft and dealing a larger blow.
Spies can also kill diplomats, politicians, military leaders, and other VIPs. Super spies with the required training and the right equipment can oftentimes make it appear an accident, or even that somebody else did it. Killing a visiting diplomat and making it look like the other empire did it out of spite is great fun.
Super Spies trained in diplomatic relations can even take the place of an assassinated diplomat and keep fulfilling the instructions by the murdered diplomat's empire. This allows the owner of the spy to know what the other empire is doing- they will get copies of all data. This also gives an empire the option of having the spy perform an action unsanctioned by the other empire, like voting opposite in an important decision.
Most spies you hire will have interesting jobs working for the enemy. If you manage to recruit a spy that works in an interesting area, such as Research, Production, or Military, they will be able to gather intelligence about what the enemy empire is doing.
Your spies can work on spreading propaganda that denounces the local empire's government while simultaneously showing how your empire is better. This will increase your culture on the planet, and left unchecked can cause a revolt.
Spies love blowing shit up, and are fairly good at it. Super spies with the required training can even make it look like an accident, useful as a cover-up in many situations. Mundane spies can also make it look like an accident, but their chances aren't guaranteed.
Any building(s) can be a target, and more than a single building can be targets. Multiple targets will almost certainly tip off the enemy that they were not accidents, however, and multiple targets also increases the chance of failure.
Research data is oftentimes one of the more useful targets for spies. Even if your researchers don't understand how to duplicate it, the knowledge alone of what your military might encounter in a future battle is priceless.
Well trained super spies can not only steal research data, but delete all other copies of it. Research that has been known for at least a little while or has been used to create equipment will receive a bonus to re-researching it, but research that is ongoing or very recently developed will need to be started over from scratch.
Pirates are always looking for a government sponsor. Empires can feed them resources and technology to make them more of a threat to other empires.
Super Spies can easily make it look like it's another empire providing the resources.
The easiest and best method of keeping spies out of your empire is making sure your empire is a happy one. Happy officials are less apt to take bribes, and are more likely to investigate odd occurrences. If, however, the populace is unhappy and/or sympathetic to the enemy's cause, it can be very difficult to catch spies.
Anti-spy programs like background checks, surveillance, and extra training can be helpful to catch spies. Each planet will have a slider detailing how many credits to throw at catching spies each turn, and various research can help too.
Lastly, your own super spies make great enemy spy detectors, albeit pricey ones. More importantly, spies caught by your super spies can be turned to your side. Super spies are also your only hope of stopping enemy super spies.
In gameplay terms, heat is the percentage modifier applied to the enemy uncovering the spy. Most actions spies perform in enemy territory generates varying amounts of heat, although cover-up actions can help reduce this if they are successful.
The heat on any given spy will decrease by half each turn; thus if a spy can successfully keep a low profile for awhile, they should be safe.
Spies that are caught by your own spies have a chance to be converted into double agents. Double agents can be a great resource, giving you the option of feeding false information to the enemy empire, making you look more powerful or weaker than you truly are.