Alien Races

[tiagocc0]

I was wondering if there would be at the start of the development some standard races to choose from like in most games or just let people custom create them and at a later stage worry about this.

 

[Malakal]

A mix of both perhaps? Having a good enough customization tool will allow for the creation of unique and interesting preset races. If each would have an additional one or two special traits it would make them even more interesting - as in MoO3 and GalCiv2.

It all depends how different races should be. As different as those in MoO3 and 2 (with 3 being extremely diverse) or simply repainted humans like GalCiv2.

 

[tiagocc0]

A mix of both perhaps? Having a good enough customization tool will allow for the creation of unique and interesting preset races. If each would have an additional one or two special traits it would make them even more interesting - as in MoO3 and GalCiv2.

It all depends how different races should be. As different as those in MoO3 and 2 (with 3 being extremely diverse) or simply repainted humans like GalCiv2.

How did it work in MoO3? I can barely remember it.
So those special traits would be something that you wouldn't be able to pick while creating a custom race?

 

[Malakal]

Yes, special traits meant you couldn't pick them. Let me explain how it was in MoO3:

Races were divided into types - like aquatoids, lizardmen, humanoids, crystaline etc, each type had different costs of purchasing certain modifications (for example siliconids the only crystaline race had very cheap production and manufacturing but were bad at research), different sweet spots for colonization (so acceptance of light/heavy G and atmosphere etc), preset base diplomatic values to each other (fish hated lizardmen for example).

Then there were those special quirks that made races truly unique. Like inhabiting a gas giant. Or being a parasitic race feeding on other races.

This way races were both customizable and different at the same time - they were not made up from their base parts.

 

[tiagocc0]

Yes, special traits meant you couldn't pick them. Let me explain how it was in MoO3:

Races were divided into types - like aquatoids, lizardmen, humanoids, crystaline etc, each type had different costs of purchasing certain modifications (for example siliconids the only crystaline race had very cheap production and manufacturing but were bad at research), different sweet spots for colonization (so acceptance of light/heavy G and atmosphere etc), preset base diplomatic values to each other (fish hated lizardmen for example).

Then there were those special quirks that made races truly unique. Like inhabiting a gas giant. Or being a parasitic race feeding on other races.

This way races were both customizable and different at the same time - they were not made up from their base parts.

Interesting.
I think having all the options available to the custom creation is a must, but things like one race type does not like the other is something unique we could check for the main races.

I think I will install MoO3 again to check this things out, thanks!

 

[Malakal]

Yes, creating races was in some ways more fun that playing the afterwards in MoO3.

 

[tiagocc0]

Yes, creating races was in some ways more fun that playing the afterwards in MoO3.

Heh, I spent most of my time playing MoO2 creating races.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Lovecraft-style alien races with background stories would be nice. And a creator for creating them. It would be nice if they would stay alien alien though.

 

[tiagocc0]

Lovecraft-style alien races with background stories would be nice. And a creator for creating them. It would be nice if they would stay alien alien though.

I haven't read anything of Lovecraft books, I might want to consider reading one to understand it better.

One thing I really want is to make alien really alien.
Avoid entirely the Star Trek concept that most alien life in the universe look the same because that's probably what is needed to evolve.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Problem with starfish aliens, ie "alien alien", is that interacting with them would be monstrously difficult - which might be counter-productive for gameplay purposes.

 

[tiagocc0]

Problem with starfish aliens, ie "alien alien", is that interacting with them would be monstrously difficult - which might be counter-productive for gameplay purposes.

That's right. But unless we try it we will always have just human and humanoids races to play.

 

[Shemar]

My suggestion is to keep it simple and minimal during development. Keep it to just humans which are usually average in everything. Let all the other races be also 'human' (don't worry about different in-game characteristics, just give them a weird face and a weird name). Once you have a game going with that, then you can start thingking how racial modifiers can add depth and interest in the game and atsrt designing races and adding that variety. But until you have a playable game, I would not worry about it.

Make sure you create placeholder, dummy functions for all the things you may think an alien race may modify. For example never have a variable with RP points generated directly accessible. Always have a function with RP points generated and always use that, even if for now all it does is point to the actual variable. Then when you want a race to be better at research, just modify that function and the rest of your game is automatically modified, instead of having to hunt for all the spots in your code you have to fix. And Research is actually a bad examle, but think about things like energy consumption bonuces or ship component performance bonuces. Always have a dummy 'racial modifier' function so that later you can add actual racial modifiers very easily.

 

[tiagocc0]

My suggestion is to keep it simple and minimal during development. Keep it to just humans which are usually average in everything. Let all the other races be also 'human' (don't worry about different in-game characteristics, just give them a weird face and a weird name). Once you have a game going with that, then you can start thingking how racial modifiers can add depth and interest in the game and atsrt designing races and adding that variety. But until you have a playable game, I would not worry about it.

Make sure you create placeholder, dummy functions for all the things you may think an alien race may modify. For example never have a variable with RP points generated directly accessible. Always have a function with RP points generated and always use that, even if for now all it does is point to the actual variable. Then when you want a race to be better at research, just modify that function and the rest of your game is automatically modified, instead of having to hunt for all the spots in your code you have to fix. And Research is actually a bad examle, but think about things like energy consumption bonuces or ship component performance bonuces. Always have a dummy 'racial modifier' function so that later you can add actual racial modifiers very easily.

Noted, as I build the engine I will worry only about humans, I have to revise the code but I think most if not is coded the way you've said.

I was thinking about this as I have a friend that is willing to do some concept art for me and we raised the question of what kind of standard races would the game have.

 

[oscar]

I've always loved games where playing a different race results in a radically different experience and requires very different strategies. However this is usually very difficult to balance (even with a +/- "race creation" pre-game selection) but creates a much more memorable experience.

Dominions 3 was a fantastic example of having a large range of varied civilizations with wildly different strategies, playstyles and flavour.

I wouldn't be adverse to having some non-playable races act like barbarians from the Civilization series (but far more aggressive). For instance a 'Bug War' event could spawn a huge insectoid army on some far off planet of yours that indiscriminately anyone nearby (for a good early/mid game challenge). Or a race of super advanced robotic guardians built by precursors that aren't hostile but will fiercely defend anyone who tries to enroach their sacred sights. They may even break their neutrality and try to destroy any civilization that starts researching the technology that led to the downfall of their masters..

 

[tiagocc0]

I've always loved games where playing a different race results in a radically different experience and requires very different strategies. However this is usually very difficult to balance (even with a +/- "race creation" pre-game selection) but creates a much more memorable experience.

Like in starcraft were they have 3 very different races, I would love to implement something like that, like three main races and then variations of those races, similar to what MoO3 did.

Dominions 3 was a fantastic example of having a large range of varied civilizations with wildly different strategies, playstyles and flavour.

Ow, it looks pretty massive.

I wouldn't be adverse to having some non-playable races act like barbarians from the Civilization series (but far more aggressive). For instance a 'Bug War' event could spawn a huge insectoid army on some far off planet of yours that indiscriminately anyone nearby (for a good early/mid game challenge). Or a race of super advanced robotic guardians built by precursors that aren't hostile but will fiercely defend anyone who tries to enroach their sacred sights. They may even break their neutrality and try to destroy any civilization that starts researching the technology that led to the downfall of their masters..

Great idea, those would fit nicely in the event system.

 

[Malakal]

Dominions isnt the best example since its races are horribly unbalanced and AI nearly non existent. This is what happens when you put as much cool stuff as possible into a game and dont have the time to polish it enough...

But creating few unique races shouldnt be that difficult. But lets focus on basics first.

 

[tiagocc0]

Dominions isnt the best example since its races are horribly unbalanced and AI nearly non existent. This is what happens when you put as much cool stuff as possible into a game and dont have the time to polish it enough...

But creating few unique races shouldnt be that difficult. But lets focus on basics first.

One game I can remember that had two very different play styles were seven kingdoms 2, were you could play humans or monsters.

 

[tiagocc0]

A friend of mine made some concept art about the alien races, I let him choose what to do so we can later refine the idea, what do you guys think?

I liked it, I was thinking on more colorful childlike aliens like MoO2, but those are not the best race design out there so I'm glad it came out like this. Here it is:

http://www.purpleorangegames.com/images/ConceptArt3Full.png

 

[Malakal]

Well, quite decent but not my art style...

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Lovecraft-style alien races with background stories would be nice. And a creator for creating them. It would be nice if they would stay alien alien though.

I haven't read anything of Lovecraft books, I might want to consider reading one to understand it better.

One thing I really want is to make alien really alien.

Sounds great .

Check out his "At The Mountains of the Madness", "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "Shadow Beyond Time".

 

[tiagocc0]

Sounds great .

Check out his "At The Mountains of the Madness", "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "Shadow Beyond Time".

Thanks, I will look for these books, which one should I read first?

 

[Excidium]

You can read them here http://www.hplovecraft.com/

 

[tiagocc0]

You can read them here http://www.hplovecraft.com/

Thanks!

 

[tiagocc0]

Hi guys, since I don't have much time to code for now I've been slowly trying to fill some information about the game.

This is an idea of an unique race (It won't be coded until much later in the game development process):

A race that lives underground, very far below the surface where most if not all other races would not be able or would like to live.
They would not use spaceships, or use very few of them.
Colonizing other worlds would consist in them making a huge portal that would send them right to the underground of other planets.

With this their gameplay would very different from the usual human-like race.
Some concept art about this race:
http://fav.me/d4ekq1z
http://fav.me/d4ekppz

Feel free to criticize.

 

[Surf Solar]

I really like the concept art, feels "alien alien" enough for me. What I find a bit worrysome - if they use portals from one planet to another, wouldn't they "teleport" right into concrete material and would die through this mechanism? Or maybe I just didnt understand it well...