Vapourware Lo-fi space game (help me design it)

[potatojohn]

I started to make lo-fi space game after seeing ostranauts and then playing with pico-8 (not actually making this in pico-8 though)

So you're in a space ship, in space. There are other space ships, and space stations. I don't think there will be planets

you can time accelerate 0x to 1000x

I thought about the plot and I like the idea of a colony ship that's just arrived in a new star system, and you're a pilot on one of the ships that's come with it. Might be different corporations on the colony ship? Something goes wrong? Planet is not as expected? What does the player do/is asked to do?

Events unfold in real time like in Pathologic (I really like this idea) and the player can have some influence?

Limited play time? Help arrives in 1 month? Or maybe aliens arrive? Survive until then or escape by then?

I need some help designing it

- Is it open world or mission based?
- Is there combat or can we make some alternative game loop? Probably only possible if it's open world
- Is it possible to make a puzzle space sim game?
- Do you control everything and the crew just gives bonuses?
- Or do the crew act independently?
- If so can you switch to them, or do you just control the PC?
- Should there be some roguelike element where you can walk around the ship and stations?
- Is there stealth? Not sure it makes sense in space? Stealth via hacking IFF?
- CYA events?

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Limited play time? Help arrives in 1 month? Or maybe aliens arrive? Survive until then or escape by then?

How about a deadly virus? Topical! Plus you get that Homeworld: Cataclysm bio-horror vibes to boot. Puzzle aspect could be trying to develop a cure. You have X many days to develop a cure before the big bad zombie apocalypse takes over everyones ships excluding your own because yours is special (maybe an experimental research ship + colony ship). Your home planet was the origin of the virus and you are the last surviving peoples of Kharak [insert generic sci-fi name here]. Along the way you encounter aliens who were observing this apocalypse. Some are willing to help, others are not as they blame you and your people for the virus. It turns out your people did intentionally release the virus as a means of ending a stalemate war on the planet (stealing this from Valerian lol it worked really good in that comic/film) the problem was it got out of control and spread. Now former enemies have to work together to redeem themselves in the eyes of the galactic community and fix the mistakes of their former leaders or doom everyone to the same fate as their homeworld.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I'm not into this lo-fi stuff, but I'll tell you a few things I've learned over the course of plotting a space game out myself.
-Stealth ultimately depends on your sensor systems. If its Star Trek level, you need a cloaking device. Otherwise, space is fucking huge, detecting things depends on whether or not the other ship is broadcasting its position or you can see it. Blasting full engines, ID tags, other things that generate a noticeable trail.
-Combat range for non-laser weapons is just an abstraction of how long it is before its impossible to hit something. For lasers, who cares, they're lasers.
-Walking around on the ship depends entirely on whether or not you want to flesh out the characters and interior design of your ship.
Also, check out that space opera thread in the general RPG section, its got some interesting stuff in it that might give you some ideas.

 

[Hellraiser]

I have some ideas on stealth after reading the Expanse, if you want something that is not Trek-level space magic.

Stealth in space could work by calculating an emission value, dividing it by the squared distance to the sensor and then checking that value against a sensors sensitivity value. Once you get emissions_value>=sensor_sensitivity you start running a tracking timer until emissions from the source drop below the sensitivity. If the timer value is above a certain threshold (either a fixed one or a dynamic one based on range from source), the enemy ship gets a fix on the distance, heading and speed of your ship. The player would be forced to minimize heat (or maximizing distance) increases so that he can radiate heat fast enough before the sensor gets a proper fix. Either that or find dead zones and slip from one to the other before doing something increasing heat that needs to be radiated away (recharging batteries or using the main engine).

I think there is room for a stealth puzzle space game along this lines if you have newtonian motion, getting to deadzones, rotating to burn, burning, etc.

 

[Norfleet]

I'm not into this lo-fi stuff, but I'll tell you a few things I've learned over the course of plotting a space game out myself.
-Stealth ultimately depends on your sensor systems. If its Star Trek level, you need a cloaking device. Otherwise, space is fucking huge, detecting things depends on whether or not the other ship is broadcasting its position or you can see it. Blasting full engines, ID tags, other things that generate a noticeable trail.

Space is huge, but also, terribly empty, and rather cold, with a background temperature of around 3K. Anytihng much above this stands out rather dramatically, and there's not a whole lot of backdrop to serve as a distraction. It's much like a black screen with a single white pixel. Odds are you're gonna see that pixel simply because it is so different from the blackness of everything else, even though the screen is huge (and people have some pretentiously huge screens these days)...just because the screen is EMPTY.

Non-magical stealth in space is basically not a thing unless you're prepared to take a very slow pace to doing anything. While it has been found that doing such a thing is actually possible, the performance ceilings are prohibitive. Solutions like this are pretty much the only way to obtain stealth through invisibility, and these things are more interesting as strategic plot points (spy ships, vehicles of mutually assured destruction, etc), than as direct combatants.

The more usable forms of "stealth" would be countermeasures and deception. Either fool your enemy into believing that you are something you are not, or just make it hard for him to get an accurate firing solution. In the former case, he still sees you, but decides you are a harmless merchant and pays no attention to you, in the latter case he DEFINITELY knows you're there, but can't get a good shot at you.

 

[Arrowgrab]

Reminds me of Objects in Space, you might want to check it out for ideas/comparison.

One thing I'd like to see in a space game is orbital mechanics (not necessarily super-accurate, just present as a gameplay element). You don't just "hold position", you orbit SOMETHING. You don't just fly in a straight line from one point to another, you change from one orbit to another.

 

[DraQ]

Reminds me of Objects in Space, you might want to check it out for ideas/comparison.

One thing I'd like to see in a space game is orbital mechanics (not necessarily super-accurate, just present as a gameplay element). You don't just "hold position", you orbit SOMETHING. You don't just fly in a straight line from one point to another, you change from one orbit to another.

A bit of a tangent but this might be relevant to your interests:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/children-of-a-dead-earth.111131/