Incline Remnants of the Precursors - Merry Christmas, bitches

[RayF]

I have to say this is a solid design approach that can only be used when your aim isn't money. Props for that.

If I were trying to make money, I would be forced into making decisions that would make my game look like every other space 4X game instead of making the game I want to make.

 

[Lagi]

If I were trying to make money, I would be forced into making decisions that would make my game look like every other space 4X game instead of making the game I want to make.

do not take this as malice, but RoP is also copy of MoO1.

 

[RayF]

do not take this as malice, but RoP is also copy of MoO1.

Yes, absolutely. It is a copy of a game that I have been waiting 20+ years for a remake of, so i am doing it myself. It is still very different than all modern space 4x games.

Also, the Greek translation is moving along:
https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/05/01/do-you-speak-greek/
https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/05/01/do-you-speak-greek/

 

[RayF]

Hey guys, I was on the Space Game Junkie podcast recently and talked a lot about the game. If you are interested, you can listen to it here: https://www.spacegamejunkie.com/podcasts/sgj-podcast-205-remnants-precursors/

 

[RayF]

For those who want to see a good roadmap of what's left to do, I wrote up a detailed schedule from the current Alpha to Gold:
https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/05/31/state-of-the-game-2/

 

[HeroicBloodshed]

People are playing it now and having fun. They are just auto-resolving ship combat & not playing the Mrrshan, Humans, or Klackons.

Ah, just like in the full game.

Downloadan

 

[RayF]

Ah, just like in the full game.

Downloadan

haha, ok that was funny. But, in MOO1 at least, most people did play tactical combat. In MOO2 the way combat was handled was worse, so not so much manual control.

I expect full manual control of combat to be in the game by the end of the year.

 

[Waterd]

If I were trying to make money, I would be forced into making decisions that would make my game look like every other space 4X game instead of making the game I want to make.

Imo this doesn't logically follow, you can still make whatever you want, and make decision that will make your money, as long as they don't affect the game you wanna make.ç

Example, charging 2 dollar for the game, will make you more money and doesn't in anyway affect the game you want to make.

Leaving a line open for donations for you to use whoever you wish for the game, makes you money and doens't affect the game you are making.

 

[RayF]

Imo this doesn't logically follow, you can still make whatever you want, and make decision that will make your money, as long as they don't affect the game you wanna make.

Example, charging 2 dollar for the game, will make you more money and doesn't in anyway affect the game you want to make.

Leaving a line open for donations for you to use whoever you wish for the game, makes you money and doens't affect the game you are making.

If you believe that money has a corrupting influence on most people, which I do, then it definitely follows logically. I can afford to do this on my own, and I do not want it to affect my design decisions nor do I want it to become part of the relationship between me and other MOO1 fans who are following the project, so not selling the game or taking donations is a no-brainer.

I realize that not everyone is in my situation and would make the same decisions. I'm cool with that! But everyone now gets a free game and I get to have fun making it.

 

[TigerKnee]

People are playing it now and having fun. They are just auto-resolving ship combat & not playing the Mrrshan, Humans, or Klackons.

That reminds me, will you implement an option to ban races from generating at game start?

(e.g Banning Psilons, Klackons and Humans because I think they're OP)

 

[RayF]

That reminds me, will you implement an option to ban races from generating at game start?

(e.g Banning Psilons, Klackons and Humans because I think they're OP)

There's not a 'ban' option, but you can select particular races to play against. For example, you could select 5 options and choose everyone except those races. Not the same thing, of course, but a little more control than in the original game.

 

[RayF]

If you want to see what a graphical tech tree could have looked like in the original MOO, here is our representation of it:
Link with additional description: https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/06/06/new-tech-ui-completed/

Also, actively looking for translators.

Pretty picture:

 

[Waterd]

Great, so far I love everything you are doing with the game, except it feels akward to send ships to planets to me is painfully akward and I still think the diplomacy screen is a notable downgrade, . But everything else I love so far.

 

[RayF]

Can you elaborate on the ship issue. It's currently just click ship then click destination. Unless you need to split a fleet, then you mousewheel the quantities before clicking the destination. How can I streamline it further?

 

[Lagi]

I think Waterd speak about sending population transport to new colonies.

it tires me too. I just now play on some HUGE maps. And after having 10+ planets following aspects bored me:

1. sending transport to new colonies.
currently I open Colony panel: check underpopulated planet name > go to fleet menu > search galaxy map for planet name> click send transport > click deploy transport > order to send pop from most populated system praying to be not to far away from destination.

how about: new button in colonies menu "receive transport"? click it, select from where do the migration.
Is it possible to sort planets according to the travel distance?
An auto-function to send X pop from whatever neighbors would also remove a lot from this tedious aspect.

2. selecting new targets for scouts.
There is TAB key that select "random" destination [i dont know the logic for that key], could be handy if it "smartly" send scouts to nearest not explore system.
would be awesome if colony ships also choose nearest available to colonize planet after clicking TAB key. Manually searching for it is not fun on big maps.

logic

selected fleet + TAB click;
is there explored, not-colonized system in range?
no: single ship go to nearest not-explored system.
yes: ship has colony device?

yes: single colony ship go to nearest not colonize planet in range
no: single ship go to nearest not-explored system.​

​

if think above "QoL" is neccessary if you aim for humans to play on the maximum galaxy sizes.

3.
also would be nice to update the mouse-aiming process for the planet to colonise, with a hint on what planet the ship go
[ i change black background, into planet destination pic]

 

[RayF]

Alpha 4 is now publicly available for download. Check it out at https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/09/01/alpha-4-is-available/

 

[Endemic]

Can you elaborate on the ship issue. It's currently just click ship then click destination. Unless you need to split a fleet, then you mousewheel the quantities before clicking the destination. How can I streamline it further?

I prefer the MOO2 style, select ship(s) then destination:

You can't drag select or use ctrl\shift with your current UI. Or if I have 65k scouts, being able to type in a number would be better. An "explore" option for scouts would also be welcome.

Are the research costs supposed to be that high?

 

[RayF]

Can you elaborate on the ship issue. It's currently just click ship then click destination. Unless you need to split a fleet, then you mousewheel the quantities before clicking the destination. How can I streamline it further?

I prefer the MOO2 style, select ship(s) then destination:

This feels like 6 one way and a half-dozen the other. However, there are some additional changes being to the deployment action to make it easier to deploy multiple subfleets from a single fleet.

You can't drag select or use ctrl\shift with your current UI. Or if I have 65k scouts, being able to type in a number would be better. An "explore" option for scouts would also be welcome.

I haven't done any testing with that large of a fleet, but I could probably tune the mousewheel to move totals up or down by a % instead of individually if you are over a certain number of ships. That should help it scale.

Are the research costs supposed to be that high?

In MOO1, research costs were based on your difficulty level.That concept is gone, but will probably be replaced with a setup ability for faster or slower research rates.

 

[Endemic]

In MOO1, research costs were based on your difficulty level.That concept is gone, but will probably be replaced with a setup ability for faster or slower research rates.

I meant that you seem to have scaled them too aggressively based on galaxy size. There are fewer planets in range at the start on a larger galaxy, so this just results in a lot of end turn spamming.

 

[RayF]

In MOO1, research costs were based on your difficulty level.That concept is gone, but will probably be replaced with a setup ability for faster or slower research rates.

I meant that you seem to have scaled them too aggressively based on galaxy size. There are fewer planets in range at the start on a larger galaxy, so this just results in a lot of end turn spamming.

That's very possible. The point of scaling based on galaxy size is to ensure that you haven't researched all of technologies before you meet another race. It scales up by galaxy size and scales down for number of opponents.

 

[Endemic]

That's very possible. The point of scaling based on galaxy size is to ensure that you haven't researched all of technologies before you meet another race. It scales up by galaxy size and scales down for number of opponents.

There are other ways to mitigate that though, like allowing more than 20 opponents. Making the first fuel tech cost 35000RP is a little silly don't you think? Even at 1000 systems it's too high, IMO.

 

[RayF]

That's very possible. The point of scaling based on galaxy size is to ensure that you haven't researched all of technologies before you meet another race. It scales up by galaxy size and scales down for number of opponents.

There are other ways to mitigate that though, like allowing more than 20 opponents. Making the first fuel tech cost 35000RP is a little silly don't you think? Even at 1000 systems it's too high, IMO.

That's a lot silly, in fact. I could also more severely scale the tech cost on tech level. There's certainly some tuning that could happen here.

Just curious, how large of a map are you playing that 20 opponents isn't enough?

 

[Endemic]

That's a lot silly, in fact. I could also more severely scale the tech cost on tech level. There's certainly some tuning that could happen here.

Just curious, how large of a map are you playing that 20 opponents isn't enough?

I was testing the larger galaxy sizes to see if my PC could handle them. 471k has a bit of slowdown, but 100k is flawless.

20 players is fine for 1k, but anything above that gets rather empty.

 

[RayF]

That's a lot silly, in fact. I could also more severely scale the tech cost on tech level. There's certainly some tuning that could happen here.

Just curious, how large of a map are you playing that 20 opponents isn't enough?

I was testing the larger galaxy sizes to see if my PC could handle them. 471k has a bit of slowdown, but 100k is flawless.

20 players is fine for 1k, but anything above that gets rather empty.

The really large maps are mainly there for testing memory and for people who want that "alone in the vast universe" experience.

You can't easily populate a huge galaxy with empires because empires are complicated. They build ships, make decisions, wage wars, research technology, etc. They don't scale very well at all unless you gimp them. The Next Turn processing for something like 10,000 AI empires would take hours and probably melt down your CPU.

That maximum galaxy size (471K on your PC) is calculated from your PC's total memory. I would totally expect it to slowdown after a while. That's good feedback and I can tune the algorithm to be a lower number.

 

[Endemic]

You could always have a "bring a supercomputer for this setting" warning I don't have the greatest PC in the world, just a Phenom II with 8GB of RAM.

Tried the latest version, appreciate the changes to fleet splitting Keep up the good work, I look forward to the beta phase.