Why the hell aren't there more "space opera" / futuristic CRPGs?

[Gangrelrumbler]

Ancient advanced civilizations gets used quite often in sci-fi settings.

The difference is that when you find superior-weapon in some ruins it should have the effect on the setting as it can be reverse-engineered and duplicated, a magical-sword cannot. Sure it can be explained by fantastic materials that cannot be found anywhere, but at this point I think it's just a fantasy with a new paintjob, not a space opera.

That too can be circumvented with some common plot hooks.
You get weak starting gear because limited resources/need for secrecy/ being someone who's doing something different that gets sucked into the grand adventure.

Wouldn't that imply that the party is accumulates more resources than the entire faction that supports them could spare? Is one ship relying on looting really able to compete with an economy of a nation capable of constructing starships? It would also imply that they have technological expertise on par of an entire space-base. I know that games like FTL rely on this setup, but I always found it strange how unbelievably primitive and weak the player ship is compared to what can be bought in some god-forgotten space-dock somewhere.

Inspired by this thread I've also decided to start reading TOS/TNG Bible. Funny to find people shitting on Abrams's and Kurzman's ideas years before they managed to get their hands on the franchise
From the "what doesn't work for TNG" section:

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The difference is that when you find superior-weapon in some ruins it should have the effect on the setting as it can be reverse-engineered and duplicated, a magical-sword cannot. Sure it can be explained by fantastic materials that cannot be found anywhere, but at this point I think it's just a fantasy with a new paintjob, not a space opera.

Actually obtaining some item doesn't mean that you can reserve engineer it, unless you have full understanding of work phases that are needed to produce it.

Here's a real life anecdotal example; I once chatted with a person who had maintained FAFs MiG-21s and teached metallurgy, he said that Soviet made titanium tools that they used withstood bending in ways that defied what was commonly known properties of titanium alloys.
They had no practical way to reverse-engineer those.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Please don't start this, keep it civil. You have nothing to prove to anyone. I knew someone would say Lensman. But if you read carefully what I said, I just said Star Trek "popularised" a certain view of the genre with the public. I think it's alright to say that earlier sci-fi was not quite yet the Tolkien moment for the genre in terms of meeting multiple criteria, without killing any sacred cow. Even Tolkien didn't invent a hero's journey or anything, but he certainly captured the public's imagination. We know that Star Trek and Star Wars were big cultural moments for their genre and it's all I suggested, without needing to get into semantics.

Maybe I could have worded it better, I usually do try, but it was already late.

That's fair, but I still think those were Tolkien moments, just overwhelmed by what we know and love.

1. There is no "standard" sci-fi setting. The equivalent of what fantasy games do would be making a game that's just Star Trek except with space elves that are a little less gay. You have to create all kinds of lore, backgrounds, races, entire world histories, etc., You have to give a convincing reason as to why the game is set where it is set.

I'm not going to completely argue this point, but its worth pointing out that there are general hats each major sci-fi franchise seems to have. You have the obvious space elves, space orcs, the religious ones, the honorable ones, the scheming ones, the money-grubbers and the militaristic ones. If you pay attention, you can always tell what they started off as.

That's also what I thought. There is no place for ancient weapons found in tombs in your standard sci-fi setting. Even normal gamey things like upgrading your ship along the way are silly since whoever is fielding the ship should already outfit it with the best available technology.
This part was silly even in Jagged Alliance, I can get the most deadly assassins in the world and ship them anywhere I want but getting some high-grade weaponry for them is out of my reach and I have to loot them out of some poor African redshirts? It just doesn't add-up.
Sure you can make it into rogue trader type thing where you start as a lowly space merchant/pirate and then try to get some money for a decent ship but I don't think that chasing after cash is what space opera is all about.

Funny, nearly every kind of sci-fi media except RPGs usually has some kind of precursor tech lying around in a tomb somewhere.
I used to agree on the point in JA...heck, I still do, but outside of the whole game aspect there's another angle. What country are they storing these high-grade weapons in, and do they want citizens using these weapons?

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Inspired by this thread I've also decided to start reading TOS/TNG Bible. Funny to find people shitting on Abrams's and Kurzman's ideas years before they managed to get their hands on the franchise
From the "what doesn't work for TNG" section:
View attachment 13373

Yeah, it's almost like they read the old writer's bibles and then decided to do everything badly to piss people off.

 

[Darkzone]

"Remember always that STAR TREK is never fantasy; whatever happens, no matter how unusual or bizarre, must have some basis in either fact or theory and stay true to that premise"
"IMPORTANT: The writer must know what he means when he uses science or projected science terminology. A scattergun confusion of meaningless phrases only detracts from believability."
"What have been the "big problem areas” in past story and script submissions?: Again, it has been in areas of believability. Many otherwise good writers tend to pepper their science fiction with "out of left field” coincidences, un-explained and illogical actions, unmotivated character changes, things they would never dream of perpetrating on even a kiddies show script."
"Keep in mind that science fiction is not a separate field of literature with rules of its own, but, indeed, needs the same ingredients as any story -- including a jeopardy of some type to someone we learn to care about, climactic build, sound motivitation, you know the list."
​

"Out of left field coincidences, un-explained and illogical actions" it's almost like they went into the future and saw current Star Trek. Or rather current Star Trek has regressed to a pre-1966 level of maturity.

Spoiler

Although I always wondered how Space: 1999's moon was capable of FTL travel, it's true that some older science fiction can be surprisingly realistic perhaps because writers did more research than we give them credit for or you can go backward and justify a lot of what you see on screen using modern science. In Star Trek, famous for predicting things, you can see people writing on touchpads with styluses decades before the first touch screen was invented.

The problem is if you let idiots write, then no wonder that you get idiotic things out of it. And in my wise foresight i have watched nothing beyond Star Trek: Enterprise and even this was not my kind of beer. Currently the only interesting Sci-Fi show is The Expanse and we will see how Dune turns out to be.
Space: 1999 gets the thing right, that you can accelerate by nuclear explosion and this has been proposed to reach relativistic speed. And due to the time dilation you could reach stars within months, but naturally for the left behind earth population this would still be years. This kind of acceleration (nuclear pulse propulsion) was even explored by NASA, Air Force and DARPA in the Orion Project. The "Momentum Limited" Orion could reach with an 1g acceleration for 10 days Alpha Centauri within 133 years (calculated by Dyson in 1968) by achieving 3.3% of the Lightspeed. Later this calculation has been revised through studies and showed that even 9%-11% are possible. I think that there was even an episode in Space: 1999 where they got back in contact with earth and already hunderts (2 or more) of years have passed while for them it was just months. Naturally to pull the moon out of the earth's orbit would require significantly more power like also for the necessary acceleration of such a massive object and they would need to reach at least 80% of the lightspeed (possible with matter-antimatter annihilation). But at least they used a valid concept.
Hawkwind - Spirit of the Age (doesn't sound like Robert Calvert but a nice video):

I don't remember if they could watch moving pictures on the tablets in Star Trek and if this was not some sort of carbon paper thing, but that is also not important.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I've played a couple of the games mentioned in this thread, so here are some observations about each...

Star Traders: Frontiers (RPG)

I just got this in the Steam summer sale, and must admit I wasn't that bothered about it compared to upcoming isometric RPGs like Colony Ship and Stellar Tactics, perhaps because of the art/setting (I've never been a big fan of space opera where people dress in older period clothes or anything, but it isn't that bad here). If you would like something with a lot of content, it seems to be quite a deep game, even if a bit more cartoony looking than some of the upcoming games. You could level your crew and do random missions for cash for ages.

Worldbuilding is interesting, it is more RPG like than the other game in this post, with a lot of dialogue and characterization in the story missions. Although in the short time I played, the setting seemed a little bit more generic and less hard sci-fi than some other games. It consists of a space opera similar to something like Honor Harrington, with an age-of-sail type vibe, with future feudali lords controlling space, i.e. the universe is one with nobles and aristocratic houses. The Star Trader can gain or lose influence depending on missions conducted for these factions, or sell things to the black market. You can land at a settlement from orbit and choose to speak to contacts on the planet like the local faction representative. Or you can just explore planets wild zones after landing on them from orbit, which consists of a deck of cards mechanic with different outcomes in the shuffle.

Combat is, as you might have guessed from the screenshot, is similar to Darkest Dungeon, with your position in the row determining what attack you can use, like a grenade that damages the front two of the enemy row, or a special gunshot that can only be fired from the back row. There are many classes that you can take levels in, each of which provides a bonus to a certain skill. Say +3 medicine, +2 pistols +1 command. And then the level of that skill determines what abilities you can unlock for combat etc. So there might be a move that retreats you one place in the order, and adds a +20% armor buff for a few rounds, and it might require +5 pistols to unlock.

Crying Suns (Non-RPG with progression)

I picked this up recently and just played it this weekend, I knew I would love it just looking at how beautiful it looks, but yes, this is the good stuff. A rogue-like tactical game where you must explore an exotic fallen empire with your expedition's starship. You really feel like you are some far future starship commander making important decisions. Depending on your choices, things can unfold very differently, and you will have to manage your resources well, somewhat similar to something like The Banner Saga in a way, to compare the choices to a recent game.

Worldbuilding is fantastic in this one. You can probably tell from the screenshots that they aren't fucking around with their science fiction, it's far future hard sci-fi, with lots of really compelling descriptive text. You really do feel like you are in a believable space opera, full of gorgeous art and imaginative things. Little things like calling the Empire's anti-AI fail-safe protocol RUBYCON, i.e. because AI should not be able to 'Cross the Rubicon' and ever invade the heart of the human state, is just a nice touch. You will run into a lot that I don't want to spoil, but basically as mentioned, it unfolds like a choose your own adventure, and there is a lot of variation between playthroughs. Asking your crewmen and AI about things yields a lot of interesting insights into the setting.

Combat is conducted on a grid in which you face an enemy warship. Both you and they can deploy capital ship weapons, which are on a timer. You can also deploy fighter wings, which are strong against each other in a rock, paper, scissors type arrangement. Novel weapons might allow you to block certain sectors of the grid, or apply timed damage effects to them. Novel skills might allow you to heal an area. Your officers onboard the ship help provide bonuses like 15% speed to weapons recharge. It's easy to learn as you go along, and has a lot of room for tactics. I'm not honestly playing the game for combat, but it's excellent anyway. Other types of missions unfold like a CYOA novel, sending landing parties down to planets, etc. This is why indie is better than the big games industry.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

I don't want to hijack another thread with this, but is there Swords & Planet game ?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I don't want to hijack another thread with this, but is there Swords & Planet game ?

Phantasy Star II & IV at least.

 

[V_K]

I don't want to hijack another thread with this, but is there Swords & Planet game ?

Wizardry 7 and 8, duh.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

I don't want to hijack another thread with this, but is there Swords & Planet game ?

Wizardry 7 and 8, duh.

Thanks. I knew about those. I'm looking more at "classic" take on the trope, like "Conan, but IN SPACE".

I don't want to hijack another thread with this, but is there Swords & Planet game ?

Phantasy Star II & IV at least.

I don't know anything about it. I'll check it out thanks.

 

[oasis789]

I don't want to hijack another thread with this, but is there Swords & Planet game ?

maybe world of xeen?

 

[Cael]

Planet's Edge can get to Swords & Planets if you so choose :D

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I don't want to hijack another thread with this, but is there Swords & Planet game ?

maybe world of xeen?

And every other Might & Magic.

Spoiler

I'm not sure about X.

 

[V_K]

M&M is heavier on fantasy than later Wizardries though. More or less the only fantasy thing about Wiz7 is that your party can cast spells, the gameworld is almost entirely sci-fi/space opera.

 

[DraQ]

The difference is that when you find superior-weapon in some ruins it should have the effect on the setting as it can be reverse-engineered and duplicated, a magical-sword cannot. Sure it can be explained by fantastic materials that cannot be found anywhere, but at this point I think it's just a fantasy with a new paintjob, not a space opera.

That would actually yield itself to new and potentially very interesting set of gameplay tropes.

You find a mysterious advanced alien artifacts that could do something useful.

• You can sell the artifact and/or its location to interested buyer for a lot of money which might result in one of the following:
  • After some time reverse-engineered versions appear...
    • ...on the free market and...
      • ...are elite goods (much better capabilities, but rare and expensive)
      • ...are better but actually cheaper than commonly used counterparts, supplanting them
        • and potentially pissing someone off (like manufacturer of the previously commonly used ones)
      • ...offer completely new capabilities, opening locations or plot hooks
    • ...exclusively in hands of single faction, which
      • uses them to subvert status quo
      • is positively predisposed towards the party now
      • wants to bump off the party to prevent others from learning of the location and threaten their monopoly
  • All traces of the buyer and artifact disappear
    • does that include the party? A relevant question the party should ask themselves.
    • potential plot hook.
• Reverse engineer or adapt the artifact for yourself if you have a fabber and lab, plus skilled personnel...
  • on your ship/base (cutting into other capabilities you could have instead)
  • run by affiliated faction (who might have their own ideas regarding the artifact or not appreciate player going behind their backs)
    • Which might be noticed whenever player uses it or docks somewhere at which point...
      • someone might make offers to buy it - repeatedly, insistently
        • there could be multiple buyers, some might take offence if you don't sell (to them)
      • someone might try to steal it
      • someone might try to take it off your cold, dead hands
      • someone might try to suppress the discovery for whatever reason

Old swords in some tomb don't have shit on all that.

Even normal gamey things like upgrading your ship along the way are silly since whoever is fielding the ship should already outfit it with the best available technology.

(...)

Sure you can make it into rogue trader type thing where you start as a lowly space merchant/pirate and then try to get some money for a decent ship but I don't think that chasing after cash is what space opera is all about.

Actually that's pretty much the established RPG trope - player is some sort of adventurer/independent contractor/other murderhobo and starts somewhere in lower gutter territory.

There is no reason not to reuse it here.

For the upgrades, the problems are pretty typical as well and have similar root cause to how they manifest in fantasy RPGs.

• There is clear gradation of better/worse stuff and rigid "optimal" builds (character or ship).
• Stuff is permanent so the only way to keep player's interest in new toys is item treadmill and bloat.

Those problems have their solutions:

• Modularity and focus on specific capabilities rather than number of plusses.
  
• Destructible equipment.

• Have ships assembled from modules (not even having single, all encompassing external hull) and player focus on what they want of ship and how to build it. Hey, with logistics involving interplanetary or interstellar travel modularity may be a very good idea in universe.
• With enough variables even inferior stuff might be circumstantially superior. That cheap, old and crappy CIWS might be easier and cheaper to replace (if when destroyed), maintain and resupply with ammo than its superior counterpart. Shiny, superior equipment only really works for crews that run profitable (and dangerous enough) jobs to afford the logisitcs and that only works if they have the skills to stay alive (cutting the middleman out and doing the work yourself might work IF the crew has access to expensive and advance fabber equipment and highly qualified specialists).
• Have stuff break.

Honestly pretty good model of sci-fi adventuring party would be Holden and his crew from The Expanse.

 

[Daedalos]

People are overt fantasyfags on this site!

 

[DraQ]

People are overt fantasyfags on this site!

Fixed.

 

[tritosine2k]

Not being able to reverse engineer for years or decades is not far fetched, because crystallography or whatever vs. atmosphere vs. unknown constants
it could be a branching questline how you fail at attempts and come across something thats still useful but not as intended etc. Similarly what comes out of others attempts might be something entirely else.

 

[DraQ]

I think scifi games could work much better if they would just focus on single worlds like many fantasy games with the explanation that space travel is prohibitive and there's not FTL, but then it's really hard to do any big space opera

The problem with that is that you lose the most obvious and inherently impactful of Sci-Fi trappings - space. Space combat, space travel, space etc.

That's not insurmountable, because there is a lot of IMMENSELY cool and interesting sci-fi stuff you can still do, but it tends to be single use kind of stuff, one that makes an interesting and unique setting, and this kind of thing is actually hard to do and presumably far out of reach of even genuinely non-hacky vidyagame creators.

Else, you just get people running around and pewpewing each other with impractical looking guns firing colorful bolts, and that's just much gayer than just doing exact same thing with swords, crossbows and magic.

 

[tritosine2k]

Apparently you can make something like this (basically an unusual lens) right now if you knock off atoms by atoms. So its a process that can't scale nor its practical really, just to illustrate my point above.

 

[Aegidius]

I've played a couple of the games mentioned in this thread, so here are some observations about each...

Star Traders: Frontiers (RPG)

.
.
.

Crying Suns (Non-RPG with progression)
.
.
.
""

I have both of these as well and agree. Both are good. ST:F has a decent variety of playstyles. Crying Suns had a great story (for a video game) with decent combat.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Another new video by Isaac Arthur's YouTube channel today discussing empires where technology has regressed:



Thought I would make a post about geography in sci-fi settings, as this is quite a good thread to just discuss sci-fi generally.

Also I noticed someone in another thread posted a poll where you can vote for you favorite sci-fi setting: 'The Greatest Space Opera Settings'

I hope we hear some more news about that Archetype Entertainment RPG soon, as I really wanna know more about it.

Our Milky Way Galaxy

There are 60 stars, of which 50 are red dwarf stars, in 52 star systems, within 16.3 light years of Earth.

There are approx 2,000 stars, in 1,400 star systems, within 50 light years of Earth.

There are approx 14,600 stars, within 100 light years of Earth.

There are approx 260,000 (visible) stars, within 250 light years of Earth.

There are approx 2,000,000 stars, within 500 light years of Earth.

The galaxy is approximately 170,000-200,000 light years in diameter, counting newly discovered far regions of the disk, and contains 100-400 billion stars.

Most stars seem to have planets, and thus the number of exoplanets is similar to the number of stars, at least.

85% of stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs (minimum 100 billion).

Planets close to the small red dwarfs may be tidally locked, producing worlds with narrow habitable bands at the terminator.

Most stars, perhaps up to 85%, are binary.

Half of exoplanet host stars are binary.

Around half a dozen new stars are produced per year.

Land or desert worlds may be predominant over water planets, in terms of potential habitable planets, because they have larger habitable zones.

Potentially habitable - pessimistic estimate: 6.4 billion potentially habitable

Potentially habitable - optimistic estimate: 5 trillion potentially habitable

Potentially habitable - middle road estimate: 40-80 billion potentially habitable

Star Trek's Milky Way Galaxy:

The entire United Federation of Planets exists within about a 250 light year diameter sphere of Earth, meaning it is within the small black dot on the map, within the 1500 light year white circle.

It has about 150 members in the 2370s, and more than a thousand planets in total, which may include small colonies, scientific research outposts, military outposts, and planetary Starbases.

The most inhabited known part of the local galaxy surrounds the Rigel system near Klingon space, where many ancient cultures such as the Orions have had colonies for thousands of years.

Within a 500 light year sphere surrounding the Federation lie many empires, including the Klingon Empire, Romulan Star Empire, Cardassian Union, Tholian Assembly and Breen Confederacy

Beyond a 1500 light year sphere that is generally known, the Federation has sent automated probes, to survey systems briefly, probably cataloguing them with numbers like HD 202772A.

Mass Effect's Milky Way Galaxy:

The Mass Effect setting covers a much wider proportion of the Milky Way, but has far less inhabited worlds than Star Trek, because there huge unexplored spaces between mass relays.

Probably vast unexplored voids thousands of light years across are totally unknown, being outside the reach of non-relay FTL travel, creating tiny inhabited pockets around the galaxy.

The political capital of the Mass Effect setting, The Citadel, lies within the Serpent Nebula, and the human homeworld Earth, lies within the Local Cluster, both within civilized Citadel Space.

Several political regions exist, such as the frontier worlds of the Attican Traverse, home to many Prothean Ruins, and the Terminus Systems, which are home to antagonistic governments.

Star Wars's "Galaxy Far Far Away":

It's not generally appreciated that the Star Wars galaxy is somewhat similar to Mass Effect, with huge voids of uncontrolled systems; except here civilized systems lie along hyperspace corridors.

Essentially, the hyperspace corridors are like the Roman Empire's road network, with colonies springing up near where hyperspace travel is safe, and backwaters being further away from them.

There are probably quite a lot of non-member civilizations of the Galactic Republic that lie within what looks like Republic borders on most galactic maps, creating complex political relationships.

This means there may be many abandoned, forgotten, uninhabited, or uncontacted systems off major hyperlanes, and a lot of wild space or unknown regions within the borders of the Republic.

 

[DraQ]

Apparently you can make something like this (basically an unusual lens) right now if you knock off atoms by atoms. So its a process that can't scale nor its practical really, just to illustrate my point above.

I am not sure how it's relevant to this thread other than having obvious sci-fi applications, but I approve of this post.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Thought I would make a post about geography in sci-fi settings, as this is quite a good thread to just discuss sci-fi generally.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/non-post-apocalyptic-sci-fi-rpg-thread.130822/

Spoiler

 

[Avarize]

Potentially habitable - pessimistic estimate: 6.4 billion potentially habitable

That sounds extremely optimistic. Galactic habitable zone is basically just the edges of each arm of the Milky Way. The areas with the least stars.