Imperial Galactic Conflict

After Galarchy, the galaxy can never be the same

As for games, as networking becomes more commonplace the next generation of computer games should leverage this high interconnectivity, creating extensible virtual spaces for people to interact and allowing them to determine the parameters of their own games. Creating an environment in which humans can play against each other also sidesteps the problem of creating a AI smart enough to give players a challenge. And with a slick trick of distributing the load across many computers, the complexity of the game can easily scale with the number of users, even to the hundreds of thousands.

Game Overview

For centuries the sole pacifying force in a hostile galaxy, the empire has long understood the necessity of superior military strength. Yet fleets are only as good as the leaders who command them, and one can win the battles but still lose the war. Cunning combatants, superior strategists, and deft diplomats are needed for a successful campaign; an emperor must be all these and more.

The Free Worlds have decreed a period of Galarchy. Numerous military officers vie for the purple and gold, each backed by a conclave of planets confident in their abilities. Imperial contenders must demonstrate their prowess over their opponents: by acquiring territories, defending their own region, and emerging victorious when contested. To rule the spaceways, an emperor must be born and bred on the battlefield.

And only one can sit on the Crystal Throne."

Combat

But the outcome of combat is not decided by War craft alone. There are other important military grades besides War: Information, Transport, and Platform. Information ships wage info-warfare, which ranges from jamming transmissions to outright controlling enemy vessels. Troop transports dock with large craft, bringing the fight to the crew. Platforms can perform much needed repairs on damaged ships, salvaging parts from the remnants of other vessels. Each grade has a unique function, and all are vital to a well run engagement.

Terrain also affects the course of war. On the large scale, galactic objects (like planets, stars, black holes, etc.) exert gravity wells and prevent the faster than light warp drives from functioning. They also physically obstruct movement and reconnaissance. On the smaller scale, the local terrain may introduce unique combat parameters. Ships fighting near a power station in close orbit around a star would take constant heat (= energy) damage during the combat. Fighting inside a nebula or gas giant entail a host of limitations: particle damage proportional to ship speed, reduced datawave, and energy weapons operating at half power.

Even open space presents its own difficulties, namely how to fight effectively in 3D. Ships rarely fight alone, but rather in conjunction with other forces and fleets. Ship formation and fleet coordination become increasingly more vital in large scale conflicts. Protecting that shuttle while it docks might require punching a hole through the enemy lines with one force while establishing a cylindrical protection corridor with another. The formation choice should be tailored to meet the desired objective.

The standard combat tactics become all the more devastating when they utilize these disparities. Picture several destroyers chasing down a fighter contingent around the arc of a small moon, to stumble into an ambush of battleships waiting on the far side. Or info ships cloaking the presence of a critical cargo vessel during a raid. Or a battered carrier using the gravity well of a black hole to slingshot away from the clutches of the enemy into the safety of its own forces. Or a light skirmish force engaging the enemy long enough to be flanked on three sides...

Strategy

Logistics is a major concern in any overall campaign strategy. On the simplest level, it involves directing fleets to where they will be most effective, when they are needed. But ships always need upkeep, and they require repairs after combat. The supply lines between producers and the fleet are crucial to maintaining operational effectiveness. An under-supplied front will be worn away by an equal strength but better stocked foe. Supply lines can be disrupted in many ways, and must be defended at all times.

Intelligence plays as crucial a role as logistics. Knowledge of the enemy is sporadic and unreliable at best, and any opportunity to acquire it should be pursued. Information grade craft should be used wisely and often, both in combat and out. In particular, datawave posts are the primary means of long-range reconnaissance, scanning space for ship movements, intercepting transmissions, and shielding friendly units from similar investigation. The Fortunes of War sometimes provide opportunities to learn more about the enemy, such as locating enemy Tachyon Relays, subverting enemy officers, etc.

Long term strategy should capitalize on these concerns. Plan your conquests wisely to prevent overextension; that factory might be easy to take but impossible to hold. Whittling down the enemy's supply lines weakens them over time; this is a good option against a superior foe. Learning the foes' troop movements allows for greater flexibility in your own. For example, if you learn that he is moving his main division to another front, you might attack his now weakened front, or perhaps relocate your ships as well, leaving a "peaceful" vacuum.

Diplomacy

It is always vital to maintain the goodwill of your supporting planets, and to protect them as much as possible. Razing planets, while it might be a sound military decision, is a poor diplomatic one; it is looked upon unfavorably by virtually the entire Imperium. Similarly, destroying civilian ships is frowned upon, even when warranted; plundering civilian sources is likewise looked upon with distaste. But if no one survives to tell the tale...

The Fortunes of War provide numerous opportunities to improve your standing as an imperial contender, or to set back your opponents. The extermination of those pirates raiding that trade route will increase trust in the merchant sector. Swift transport of medical supplies to quell that outbreak gains public favor. Answering a distress call might create a valuable proponent of your cause. Of course, these opportunities draw time and resources away from the military campaign (and might in themselves be ruses by the enemy) but they garner valuable diplomatic influence. This influence is eventually converted to production in the form of periodic campaign funding.

Equally important as your relationship with your producers is your relationship with the other contenders. Alliances and feuds often develop between contenders, and the deft manipulation of these biases might yield military gains more tangible than outright combat. Officer management on your own side is another factor. In the multi-player game yet another dimension is added to this, namely the interactions among players on your side. Coordinating efforts and matching skills creates a formidable campaign force, splitting the combined roles of combatant, strategist, and diplomat into more manageable sizes.

The galaxy is large and only sparsely populated by holdings under imperial influence. Other creatures, not always neutral in the player conflicts, also inhabit known space. These foreign powers range from primitive worlds to super-futuristic societies, from aggressive mercenaries to peaceful poets, from pirates to philanthropists. Furthermore, random galactic occurrences keep things lively, like travelling null spaces (in which warp drives do not work), supernovae, wandering space dragons, etc.

Guidelines

• 3D space combat on multiple fronts, from a bird's eye perspective. For those lacking powerhouse 3D graphics, there should be a fast iconic mode.
• Real Newtonian physics effects in free space. That means gravity, inertial speeds, acceleration effects, etc.
• Heavy emphasis on military tactics and strategy. Try to incorporate rudimentary elements of logistics, intelligence, objectives, formations, chain-of-command, etc.
• Networked multi-player fleet interaction, using a scalable architecture. We want hundreds (not dozens) of people playing in a galaxy simultaneously.
• A highly automated extensible interface paradigm. Simplified production, dynamic fleet organization, command scripting, visual layouts, etc.

• Technology advances. This is not Civilization! Research exists but does not effect gameplay on the time scale of campaigns.
• Production spirals. This is not Warlords! Acquiring planets eventually increases production, but "conquest cascades" should be prevented.
• High maintenance or colonization. This is not Master of Orion 2! The planets players are most interested in are the established territories on the Council of Worlds.
• Morale. This is not Close Combat! Ships are highly computerized, and crews are drawn from elite pools. Officers basically supplant the concept of morale.

Technology

• Warp Drives, which allow faster than light travel (though still finite speed)
• Jump Gates, which allow instantaneous transfer between two gates
• Tachyon Relays, which allow instantaneous communications
• Shields, which allow defenses against a variety of weapons

Think Long Term

To further extend the action the FoW should be slightly biased toward favoring the underdogs / hurting the person in the lead. That guarantees that two equally skilled opponents can battle for prolonged periods, and that only truly gifted generals can prevail against their foes.

Terminology

Crafts

Grade, Class, and Mark

Groups

Officers

Communications

Production

Territorial

New Generic Game Mechanisms

Dynamic Grouping And Designation

Proposed Solution: Allow dynamic allocation any set of items into a player determined and named groups (as well as group deletion, of course). Further allow a hierarchical structure, so that players can issue a single command at exactly the level they want to. If that level currently does not exist, they can dynamically create it.

This grouping mechanism will be employed not only in fleet command but also in regions, production, etc. Let's develop the idea by looking at fleets and ships in particular. Here's something like what I'm envisioning:

Example Ship Grouping

Fleet - A set of ships that must always be in physical proximity, i.e. they move in unison on the galaxy and tactical screens, as well as entering and leaving combat together. Fleets are disjoint and mandatory, though of course one expects their composition to change during the course of the game.

Collectively Fleet Groups and Ship Groups are called War Groups.

Notice the symmetry break between Fronts / Divisions and Fleets / Forces. This is because we expect that players will want more exacting control on the tactical and combat windows than on the galaxy window.

Any process of changing group characteristics is called a Group Operation. Typical group operations might include merging, splitting, deletion, joining, transfers, renaming, etc. The last (n) group operations on a mandatory group should be undoable, modulo losses taken to the group.

There should also be a mechanism to search through groups and their associated subgroups according to various criteria. These criteria include: damage, heaviest ships, fastest ships, highest defense, all Strike Forces, ½ Repair Forces, etc. In fact, I would envision that fleets and divisions would be reorganized automatically according to this mechanism, i.e.

1. Strike Force = Heaviest War Grade attackers in fleet, divided by standard weapon type
2. Defense Force = Heaviest War Grade defenders in fleet, divided by standard defense type
3. Main Force = Most of the remaining war grade ships + Task Force
4. Reserve Force = All Remaining War grade ships
5. Intel Force = All Information Grade ships
6. Cargo Force = All Transport Grade ship + Supply Line Force
7. Repair Force = All Platform Grade ships
8. Relief Force = New arrivals + Reinforcements
9. Transfer Force = Ships passing through this fleet / waiting to be transfered
10. Special Force = All remaining ships / player specified

Example Property Grouping

Territory - A set of holdings that must always be in physical proximity, i.e. they are contiguous on the galaxy and tactical screens. Territories are disjoint and mandatory, though of course one expects their composition to change during the course of the game.

Collectively Territory Groups and Holding Groups are called Property Groups.

Global Prioritized Production Queue

Proposed Solution(s): Refine how production orders are issued to decrease player involvement while retaining player control.

• Production Queues

Place a queue at each production point, whose elements are produced in order of entry (say FIFO). This decreases the average visitation time per queue to about 1/E[queue length] of the frequency needed for a "one at a time" production mechanism.
• Prioritized Queues

Have several priority designations for elements in the queue. Higher priority items are produced before lower priority, and within the same priority they are executed according to entry into the queue (say FIFO).
• Global Queues

Have a single queue represent the combined production of all producers (planets, asteroid mines, etc). This approach has numerous benefits, with the only major drawbacks being the loss of fine-grain control over individual producers and the necessary inclusion of location information into the queue. Considering that time is also wasted in ship movements, etc. I don't think most players will miss these abilities. (We could also have one queue per producer that is filled automatically but can be manually overridden.)

Extensible Prioritized Command Queues

Proposed Solution: Associate a LIFO prioritized command queue with each group. Further allow the dynamic creation of new commands from other commands, beginning with a standard set.

The standard set of commands would come in two distinct flavors. The first type are objective commands, like

• Attack, Assault, Destroy (the difference being acceptable casualties)
• Preserve, Guard, Protect (a similar distinction, but on your side!)
• Slow Move, Move, Fast Move
• Evasion, Withdraw, Retreat
• Scout, Patrol, etc.
• Ram, Self-destruct
• Radio Silence, Resume Frequency
• Need a whole host for boarders and information warfare

• Spearhead - try to break through an enemy "line"
• Ship Sphere - Arrange in an equidistant pattern around a given ship. Would be behind a sphere defense
• Ship Plane - Arrange in a planar scoop. Would be behind a plane defense
• Starburst - Vector outward from a point to a certain radius
• Spiral, Corkscrew, Snake, Dosey-do, etc.

A Command Example

Suddenly an attack comes the front, call them EF1. We issue the whole fleet (WF) the command
 

WF	<1> Assault EF1, Engage

What happens? SF1 moves forward to intercept the oncoming attack, but all other groups stay in position, since they have higher priority conflicting orders. The battle is about even between SF1 and EF1 until the whole fleet comes into range. Now the forward SF2 attacks, since it can execute both the commands <2> Guard TF and <1> Assault EF1 simultaneously. EF1 is pinned between the two forces and is slowly destroyed.

Whenever an objective is achieved the command is removed from the queue. Thus, after EF1's destruction, <1> Assault EF1 disappears, and SF1 automatically resumes its position behind the CS, because <1> Preserve TF is still in effect. A reissue of the command is unnecessary.

Now two different squadrons flank the CS and attack, call them EF2 and EF3. We then issue the commands
 

WF	<1> Assault EF2, Engage
SF1	<2> Assault EF3, Engage

We didn't issue the last command to all the ships because then both strike forces would attack EF3, the most recent equivalent priority conflicting order taking precedence. In this case SF1 will help fight against EF2 after dispatching EF3.

We might have also issued
 

WF	<2> Assault EF2, Engage
SF1	<2> Assault EF3, Engage

which would have a similar effect. The main difference would be if EF2 and EF3 drifted near each other, SF1 would divide its firepower among them, since it has equal priority commands. In the former case it would focus its efforts on EF3, ignoring EF2, since the attack order has higher precedence. There will be a strict hierarchy among commands, when ambiguities like this can exist.

Note that commands can be countermanded by a) the issuing officer or b) any commanding officer.

Scripting

All commands should be able to be countermanded, i.e. revoked midway during execution and consequently the group returns to its previous state. For the basic set of commands this should be quite easy to implement, but the scripting mechanism will have to be carefully constructed to allow a) the interruption of the script and b) the reverse countermanding of individual commands in the script (which might be scripts themselves).

The command scripts should also be able to take a variable number of inputs, which would depend on the script itself. For example, a script might say to move someplace, hold position for a length of time, and then engage an enemy group. This would need three sequential inputs: the nav destination, the hold time, and the target group. These should be entered when the script command is given. Note that a "prettification feature" would be to have customizable prompts for each input within the script, as well as custom messages relayed the notification log.

>> Examples of useful scripts. Reformation, movement, and attack.

Triggers and Conditionals

While I think this would add a fantastic dimension to the game, it might be too involved to code on this first pass, to say nothing of complicating gameplay. The germ of the trigger idea is retained, but in the form of communication triggers (discussed below).

Galarchy Specific Ideas

Officers and Rank

Officers can gain rank in four ways:

• Instruction. In the multi-player game this means training exercises. In the single player game, it also includes finishing The Imperial Academy battleset. Training maneuvers are most often used to raise R0 Ensigns to R1 2^nd Lieutenants, though it benefits all ranks. Only badges can be given for instruction.
• Time In Service. This is a gain in rank due to sheer game time played, modified by fleet size under a officers command. The time becomes factorially long between ranks, and is the slowest way to advance. Only simple citations can be given for time in service.
• Meritorious Service. This comes from the not only the successful execution of command missions but also actions above and beyond the call of duty in the Fortunes of War. Citations and medals are often granted for meritorious service. This is also the best way to gain experience.
• Imperial Succession. If the contender on your side becomes the Emperor, your personal commanding officer gains a medal as well as experience. At low ranks this is always sufficient to raise a rank, but at higher ranks multiple galaxies might need to be conquered.

Rank Chart

Officers in Gameplay

Officers staffing ships have several effects on gameplay. First and foremost, all War grade vessels have a desired rank, depending on their level of power. Any officer can run a ship, including the lowest rank "default Ensign" assumed present. Yet the vessel will perform better the higher the rank is above the ship rank, and worse the lower it is. Thus, while the player can build any ship at any time, it is only profitable when there are competent officers to staff it. Thus, officers should be assigned by order of contention to the most powerful ships in the fleet; there will be an automatic way of doing this. The ships staffed by the LO is called the flagship.

Furthermore, when the computer is controlling a combat each vessel fights at the level of its staff officer. In a flat out, no frills engagement between two equal forces, the side with the highest rank should win. (Of course, it is something of an open question how to make an AI sophisticated enough to do this; at this first pass I may just incorporate a bonus structure of some sort.)

Officers are susceptible to many things. They can be killed in battle, assassinated, kidnapped, captured, tortured, bribed, etc. They may also become inactive, periodically requesting vacation time, petitioning for leaves due to family emergencies, and occasionally retiring. Inactive officers form the Officer Reserve; those on duty are called the Active Service. Combined the Officer Reserve and the Active Service are called the Officer Pool.

The size of both the Officer Reserve and Active Service is limited by a subordinate constraint. Each leading officer can have no more than the sum of his scale in ranks beneath him at any one time (refer to this chart ). For example, a R5 Captain could lead at most (2) Cdrs, (4) LtCs, (8) SLts, and (16) FLts, in addition to an infinite number of Ensigns. The same number constraint applies to officers on inactive duty.

The imperial contender is a special character. The total Officer Pool is limited by his rank, and the rate of their "creation" is affected by his experience. This means that the quickest way to increase the Officer Pool is to consistently send the contender into combat. This carries the high risk of compromising the contender, but also the potential gain of more officers, and thus better ship performance in the fleet. (Note that the contender will always make it to a rescue skiff, even if his ship is unexpectedly destroyed. But if that skiff is fired upon...)

Several other game mechanisms are keyed to rank, such as available FoW scenarios, production, commands, etc. Each of these effects is described in the sections following. In particular, note the campaign backing linked to the IC under production.

Command Missions

A commanding officer may also be appointed to a war group to help him complete his objectives. An appointed CO must be superior to every officer within that group (not just their leader). An unappointed CO is free to commandeer the resources in the command of the superior CO which gave them their CM, though they can only issue orders to officers subordinate to them. The IC is consider a detached CO whose command is the entire side. Appointments are distinctly different from assignments. When assigned to a fleet an officer simply runs a vessel, and are otherwise useable at the discretion of their CO.

In network play, CMs will most often be given to other human players, with computer run officers forming the "leaf nodes". (Can the subordinate refuse? Perhaps we should have Change Mission requests...) I expect that Admirals to Captains will form the CO chain of command, with lesser ranks being auxiliary. Note that the successful completion of command objectives is the only way citations can be granted by superior officers to their subordinates.

Mission Reports

Reports fall into generic categories, which are described in terminology. They also have several characteristics of note. First, they can be classified to a certain rank, or unclassified. Classification is also used as a priority ordering for alerts. Second, reports can have attachments other than messages, such as films, etc. Mission Briefs typically have an attached film. Third, they can empower authorizations, which enable COs to issue specific types of orders. The two most important authorizations are appointments (enabling them to issue commands to a war group) and production limits (which give them a portion of the global production).

This latter deserves more explanation. Each CO can be given control of a portion of the total production by their CO (from the issuing officers portion). Thus, COs can individually manage their own fleets. This production limit is always stated as a percentage of total production, and can fluctuate depending on high-level reallocations. If a CO does not have any production, they cannot authorize production to a subordinate. These unauthorized officers must then issue production requests to have anything produced.

Several reports are automatically generated by the computer and sent to the appropriate people. For example, along with every final report of a CM, the computer appends a citation recommendation, based on the performance in completing mission objectives. Approval of these recommendations is the only way that citations can be granted. Similarly, the Fortunes of War offer opportunities to create new command missions, and these special missions allows the granting of medals.

Note that all communications contain location and tactical information, like point-of-origin, point-of-destination, etc. This means that an enemy who gets their hands on a report might have a significant strategic advantage, especially if it is from a covert operation... It also means that public transmissions are traceable. Be wary of taunting the enemy, unless he already knows where you are!

Priority and Triggers

However, not all messages have equal priority. A communication can be designated as an alert or notification. An alert is a high-priority communication which appears in the Alert Region, and is heralded by a distinct audio cue. A notification is a low-priority communication which is fed to a scrolling Notification Log; this has a "background chatter" effect. Each type of communication comes with a default priority. For example, communiqués and commands default to alert, player typed messages default to message, etc. These default priorities can be overridden (sometimes by enemies who have infiltrated your communications web!)

A trigger is a test whether a condition is fulfilled or not. There are a wide variety of possible triggers: time elapsed, successful command completion, mission objective completed, on fleet status, production completion, etc. These triggers can be used to have a status communication sent automatically by a subordinate, without their intervention. For example, suppose you really need to know when a fleet has moved into place. Typically commands carry two notifications for receipt and completion. The issuing officer changes the completion notification to alert priority; when the fleet has arrived he will be given an audio alert. One might set a notification trigger when forces have taken 10% casualties, a message trigger at 25%, and an alert trigger when they have suffered 50%.

All of these defaults for priority and triggers are settable in a global fashion. Since we expect players might want several different configurations, they can be saved and loaded. Similarly, a player might wish to screen the influx of communications according to several parameters. All these configurations can be linked to a visual layout (to be described).

Dominance Cycles

War Grade Ships

The War Grade dominates all other grades with respect to weapons combat. The Information grade dominates all other grades with respect to information warfare. Transport grade dominates in troop combat. Platforms and Civilians essentially get hosed. ;-)

The game parameters will be structured around the idea of a fair fight. A fair fight is basically a straight combat between ships, assuming they have the same weapon and defense modes, which could go "either way". We would like to make it so that things like cost to produce is the same for both sides of a fair fight, eliminating "production edges". Here the first estimate:
 

Dominated	# vs.	(1) Dominator
M1	8	M1
	16	M2
	32	M3
M2	4	M1
	8	M2
	16	M3
M3	2	M1
	4	M2
	8	M3

Thus,
 

	# vs.	(1)		# vs.	(1)		# vs.	(1)
F1	8	D3	D3	8	B5	B5	8	C7
	16	D4		16	B6		16	C8
	32	D5		32	B7		32	C9
F2	4	D3	D4	4	B5	B6	4	C7
	8	D4		8	B6		8	C8
	16	D5		16	B7		16	C9
F3	2	D3	D5	2	B5	B7	2	C7
	4	D4		4	B6		4	C8
	8	D5		8	B7		8	C9

There is a symmetry break between carriers and fighters, since we really don't want eight fighters being able to take out a carrier! Instead, we "crawl through" the multiplication to find the equivalent ratios. To complete the chart we would have:
 

	# vs.	(1)		# vs.	(1)		# vs.	(1)
F1	64	B5	D3	64	C7	F1	512	C7
	128	B6		128	C8		1024	C8
	256	B7		256	C9		2048	C9
F2	32	B5	D4	32	C7	F2	256	C7
	64	B6		64	C8		512	C8
	128	B7		128	C9		1024	C9
F3	16	B5	D5	16	C7	F3	128	C7
	32	B6		32	C8		256	C8
	64	B7		64	C9		512	C9

Information Grade Ships

Modes of Play

• Combatant, Strategist, or Emperor. In Combatant mode, the player fights individual combats without reference to the galaxy window. In Strategist mode, galactic considerations such as fleet production, logistics, intelligence, etc. are added. In Emperor mode, the full game is enabled, i.e. diplomatic concerns and the Fortunes of War.
• Map, Random, BattleSet, or GalaxySet. In all the modes above, a particular galaxy map can be chosen as the playing field, or one can be randomly created according to certain parameters. In combatant mode a battleset can be played, which is essentially a pre-made tree of combats. Concurrent combats can occur, and the outcomes of earlier combats can affect later ones. In strategist mode a galaxyset can be played, which is galaxy map with pre-configured set of "random" events (like FoW, etc) and / or a special theme.
• Single player vs. multi-player.
• Single team vs. multi-team. Let's enforce a hard limit of sides in any game, say 256. Further enforce a maximum team size, say 256. Computer players can fill in any extra teams, or they can be "lain fallow".
• Open Galaxy vs. Invitation Only. This determines who can join and when. An open galaxy has no restrictions. There a several access parameters which can be set in Invitation Only.

The Imperial Academy

>> List the Academy missions with the corresponding enlisted ranks

Network Team Play

Using a simplified command structure similar to the military allows for much better control of large scale fleets. There are other benefits to large sides. FoW opportunities grow with the number of players a livelier galaxy results. For long running campaigns spanning physical days, a large pool of players means the action can be kept going around the clock! Command missions can be given to adaptable humans as opposed to infantile computer officers. And last but not least, more heads can be used to plot against the enemy!

There are many, many parameters settable per game. For example, the frequency scale for Fortunes Of War, time period between campaign funding, Leader-based invitation structure, etc.

The Production Mechanism

Stocks play a significant role in the game. Once a manufacturer has created their stock, it must go into storage somewhere. Each manufacturer has a limited space for storage, and if the storage space becomes full manufacture of the stocks halts. Likewise, if there are no stocks in storage conversion grinds to a halt (i.e. no parts, no construction). Planets and other large producers will have large but finite storage, but platforms typically have a small capacity relative to their production. Stocks can be loaded onto transport vessels (whose storage is measured in cargo) and shipped to various destinations.

We would like a wide range of stockpiling effects. For example, in peacetime one can stockpile stocks for later use, or change over to merchant concerns, creating liquid money. (All of which can be stolen by the enemy!) Producers therefore have a rearchitecting acceleration, i.e. the rate which mills could be converted to factories, for example. Most space-borne platforms will be unable to change their production type (i.e. zero acceleration).

Note that money can be converted into stocks with a minimum of fuss, since the Free Worlds are always happy to capitalize on wartime efforts. This still leaves a shipping concern, i.e. how to transport these to a producer. The Free Worlds also provide conversion operations and / or outright sale of crafts. However, this carries a premium above cost, and the ships might not be available. (Bidding wars!) Lastly, note that ships can be refurbished by any constructor, at their construction rate.

Campaign Funding

Note that the donation will typically be huge. It is calculated using several guidelines. The basic quantity is equal to the starting production capacity of an entire side. Thus, campaign funding essentially doubles production capability! Second, it is keyed to the imperial contender's rank, using R6 as a basis. Thus, an R3 IC would get 3/6 the amount, while an R9 IC would receive 9/6. (Nearing triple now!) Lastly, diplomatic standing in the Imperium can further modify this amount by 50% in either direction. (Past triple!)

The intent of this mechanism is to prevent production spirals and reduce startup time. It is also something of an equalization buffer. A high-ranking imperial contender stripped of all their worlds is still a powerful enemy, especially if they stand well diplomatically. Furthermore, it is a tactically usable production source, since money is convertible to most everything else. Lastly, officers draw salaries and characters require "lubrication", making money a quantity in high demand in and of itself. (Officer bonuses?)

Authorized Production

However, every production-authorized CO has their own "global" PPQ! When you authorize a subordinate to produce, it is conceptually authority to place orders into your queue. That means that a CO can view the production of their subordinates, since they appear as requests in their PPQ. However, a subordinate CO cannot see the requests of a superior CO which has been rank stamped at a higher rank, though they can see requests the superior CO has "pulled rank" on (see below). The Global PPQ (the true GPPQ) is the PPQ of the imperial contender, who by definition is everyone's CO.

The total production in any PPQ is distributed among the prioritized levels according to the rank of the production request. Furthermore, requests can be upgraded or downgraded by superior officers by the difference of their ranks. A superior CO can also place a request directly into a subordinate's queue (which is, after all, a subset of their own). Both cases are referred to as "pulling rank" on a subordinate; in both cases the inferior CO can see the requests of the superior.

An initial guideline for the priority levels might be:
 

Rank	Typical Requests
R1	Default Ship Upkeep
R2	Default Ship Repair
R3	Default Craft Production
R4	Default Fortifications
R5	Craft Production
R6	Intelligence / Datawave
R7	Planetary Defenses / Jump Gates
R8	Covert Operations
R9	Emergencies

Note that the producers themselves stand outside this hierarchy. For example, a planet automatically establishes local defenses, and these production requests do not need authorization by any officer. Producers also rebuild their production infrastructure whenever it is destroyed (i.e. after being attacked, occupied, mishaps, etc.) Special defenses and extra fortifications can be built by officers; a planet only creates an established minimum determined by their TPP. See Planetary Pacification for more details.

Fleet Composition Criteria

Every wargroup has an FCC, which is a list specifying what ships are desired in that fleet. These FCC are defined using the shared interfaces with the search mechanism, ship production window, etc. and should have several robust ways of defining a composition. It might be explicit, like "(10) Corvettes with heavy energy weapons", or implicit, like "50% of the information grade ships in my division." >> Resolve ambiguous / conflicting FCCs?

This FCC is used for several purposes. First and foremost, it automatically creates requisitions whenever the FCC is not met. A requisition is a request for stocks and / or products, i.e. one might requisition supplies, money, ships, etc. It differs from a production request in that it can be satisfied by transfers of materiel from another group.

Suppose that I change my FCC so that I want a battleship and no longer want my four destroyers. If another group has requisitioned destroyers, they will be automatically transferred from my group to the other one. If a requisition cannot be met by transfer, then it becomes a production request. However, it remains a requisition; in the event someone gets rid of what I need, production is halted and a transfer occurs.

Total Posture Parameters

All property groups have TPPs, and there is an interaction between the TPPs of subgroups and container groups. Property groups can use the TPP settings of their parent group; in fact, new properties begin that way by default. In the case of conflicting parameters, the larger group modulates the effect of the smaller. There should also be ways to globally set all the TPPs in a group, cascading downward. So a player could change an entire sector of space with a single command.

I expect that many players will twiddle with their FCC and TPP and never even touch the full on production mechanism. One might ask: why bother with it? There are three reasons. First, a global management paradigm has to be implemented in detail somehow, and individual producers creating things is familiar to most players. Second, sometimes micro-management of resources will be both desirable and necessary, so players should be able to manipulate the internal guts. Three, we need the concept of shipping for other game mechanisms, such as supply lines.

Logistics

Consider this scenario. Suppose that we are sending ships to an area of heavy fighting. We'd like to get them into action as quickly as possible, so we send them directly to the fleets at the front. Unfortunately, in transit the target fleets were wiped out, and then all the ships need to be reallocated to different fleets. Worse, because of the geometry the fleets are left in an inconvenient tactical position. The other player storms several locations before the ships can turn around and join in the defense effort.

What we would like is the ability to stage the ships, temporarily passing them through intervening friendly fleets before reaching their final target destination. Doing this manually would not only be a major hassle but it also defeats the intent behind FCC, namely having ships automatically sent without player intervention. Thus, we introduce the concept of a stage factor.

Staging

Every wargroup has a stage factor, which is a number between 0 and 9. (I really like single digits, by the way. :-) Fixed defense fleets have SF0, and are the only fleets allowed zero stage factor. When en route to their destination group ships stage themselves in the lowest stage which is convenient; furthermore, they will never head to a stage with a lower factor than the one they are currently in.

Note that this non-decreasing stage factor constraint has several effects. Ships never stage at in a fleet with a lower stage factor than their intended destination. Thus, the stage factor of group relative to the surrounding groups determines "ship flow". Several desirable effects, such as juncturing, pipelining, are achievable through intelligent management of the stage factor. SFs are also affect transfers (below).

The assignment details are as follows. Each reallocated ship has a target destination in mind, and first assigns itself to the Reinforcements of the group it is headed toward. When it finally arrives, it assigns itself to the Relief Force of the target fleet. In the meantime, it places itself in the Transfer Force of any fleet that it is temporarily staged at. (In addition, the transfer force also includes ships which are waiting to be reassigned due to FCC changes.)

Now suppose that a ship heading to relieve another group is desired by the fleet it is currently transferring to. We would like an automatic transfer request trigger to occur, which asks the local CO whether he wants to acquire the ships, and then asks the remote CO whether this is okay. Thus, stage factors also influence how fleets will "fill up" when ships are "sprayed" into region; lower stages before higher ones.

Stage Parameters

The next two parameters affect how ships react when passing through the local group. The auto-linger parameter defines how long staged ships remain in the Transfer Force of a group they are passing through / heading from. We shall make this into an exponential time scale, in order to retain the 0-9 value. ;-)

>> Cap on the ALP, determined by rank? Authorization?

Lastly, an auto-pipeline parameter can be set, which represents how much the local group tries to grab ships passing through it. It governs the generation of transfer requests by comparing the difference in stage factors between the local fleet and the remote fleet. If the difference is less than the APP, the ships are passed through even if they might satisfy part of the local groups FCC. An APP of 0 means "grab anything you can", while a higher APP means "pipeline ships through". Note that the SF + APP of any FCC must be less than 10.

However, a player might want distinctly different behavior in combat and out, even if they are a forward fleet. For example, in combat they might want ASP=0, ALP=9, APP=0; while out of combat ASP=3, ALP=3, APP=3 might be more reasonable. Thus, changing these parameters is automatically done in the pre-combat and post-combat triggers.

Note that this mechanism only generates the automatic commands for ships. At any time an officer may explicitly command any ship, by overriding / countermanding the standing orders. In particular, a CO can explicitly order ships in their Reinforcements to come straightaway. Thus, it is best to set the parameters once and change them infrequently, and micro-manage the ship directly when necessary.

>> Empty Fleets being absorbed / point targeted.

Maintenance

Furthemore, this cost is a significant one. As a general guideline, we want a ship maintenance factor of 8, i.e maintenance is 1/8th the cost of ship construction. But wait! We are comparing rates to values, so we need a conversion ratio. Let the standard production value be 1024. The time it takes a producer with rate 1 to construct a ship is SPV * MF seconds, and they can support ships with total value less than SPV. Our numbers work out well; to maintain a fleet of value 50,000 we need a producer with rate 50.

Combined with the concept of a fair fight, we can now make a comprehensive chart. Suppose we want a standard producer with rate MF to create a battleship (B5) in SPV seconds.  That would mean:

Producer with MF production rate

Producer with 8 production rate

Of course, supplies must also be provided to compensate for the effects of combat. These range from ammunition to medical kits, etc. Parts are also needed in great quantity, since permanent damage to craft can only be repaired using parts.

Supply Lines

Each fleet contains a Cargo Force which consists of transport ships which automatically ferry supplies back and forth between the fleet and the nearest depot (usually at a producer). Supply "line" is perhaps a misnomer, though. For security purposes a different route is chosen each time, not just the shortest path to the closest producer. A portion of the fleet can be designated as a supply line escort. These ships are automatically drawn from the weakest, most damaged of the fleet; ships can also be explicitly assigned to the Supply Line Force. If the supply line is attacked then these will be the ships defending the cargo ships.

Ships are automatically supplied when not in combat. During combat they can still be supplied, but this carries with it some risk, since it exposes the cargo craft to enemy fire. Three main techniques are used: docking, rail supply, and delivery craft. Docking is bringing the transport into physical contact with the other craft. Rail supply is essentially a particle weapon which shoots the supplies from the transport ship to friendly vessels. Delivery craft are essentially seeker missiles which hunt down friendly ships and restocks them. Both can be captured / attacked by the enemy in real time.

Over-extending your supply line is a dangerous tactic. (We should have a supply line indicator of some sort for each fleet.) Recall that our maintenance figures are calculated in the optimal; they assuming an "instantaneous" feed. But the number of cargo ships required to maintain a supply line goes up the longer the line, and these must also be built and maintained. The Supply Line force must also go up, or be spread out to the point of ineffectiveness. Lastly, the detection of a line goes up the longer it is, giving a strong incentive to have shorter lines.

Transports and Platforms

To further extend range of your fleets, there is a transport grade station called a depot, which has a large storage value. These depots can be used to reduce the time it takes for supplies to get to your fleets, reducing the number of cargo vessels needed as well as providing more flexibility in positioning your fleets. They can also become locuses for ship repair, when combined in starbase class locales.

After combat ships often have damage which require significant repairs. Most planets have repair facilities, but valuable time can be lost moving ships away from the front. Salvage platforms can create parts from the raw source of destroyed ships; repair platforms can use these parts to repair ships in the field.

These platforms rarely enter combat. Even when assigned to a fleet they will periodically warp away from them in a random direction, returning only to pick up and drop off crafts. Platforms with hangar facilities are highly prized, since they can warp and repair ships at the same time (though only fighters and destroyers are small enough to fit in the hangars). Catching a repair platform in a Warp Interdiction Zone can be a crushing blow to enemy fleet, especially if you capture it and commandeer it for your own use... >> Platforms how stations are deployed / built?

Reconnaissance and DataWave

>> Effects of Scouting

>> Datawave configurations

The Galactic Conflict

Demonstration of Prowess. Capture vs. destroy.

Ownership, Claims, and Contests

Conquest

• Destroy
• Capture

• Pacify
• Subvert

Interfaces

Iconic Paradigms

Furthermore, to prevent information saturation there will be iconic modes, namely changing the icon set to look at specific types of information.

Info we'd like:

• Fleet composition, size, and capabilities. Weapons, Defenses, and Specials.
• How damaged they are
• Current velocity
• Command structure (groupings + current commands)
• Accuracy of displayed intelligence / time ageing

• Geometric Shapes
• Ticks
• Colors
• Brightness
• Numbers
• Blinking
• Barbershopping

Color Schemes

• Weapon / Defense Types - Use base RGB. Red = Energy Weapons, Green = Particle, Blue = Missile. Combinations will be color combinations, i.e. a ship with both energy and missile weapons would be colored R+B = Purple.
• Damage - Use a green / amber / red stoplight. Dull gray signifies an incapacitated ship. Have separately colored indicators for actual damage and reserves. (Hmm... can we come up with a mutually non-conflicting paradigm with Weapons / Defenses?)
• Distance / Velocity - All distance and velocity related quantities will use the same color scheme. This includes: ship in weapons range, movement trails, velocity vectors, etc.
• Communications - All alerts, messages, notifications, etc. are color coded by classification and priority.
• File types

War Grade Ship Designators

Furthermore, the stem and arrow heads represent attack and defense capabilities, respectively. For example, here are the icons for war grade ships with energy attacks (red) and energy and particle defenses (red + green = yellow).
  The arrow head can also designate the defense capacity of a ship (or the best defense capacity of that class). Point defenses are assumed present; if not, the tip of the arrow will be missing. If the ship has plane defenses, then this is shown by small square of the appropriate color. Here is a battleship with particle weapons (green stem), particle and missile defenses (green + blue = magenta?), and a planar missile defense (blue): A sphere defense is designated by a small circle: 

Information Grade Icons

No numbers are given for communication class ships. War grade ships which are also communications class have the small white cross appended to their stem.

Other Grade Icons

• A plain, unfilled circle.
• Circles with an interior equilateral triangle. Perhaps the four cardinal orientations.
• Circles with radial fills. No solid circles (since we might confuse with sphere defenders).
• Circles with harpoon effects. Make sure the shafts are at non-45 degree angles, to prevent confusion with the other icons.

Windows

Viewport

There are five screens for this window

• Galaxy Screen. This shows fronts and divisions and their relative position in the galaxy. The scale is on the level of regions and sectors.
• Tactical Screen. This shows fleets and Warp Interdiction Zones using a wire-frame rendering. The scale is on the level of territories and locales, i.e. you would see a globe representing "Planet Caledon", as well as the six other planets in the system, all the moons, the asteroid field, the sun(s), etc.
• Combat Screen. This shows individual ships duking it out, next to any holdings in the area. The scale is typically far below planetary, i.e. you would see a huge wall representing the surface of planet Caledon, but you could target holdings on the surface.
• Film Screen. Note that a "film" camera can be moved dynamically in real time, though films also remember their camera movements.
• Data Sheet. Showcases individual craft, as an adjunct to the Omnipedia.

Furthermore, craft can be selected directly from the screen in a variety of ways. The simplest is the default mode, i.e. Mouse-Over Click selects. But there should be options like: (n) closest craft to this selection, crafts attacking this one, crafts attacked by this one, etc.

Resource Monitor

Furthermore, static resources have a concept of a unique resource identifier. The URID will consist of something like a Name + Creation Timestamp + CRC. This is critical: recall that to have networked game play we need to have the same exact resources available to all players. However, we would like to curtail the reduplicate transmissions of such resources, while guaranteeing that they are the same, hence computers will compare URIDs whenever necessary. Of course, once verified each resource is tagged as good, and re-verification need only occur if the resource is altered.

For example, I think incorporating a large audio aspect to the game would greatly increase its play enjoyment. Thus, each player can record certain custom phrases, such as "Command Completed", "Mission Accomplished", "Alert", "Incoming Message", etc. They can also record a limited number (and size) of custom messages. The first time you play with a new person should be the only time you ever need to download these files.

Furthermore, resources can be dynamically grouped into a single larger resource. (Sound familiar? I'm harping on the same idea... :-) This can be done manually by the player, but much of it should be done automatically. For example, all custom files associated with a remote player is put into the same group, to allow easy saving, transfer, or deletion. This group will be named something like "Officer X's Custom Resources". Note that URID verification need only occur at the top level.

Game Preferences

• Auto Game Saving. The game can be saved periodically, at the start of every combat, at the end of every combat, on completion of command missions of rank X, etc.
• Auto Message Saving. All communications are saved to disk. There should be different parameters on alerts, messages, and notifications. Note that these are the actual resources used by the game! Thus, if only the last 100K of notifications are kept, then that is all the player can view.
• Auto Film Spooling. A film of the game can also be recorded, which can be utilized in real time to review the effectiveness of combat tactics (for example). Since these files might be huge, there are several settings like: disable, spool last <n> combats only, spool last <time> minutes only, spool last <size> K only, spool everything (I've got 6G free, dammit!)

• Resource Preferences (i.e. the above)
• Keymaps
• Mousemaps
• Visual Layouts
• Custom Scripts
• Triggers
• Compositional Criteria
• Craft Types
• Window Tab Settings (icons only, text, tooltips)
• Visual Layout Manager Settings (icons only, text, tooltips, etc.)
• Default Filtering Preferences (for messages, news, etc.)
• Color Schemes (for messages, news, etc.)
• Audio Preferences
• Video Settings (enable 3D-acceleration, screen size, color depth, etc.)
• Video Preferences (smooth cutting, animated visual layout changes, etc.)
• Viewport Settings (data blitting, iconic mode, gridlines, etc.)
• Speed Settings (max speed, desired speed)
• Network Game Parameters
• Film Preferences (save frequency, etc.)
• Etc.

Alert Region, Message Board, & Notification Log

Here's a sample of the things which can be automatically communicated:

• Output from a command, successful or otherwise
• Production completion / arrival at targets
• Production Queue Empty
• Minor fleet requests (i.e. to be put on R&R, for supplies, etc.)
• Major fleet requests (i.e. the command queue is empty!, reorganization, etc.)
• Fleets taking heavy damage / in critical condition
• Combats being initiated / broken off
• Combats being won / lost
• Officer created / dying
• Officer requests (transfer to new ships, etc.)
• Officer Reports (mission status, etc.)
• Fortune of War opportunity
• Time scale changes / spurts

Note the Message Board can be used to compose a brief message to other players. If the text exceeds a certain length, or a return is pressed, a Message Tab automatically pops up. This allows a longer message to be written, and the message to be sent.

Also note that a special class of reports called News are automatically sent to each player at message priority. These can of course be filtered. Fortunes of War opportunities can appear as News, Communiqués, or normal Reports.

Group Manager

There are many context dependent links between the group manager and the other windows. For example, the current selections barbershop in the viewport. If the viewport scene is changed, the group manager updates to the appropriate groups. If a Command Queue Screen is active, it will display the command queue of the currently selected entry. >> Other links

The group manager has four screens, friendly wargroups, friendly properties, enemy wargroups, and enemy properties. The Enemy WarGroup Manager automatically adds new craft whenever a new signature is encountered. These can then be manually or auto-arranged by the player just as there own forces can. I expect that most player will find it more convenient to click back and forth between two open group managers than to directly select on the viewport. Likewise, the Enemy Property Manager will add new holdings automatically, though we expect this to happen on a longer timescale.

Command / Production Windows

Film Window

Also note that since the starting galaxy must be URID for everyone starting the game, mission briefs can be quite small, since they need only contain a command stream (i.e. camera info, etc.)

Tabs

Window Control

Windows can be pressed / dragged off a window manager tab and placed on the screen as desired.

>> Think on unambiguous window region hierarchy. I think an "equal edge" paradigm is sufficient.

Visual Layout

Pressing a tab causes a visual layout change to occur. It would be pretty nifty to have the windows expand / contract / move in an animation.

The bottom tab is reserved by default. Whenever a screen is manually changed by dragging windows, it is assumed to be an interim layout, and is automatically assigned to this reserved tab. If this tab is named, then a new tab appears in the list and the reserved one becomes blank again.

Overlays

The text displayed on the tabs can be customized. For example, the production tab could display the highest priority / nearest to completion order, most recent order, etc.

Here are some standard overlays:

• Visual Layout Manager Tab. Determines which VL tabs are displayed.
• Message Tab. For reading / composing large messages.
• Notification Tab. For reading / searching through the notifications.
• Production Tab. For filing a production request.
• Command Tab. For creating custom scripts / listing all commands.
• Craft Tab. For creating custom craft types / listing types.
• Omnipedia Tab. For listing planetary info, ship specs, weapon specs, etc.
• News Tab. Look at combat statistics, diplomatic standing, etc. of your side vs. others
• Trigger Tab. For creating a trigger type.
• Fleet Composition Criteria Tab. For creating a FCC.

Keyboard Paradigm

Further note that layouts can be saved and loaded. Different aspects can also be given custom names (like the visual layouts, etc.).

Numbers

Letters

Function Keys

• Game Control. Has the Resource Monitor Window open, along with several Game Preference Windows.
• Galaxy. Has a viewport with a galaxy screen, medium message windows, group manager(s), command order and queue screens, etc.
• Tactical. Has a viewport with a tactical screen, small message windows, group manager(s), command order screen, etc.
• Combat. Has a viewport with a combat screen, small messaging, friendly and enemy wargroup managers, command order screen, etc.
• Communications. Has large message windows, with a message tab pulled over one side.
• Production. Has a viewport with a galaxy screen, production queue and order windows, compositional criteria window, and a ship tab pulled down.
• Command. Has command scripting, trigger, and order windows, along with appropriate tabs.
• Etc.

Arrow Keys Plus

[BTW, the same should be true of the mouse. Accelerated mouse movements should be linkable to viewing functions; unaltered movements are reserved for movement around the game windows.]

Here's a reasonably complete set of viewport stuff:

• Translations in a plane. I think we'll only need the XY and XZ planes.
• Radial rotations, i.e. swinging the camera around in a yaw / roll fashion.
• Spherical rotations, i.e. sliding the camera about a far point.
• Twisting rotations, i.e. rotation about a normal in a pitch-like fashion.
• Zooming, i.e. changing the viewport size
• Change iconic modes, i.e. what info is displayed on the screens

Other Keys

Lists and Nitty-Gritty Stuff

Decorations

Imperial Officer Uniforms

Intelligence & Command Missions

>> Only can grant citations for successful command missions. List them!
 

News
Datawave
Scouting
Espionage

>> Generics? Assault, Escort, Defend, Establish, Capture, Training? Aid, Hire, Incite, etc.?

>> Carefully divide up intelligence vs. FoW

Fortunes of War Scenarios

FoW opportunities occur probabilistically, proportional to the number of players, capping at some value (at 32 players, say). That way, there are more FoW opportunities in a multi-player game. Note that most of these FoW opportunities have a flip side, typically an assault mission. Occasionally two sides will be given the same mission, but from different perspectives. So one player might get "Transport critical supplies" and the other might get "disrupt enemy transport", which makes for an interesting encounter.

>> List paired ideas together

>> Classify according to ranks. Add on decorations possible.
 

Generic Type	Specific Ideas
Planetary	Mercy Mission (medical supplies, food, etc.)  Fortification install  Attack enemy fleet around neutral planet  Fend off pirates raiding civilian lines
Political	Rebellion on your own planet. Planetary suppression.  Diplomatic envoy.  Planet asks to become a protectorate  Treason! Capture traitor  Propaganda campaigns on neutral planets.  Assassinate political figure.
Production	Sabotage production of the enemy.  Setup factory in strange location.  Transport critical supplies.  Disrupt someone else's supply line.  Fend off pirates raiding your supply lines.  Aid pirates in raiding someone else's supply lines.
Intelligence	Scouting a region / mapping one.  Triangulate enemy datawave outposts.  Espionage.  Ersatz Report  Co-opt enemy comm relay / Discover security breach  [Establish Datawave outpost. Establish comm relays.]
Foreigners	Hire mercenaries for battle.  Aid foreigners against aggressors.  Contest by advanced race  Special items sale by advanced race (weapons, ships, etc.)
Officers	Capture enemy officer. Ransom!  Threaten enemy officer.  Defection  Training Mission  Combat Maneuvers
Civilian	Science mission - Explore sun, nebulae, planet, etc.
Random	Travelling Null Spaces. How can you beat that?  Nova? Heh, heh, heh.  Filmmakers wanting to film combat.  Discredit enemies via combat no-no (attack innocents).

Racial Characteristics

Property Group Characteristics

>> Get an astronomy book and classify according to property group paradigm

Gas Giants, Planetoids, Asteroids, black holes, nebulae, etc.

Core World, Tributary, Protectorate, Neutral Spheres, Foreign Powers

Star Types: Color, Binary / Trinary, Neutron, etc.

>> Include server info

Terrain Types

With Atmosphere (Ocean, etc.)

Without Atmosphere (Ice, etc.)

Clouds / Nebulae

Galactic Storms

Null Spaces

>> We want some patently fantastic terrains...

Fortifications

>> Discuss Starbases as combination war + info + depot + platform locales.

WarGroup Characteristics

Officers, CO Chain of Command

In Current Territory/ Region

Auto-reorganization Rules

Fleet Composition Criteria

Stage Factor, ASP, ALP, APP

Transfer target (and target of)

Command Queue

Ship Characteristics

Weapon Types

Combat Resolution

Dependent Functions

Suppose we choose to make Targeting Accuracy dependent on distance to the target, and parameterized on the weapon's rated distance and chance to hit, i.e. we would have a "Chance To Hit @ Rated Distance". A reasonable function might be:

In a fully analogous way, damage ratings on energy and particle weapons can be given in "Damage / Second @ Rated Distance" and calculated in a similar way. Missile weapons break this paradigm by having a fixed range, acceleration, targeting accuracy, and damage.

A speed dependent relation, such as maneuverability, is given by "Maneuverability @ Rated Speed", but is calculated in a different manner.

Weapons Combat

>> Differentiate between damage and (permanent) damage. Reconstruction?

There will be several major factors affecting the percentage chance to hit:

• Orientation. Unless you are pointing your weapon mounts in the proper direction, you have no chance of hitting.
• Maneuverability. M_you[S_you] - M_them[S_them].
• Evasion. - |E_you| - |E_them|. It becomes more difficult to hit targets when either you or they are currently evading / retreating.
• Targeting Accuracy. TA_you[D] - TA_terrain[D]. Terrain penalties should also be given in a distance dependent form.
• Datawave. Max(Detection_you - Stealth - them, 0) High detection capabilities should only negate a high stealth ability.
• Plane Defense. -PD_them. As you can see, something with a high enough plane defense is untouchable from one side.
• Ship Size. +-Size_them. Large ships are easier to hit, small ships are harder.

• Obstructions. Something in the way takes the damage, and not the target.
• Distance. Dam[D] is the base damage.
• Sphere Defense. - SD_them. Something with a high enough sphere defense is pretty invulnerable as well. Note that defenses can literally be bypassed, which is the reason why light fast droids can take out heavy sphere defenders.

>> target verification reduces the firing rate

>> Ship performance degradation via permanent /just damage?

>> Exact combat modification via officers?

Information Warfare

Slip commands into command queues, control ships.

>> Needs a lot of work

Troop Engagement

>> Also needs a lot of thought

Abbreviations

Architecture and Coding Issues

Multi-player Architecture

• Game processes reasonably distributed across all computers
• Minimal network traffic

Property Servers

When a fleet moves into a territory owned by another player (friendly or enemy), a cell-phone like hand off occurs, and the remote computer now assumes processing for the fleet. In the case of friendly territories, though, there is an attempted re-negotiation of ownership rights to the territory. This paradigm has the added benefit of being able to dynamically add new regions without upsetting the processing structure of the old ones, i.e. new players can be added until the cows come home.

There is a special Free Space consideration. When a fleet moves into Free Space it informs the galaxy server, but processing is still done locally until another player controlled territory is encountered. The galaxy server only a) generates random events in free space, which it tells the other computer to handle, and b) informs other servers in the unlikely event that fleets meet in free space. To minimize load on the galaxy server, we might even decree that no chance meetings can occur in free space except specific rendezvous and FoW stuff...

Command Streams

The essential idea is to pass only commands back and forth between the computers and have each one update a local copy of a combat. Commands are timestamp forwarded so that they occur at exactly the same time, according to the game galaxy chronometer. In the event of a heinously delayed command, a mechanism to resynch copies between computers will be used.

This gives rise to the concept of a "master copy", which resides by default on the server which owns the territory in which the combat occurs (or whichever one is assigned by the galaxy server if the combat occurs in free space). All other combat participants get a "slave" copy dumped from the master, and afterwards only command updates are sent. Each local copy of a combat will keep track of the last time the player accessed it on the computer (i.e. looked at it in a viewport or sent a command to it). After a certain time interval it is dropped, and no more command updates are sent. A return to that combat requires a redump.

For things requiring random actions, seeds are passed along with the message (so that all computers take the "same" random action). This is especially critical during combat interactions like determining who hits whom, and the consequent damage done.

Network Spooling

That means that we can't bog down the bandwidth with lower priority information downloads / uploads. However, other resources might need to be downloaded from other computers. Thus, we would spool that data out to the desired location in small slices, only when the command queue has no data to transmit.

This has impact when combats are initiated. The initial dump of a new combat takes lower priority than already established real-time network concerns. That means that in times of network clogging, etc. combats might take a non-trivial amount of time to load.

Bandwidth Estimate

Now suppose that everyone has only 28.8 modems, and that the multicast network is a linear tree (hey, we're doing worst case here!). That means that 28 combats can be supported by that galaxy (assuming maximal overlap). More reasonably, we would expect the combats to be evenly distributed among the string, meaning about 50 combats could be happening concurrently. Assuming two players per one combat, that means we could have 100 people playing simultaneously!

Main Engine Architecture

Timing Issues

Thus, I expect that out of each second we will have

• 25-100ms Windows Processing
• 25-50ms Network Processing
• 40-200ms Combat Processing (1-5 combats)

Using Direct3D those 1000 ship combats take anywhere from 100ms - 250ms per frame to render, which means that, under optimal conditions, we could get a blazing frame rate of 9 frames / second. :-) Thus, in the real coded version of the game would have to use a much more intelligent rendering algorithm (i.e. Direct3D renders the whole scene again at each tick). I have great faith that such rendering is possible, since I just played Wing Commander Prophecy and that puppy was massively smooth.

Officer AI

Security

Hmmm... We need an (n)-way secure party transaction. Alas, I do not think it exists.

Nifty Ideas

• Extensible terrain and ship definitions. Perhaps slightly too ambitious.
• BattleSet / Galaxyset Creation Program
• Interconnectable galaxies? Wowsers, that'd be big...
• Passwords! WOWSERS! Actual key encryption? Covert Operations, and the whole host of related missions / consequences
• WAIT. WAIT. How about a SINGLE game galaxy? Hmmm... We could have invasions via other galaxies!
• Large databases for character names and other junk.
• Composite / Container Vessels. Docking.
• Multiple renders per ship, for damage / salvage purposes. On the spot destruction?
• Screens in windows on rolleys?
• Dynamic Multicast Tree Updates due to current combat list
• Organizational Criteria
• Automatic History writing mechanism via the News mechanism
• ComLinks for high bandwidth users
• Change command structure to target officers and not ships
• Imperial Guard! Mirrored visors.

Work Queue

• Rework production / staging according to FCC paradigm.
• Think about intelligence aspects of the game. Also, extent of diplomacy.
• Differentiate between damage (handled by damage control) and Permanent damaged (which requires repair rate capability).
• Flesh out information warfare and troop combat
• Rework the list of standard commands
• Rework Holdings and Fortifications territory