Sci-fi Setting: Concepts for a Sequel

[Nerdfish]

Weapons of Mass Destruction

"The use of atomics on human beings shall be cause for planetary obliteration."
-The Great Convention, Dune

"You maniacs! You blew it up! God damn you. God damn you all to hell!"
-Planet of the Apes

Atomics, bioweapons, nanophages, antimatter conversion, artificial black holes- there are any number of ways to reduce a planet, it's inhabitants, or selected portions thereof to their constituent stardust and mop up aterwards. The problem is that ALL of these things are gigantically illegal. If you try to pull a stunt like this without gathering massive political and social support (by fair means or foul,) you will most likely prompt immediate and terrible military retribution from other star systems- every other noble house or faction will put aside their differences and pound on you instead.

There should always be the option of stocking up enough of those (especially fusion bombs) that no one would conceive attacking the player's faction in fear of retribution. It's one thing to attack an maniacal leader when said leader could wipe out an attacking force, another to attack a maniacal leader that could reduce every settlement in the sector to dust in 30 seconds. Don't forget the deterrence effect of WMDs - they can bring peace just as well as apocalyptic destruction.

 

[Alfryd]

...Theoretically speaking, yes, but I'd imagine that trying to amass an arsenal that vast would, in itself, constitute legal grounds for massive, planet-obliterating retaliation. (The other thing to bear in mind is that transporting those weapons to other systems in the sector remains a serious obstacle, given the limitations on Jumpship travel. There's no realistic way that you could deliver that kinda payload inside 30 seconds, even with assistance from the Spacers or an Oracle.)

Besides, even WoMD have their practical limitations or countermeasures- missile defence installations, containment fields, on-site construction, sheer expense, infecting your own population, etc.


...Just as a side remark, another potential take on the setting is perhaps as something similar to Republican Rome- theoretically governed by the Senate, but with many dynasties of important patrician families or merchant magnates who've risen to wealth and political influence over the centuries, with attendant privileges and responsibilities. And, like Rome, there's tension between the natural tendency of military dominance toward dictatorship, and the democratic pretensions or aspirations of the underlying culture- between opulent decadence and traditional austerity, cultural inclusiveness and social inequality, etc. etc... Just a thought.

 

[Nerdfish]

...Theoretically speaking, yes, but I'd imagine that trying to amass an arsenal that vast would, in itself, constitute legal grounds for massive, planet-obliterating retaliation. (The other thing to bear in mind is that transporting those weapons to other systems in the sector remains a serious obstacle, given the limitations on Jumpship travel. There's no realistic way that you could deliver that kinda payload inside 30 seconds, even with assistance from the Spacers or an Oracle.)

Besides, even WoMD have their practical limitations or countermeasures- missile defence installations, containment fields, on-site construction, sheer expense, infecting your own population, etc.

It's one thing to have legal reason for retaliation, another thing to actually carry it out. Every other faction would know they are dead too if they attempt to disarm forcibly. as for delivery - it's always possible to have them stockpiled on other planets to start with using those smugglers you kindly designed.

Countermeasures would be a good idea - but are super weapons still super weapons if price-effective counters exist for them?

 

[Alfryd]

It's one thing to have legal reason for retaliation, another thing to actually carry it out. Every other faction would know they are dead too if they attempt to disarm forcibly.

What I mean is you might be permitted, say a legal maximum of 3 warheads per settlement or so- enough for purposes of defence or legitimate retaliation, but anything beyond that starts to raise eyebrows. So... you'd be courting disaster long before reaching the point of holding the sector in mortal terror.

...as for delivery - it's always possible to have them stockpiled on other planets to start with using those smugglers you kindly designed.

That's what you'd call an 'unreliable delivery system'. Smugglers cater to the highest bidder, so you'd probably have to pay them beyond exorbitantly in order for them to even consider the political, business, and very literal fallout to be worth the risk. (Plus, using the smugglers in this fashion would be even more illegal than regular use of WoMD, and those stockpiles could be discovered in the meanwhile.)

Countermeasures would be a good idea - but are super weapons still super weapons if price-effective counters exist for them?

Maybe, maybe not, but they're still definitely highly illegal. My main point here, from a design perspective, is that WoMD- while certainly available- don't feature heavily in interplanetary conflicts and are rarely, if ever, actually used. (So the player doesn't, e.g, have to worry about their entire settlement being nuked to high heaven if they rub another planetary governor the wrong way. Retaliation needs to be at least mildly interesting. From a design perspective, you could be forgiven for omitting WoMD almost entirely- at least in practical terms.)

(A possible consequence of this is that you're looking at a civilisation that doesn't have many large urban settlements- with the exceptions of a few heavily-shielded administrative centres, populations might be more spread out, to help ensure self-sufficiency and make it harder for WoMD to target large sections of the populace at once. Again... just a thought.)

 

[Alfryd]

Leverage, Largesse, and Indirect Control: Or, How to Make Friends and Influence People.

"Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him, once, long ago. "Once you have given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."
-Dune

"...He was used to working with machines. Command is about people."
-Lee "Apollo" Adama, Battlestar Galactica

"I am altering the agreement. Pray I don't alter it any further."
-Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back

"Sire! I forbid it!"
-Thufir Hawat, Dune


You can improve characters' disposition to help you through quite a few methods-
*- Bribery (money, pure and simple. More effective for characters with the Avarice trait. The amount you can offer to characters officially in your pay is limited.)
*- Promotion (for characters already on a regular salary. More effective for characters with the Ambitious trait.)
*- Threats and Blackmail (lots of possibilities here. Capture their loved ones, threaten to execute, imprison or demote them, confiscate their property, expose dirty secrets, etc. Usually illegal behaviour, but if the character is a convicted criminal, you might well have scope to 'offer pardon' as leverage.)

The following can't be offered immediately during negotiations, but they can boost a character's respect for you over time, and thus make more willing to comply with your subsequent requests-
*- Gifts and Flattery (can't be given at the same time you make a request. Gifts that represent something the character particularly likes or needs have benefits far beyond monetary value- it's the thought that counts! This can also include medals, statues, or tapestries in honour of the character, commemorating their heroic accomplishments. More effective for characters with the Vanity trait.)
*- Aid and Succour (helping the character out in critical situations, whether directly or indirectly. Direct personal intervention is particularly powerful, though.)
*- A positive reputation by the standards of a particular guild or faction. (This could cover a lot of things, depending on the faction in question: e.g, the Logicians could be impressed by strong law-enforcement and equal distribution of wealth, the Shapers by having plenty of alien species and a permissive sexual culture, and so forth.)
*- A general reputation for fairness and generosity, and/or a reputation for keeping your promises, and/or a reputation that you are not to be refused lightly.

Some heroes (such as Palatines) would be very difficult to influence using bribery, blackmail, flattery or threats, but very attentive to a sovereign's reputation and even willing to work for free if they believe a cause is worthy.

Of course, a lot of these options might only be available during one-to-one dialogue with a given character (or during party recruitment for a particular mission.) For a general free-to-all-comers dead-or-alive bounty on something's head, offering cold hard cash is pretty well your only option. That's why those amoral mercenaries are so handy!


Everything Can Be Made Into Flags

"I play the song to which you must dance. To you is left the freedom of improvisation. This improvisation is what you call... 'free will.'"

"She asked me to tell her what it is to rule," Paul said. "And I said that one commands. And she said I had some unlearning to do."
-Dune


Recruitment? -This can be modelled as a flag. You offer money for a position at a particular guild or facility, review the list of suitable applicants, and pick those which meet your standards. (This also allows you to handle hero 'upgrades' more organically than the current system, by acting as a 'patron' or 'sponsor' for aspiring neophytes or apprentices.)

Construction? -This can be modelled as a flag. You offer money to attract workers to the site (plus cover the cost of raw materials,) and then let them get about their business. (This has the added benefit that a building can't be destroyed just after placement when it only has a dozen HP: it doesn't appear at all until the workers start erecting it, and the cost of construction is only paid out gradually.)

Research and Development? -This, too can be modelled as a flag... kinda. Approach an individual artificer/physician/freeborn/etc. and pay them a standing commission to make shield belts/stimpaks/textiles (which you can then, presumably, export or send as gifts.) In the meanwhile, the character's related trade skills will improve- directly, through practice.

Party Formation? -That can be modelled as a flag- in fact, I'd incline to making it an optional feature of ALL flags/commissions- allow the player to select which applicants for a given flag are eligible to collect the reward, and bang- you now have a party. (Of course, individual heroes can leave the party if they don't like the company they're keeping, so it's your job to offer them proper inducement to work together.)


Offworld Missions: Shipbuilding and Crew Selection

"To seek out new life and new civilisations- to boldly go where no-one has gone before."
-Star Trek: TNG

"-Love. You can know all the math in the 'verse, but if you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as she'll turn the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughtta fall down. Tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home."
-Serenity


Construction of ships could allow you to gather crews for offworld missions. Trade negotiations, survey expeditions, rescue operations, founding mining colonies, military raids- there are lots of possibilities here. Putting together a crew is basically a form of recruitment/party formation- you advertise vacant positions, review the applicants, pick those that seem suitable, and then send the ship off on it's newfound errand.

A controllable sovereign or members of the household could join the crew too for a while- allowing for the possibility of offworld quests that involve no base-building at all, but feel more like a top-down tactical RPG with really, really good party AI, hint, hint, hint. Depending on how the mission turns out, it might be possible to offer a crew permanent positions (with salary and benefits.) It's also possible the player might run into various 'random encounters' during space travel.


The Evil Approach and it's Limitations

There are two main categories of tool you can use for influencing heroes: positive rewards (money, promotion, honorary ceremonies, gifts, etc.) and negative punishments (blackmail and threats.) Punishments are more economical and often more reliable than rewards, so superficially they're an attractive option- threatening to execute someone and confiscate their life savings doesn't cost you anything- if anything, it makes you money- and the aura of fear you create makes other characters less likely to cross you. But there's a hidden cost to this style of play.

Firstly, if you rule primarily through fear and brutality, using threats and blackmail to bend others to your will, then no-one is going to volunteer to do anything for you. Why should they?- when you punish mistakes more than you reward success, underlings have nothing to gain and much to lose by taking the initiative. Secondly, characters bound to you through fear will defect or rebel at the first opportunity or sign of weakness.

This is the price that an 'evil' player pays- you gain near-direct control and considerable wealth, but only at the cost of initiative, morale, and genuine loyalty. Unless such a player is supremely skilled, they will find themselves hopelessly mired in micromanagement and petty intrigues, with hardly a moment to spare on contemplating large-scale strategy- (not to mention the various legal problems that need to be smoothed over with bribes in high places.)

"One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp too strongly is to be taken over by power, and thus to become it's victim."

By contrast, a 'good' (or at least mostly 'good') player, by rewarding success more than s/he punishes failure, can assign general objectives to his/her underlings while relying on individual initiative to take care of the finer details, and without fearing interference from ulterior motives.

 

[Alfryd]

Environments: Meditations on the Nature of a World

-Arrakis, Coruscant from Star Wars (rather similar to Asimov's Trantor,) Cloud City from The Empire Strikes Back, and deep-sea hydrothermal vents... mainly as an example of how bizarre life on just this one planet can get.


Gravity
High gravity worlds are often gas giants with dense, deep atmospheres and lack a solid surface, but many become hive worlds- heavily urbanised and overpopulated due to problems with offworld transport. Low gravity worlds tend to have thinner atmospheres. Both can make people tire more easily (either because objects seem heavier, or they have trouble breathing.)

People born on high-gravity worlds tend to be short and squat, but powerfully built. People born on low-gravity worlds tend to be willowy and slender.

Temperature
Very high temperature worlds tend to lack atmospheres, very low temperature worlds tend to have frozen atmospheres. There's a relatively narrow temperature range suitable for human life (i.e, the presence of liquid water,) but this can be extended somewhat through the use of greenhouse gases (to trap heat) or by increasing surface albedo (to reflect sunlight.)

Atmospheric composition
Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, CO2, Methane, H2O, Ammonia, Sulphur and Phosophorous, inert gases, etc. are the main recurring elements here. (If you wanted to get insanely detailed.)

All planets tend to have cores composed of metals and heavy elements- nickel, cobalt, iron, silicon, etc. It's the relative abundance of other light elements that make the place interesting. (Note that a world with seas- of any kind- needs to have at amosphere. ...unless the sea's surface is frozen, as is the case with Europa. Gaah! Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions!)


Again, this may be way more detail than you really need, but the point to remember here is that even relatively comfortable worlds are likely to be extremely harsh by human standards, and in many cases, permanent human settlement would be either prohibitively expensive or downright impossible.

On hostile worlds- with a thin, caustic or poisonous atmosphere, extremes of temperature or both- permanent settlement can only take place under containment forcefields (cheap to build, expensive to maintain,) or biodome shelters (expensive to build, cheap to maintain.) Worlds with very high gravity may need antigravity generators to create an airborne settlement.

It might also be possible to perform missions- or even establish fiefdoms- within the confines of a heavily urbanised world (a la Trantor or Coruscant)- but in order for this to work, you'd probably need to have a method of automatically generating advanced settlements for the player to visit. Which would be awesome. ...But I really have no definite ideas about how to accomplish that.


Terraforming

There's a few ways to go about this:

1. The Slow, Expensive, Reliable Way. Install big, mechanical, terraforming factories that belch out or sequester CO2 and other gases and change the atmosphere over time.
2. The Smart, Complicated, Delicate Way. Use introduced life-forms adapted to the climate to set up self-sustaining ecosystems that slowly change the chemical signature of the world. This is what your Ecologists are for, and Shapers are even better. The downside is that introduced species might be difficult to control.
3. Playing With Fire. Use the KotSF and their nanotech expertise to reshape the world as you see fit, transmuting chemical compounds and elements directly using the power derived from nuclear reactions or zero-point energy. This may be the only viable method for making truly barren worlds habitable within a reasonable timeframe. However, nanotech mutations can do a lot of damage...

Hostile environments are really where the Shapers/KotSF come into their own, because even if they can't fully terraform the world to accomodate human life, they can always modify humans to suit the environment. A place for everything, and everything in its place...


Native Alien Lifeforms

"Oh my god, it's grotesque! -Oh, and there's something in a jar."
-Wash, Firefly

"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS- EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE."
-2010, Odyssey 2

Again, allow me to take a moment to express my disappointment with how unimaginative about 90% of so-called 'aliens' tend to be. I mean, just think for a second about how bizarre life on this one planet can get. Multiply that by a factor of 10, and you might be able to get some idea of how bizarre alien life-forms really ought to be. ...Sorry. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled aimless rambling.


This is actually something of a problem. If every world has a richly-developed native ecosystem, then there's no way a single art department can create a large enough variety of flora and fauna to populate each and every world a player could visit. At the same time, if each and every world the player could colonise had to start out as barren ball of rock, that could be rather tedious (given they could take decades to fully terraform, and there'd be no local quarry to hunt. Plus, aliens are fun!)

Possible solution/explanation/workaround- Monoliths have transplanted promising species to many other worlds in the galaxy- much as they did for humanity- and for similar reasons. This explains why the same set of basic species have been found on many different worlds. Such worlds need little or no actual terraforming, but may have a selection of nasty indigenous predators and/or native tribes to worry about. AND/OR: Worlds that the player can colonise have already been terraformed by the Ecologists, and consequently the species encountered are mostly introduced, and rather familiar. Other habitable worlds do exist, but life there is either nonexistant or very primitive, and need much more work to terraform.

 

[Alfryd]

...negative punishments (blackmail and threats.)

Oooh- I forgot to mention: Brainwashing. Always a useful technique! (Examples- Piter de Vries from Dune, River Tam from Firefly, Sharon "Boomer" Valeri from BSG, Lady Deathstryke from X2, Ghost in the Shell, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Brave New World, etc. etc. etc.)
Can be used to alter personality, insert or delete memories, instil loyalty, or program the subject for a single task- however, the larger the overall change involved, the greater the risk of unwanted 'side-effects' (i.e, some degree of insanity.) Definitely rather illegal, but this is something I'd reckon the Logicians would actually be more tolerant of (and better at) than, say, the Shapers. For heavy modifications, you'd probably have to physically capture the subject, but it's possible subliminal advertising, the use of virtual reality or hacking into cybernetic implants could afford opportunities to do this sort of thing discretely.

Also, while forced conditioning is definitely evil, applications of this technology aren't neccesarily harmful, if the subject is willing: Matrix-style skill downloads, accelerated learning, training-simulations and holodeck-recreation all use basically the same technology, and the potential benefits of those are pretty substantial.

 

[Alfryd]

Planet-Building: A Simpler System(?)

The following is probably a gross over-simplification in scientific terms, but hey...

Temperature Zone: Baking/Temperate/Frigid
*- Baking worlds have areas too warm for liquid water, and may lack an atmosphere.
*- Temperate worlds potentially have at least some regions- at the poles or equator, say- where liquid water could exist.
*- Frigid worlds have areas too cold for liquid water, and may have a frozen atmosphere.

Composition: Rocky/Oceanic/Gaseous
*- Rocky worlds have areas of solid land to walk about, but tend to have low gravity and thin atmospheres.
*- Oceanic worlds have (or had) areas of condensed liquids (usually water.) They tend to have standard gravity and always have atmospheres.
*- Gaseous worlds have high gravity, thick, dense atmospheres and lack a solid surface.

Tectonics: Inert/Active/Hostile
*- Inert worlds lack volcanic activity or tidal forces, and consequently tend to be poor in metals or nutrients.
*- Active worlds have tides and tectonic processes which brought valuable metals and useful nutrients to their surface.
*- Hostile worlds have been poisoned by intense magnetic radiation or greenhouse gases resulting from strong tidal forces or subsurface convection.

A planet's suitability for life depends on being in the middle of each category- consequently, a Temperate/Active/Ocean world is the most likely to have native life-forms, and the easiest to terraform. To generate a world, you just grab a descriptor or two from each category. To give some real-world examples:

Venus: Baking + Rocky + Hostile
Mars: Temperate/Frigid + Rocky + Inert
Earth: Temperate + Rocky/Oceanic + Active
Jupiter: Frigid + Gaseous/Gaseous + Active/Hostile
Pluto: Frigid + Rocky + Inert
Europa: Frigid + Oceanic + Active
Titan: Frigid + Rocky/Oceanic + Inert/Active
Io: Frigid + Rocky + Active/Hostile

From this, and with a little bit of added randomisation, you can determine average surface temperature, gravity, abundance of surface water, suitability of atmosphere, and the kind of terrain you're likely to encounter within a given area of the planet's surface. Then you can generate terrain for the player to visit or colonise as their personal fief/estate/demesne.


More Thoughts on Native Alien Life-forms

I was just thinking about how players complained about the difficulty curve in Maj2- that clearing out the monsters was either too easy or too hard, depending on who was playing. It's mainly a Gamist concern, but I think there's a relatively simple and plausible solution to it, coming from a familiar source: Diablo II.

1. Basically, get rid of lairs as the source of monsters. Instead, carve up the map (as in, the immediate, sub-planet-scale map) into predefined territories for packs of predatory animals. (If you wanted to get super-detailed, you could create herds of herbivores for them to predate.)
2. The most powerful predators are found in areas furthest from the player's initial settlement. (After all, they need the most living space.)
3. If you kill the predators in a given area, more will simply migrate from neighbouring territories to re-populate the place. (Or maybe they just re-spawn when you're not looking.) (In other words, there's a relatively constant population density.)
4. The only way to drive off or remove predators permanently is to build something on/over/through their land: farmland, military outposts, roads etc., or to terraform the surrounding terrain into something unfamiliar- i.e, through habitat destruction.
5. Predators DON'T (generally) raid the player's buildings. (Maybe the occasional raid on livestock would happen, or nearby herbivores might destroy crops.)

What's the advantage to this system?- basically, the player can keep sending combat parties to a given territory, over and over again, until his/her heroes are as strong as s/he likes. A skilled player might be able to clear out the map quickly with relatively low-level heroes, while an unskilled player could take much longer and need more seasoned heroes to do it with- but both will find the game exactly as easy or as hard as they like. It's a proven, tested system, that provides a satisfying challenge while allowing players to proceed strictly at their own pace.

(Another potential feature is that local flora and fauna are the source of an important resource: spice- that's used in drugs and medicines. So it's actually beneficial to keep some of the local wildlife intact.)

 

[Alfryd]

...I am actually almost entirely out of ideas now. I guess I'll finish up with a few brief suggestions on AI, and that'll be it.

 

[Draxynnic]

Since scifi nerds usually just sit in front of a computer all day. It's difficult to come up with an equivalent heroic class of wizard in this setting.

Mad scientists?

Or, given the setting under discussion, possibly guys who have access to some form of high technology, but cloak it behind mysticism and cargo-cultism rather than science (at least in public). Unlike Initiates, though, their 'cargo cult' is more from advanced weaponry than robotic servants.

One possible thing you can draw from is Babylon 5's Technomages.

Incidentally, one thing that strikes me on this discussion... if the Spacers dislike the Keepers of the Secret Fire so much and they have a monopoly on space travel, how does the latter get around? The most obvious possibility is that the Keepers of the Secret Fire have their own method of getting around, making them the main competition for the Spacers... which gives you a good reason for them to dislike each other.

Cloning can be used to 'resurrect' a character physically, but the problem is restoring memories. If brain tissue can be recovered then, sure, it's possible that most of a character's skills and knowledge could be restored, but maybe characters could also 'backup' their memories to a central database (the Collective and Initiates might provide the service,) or maybe a certain degree of 'XP loss' would be in order, or maybe the Gaia Effect or Monoliths could obligingly reconstruct individual personalities.

Actually, this does present an interesting mechanic: What if heroes have to habitually visit a backing-up station, and if they "die", they go back to the state they were at when they were backed up?

What I mean is you might be permitted, say a legal maximum of 3 warheads per settlement or so- enough for purposes of defence or legitimate retaliation, but anything beyond that starts to raise eyebrows. So... you'd be courting disaster long before reaching the point of holding the sector in mortal terror.

Unless you could hide them...

To be honest, though I really dislike superweapons in RTSes, so I wouldn't mourn their non-inclusion if there was a good justification.

This is the price that an 'evil' player pays- you gain near-direct control and considerable wealth, but only at the cost of initiative, morale, and genuine loyalty. Unless such a player is supremely skilled, they will find themselves hopelessly mired in micromanagement and petty intrigues, with hardly a moment to spare on contemplating large-scale strategy- (not to mention the various legal problems that need to be smoothed over with bribes in high places.)

That provides an interesting way of letting players with different ideas of how much direct control to allow to set their own position...

Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, CO2, Methane, H2O, Ammonia, Sulphur and Phosophorous, inert gases, etc. are the main recurring elements here. (If you wanted to get insanely detailed.)

Less insanely detailed, you probably just need three atmospheric types - habitable, inhospitable (breathing apparatus required), and absent/hostile (protective suits required). Possibly a fourth type (extreme?) where even protective suits only provide temporary protection.

 

[Alfryd]

Mad scientists?

Or, given the setting under discussion, possibly guys who have access to some form of high technology, but cloak it behind mysticism and cargo-cultism rather than science (at least in public). Unlike Initiates, though, their 'cargo cult' is more from advanced weaponry than robotic servants.

Those, to a large degree, would the the KotSF and/or Archons. The closest equivalent to the wizard in terms of offensive/defensive capability is possibly the Xenopath. The closest social equivalent is the Artificer (though that's sort of a combination of the wizard and blacksmith.)

Incidentally, one thing that strikes me on this discussion... if the Spacers dislike the Keepers of the Secret Fire so much and they have a monopoly on space travel, how does the latter get around? The most obvious possibility is that the Keepers of the Secret Fire have their own method of getting around, making them the main competition for the Spacers... which gives you a good reason for them to dislike each other.

It's a possible angle to take- after all, the KotSF have expertise in fusion power, which is essential for any kind of efficient space travel. But the thing to remember is that the Spacers only have a monopoly on safe, fast interstellar travel. You can get around without them, it's just slow, expensive, and dangerous- it's what the Runners do, for example.
And, yes- one of the main drawbacks of picking the KotSF as a favoured faction is that they have trouble getting from place to place (given they can easily 'infest' fusion drives,) and your world will tend to be isolated in consequence.

Actually, this does present an interesting mechanic: What if heroes have to habitually visit a backing-up station, and if they "die", they go back to the state they were at when they were backed up?

It's definitely one possible approach- at least it could reduce the degree of 'XP loss' involved (bearing in mind I'm talking about a practice-based skill-advancement system.)

Unless you could hide them...

To be honest, though I really dislike superweapons in RTSes, so I wouldn't mourn their non-inclusion if there was a good justification.

Yeah, my main point here is to say, "yes, they exist, now here are all these reasons why you can't use them." ...Though I would mention I'm really approaching this from a single-player mostly-Sim perspective. Multiplayer is largely an afterthought (terrible as that sounds.)

That provides an interesting way of letting players with different ideas of how much direct control to allow to set their own position...

That's the idea, yeah. The exact user interface/negotiation involved here is an interesting question, of course- do you summon characters to the palace and then talk with them, or send them a message detailing a specific request, or do you just call them up over the wireless? Possibilities.

Less insanely detailed, you probably just need three atmospheric types - habitable, inhospitable (breathing apparatus required), and absent/hostile (protective suits required). Possibly a fourth type (extreme?) where even protective suits only provide temporary protection.

I've suggested a much simpler system in my previous post. You could probably be forgiven for ignoring gas giant or even ocean worlds entirely, but there's something awfully romantic to the image of a Spacer-built city in the clouds, or a Shaper colony built on pillars of coral...

 

[Alfryd]

Artificial Intelligence

"No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society, nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals."
-Dune

"Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us, Zoe?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."
"Ain't we just!"
-Firefly


This is possibly the most difficult aspect of the game for me to posit useful suggestions about- not because I don't have any ideas, oh, on the contrary I do- but because I really feel like the devs and fans have often been talking at cross-purposes here. So allow me to get one thing straight:

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A GAME WHERE ALL YOUR UNITS ARE AUTONOMOUS! OF COURSE AI IS GOING TO BE IMPORTANT!! SWEET JESUS, BUDDHA, MOHAMMED AND SPONGEBOB, DOES THIS REALLY HAVE TO BE EVEN SAID?!


There is so much either outright wrong with, or disappointingly missing from, Majesty 2's AI that I literally don't know where to begin, but the real problem is that those visible missteps could be down to any one of several possible causes.

1- A desire to make the game arbitrarily harder for the player by piling on tedious busywork.
2- A desire to inject direct control by compromising hero autonomy where there's no good explanation for it.
3- Sheer ineptitude.

Moreover, some- and maybe all- of these issues might just possibly be redressed in subsequent patches or expansions, so for any given suggestion or critique I might offer, I feel like the developers could have several ready rebuttals at hand.

"Yes, we know, and we're already working on a fix for that."
"Yeah, we considered that possibility already, but found that it interfered with our prior assumptions about gameplay. For example, monsters attack the town constantly, so if heroes only went shopping at appropriate, sane, times, they'd basically never have the chance to buy better gear."
"Alfryd is a jackass."
"We... don't really see what the big deal is? Why would you want a game that plays itself/ why would you care about healers planting flowers/ why would you even want to keep playing after the mission ends?"


I could spool off pages upon pages of suggestions on the subject of improving hero AI, but most of it would be incomprehensible to those who can't program while being largely obvious to those who can, and the real problem here isn't technical- it's that the developers have been working under fundamentally misguided assumptions. It's these assumptions that are the real problem here. Until those are corrected, there is going to be a constant and irreconcilable friction between the intent of the designers and the natural consequences of the gameplay, and the end result will find itself wedged awkwardly between the rock of RTS and the hard place of Sim.

...Basically, all I can really do here is posit some alternative assumptions.


ASSUMPTION 1: CHARACTERS SHOULD CREATE THE ROUGH PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSION OF BEING REAL PEOPLE.

Everything else really follows from this. The player- and thus, the designers- should be able to put themselves in the characters' shoes. Follow them around, watch their behaviour, and never run into a situation where the character does something so obviously, dumbfoundingly uncharacteristic that there's no way to rationalise it on the basis of in-game information.

Real people do things for personal reasons. Even if it's a stupid, selfish, short-sighted reason, it's still a reason- a discernible motive. They don't give a damn about the player's pre-supposed real-world agenda- hell, they don't even know it exists!- and it should therefore never directly impact their behaviour.

If X is a thing a character can do in the game, then the designers need to ask themselves 2 questions.
1. Can the character do X without the player's permission? -If not, why? Is it illegal? Morally repugnant? Physically impossible? 'That would be tactically inconvenient for the player' is not an adequate explanation.
2. Must the character do X when the player says so? -If so, why? What's the compulsion being applied? Blackmail? Mind control? Devotion to Duty? 'It's more convenient for the player' is not an adequate excuse.

X can be anything- leaving a party, joining a party, joining a new guild, running away, learning new skills, leaving the map, entering the map- anything. You need to know what the character is doing and why, in personal, vicarious, in-game terms, at all times. What the character thinks is more important than what the player wants.


ASSUMPTION 2: CHARACTERS SHOULD AT LEAST OCCASIONALLY BEHAVE LIKE GENUINE HEROES.

If a given class is all about selfless devotion to a higher cause, then they need to bloody well act like it. Logicians and Palatines don't care about money, they care about serving the Greater Good- Money might be an incidental means to that end, but it might well not be. They need to give some priority to doing things purely because The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few.

But almost every character should have moments of altruism. Leaving defenceless innocents to be slaughtered en masse by marauding raiders while you race to collect a reward for exploration isn't the behaviour of a hero- That's the behaviour of a psychopath.

More generally, all characters should indulge in activities for reasons of their own- even if they have no immediate practical value. Praying at their temple, collecting spice, holding conversations (possibly a method for spontaneous party formation(?)), carousing at the cantina, etc. etc. etc.

Also, bear in mind that things heroes don't do can be just as revealing. In Majesty 1, paladins would never use poison, monks never visited the marketplace, and healers never competed in tournaments. That made a statement about their basic personalities- possibly a frustrating one, but there are ways to work around that.

Obviously, I'm not saying that characters shouldn't prioritise. Obviously, even the staunchest Logician might see the practical value in a sufficiently astronomical reward. Obviously, Initiates shouldn't be praying in seclusion while the town is under siege. Obviously, heroes shouldn't go shopping at the market while their house is on fire.

...But little behavioural details like this can really help to bring the characters to life.


ASSUMPTION 3: CHARACTERS SHOULD, IN PRINCIPLE, DEMAND AS LITTLE BABYSITTING AS POSSIBLE.

I'm not saying that genuinely stupid characters should act like they were Einstein. But most characters aren't outright morons, and some (e.g, the Logicians, the Oracles) are literally a physical embodiment of flawless supercognitive reasoning ability. ...They should bloody well behave accordingly.

Most characters should, by default, behave rationally, update their decisions in reaction to fresh stimuli, consider the presence, strength, and confidence of nearby allies, and retreat calmly from overwhelming danger. Panicking and berserking might occur, but only in extreme situations (or with extreme personalities.)

The key here is shift the emphasis away from micromanagement and toward large-scale, long-term strategy. I'm not saying that sovereign spells (or their equivalent,) wouldn't be important, but that their use would be pre-meditated and long-term, rather than short-term and reactive. e.g, if I sent off a party of men-at-arms to raze a native village, I could buff them with some sort of 'regeneration spell' beforehand (courtesy of the Shapers,) that would make them more capable of sustaining damage later. They'll come back alive either way, but by increasing the amount of punishment they can take before having to retreat, I can substantially improve the odds of success in their mission. Foresight and planning, not distraction and busywork.


ASSUMPTION 4: IMMERSION OR IDENTIFICATION- NOT EVENTUAL VICTORY- IS THE PRINCIPLE SOURCE OF ENJOYMENT.

Again, usual caveat- I'm not saying that winnable side-quests, time-limits, survival gauntlets, or external objectives of some form can't feature at all- But they should be enjoyable take-it-or-leave-it optional extras, not hurdles for the player to jump over, and certainly not the be-all and end-all of play. Look at other games in the Simulationist tradition- the Sims, SimCity, Caesar III, even Fable II- they all allow the player to just... play for the sake of playing. Because the self-contained worlds they create are intrinsically interesting. You can't explore a world like that with a 30-minute deadline breathing down your neck.

More generally, the player should be able to relax now and then. Take it easy! Step back and look at the big picture! Get to know his or her citizens. Play at their own pace. Maybe even leave the keyboard, go get coffee, and come back in 15 minutes serene in the confidence that nothing outstandingly bad will have happened. Okay- an extreme example, but not an unworkable one.

Ideally, the heroes' lives are not just tools to be manipulated, they are stories to be followed. You have influence over those stories, but you don't unilaterally write them. That's what makes them interesting! The very fact that you can't simply tell these characters what to do is what makes them worth watching in the first place. But it also means that the player's personal skill and acumen are not the direct, primary factor in determining the outcome of large-scale events. And this means that focusing on 'victory in the face of punishing obstacles' as the major payoff of play is basically misguided- because the player will never be directly responsible for that victory! Any credit will have to be shared with your underlings. The challenge is to make those so-called 'heroes' worthy of the name.

.

 

[Alfryd]

Again, I'm very nearly done now. Thank you to all my readers for their patience. ...I will try to come up with some more constructive suggestions for possible improvements in the next few posts, and then I'll finish up.

 

[Alfryd]

Off the top of my head, these are just some new activities it might be possible for characters to get up to:


Taking Prisoners and Offering to Surrender
If a given hero knows s/he's beaten, and s/he's up against a 'civilised' opponent, s/he might try to surrender, rather than retreating. Certain heroes might also offer quarter during battle. Prisoners are taken back to captivity in a fashion similar to making arrests.

Stealth
If a hero runs into a hostile monster or character who hasn't seen them yet, they could try sneaking around the obstacle, rather than fighting, fleeing, or ignoring it. (Heck, you could conduct entire missions that way, if the general area feels dangerous.)

Disguise, Imposture and Espionage
Heroes might disguise themselves as characters loyal to another player, either as part of a single mission or in order to insert themselves as spies. Imposters behave exactly like loyal characters, except that they will never attack troops belonging to their true master while anyone else is watching- and of course, pass on critical information. They might even reveal themselves openly in situations where they'd normally retreat from the "enemy."

Conversation
Two non-hostile heroes meet eachother en route to another job. They stop to exchange a few words. Maybe one mentions that they're on a mission and could use some help. The two heroes decide to join forces, and you now have a miniature party!

Or, maybe the second hero mentions to the first that they've found a particular brand of weapon to be particularly useful, and, since they belong to the same class, they might want to try it out in future. Or, maybe that the area they've just come from is particularly dangerous, and they should keep away.

Or, maybe the two heroes belong to two unfriendly classes, and the conversation turns sour, reducing their mutual loyalty. If things get really bad, and there's no mutually friendly third party to smooth things out, a fight could break out.

Interrogation
A hero is accused of violating the sovereign's Edicts. A praefect therefore takes it upon herself to interview those who know the accused and ask if the accused had an alibi. Depending on how developed her social skills are, the praefect might get honest answers or false ones. If she gets enough honest answers, the accused will be convicted and can be arrested.

An interesting possibility here is the idea that heroes could be falsely accused, possibly by secret enemies or as part of a deliberate campaign of misinformation(?) Hard to say....

Diplomacy
A fight has broken out between two heroes in a party- maybe there's been a disagreement about where the party should go next. A third hero has loyalties to both (or simply wants to keep the party together) and tries to smooth over the disagreement using social skills. (This could be particularly useful for getting opposed factions to work together.)

Or, perhaps you could send one hero to persuade another hero to perform a particular task- or at least join a mission for the purpose. If the second hero has greater respect for the first than for the sovereign him/herself, it might work...

Subversion and Conversion
Heroes might try to convert enemy or neutral heroes to their own cause. If the subject has a high positive relationship with or respect for the converting character, they might succeed. (Imposters could try this too, thereby recruiting other traitors in the process!)



...That way, when a character runs into an opponent, it doesn't have to boil down to 'fight, flee, or ignore.' You could:

1. Engage in melee
2. Engage using hit-and-run attacks
3. Try to capture it alive (nonlethal damage)
4. Retreat to a safer area
5. Run and fetch help
6. Offer to surrender (become a prisoner)
7. Insist they surrender (take prisoners)
8. Try to talk my way out of trouble (deceit)
9. Try to sneak around without being noticed (stealth)
10. Ignore it, and carry on.

Again, lots of obvious provisos here- you can't use deceit on or surrender to an unintelligent opponent, can't use hit-and-run with a melee weapon, can't run if they're faster than you, can't ignore it if it's already targeting you, etc.
Bear in mind that these choices could be changed over the course of an encounter- a character might start out with hit-and-run attacks, then switch to melee once the enemy closes, or start off trying to sneak around, then switch to smooth-talking once discovered.


Basic Emotional Meters- Fear, Love, Anger

"HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE."
-I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

"Mood's a thing for cattle or making love..."

"When your opponent fears you, then's the moment when you give the fear it's own rein, give it the time to work on him. Let it become terror. The terrified man fights himself."
-Dune

"...Bender knows love. And love doesn't share itself with the world. Love is suspicious, love is needy, love is fearful, love is greedy. My friends, there is no great love without great jealousy! I love you meatbags!"
-Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs


I suspect that a few relatively simple rules can give a reasonable approximation of these emotions for game purposes:
*- When X harms you, fear and anger toward X increase and love of X decreases.
*- If you don't really fear or love X, or if the harm done is small, X harming you generates mostly anger.
*- If you greatly fear or love X, or if the harm done is substantial, X harming you generates mostly additional fear.
*- When X helps you, or you help X, fear and anger toward X decrease and love of X increases.
*- When you harm X, fear of X decreases.

Love, fear, and anger are established as part of relationships with other characters, factions, guilds and players, but also spill over into the character's general 'mood'- both moment to moment and as a long-term attitude. i.e, events that cause a character to feel anger toward a specific subject also cause him/her to 'be angry' in general. Likewise for fear and love (i.e, happiness.)

Extreme anger without comparable fear causes a character to Berserk. A berserking character will keep fighting without mercy or regard for personal safety until all visible enemies are dead or incapacitated. If they're not in a fight already, they will start one.

Extreme fear without comparable anger causes a character to Panic. A panicked character will flee from visible enemies as directly as possible and try to find a safe place to hide and calm down. If there's nowhere to run, they huddle on the ground.

It's possible characters could also Fall in Love (perhaps as a first step in reproduction?) I imagine there'd be a large random element involved here, but I reckon the character's current and general mood and relationship with the other person could increase the likelihood significantly. Anyways, just a thought.

 

[Alfryd]

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A GAME WHERE ALL YOUR UNITS ARE AUTONOMOUS! OF COURSE AI IS GOING TO BE IMPORTANT!! SWEET JESUS, BUDDHA, MOHAMMED AND SPONGEBOB, DOES THIS REALLY HAVE TO BE EVEN SAID?!

...Okay, I should qualify this: this is a game where all your units are autonomous AND you can never directly order them around AND they're not just disposable cannon fodder. Otherwise, there wouldn't be such a problem with lacklustre AI. But under those circumstances, I personally reckon players are going to notice when and where the AI falls down.

My main point here is to give some idea of the sheer range of developments or improvements that are possible here. A sequel that managed to practically implement even half of these ideas would be a major, major step forward... or would, at least, manage to be an overall improvement over the original game.

 

[Nerdfish]

Oh That thesis on AI is pretty good, I think a bit of learning and / or Darwinism could go a long way implementing these.

Alfryd, you have discussed most important issues, but you never discussed static defense. . These are not important for most situations, however are vital in establishing a foothold in a hostile area.

IMO there should be persistent and expendable static defenses. Persistent defense include pop-up laser turrets, and expendable defenses include mines.
Some factions might dislike certain defenses. Enlightened classes would, for example, would consider mines barbaric and will lose loyalty if a player deploys those.

Long ranged artillery can also be considered static defense in this setting - automated mechanism that demolish opposition way before they have a chance to harm the settlement. The same applies to shield and cloak generators.

Static defenses also give non-combat classes something to do when a big fight breaks out. They should not sit around making poetry while giant monsters are threatening to overrun the colony.

IMO, Maginot Lines should never be necessary in a well designed mission. Throwing waves of enemies at the player does not show intelligence in mission design.

 

[Alfryd]

Hit and Run

I really have to perform a few experiments on the subject, but I reckon there are several potential methods for allowing hit and run attacks without making ranged attacks overpowered.

I reckon the key here is to (A), make ranged attacks less accurate at longer range, and (B) Implement initial acceleration when a character is running. This makes it difficult for any hero using ranged attacks to judge optimal distance from an opponent- too far away, and their shots won't be accurate, too close, and their opponent might charge before they could escape.

Other nerfs on ranged weapons might include limiting ammunition, the use of shields (as in, personal forcefields) to trump their effects, and 'flanking' plus 'flinching' mechanics- to make turning your back on opponents rather unwise.


A Fear-Map

This theoretical feature's actually easy enough to explain in visual terms, and it could be a very useful.

Basically, imagine that every little dot within A, below, represented the position of a monster (or other hostile enemy) on the map. To construct a "Fear Map"- i.e, a generalisation of which areas of the map are safe and which are dangerous- you basically use a technique called mip-mapping. You generate successively lower-resolution versions of the same basic image (B, C, D and E,) and- throwing in a little bilinear interpolation- average all their values into a final composite image (F.)

This might seem complex or expensive to maintain, but in fact, after initialisation any updates or queries can be made efficiently- in Log(4)N time. (i.e, for a map that's 256x256 tiles in size, updating the fear-map after a change in a given threat's position should only take 8 computational steps.)

This image can then be fed into cost estimation for pathfinding routines, so that characters 'know' which areas are safe, and will only cross the dangerous areas when their business requires it. (If the map is sufficiently fine-grained, it can even be used to enhance attempts at stealth, by making sure characters sneaking around stick to relatively deserted areas en route to their destination, and even proceed slowly in more crowded/dangerous areas.)

Bear in mind that more powerful enemies could have a more intense impact on averaging, to represent the additional threat they pose, and that static installations such as guardhouses could be included. Conversely, the same technique could be used to construct a "safety map" on the basis of the positions of useful allies, so that heroes know which areas to flee to in order to find help (or simply to recuperate.)


Three Basic Needs: Food, Rest, and Morale. (Also, Fatigue mechanics.)

"'Sine qua non', as they say."
"Without which not."
"Yes. Those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living, without which life in general loses its specific value- becomes abstract."
-Battlestar Galactica

Self-explanatory really- characters could have basic physical needs that have to be satisfied over time. It's a bit of a simplification- 'Food' also covers thirst, and 'Rest' covers hygiene/sanitation- but I think it covers the essentials.

Going too long without Food causes a hero to suffer cumulative penalties to their vitality- which will eventually kill him/her. Going too long without Rest causes the character to accumulate fatigue- which will sooner or later cause unconsciousness. (Unconsciousness, in turn, triggers actual Resting.) Characters with low morale suffer penalties to use of all mental skills, and are more susceptible to fear. Morale can be restored by a lot of different methods: victory in battle, listening to music or inspiring speeches, possibly carnal pleasures, or even just light conversation.

Fatigue (AKA nonlethal damage,) can be accumulated by doing anything strenuous- running, melee combat, heavy lifting- or by going too long without rest. It can also, optionally, be inflicted by certain forms of weapon- as a way to incapacitate an opponent without killing them.

 

[Alfryd]

Alfryd, you have discussed most important issues, but you never discussed static defense. . These are not important for most situations, however are vital in establishing a foothold in a hostile area.

IMO there should be persistent and expendable static defenses. Persistent defense include pop-up laser turrets, and expendable defenses include mines.
Some factions might dislike certain defenses. Enlightened classes would, for example, would consider mines barbaric and will lose loyalty if a player deploys those.

Long ranged artillery can also be considered static defense in this setting - automated mechanism that demolish opposition way before they have a chance to harm the settlement. The same applies to shield and cloak generators.

Sure, I don't see any problems with that. I might consider laying mines to be a little fiddly, but that's just me...

I was thinking the Artificer's Facility would be the equivalent of the Wizard's Guild- right down to allowing automated sentry towers (Artilect posts?) that can be used to generate shields, cloaking effects, or just plain laser bombardment.

Static defenses also give non-combat classes something to do when a big fight breaks out. They should not sit around making poetry while giant monsters are threatening to overrun the colony.

Well, ideally, giant monsters wouldn't generally visit the colony in the first place- ambient predators wait for you to come to them, rather than vice versa. Guardhouses/laser turrets and the like would exist primarily in case your settlement is raided by other 'heroes'- e.g, space pirates, native tribes, or military raids by opposed factions or other noble houses you've made enemies of. Those could be your main source of unexpected adversity, and might be avoided entirely through careful diplomacy and/or deterrence.

To be honest though, if the town was raided, I'd expect non-combatants to behave naturally- either run for help, take shelter, or both.

 

[Alfryd]

Static defenses also give non-combat classes something to do when a big fight breaks out. They should not sit around making poetry while giant monsters are threatening to overrun the colony.

That said, if the heroes in a given raid included Krech, Shapers with charmed aliens and even an Archon or two for good measure, then it's entirely possible that would include 'huge monsters' trying to overrun your settlement.

I mean, different settlements could have completely different 'auras' depending on the combination of factions/guilds you invite to settle. A settlement that befriends native tribes and invites the Initiates and Shapers to stay could have a very post-apocalyptic feeling to it: bizarre cults based on worship of ancient technology, deformed mutants, tattooed savages and weird feral creatures, while a heavily urbanised settlement featuring the Logicians and Collective is going to look very much like the alliance from firefly: everybody's happy and healthy and productive (and ever-so-slightly brainwashed.)

 

[Nerdfish]

Temple defenses

I like the idea of all-in-one sentry station with various upgrades.
Although I like the idea of being upgrade temples with their own uber point defenses in case you really have a fight over one.

Red - Drone Hive: launches continuous swarm of ground and airborne drone at invading enemies. launches repair drones to repair nearby structures. Helps with construction and manufacturing during peace.
Blue - Psionic Sensor: Massive Pyramid that detects all living creature in a massive radius and reveal their allegiance. makes infiltration nearly impossible. During peace, Psionic can sensor reveals absolutely everything about anyone you wish to know very, very well for a cost.
Purple- Combat Information Center: Vastly improve combat efficiency of defenses and characters in the field of operation. Improves trade income during peace (there is more then one battlefield ...)
Green- The immune system. spawns weirdly shaped alien creature that resemble Scub Coral antibody form that EATS ENEMY ALIVE. during peace the same weird creatures serve as relatively harmless TOURIST ATTRACTION. Well it's green.
Yellow- Wave motion synthesizer. Pillars of nuclear fire surge from ground to BBQ anyone who dares to trespass unbidden. can be peacefully used to "safely" dispose toxic waste. (overkill IS their middle name)
Grey - Gravity control. paralyzes and slowly crushes enemies within its field of operation, instantly destroy aircraft by forcing them to the ground. alternatively used as a safe way to transport things between surface and orbit.