09-18-2018, 05:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-18-2018, 05:58 PM by Ikkir Isth.)
On QL stuff: In the end, this is more or less the crux of the game: not only empire progression, but actual player progression as well (since thats slated to be in sometime, nows when you need to think about it). Typically, IMO, you want the majority of actual progression to be dependent upon players themselves: acquiring the rare resources that AI cant, getting equipment far beyond the standards produced in factories (and making that equipment for others), and inventing things that bring their empire and the universe forward. Lets talk about what we have though, which is just the empire/cities stuff.
The core concept of an MMO works by some sort of grind + maintenance model. Right now in Hazeron, the grind is part passive (waiting for QL ups on buildings), active (building more cities for more officers), and explorative (finding those max QL resources), plus to a small extent creative (designing new ships). As for maintenance, the QL building part has no real maintenance: you grind (or someone else does) and then that QL building exists in universe forever. Explorative maintenance also stops, usually, unless you have to relocate (by war or by choice), as players dont continually have to seek out new max QL deposits (though you can lump in actual exploitation of those few instances of players having to run harvest barges here as well), Active city building slows down a bit, but it still requires continual maintenance, and creative maintenance is really just an advancement of its own grind, and probably the more fun part: designing ships because you want to, instead of because you have to (because you need a new QL size), and really, these creations are the most lasting part of actual player-based progression.
For the question: can a Q1 player build a Deathstar? I say, sure, why not. One needs to think about how a Deathstar is made, of course. Its way too big to build on planet, so you need to build in space, so first you need to build sufficient space construction ability. Right now, this is in the form of any size space station, and then you run the job normally from land in any size spacecraft factory taking a bit of an increased time to build as anything else, using a single worker, with the main cost to be acquiring/shipping in enough materials. What should a Deathstar take, though? Should you first need to build a massive construction station, bit by bit, in order to build ships of this size? Should you require much bigger factories? Should the station and/or factories require specialized modules for this construction, which also have to be built and added? Is there a research line you want to go thru to unlock building bigger ships, and, if so, is there a tech object maintenance cost to utilize this research, and can a Q1 city/empire use this object in lieu of the research? Should bigger ships have structure failure penalties that reduce hp/ability if you dont have high enough QL / dont use more advanced materials like magmium, vulcium, or whatever alloys or stuff that might come from players? Should you need an entire planets worth of population (or more, slaves?) working on a Deathstar to have it build in a reasonable amount of time? And what about the cost, for all those materials, for any and all workers, how can they afford this, and who all should have to pay? Does the empire get free work out of its citizens to build these military ships (private persons of course already have to pay)? Once they do get it built, what about maintenance costs - repairs and fuel and module replacement and sufficient crew and ammo and life support and .. etc.
In the end, thinking about progression is thinking about how the core game works; you want to make sure its engaging all the way thru, has player action and investment, encourages working together (it is an MMO after all), and it at least has to make some semblance of sense in the game setting. This is a very, very big topic; expect a lot of complications, and a lot of time to put everything together for the big picture.
The core concept of an MMO works by some sort of grind + maintenance model. Right now in Hazeron, the grind is part passive (waiting for QL ups on buildings), active (building more cities for more officers), and explorative (finding those max QL resources), plus to a small extent creative (designing new ships). As for maintenance, the QL building part has no real maintenance: you grind (or someone else does) and then that QL building exists in universe forever. Explorative maintenance also stops, usually, unless you have to relocate (by war or by choice), as players dont continually have to seek out new max QL deposits (though you can lump in actual exploitation of those few instances of players having to run harvest barges here as well), Active city building slows down a bit, but it still requires continual maintenance, and creative maintenance is really just an advancement of its own grind, and probably the more fun part: designing ships because you want to, instead of because you have to (because you need a new QL size), and really, these creations are the most lasting part of actual player-based progression.
For the question: can a Q1 player build a Deathstar? I say, sure, why not. One needs to think about how a Deathstar is made, of course. Its way too big to build on planet, so you need to build in space, so first you need to build sufficient space construction ability. Right now, this is in the form of any size space station, and then you run the job normally from land in any size spacecraft factory taking a bit of an increased time to build as anything else, using a single worker, with the main cost to be acquiring/shipping in enough materials. What should a Deathstar take, though? Should you first need to build a massive construction station, bit by bit, in order to build ships of this size? Should you require much bigger factories? Should the station and/or factories require specialized modules for this construction, which also have to be built and added? Is there a research line you want to go thru to unlock building bigger ships, and, if so, is there a tech object maintenance cost to utilize this research, and can a Q1 city/empire use this object in lieu of the research? Should bigger ships have structure failure penalties that reduce hp/ability if you dont have high enough QL / dont use more advanced materials like magmium, vulcium, or whatever alloys or stuff that might come from players? Should you need an entire planets worth of population (or more, slaves?) working on a Deathstar to have it build in a reasonable amount of time? And what about the cost, for all those materials, for any and all workers, how can they afford this, and who all should have to pay? Does the empire get free work out of its citizens to build these military ships (private persons of course already have to pay)? Once they do get it built, what about maintenance costs - repairs and fuel and module replacement and sufficient crew and ammo and life support and .. etc.
In the end, thinking about progression is thinking about how the core game works; you want to make sure its engaging all the way thru, has player action and investment, encourages working together (it is an MMO after all), and it at least has to make some semblance of sense in the game setting. This is a very, very big topic; expect a lot of complications, and a lot of time to put everything together for the big picture.