My long term plan is to have many new species. Having at least 5 playable species per regular environment, plus 3 or so per special environments (GGs and belts), so at least 50 playable species, should be easy without making any two of them too similar in gameplay. But, even if they are too similar in gameplay (except for the environment), it is better than not having them. I'm already sick of fighting my same species in multiplayer games with 8 players or less. Two Chatos and two Egassem once, two Fulver this last game. I know that changing the universe generation scripts to avoid repeated species unless necessary would solve this, but I'm looking also at games with more empires, so more species is a better solution (both should be done, anyway).
General discusion on new species and traits
Moderator: Oberlus
General discusion on new species and traits
Topic splitted from the ship shield species trait.
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
I do understand, but still disagree. We should up the distinctiveness with the number of species. But that should not be rushed I think - else we add only more of the same instead of really distinct features.Oberlus wrote:My long term plan is to have many new species. Having at least 5 playable species per regular environment, plus 3 or so per special environments (GGs and belts), so at least 50 playable species, should be easy without making any two of them too similar in gameplay. But, even if they are too similar in gameplay (except for the environment), it is better than not having them.
E.g. the regular planet types are only different, not distinct. Distinctivess is currently only added because of the distinctiveness of the types of species which can live there. Thats why I fight for that the distribution of species traits is different at least for some environments.
Another thing: the three colors of stealth i proposed are actually distinct. On one axis of difference, active/passive depend on what you do with your ships (e.g. move), gravitonic does not depend on what you. On another axis research properties are different (e.g. detecting active ships is easy, researching detecting gravitonic is hard, but stealthing gravitonic is very hard). And they aggregate in order to : IF grav_detection > grav_stealth OR active_detection > active_stealth OR passive_detection > passive_stealth THEN ship_detected. Also usually gravitonic_stealth > passive_stealth > active_stealth. Was still not considered distinct enough I think.
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Re: General discusion on new species and traits
I agree to the last point. That's why I'm thinking of new, hopefuly distinct species trait.Ophiuchus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 12:05 pm I do understand, but still disagree. We should up the distinctiveness with the number of species. But that should not be rushed I think - else we add only more of the same instead of really distinct features.
E.g. the regular planet types are only different, not distinct. Distinctivess is currently only added because of the distinctiveness of the types of species which can live there. Thats why I fight for that the distribution of species traits is different at least for some environments.
An unofficial list of species traits. {not implemented, or only used in one native species}, (also on another cathegory)
- "Output" traits: Industry, Research, {Influence}, Population, Env. Tolerance, {Col. Speed}, (Xenophobic).
- Combat traits: Pilots (weapons), {Armour}, {Shields}.
- Logistic traits: Stockpile, Supply, (Fuel).
- Exploration traits: Planetary Detection, Fuel, (Supply).
- Invasion traits: Off. Troops, Def. Troops, Pl. Stealth, {Pl. Shields}, {Pl. Defense}.
- Miscelaneous traits: Xenophobic, Telepathic, {Omniscient}, {Sympathy}.
Pilots could be split into Pilots (affecting fighter damage) and Gunners (affecting SR damage).
Ignoring the misc. and invasion cathegories and Col. Speed trait, and taking none, one or two non-average traits of each cathegory, without differentiating between good, great and ultimate (as if value could only be bad or good), we get a lot of possible combinations:
Output combinations (all average + 1 bad or 1 good + 2 bad or 2 good or 1 bad and one good): 1+2*5+3*20 = 71 combinations.
Weapons (with Pilots split in Pilots and Gunners): 1+2*4+3*12 = 45 combinations.
Logistics: 9 combinations.
Exploration: 9 combinations.
Assuming only half of these combinations on each cathegory are really interesting, we get 35*22*4*4= >12000 combinations. More than 1000 combinations per environment, that are at least distinct in one relevant cathegory among them and among any other combination assigned to other environment.
And then we add to the misc the Invasion and Misc. cathegories to add flavour when needed.
I think there is a lot of space for new species.
I like all this. If adding three different stealth meters to ships and planets is a problem (I think it is), the single stealth meter could show the minimum value of the three (maybe taking a different shade/color corresponding to the stealth type with minimum value), and hovering the mouse over it could show the individual values for each stealth type.Another thing: the three colors of stealth i proposed are actually distinct. On one axis of difference, active/passive depend on what you do with your ships (e.g. move), gravitonic does not depend on what you. On another axis research properties are different (e.g. detecting active ships is easy, researching detecting gravitonic is hard, but stealthing gravitonic is very hard). And they aggregate in order to : IF grav_detection > grav_stealth OR active_detection > active_stealth OR passive_detection > passive_stealth THEN ship_detected. Also usually gravitonic_stealth > passive_stealth > active_stealth. Was still not considered distinct enough I think.
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
I like the structuring and thinking. I think there might be some mistakes in the calculation (e.g. logistics has 2+1 traits and exploration has 3+1 traits, but the same amount of combinations).
The reasoning led me to think the ballpark should be ok but when I was actually balancing species it was very often like: oh almost like species XXX - lets do something different. So it did not feel like a lot of space.
So maybe this indicates the traits are not sooo distinct or not interesting? Or the combinatorics work actually different.
Starting from early mid game you build purposed shipyards planets (i.e. you do not care about Industry,Research,Population,Env.Tolerance,Pl.stealth,Def.Troops traits).
For a planet without shipyard only Industry,Research,Population,Env.Tolerance,Pl.stealth,Def.Troops matter. And later in the game Industry,Research,Env.Tolerance matters less and less.
So only basically about ~4 distinct options in late game to vary. 6 in early game. So lets say only 71 combinations (as you said for 5) for species to differ in colonization.
Dont have the time to think it through for shipyards/purposed shipyards (i.e. invasion/ship combat/exploration shipyards),
but I would rather calculate: significant options == colonization-options + invasion-options + combat-options + exploration-options (instead of multiplying).
Maybe this is rather a topic for natives vs player species. I thought before we should have just some starting species and a lot of native species. But this indicates actually the opposite. Combination of traits matters more for starting species, so there could be an order more of empire species than distinct native species.
On the other hand I really want our starting species to be different on the narrative level as well. I was exploring that thought in the ascension discussion - each species could have a different ascension path. Maybe each (empire) species should get a dilemma to solve as side-quest - solving it could add a boost or remove a negative trait, transforming the empire
This could also indicates that we should mostly seek to increase the distinct colonization traits because we have much more non-shipyard planets than shipyard planets.
One interesting map-interacting trait could be of ship speed upgrades. Having ships for covering a larger part of border, or outrunning same-tech enemies, or faster close-to-supply exploration, or faster to deploy ships from your shipyards. Would be nice for species which can build ships but can not colonize elsewhere (e.g. acirema).
Could be categorized as exploration/logistics - also interacting with combat (vs pilot,fuel,armour,shields) and invasion (vs troops,fuel,armour).
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Look, ma... four combat bouts!
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Re: General discusion on new species and traits
That's also true. We need to add as much distinctiveness as possible, but then also pad out the rest with differentiation. Because artificial flavor is better than no flavor (when playing in a 50 empires' galaxy).
Oh, you're so right.
Nomenclature for clarity:
- Combination: each combination of trait values from a given cathegory
- Configuration: each possible set of five "combinations", each one from a separate trait cathegory (so combat-combination + expansion-combination + etc.).
- OP Combination: a combination of traits from a cathegory that is clearly advantageous; e.g. Good Pilots plus every other combat trait average).
- (Relatively) Balanced Combination: e.g. Good Pilots + Bad Armor.
- UP Combination: e.g. Bad Pilots plus every other combat trait average.
When putting together combinations of each cathegory to form a configuration, we want OP ones cancelled out by UP ones, and the rest balanced.
This takes out a lot of possible configurations.
(non mentioned traits are average)
Combat combinations:
OP+:
- Great Weapons
- Great Fighters
- Great Shields
- Great Armor
- Ultimate Weapons + Bad Shields
- Ultimate Weapons + Bad Armor
- Ultimate Weapons + Bad Fighters
- Ultimate Fighters + Bad Shields
- Ultimate Fighters + Bad Armor
- Ultimate Fighters + Bad Weapons
- Ultimate Shields + Bad Weapons
- Ultimate Shields + Bad Armor
- Ultimate Shields + Bad Fighters
- Ultimate Armor + Bad Shields
- Ultimate Armor + Bad Weapons
- Ultimate Armor + Bad Fighters
OP:
- Good Weapons
- Good Fighters
- Good Shields
- Good Armor
- Great Weapons + Bad Shields
- Great Weapons + Bad Armor
- Great Weapons + Bad Fighters
- Great Fighters + Bad Shields
- Great Fighters + Bad Armor
- Great Fighters + Bad Weapons
- Great Shields + Bad Weapons
- Great Shields + Bad Armor
- Great Shields + Bad Fighters
- Great Armor + Bad Shields
- Great Armor + Bad Weapons
- Great Armor + Bad Fighters
Balanced:
- All average
- Good Weapons + Bad Shields
- Good Weapons + Bad Armour
- Good Weapons + Bad Fighters
- Good Fighters + Bad Shields
- Good Fighters + Bad Armour
- Good Fighters + Bad Weapons
- Good Shields + Bad Weapons
- Good Shields + Bad Armour
- Good Shields + Bad Fighters
- Good Armour+ Bad Weapons
- Good Armour+ Bad Shields
- Good Armour+ Bad Fighters
- Great Weapons + Bad Shields + Bad Armour
- Great Weapons + Bad Armour + Bad Fighters
- Great Weapons + Bad Fighters + Bad Shields
- Great Fighters + Bad Shields + Bad Armour
- Great Fighters + Bad Armour + Bad Weapons
- Great Fighters + Bad Weapons + Bad Shields
- Great Shields + Bad Weapons + Bad Armour
- Great Shields + Bad Armour + Bad Fighters
- Great Shields + Bad Fighters + Bad Weapons
- Great Armour+ Bad Weapons + Bad Shields
- Great Armour+ Bad Shields + Bad Fighters
- Great Armour+ Bad Fighters + Bad Weapons
UP
- Bad Weapons
- Bad Fighters
- Bad Shields
- Bad Armor
Output combinations:
OP+
- Great Industry
- Great Research
- Great Influence
- Ultimate Industry + Bad Research
- Ultimate Industry + Bad Influence
- Ultimate Research + Bad Industry
- Ultimate Research + Bad Influence
- Ultimate Influence + Bad Industry
- Ultimate Influence + Bad Research
- Good Industry
- Good Research
- Good Influence
- Great Industry + Bad Research
- Great Industry + Bad Influence
- Great Research + Bad Industry
- Great Research + Bad Influence
- Great Influence + Bad Industry
- Great Influence + Bad Research
- Ultimate Industry + Bad Research + Bad Influence
- Ultimate Research + Bad Industry + Bad Influence
- Ultimate Influence + Bad Industry + Bad Research
- All average.
- Good Industry + Bad Research
- Good Industry + Bad Influence
- Good Research + Bad Industry
- Good Research + Bad Influence
- Good Influence + Bad Industry
- Good Influence + Bad Research
- Bad Industry
- Bad Research
- Bad Influence
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
Some thoughts:
Firstly, I think this thread might need to be re-named, as it's going way beyond the scope of just the possibility of adding a species shield trait. Which FYI: I think in the spirit of things like gunners, pilots and engineers should be called "technicians".
Secondly. I'd organize the traits differently than what you have presented. Namely, I'd merge the Logistic and Exploration trait groups as supply, fuel and now possibly speed would go in both. I'd also break up the Output traits into expansion and economic traits and miscellaneous traits into psionic and behavior traits.
Something like this:
Economic traits: production, research, {influence}
Combat traits: gunners (weapons), {pilots} (fighters), {engineers} (armor), {technicians} (shields)
Logistic traits: detection, stockpile, supply, fuel, {speed}
Expansion traits: population, environmental tolerance, {colonization speed}, offensive troops
Defense Traits: defensive troops, stealth, {planetary defenses}, {planetary shields}
Psionic Traits: telepathic, clairvoyant (telepathic detection), {prescient}, shared vision
Behavior Traits: xenophobia, {sympathy}
Thirdly, how do you account for species like the Gysache, who have both good production and good research? Would they be OP+?
Lastly, what are your ideas about Sympathy? Would it be like an opposite of Xenophobia?
Firstly, I think this thread might need to be re-named, as it's going way beyond the scope of just the possibility of adding a species shield trait. Which FYI: I think in the spirit of things like gunners, pilots and engineers should be called "technicians".
Secondly. I'd organize the traits differently than what you have presented. Namely, I'd merge the Logistic and Exploration trait groups as supply, fuel and now possibly speed would go in both. I'd also break up the Output traits into expansion and economic traits and miscellaneous traits into psionic and behavior traits.
Something like this:
Economic traits: production, research, {influence}
Combat traits: gunners (weapons), {pilots} (fighters), {engineers} (armor), {technicians} (shields)
Logistic traits: detection, stockpile, supply, fuel, {speed}
Expansion traits: population, environmental tolerance, {colonization speed}, offensive troops
Defense Traits: defensive troops, stealth, {planetary defenses}, {planetary shields}
Psionic Traits: telepathic, clairvoyant (telepathic detection), {prescient}, shared vision
Behavior Traits: xenophobia, {sympathy}
Thirdly, how do you account for species like the Gysache, who have both good production and good research? Would they be OP+?
Lastly, what are your ideas about Sympathy? Would it be like an opposite of Xenophobia?
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
That is right we are quite off topic. Oberlus, as you are moderator could you split this thread please?oberlus wrote:
The design space for traits discussion started at #7 and starting from #9 there is no input to the shield trait anymore.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.
Look, ma... four combat bouts!
Look, ma... four combat bouts!
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
Thanks for splitting the thread. Nicely done.Oberlus wrote:
Also here. I think there are many different kind of categories one could come up with.
What is useful for design i think is to know which of the traits interact and how much and what type commitment one kind of category needs.
E.g. all the traits which are useful during ship combat "stack". You can have the most horrible combination of other traits and it wont matter much - you would still build a shipyard planet for your best ship combat species.
Also for an invasion species you mostly care about attack troops, then depending on circumstances fuel, speed, armour/shields.
For exploration (and intellegence) you care about detection, fuel, then depending on circumstances armour/shields, speed.
For chaff you care about armour, fuel, maybe speed.
For outposts you care about speed, fuel and maybe armour (detection is also nice).
For far colonisation/colony ships you care about environment, supply, fuel, stealth, speed, defense troops, maybe armour/shields.
Of course sometimes you sometimes you would rather choose a species which does multiple roles nicely even if you had a better species for one of the roles. E.g. you would use the planet for extra production instead for building a specialised exploration shipyard.
Planetary defense (stealth, troops...) is also nice for a shipyard planet but in most cases tertiary.
Also for resources (research/production/influence) - you can only produce one type of resource at a time. So a great_production, bad_research species is probably better than a good_production, average_research species. And if we add influence I guess a great_production, bad_research, bad_influence species is probably better than a good_production, average_research, average_influence species.
Last edited by Ophiuchus on Thu May 14, 2020 6:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.
Look, ma... four combat bouts!
Look, ma... four combat bouts!
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
Interesting, as is most of your work.
I think though that you overlook the flavor that are secondary traits, and that generally FreeOrion is too heavy-handed on the traits of many of its playable species, making balancing difficult afterwards.
I understand that some traits should be quite distinctive but as others said, no playable specie should have "ultimate" traits (nor any colonizing specie, actually).
So a playable specie should have one or two positive distinctive trait, one or two negative distinctive trait, and then "flavor" traits : things that give a small bonus in certain situation (like getting +20 Speed in Molecular Clouds, or the affinities to Hull Lines that I wrote about in other topics) but are not game-changing.
There are LOTS of "flavor" traits that can be imagined and would give unique species without being hard to balance.
Is it difficult to make each (or at least some) specie have one technology that is a half-price for the Empire that starts with them ?
That would not be game-changing (well, except if NAI or AA are amongst them of course) but still make for a slightly different gameplay.
I think though that you overlook the flavor that are secondary traits, and that generally FreeOrion is too heavy-handed on the traits of many of its playable species, making balancing difficult afterwards.
I understand that some traits should be quite distinctive but as others said, no playable specie should have "ultimate" traits (nor any colonizing specie, actually).
So a playable specie should have one or two positive distinctive trait, one or two negative distinctive trait, and then "flavor" traits : things that give a small bonus in certain situation (like getting +20 Speed in Molecular Clouds, or the affinities to Hull Lines that I wrote about in other topics) but are not game-changing.
There are LOTS of "flavor" traits that can be imagined and would give unique species without being hard to balance.
Is it difficult to make each (or at least some) specie have one technology that is a half-price for the Empire that starts with them ?
That would not be game-changing (well, except if NAI or AA are amongst them of course) but still make for a slightly different gameplay.
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
That's easy in fact. Check out how telepathic makes Psionics tech cost only 25%. The same type of code can be used. So several species traits could work in that way.
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
Interesting indeed...
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
I largely agree, but I am also thinking that this could be a foundation for building a species creation system for Free Orion, like other similar games have.Oberlus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:35 amMy long term plan is to have many new species. Having at least 5 playable species per regular environment, plus 3 or so per special environments (GGs and belts), so at least 50 playable species, should be easy without making any two of them too similar in gameplay. But, even if they are too similar in gameplay (except for the environment), it is better than not having them. I'm already sick of fighting my same species in multiplayer games with 8 players or less. Two Chatos and two Egassem once, two Fulver this last game. I know that changing the universe generation scripts to avoid repeated species unless necessary would solve this, but I'm looking also at games with more empires, so more species is a better solution (both should be done, anyway).
The problem I see with your organizational scheme is that the same traits appear in multiple categories. For instance you put armor and shields in almost every category. We need a concise and orderly system that's easy for people to understand, not just something that one person "gets", or that only makes sense if you read through the form to dig for the answer. That's why I'm for separating into economic, combat, logistics, expansion and defense as the categories. I think that each species should be assigned a score in each area like the UP, Balanced, OP & OP+. With each species getting one area that's OP or OP+ and then other areas that are UP, while "balanced" choices should be free to take.Ophiuchus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 08, 2020 7:01 pmAlso here. I think there are many different kind of categories one could come up with.
What is useful for design i think is to know which of the traits interact and how much and what type commitment one kind of category needs.
E.g. all the traits which are useful during ship combat "stack". You can have the most horrible combination of other traits and it wont matter much - you would still build a shipyard planet for your best ship combat species.
Also for an invasion species you mostly care about attack troops, then depending on circumstances fuel, speed, armour/shields.
For exploration (and intellegence) you care about detection, fuel, then depending on circumstances armour/shields, speed.
For chaff you care about armour, fuel, maybe speed.
For outposts you care about speed, fuel and maybe armour (detection is also nice).
For far colonisation/colony ships you care about environment, supply, fuel, stealth, speed, defense troops, maybe armour/shields.
Of course sometimes you sometimes you would rather choose a species which does multiple roles nicely even if you had a better species for one of the roles. E.g. you would use the planet for extra production instead for building a specialised exploration shipyard.
Planetary defense (stealth, troops...) is also nice for a shipyard planet but in most cases tertiary.
Your'e probably correct here. A "jack of all trades and master of none" kind of situation. Specialized species are probably always going to be better for specific tasks than generalist species.Also for resources (research/production/influence) - you can only produce one type of resource at a time. So a great_production, bad_research species is probably better than a good_production, average_research species. And if we add influence I guess a great_production, bad_research, bad_influence species is probably better than a good_production, average_research, average_influence species.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
Hm. That is not an organizational scheme. It is a description how species traits actually work. Or a scheme for rating a species for a specific purpose. And yes, it is overlapping. That is how the game works.labgnome wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2020 2:10 pmThe problem I see with your organizational scheme is that the same traits appear in multiple categories. For instance you put armor and shields in almost every category. We need a concise and orderly system that's easy for people to understand, not just something that one person "gets",
If you add a concise and orderly system to categorize an inherently messy one I doubt the system will provide much value.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.
Look, ma... four combat bouts!
Look, ma... four combat bouts!
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
Then I think we are operating with two very different ideas with how to proceed. I don't want to just describe things as they are now, but lay a foundation for ebign able to use these traits to build species in the future.
If the system is messy shouldn't we strive to make it orderly?If you add a concise and orderly system to categorize an inherently messy one I doubt the system will provide much value.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.
Re: General discusion on new species and traits
I do not find a generic species build system very interesting (if that is what you are striving for). Especially if it ignores how the game actually works. I think if one wanted such a a system, one would have to design the complete game in regard to the system You cant really add it later on (similar like you cant just write software and add later security on top of it). So good idea for freeorion 2.0 maybe?
No logical connection here. We should strive to have/add value. Symmetry and order are good for overview and generic mechanics/physics but they lack in depth (or any other value). So let me exaggerate: orderly in itself has NO real game value
Also the system is not really messy (in the sense of bad) - using that term was just a juxtaposition to your orderly. It has complex interactions which probably wont fit into a simple scheme.
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Look, ma... four combat bouts!
Look, ma... four combat bouts!