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Spiffing Up Role-Playing & the EXploration Phase – Patch Requests

Armada’s release version is weak in role-playing and the eXploration phase, wormholes aside, and early reviews have commented on this. Here are some ideas for relatively simple code patches that would enhance those aspects of the game. Some might already be in there without my being aware of those.

These suggestions are also intended to illustrate the very limited nature of the amount of coding work we can expect in future patches. Those who request new features should keep the ease of implementing those, in terms of effort both in writing the necessary computer code, and playtesting those for balance as well as bugs, in mind.

Role-Playing

The most common way to boost role-playing is to make the game’s races more distinctive. The conceptually simplest way to do this would be to boost their existing tendencies somewhat. As an example, races with hyperspace advantages could have innate (at the game start without need for research) abilities to use large wormholes, while races with psychic advantages could have innate abilities to terrify their enemies in combat. Here I would add ground combat to that – there should be a really spooky race which can terrify the ground troops of other empires, or even control their minds so they change sides. Some races could be given advantages in terms of tax income. Etc. With that in mind, the following changes in computer code would be necessary.

First, there should be some means of tagging items of racial-specific technology so those could never, ever, be traded to, or given to, other empires. Second, there should be some means of tagging racial-specific technology so it can be assigned to races during the custom game/galaxy generation phase. Racial-specific technology already exists in the game, and new ones can be added with mods. We only need a means of keeping such technology from being used by any race other than the one it is assigned to, and of giving it to those races in each game at startup of each custom game, as opposed to being edited in later in creating player-devised scenarios.

This would allow players to devise new racial-specific technological items and assign those to specific races automatically at startup, as de facto racial abilities beyond those already in the game.

And it would be nice, whether or not that is done, if psychic abilities would work against ground troops as well as spaceships.

eXploration Discoveries

The easiest way to spiff up the eXploration phase is to allow empires to “discover” goodies ranging from money to technology to map information to useable but derelict ships or robotic ground units. This is an expansion of the existing game concept that wormholes are discovered once a race develops the technology to discover that size wormhole AND gets either a ship into the wormhole square, or extends the surveillance range of a space scanner into that square.

If wormholes are discovered that way, it shouldn’t be too difficult to code the game so other things can be discovered by the first ship to enter a given square, such as map information (including wormhole locations and pathways), technological discoveries (such as how to use a particular wormhole), valuable resources aka money, derelict robotic warships awaiting activation by a new master, Giant Robot Ground Warriors, plagues which discovering spaceships can inadvertently spread, etc. A lot could be done here. It might be fun to leave trails of clues too, in the form of map information about rumors of inert Giant Robot Ground Warriors awaiting a new master at Planet IX in location such and such, only those turn out to be Unn Pirates who enter the game the first time a ship appears at their location. The potential for modding scenarios is enormous if such an enhancement is implemented.

Armada 2526 has great potential for player mods and far more, to the point of being mind-boggling, given some relatively simple code patches.

So I see you're back - and in full force  [:D]
 

Some might already be in there without my being aware of those.

 
I think it would be really helpful if you actually played the game first, and then make the suggestions. It's not a criticism, but other people have said the same. Your arguments would be so much stronger if they didn't all end with "this may already be in". Most *are* already in...
 
BTW, most of this (or similar) was actually suggested during beta: more "resources" and findings, finding bases, all sorts of plagues [Bob is going to expand this], races having "infantry strength", etc.
Races can be modded with starting techs: I'm going to add Hypersense to the Qa Qa and Panic to the Unn for example - I guess that's where your ideas come from?
And there are a few race-specific techs in the game. Again, races can start with them.
 

I knew there were racial-specific techs. The issues were whether those can be restricted from trading, and whether those can be assigned to races at startup as opposed to being added only to scenarios. If they can, the possibilities for racial variation are huge, and vastly enhance Armada's role-playing potential.

One of the possible results is release of a second official patch six or more months after the first official patch, with the second patch incorporating major changes in the races based on player testing of variations using this feature. Among other things Matrix & Ntronium could add based on player mods, such as new tech, etc. If they go this way, it would realize both the game's potential and the value added by post-release testing and development by players, making game development a much more interactive process between game designers, game producers and players.