Info please.

[Blind Sniper]

It is focused on single player, but will include multiplayer -- currently planned are live simultaneous turns and PBEM.

Interesting the PBEM option. [:)]

Can you give us more informations about how the combat works? What are the tactical options?

[SephiRok]

Everything is subject change, but currently tactical options include territory-based modifiers, like power, movement speed and sight, artillery splash weapons and sniper's no enemy retaliation attribute. But coolest of all are the operations with which you can scan a portion of the map and deploy units behind enemy lines, or fire a nuclear missile to eradicate a whole territory and leave damaging environmental effects.

[Blind Sniper]

ORIGINAL: SephiRok

Everything is subject change, but currently tactical options include territory-based modifiers, like power, movement speed and sight, artillery splash weapons and sniper's no enemy retaliation attribute. But coolest of all are the operations with which you can scan a portion of the map and deploy units behind enemy lines, or fire a nuclear missile to eradicate a whole territory and leave damaging environmental effects.

[:D]

Thanks for the info, looking forward to this one.

I have other questions about units, combat and so on, let us know when we can ask more [:)]

[SephiRok]

Feel free to ask, I can at least answer with the direction we're going with it.

[Blind Sniper]

Well...if I can ask...then...

Genre: strategic or tactical also?

Turn: turn based IGO-UGO or WEGO?



Scale: how big is the universe? How many planets?

Terrain: do we have hexes or zone?

Unit: what is the unit organization? I mean squad, platoon, etc.
How many kind of units? Tank, infantry, Mech, etc.
What does the bar above the units mean? Stamina?
Can the unit gain experience?
How many units you can build? Is there a maintenance cost or people limit?
I hate the endless production [:'(]
Is Pandora a land game or is possible to fight with ships as well?

Combat: How the combat is handle? Is a paper-scissor-stone system?

Too many questions? [:D]

[SephiRok]

ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper
Genre: strategic or tactical also?

Mostly strategic, but there are also tactical elements as previously listed.

ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper
Turn: turn based IGO-UGO or WEGO?

It's only simultaneous turns (all players play at the same time) currently. So my guess is that means WEGO.

ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper
Scale: how big is the universe? How many planets?

It's all happening on one planet, ground view.

ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper
Terrain: do we have hexes or zone?

The map encompasses the whole planet, square grid.

ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper
Unit: what is the unit organization? I mean squad, platoon, etc.
How many kind of units? Tank, infantry, Mech, etc.
What does the bar above the units mean? Stamina?
Can the unit gain experience?
How many units you can build? Is there a maintenance cost or people limit?
I hate the endless production [:'(]
Is Pandora a land game or is possible to fight with ships as well?

Units are in homogeneous squads, the bar above them is their current health. There are currently 6 kinds of units, including ground, water and air. We have planned that units gain experience and become stronger. Each unit has an upkeep credits cost, that's the only really limiting factor to your army's size.

ORIGINAL: Blind Sniper
Combat: How the combat is handle? Is a paper-scissor-stone system?

There is a counter system based on unit and weapon types. For example, a unit equipped with a flame thrower will be more effective against biological units.

[Blind Sniper]

Thank you very much! [:)]

[eva lilith]

This game looks very awesome.
i love sci fi theme + strategic genre (ex:Alpha Centauri) [:)]

SephiRok is DEV, right?
some questions here!

1.when this will be released?

2.Is it possible to modding?
(i wish..)

3.if say yes, provide modding guide?

4. UI,graphics.. looks like pretty simple..hmm..
is this hardcore or casual? (ex: moo3,distant worlds vs Endless Space,Civilization)
(i wish..hardcore..)

[SephiRok]

Happy to see you interested!

I'm a dev, yes.

1. Still need a couple of months before release.

2. It supports modding through xml.

3. I doubt we'll have a modding guide on release.

4. I wouldn't say it's hardcore, it's similar to Alpha Centauri and Civilization.

There should be a beta to sign up for in the next weeks.

Cheers,
Rok

[Admiral Moe Lester]

Hi SephiRok! I've got a couple questions to hopefully satisfy my unreasonable lust for this game. Are there any concepts from Alpha Centauri that you plan to emulate in some form in Pandora? How in depth is the government and civics side? Is unit customization in and is the name a reference to The Jesus Incident?

Thanks for your time and thank you for undertaking such a glorious task!

[SephiRok]

Sure! I'm probably about the last person to talk about SMAC, but I'll mention what I know and the things we do have.

Unit customization is in. Every unit is composed of a unit base type (class), weapon and armor. Examples of unit types are trooper, watercraft and mech. Weapons define against which unit types you are more and less effective. Examples of weapon types are automatic, missile and laser. Armors on the other hand can be applied to all unit types and are just a way to make them stronger overall.

There are 6 different factions you can play, each with their own modifiers and special attributes, much like in every 4X game. For example, the ecologic faction has lower alien aggression and pollution, but also lower production gain. The industrious faction, on the other hand, has increased growth rate and production, but also increased pollution.

We don't currently have government/civics mechanics, but as in other games the different factions give you the basic government/civic-type of specialization. You'll however also find the research tree more open-ended and flexible, with over 100 technologies.

What we do have, and have focused more explicitly on, is operation mechanics. This is an expansion of the concept we've done in our previous game Conquest: Divide and Conquer. You gain operations either through buildings over time (e.g. satellite scans) or you produce them (e.g. nano robots) and can then use them on a revealed territory. Operations in this way can provide you means to temporarily boost or hinder an economy, heal units or blow a bunch of them up.

We didn't explicitly take SMAC and did that again. What we set out to do is an awesome sci-fi 4X ground strategy game. With atmosphere, style and fun mechanics. I hope you'll tell us if we've gotten anywhere close to that and how we can get closer to it, in the upcoming beta.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask. I'm skipping the question about the name on purpose.

[Admiral Moe Lester]

It is good to see an emphasis on atmosphere and style! It went a long way for SMAC and IMHO is one of the best ways to make a good game great. Also it is nice to see that you are comfortable doing your own thing to make this stand out on its own.

However I do have another important question. How are you handling the movement of large numbers of units? I remember that is one of the things that bogged down the older civ titles and from what I've read was an outstanding problem with Conquest. Such a simple thing can do a lot to turn a game into a grind and is definitely a lasting 4x problem that could really use some new innovations.

[SephiRok]

We're still working on that issue, but essentially the goal is to be able to select as many units from the same tile as you want by holding Ctrl and then issuing an order as normal.

[Admiral Moe Lester]

Alright. Just thought of some more questions\suggestions.

Will unit counters be straight rock paper scissors, or will it be or have elements of situational counters? For example in SMAC (sorry about the constant referencing. It did do a lot of things right though) infantry had a city fighting bonus, armor had open terrain bonuses, and any unit equipped with anti aircraft weaponry had a bonus against aircraft. I liked this approach a lot as it is pretty intuitive and a lot more "real world." If a tank is trudging through heavy forest or narrow city streets, infantry will be able to ambush it regardless of how powerful it is and those infantry won't be able to fight aircraft very well without actual AA weapons. I think this makes all types of units useful and necessary without having to rely on arbitrary game rules or any complicated systems.

Also, diplomacy! Obviously this is a war oriented game but it would be really nice to have very logical diplomatic relationships. Once again SMAC did it pretty good as the factions were all well developed and would interact in logical ways towards one another. It really felt that the factions acted in game as they would act in fictional reality.

It would also be nice for there to be more diplomatic interactions beyond declare war or propose peace. It would be great to coordinate battle plans and create more intricate treaties with your allies. Very few 4x's that I have come across have made diplomacy feel "real" which really adds to the atmosphere of the game and adds context to the happenings in the game. I realize good diplomacy is hard to program but SMAC managed to get around that with the distinct factions that could believably act in reasonably predictable ways. It seems like you might have this option as well which would be pretty cool. A good diplomatic element could make this game really stand out and it seems like you certainly have a good theme to work from!

[SephiRok]

Unit counters are on two dimensions, very much like you described. Each unit type is currently either light or heavy and biological or mechanical. Light and heavy is situational -- light gets a bonus in mountains and forests while heavy gets a bonus on plains. The other dimension is biological/mechanical -- automatic weapons are light counters to biological and flame weapons are heavy counters to biological, missile weapons are light counters to mechanical and cannon weapons are heavy counters to mechanical. There are some additional things like flak being strong versus air and units gaining bonuses in cities. Also, not all units can have all weapons equipped, which is an additional thing to consider.

Regarding diplomacy we currently have options to establish trading, research, open borders, non-aggression and alliance pacts. Hopefully we'll also add trading of resources.

I'm not sure how much time we'll have to expand on diplomacy more than that. We should be able to make the different AIs feel distinct and believable to at least some degree. Our budget is more limited than SMAC's though.

[Admiral Moe Lester]

Well that sounds pretty excellent. Consider me excited to try this game out.

[Velihopea]

"Obviously this is a war oriented game" [:(]
For a first contact game I would prefer more focus on colony building with economic problems involved (eXpand, eXploit). But the main interest should be on eXploration stuff (IMO).

So my questions would be:
1) How deep is the story-line in the game?
2) How is the storyline implemented? Does it progress through discovery of artifacts/life-forms/exploration of terrain/research etc...?
3) How is the colony economics modelled? From screenshots there is the basic food-minerals-money setting with pop harvesting it from the land around the city? Any surprises here?
4) How is trade implemented. Is there interstellar trade?
5) Is there any interstellar connections with institutions involved with colonization effort back Earth?

[SephiRok]

We are doing our best in adding as much exploration as time allows us.

There is some story. But mainly you discover the world through lore and reports such as discovering ruins, life forms, technologies, terrain features and other events.

The economy model has a couple of surprises, depending on what surprises you, I suppose. For one, humanity is advanced enough to fully exploit globalization. This means that all cities have global and shared resource pools. I really love that, instead of balancing food and other prospects in each city, you can specialize them based on terrain and positioning. For example, you can focus one city on the outskirts on procuring minerals while another exploits them for heavy production. I can provide a more thorough overview of the resources and how they interact if desired.

Trade is currently not yet implemented, so I'll bite my tongue on that one for now.

There is no interstellar trade since this is Humanity's first hopeful planet after Earth, which is too far away to communicate with or travel to in any reasonable time with the current available technologies. It was a long journey to Pandora and for all you know Earth could have become a wasteland by now.

[Velihopea]

Thanks for the information SephiRok!

ORIGINAL: SephiRok
We are doing our best in adding as much exploration as time allows us. There is some story. But mainly you discover the world through lore and reports such as discovering ruins, life forms, technologies, terrain features and other events.

Good to hear. I find that discovering the planet in multiple ways is a very good design.

How is exploration paced in the game? Which also leads to greater question of the pace of the game in general. How fast/how many turns does one in general take to finish the game?

The economy model has a couple of surprises, depending on what surprises you, I suppose. For one, humanity is advanced enough to fully exploit globalization. This means that all cities have global and shared resource pools. I really love that, instead of balancing food and other prospects in each city, you can specialize them based on terrain and positioning. For example, you can focus one city on the outskirts on procuring minerals while another exploits them for heavy production. I can provide a more thorough overview of the resources and how they interact if desired.

This sounds like a big improvement over other civ type games. Civ5 had global food production (but only as a growth limiting factor), the resources were quite local otherwise. Like population growth was still dependent on local food production and industry on local mineral production. If I understand Pandora design correctly it allows for much more specialized cities. How is city specialization encouraged? What are the development lines involved? Clearly agricultural and mining, but are the "industrial" cities divided further somehow (research/military production/civilian production etc)?

More thorough overview of the resources would be welcome

Trade is currently not yet implemented, so I'll bite my tongue on that one for now.

There is no interstellar trade since this is Humanity's first hopeful planet after Earth, which is too far away to communicate with or travel to in any reasonable time with the current available technologies. It was a long journey to Pandora and for all you know Earth could have become a wasteland by now.

This sounds very plausible. I had hoped for "colonization" style interaction with Earth, but there is a limit to how much one game can satisfy all the expectations of a single player

Just played Conquest demo and the engine feels really good. Although the game is much too military focused and generalized to my liking it did raise my hopes for this game a lot.

[SephiRok]

Exploration is probably a bit slower than in Civilization 5 since infantry have a speed of 1 and you have to be careful about planet life pillaging your city instead of just letting city defenses do the job. I rather not comment too much on the pace, it would just end up being deceiving. For me turns probably go faster than for the typical player since I've been working on it, and how many turns a typical game lasts is still changing a lot; the AI improving and so on. The tech tree is long enough to not disappoint in that regard.

City specialization is mainly encouraged by territory resources, buildings and position. There are currently 7 stats you are going to care about on a city scale and 4 of those resources on a global scale. Food, minerals, research and credits are all global and available or lacking to all cities. Food is required for growth, but excess food does not speed up growth. Minerals are required for production, research for new technologies and credits for purchasing and paying upkeeps. In the city you'll be gathering food and minerals from tiles while also assigning colonists to production and research. Production directly consumes minerals so those are tightly linked together. Credits you gain are mainly based on the city's population. The other two stats are morale and pollution. Morale decreases with negative effects such as pollution and overpopulation, and provides an overall boost in everything your colonists do, as well as increasing the growth rate. Pollution is a negative stat and increases depending on how much food, minerals, production and research a city is producing. Once enough pollution accumulates it pollutes a tile and it becomes unharvestable until cleared.

The economics are certainly not as focused as in a game like Colonization, which has a bunch of different goods while just 4 types of military units, so don't go expecting that. I really like Colonization's mechanics, I loved the original, and we've actually been playing Civilization 4: Colonization a lot the last days (too much actually), but Pandora isn't that. It's more tactics and operations and warfare, and less economics. On the other hand, Colonization's buildings are limited in usefulness to each city and production itself is not as focused so you don't get very excited about buildings, while in Pandora I just end up wanting to construct a bunch of buildings in each city. The economics of Colonization and the warfare of Pandora together could be very interesting. Food for thought for another game.

Conquest was a very different beast, we wanted to do competitive multiplayer with that, while Pandora is focused on the single player experience. I'm really happy you liked the engine.