Hi all. As a fellow fan of BOTF while loathing it's many flaws, I am in love with this project and very impressed. Like many, I have thoughts to contribute. Hopefully they'll prove worth the time to read.

1) First, people. I know from looking about the boards that many people have suggested something like this, here's my take.

Officers are already a resource in the game, let's make them more interesting and really add alot of Star Trek flavor, make combat more variable, all without adding micromanagement OR processing time for those who don't want it. Sound impossible?

Each ship and station would have 'slots' for department heads and duty positions.

Ship/Station:
Captain/Commander
First Officer/Executive Officer
Ops/Ops
Tactical/Tactical
Chief Engineer/Repair Chief
Chief Medical Officer/Chief Medical Officer
Helm/Not Applicable

Each officer would have stats related to each position that would give bonuses, like Engineers that boost the Refire percentage or Ops that boost the Science rating of a ship. They would have names (usually randomly generated, except for 'unique' officers who would show up at predetermined times) and be transferred at the player's whim from one posting to another until they eventually retire and are replaced. All your favorite characters from Spock to Martok could make their presence known, either throughout the fleet or on one handpicked 'flagship' at your choice.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Far too much micromanagement you say? A simple addition to the basic stat generating algorithm for them could also tag them as best suited to which position, and crew each new ship (and replace retirees) with the proper 'type' of character from your officer pool automatically. Player-invisible if you don't feel like opening up the 'Postings' screen and mucking about with it. Also AI-friendly.

Ok, but what about all that processing and data to keep track of? Well, first off, you could store the full stats out of working memory until they choose to pull up the Postings screen, because the only thing the game really needs to know at any given time is what effect (likely something simple like +6% Phasers or the like) they're having on the ship based on their position and stats tied to that position (1 or maybe 2) and their predetermined retire and replace date. Everything else has no need to be involved in turn processing or display (outside of displaying in its own management screen when accessed of course). And if that still doesn't cut down overhead enough for some or someone just doesn't like variability in their game, well, make it a start-up option to turn it off entirely so that all ships are 'unmanned' and use their base stats. No muss no fuss.

Pre-mature death and/or improving via experience could be added at the cost of more complex code and processing time, as well, if warranted.


2) Perhaps this is unreasonable, but I take issue with a human-only 'Federation'. My thinking is to make several starting periods as start-up options, with the earliest having the Federation replaced with United Earth and a name-change to the UFP once they get a couple of member races. On later periods, start out with at least the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites already part of the Federation, and give the other majors an equivalent number of developed colonies to make up the difference.

Honestly I think the coolest thing would be to set it up so that each starting level has a date associated with it, with the galaxy in the state it was in canon at that date, so that your 'alternate reality' branches off at that point, so to speak. But I admit I may be alone in this desire.

3) The current combat engine in development is apparently on hiatus, it seems? I'd like to recommend the development of a turn-based one, as BOTF had. At least as a stop-gap measure, and moreover, as an option for users to pick what they prefer, RTS-style or turn-based. Personally, while I appreciate all the work done on the real-time engine, I'm biased towards turn-based--it's part of why I prefer BOTF over say, Armada. Why not give users the option? The main program is still passing the same stats and information to either combat engine and presumably getting back the same information as well, so having to account for potentially two different combat engines theoretically shouldn't affect the main program's development at all. Furthermore, it should be considerably easier both to program and to process, which I would think would be a strong asset in it's favor.

I welcome any thoughts or discussion.

Welcome to the forums tenketsu and thanks for your suggestions. Mike was hoping to add in officers but it is not clear what form that will take at this point. MOE may want to say more about that.

Hey tenketsu, welcome to the forums!

1) As you noticed, the idea of Captains/Special Officers/Personalised Crews has been discussed on the forums many times before. And as i've said in those threads, Mike doesn't like the idea of having these special officers on every single last ship in your fleet. That said, I know he's got some ideas you might like, although i'm sworn to secrecy on them until they have been implemented. That said, if you look hard enough, you'll find a thread where people have discussed what it is exactly that i'm not allowed to talk about, and they came close-ish to what Mike is planning.

2) As for having different start times, that sort of is in the game because you can choose your starting tech. As you noticed though, it doesn't go any futher than that, or at least, it doesn't yet. I've already told Mike about the current limitations of the system and have passed on some ideas for improving it.None of these ideas included having the Federation move from being United Earth through to becoming the UFP though. I therefore don't know what Mike's thoughts on this may be. If it was up for consideration though, I would ask how it affects the other Empires thouh; adding more detail in these background areas would also mean doing the same thing for the other Empires too.

The current system follows the way it is don in BOTF for one very simple reason: simplicity. Virtually everyone knows Trek is about the United Federation of Planets, but they don't necessarily know the events that lead up to the creation of the UFP nor about the different organisations that existed before then. United Earth etc. might simply confuse people, and that problem would be even worse with the other Empires where less is known about them, especially by more casual viewers and players. Still, I accept that it would be a very nice touch and would likely please the hardcore Trekkies. We have to think about everyone though; not everyone would like such changes over time, so the system also has the potential to frighten people off.

As for the canonicity of the maps, there's a problem straight away with what you say; what is the point in having a canon game when you're playing with a randomly-generated map? You'll be pleased to know though that a few dedicated forum members have been creating maps that could potentially be used as our official canon map. We're hoping to one day include this map with the download so everyone can get to play it and play the game as close to canon as we can make it.

3) The combat engine is being developed by CdrWolfe. It is being developed as a standalone program that will be merged into Supremacy at a later date when both the engine and the game are clsoer to completion and ready to accept such a merger. CdrWolfe has been busy with his studies though, which is why there haven't been any updates in a while. He recently posted that his studies are almost complete though and he'll have more free time to work on updates, so expect to see an update within the next few months.

As for having switches between turn-based and real-time combat, this is more complex than you might realise, and I have no idea whether it is even possible to do it, whether the combat system could cope with such a system, nor how it would work in multiplayer - what if opposing players chose opposing types of combat, for instance?

All of these questions would need to be answered by Mike and Wolfe, so you'll need to wait until they post a reply here. But please bear in mind it is possible that their decision could go either way.

Well I'm certainly not going to get my feelings hurt or throw a fit if I don't get my way--I'm just presenting what I've been able to come up with so far as 'my' ideal solution, while still trying to take into account the downsides as well, with an eye towards people pointing out the flaws in my ideas--after all, if I don't realize them, I can't fix them and make it into a better proposal.

That said, even if everything I say is completely ignored, I'm still gonna love the game--heck, if it even just had an incredibly simple AI and combat system right now I would probably be playing it rather than sleeping at night. In fact, alot of these ideas and plenty more I haven't shared yet I've had while /trying/ to sleep over the past several nights, heh. Perhaps my enthusiasm may be a little unhealthy even.

I have some experience with coding myself, although never on such a large scale, just off and on over the past 8 years on amateur projects. So while my opinion is certainly from an amateur point of view, I feel as if I have a slightly informed idea of the scope involved in what I propose. Although I'll certainly admit to having over and under-estimated coding projects before, hehe.

My primary languages thus far have been C++ and Visual Basic, so I'm actually downloading a C# IDE as we speak to load the Supremacy source code into and monkey around with it--I am dying to play this game so I'm going to have a go at throwing together a simplistic AI for my personal use (although if it turns out even half-way decent I'll share of course). I did notice that the code doesn't seem documented (not that I'm pointing fingers--I always hated doing that too), so I'll probably stumble back in half-starved, pulling my hair out, and babbling incoherently before long, like when I tried my BOTF source-code mod for Civilization 4.

Qapla'?

If you can code Mike could have some projects you may help with over time. Send a PM to Mstrobel just to let him know you are available.

Kenneth is right; if you've got progamming skills, we want you in our collective!

Mike is willing to help people learn and expand, so there's no harm in having a go. You could even end up getting something out of it! Just send Mike (Mstrobel) a PM detailling what you know and what you would like to have a go at doing. And if you did create an AI, no matter how simple it is, tell Mike about this or even send him a copy of it. Supremacy lacks an AI, and you could end up being the guy that gives it one. That's one of the main reasons why he posts the source code, so use it well.

And by all means, if you've got more ideas, post away. I didn't mean to shoot down your ideas if that's the impression you got from reading my reply, I was just attempting to explain the facts and discuss the arguments. Sorry if you misunderstood my intentions, I should have been clearer.

You do that too much. Maybe you're trying to be a bit too participative? Just a thought.

No worries. I would love to be involved in the project, but before I go bothering Mike I want to prove (to myself if nothing else) that I'm qualified to assist with something this complicated. There's a lot of stuff in the code that I've never seen before, either because it's new with C# or because my general programming knowledge isn't as comprehensive as it ought to be. So I'll see if I can wrap my head around it.

Thanks

for an extensive AI code example, drop by Supremacy's related projects on codeplex..

Ooooo I had a look, some cool stuff, not that i understand a great deal of it .

Regards Wolfe