Dubbs 4X Pipe Dream

OverseerDubb wrote:Right, this has been swishing around my head for a long

time now and when I started it was just bullet points - it kinda got out of

control! I've cut it up into numbered sections to make it easy to comment on

whatever bit you want without quoting walls of text.

There is more I'm thinking about, but I dont want to wait any longer to put

up what I have already.

Anyway, please read and start some discussions.


PS

forgive spelling and what not, most of this was written late at night (and I

have the negative quality - ineptitude (spelling) )



1.0 Introduction
==========
The 4 Xs of 4X are: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate.

For a while now I’ve been searching for a game experience that fits a very

specific craving that I’ve been having. I’ve tried many different games that

all loosely fit the above 4 Xs, some come closer to filling my cravings than

others, but they always lack something.
This document will be divided into a few different sections all covering

different portions of this topic, I will provide examples where my

descriptive language fails me and I’ll draw pictures where examples are

lacking. To begin, I’ll try to give a rough outline as to what I want. Then

I’ll break it down into point form and show what other games succeed or fail

in covering.


1.1 Purpose of this Document
==================
Yes but why are you doing this? I know a couple of you have dabbled in

designing things in the past and have enjoyed the discussion and a few other

people are having the same craving as me (not all on this forum). I’m making

this post (it wasn’t originally this big!) to hopefully start a discussion on

what YOU want and why MY ideas are rubbish. It’s a pretty long read, but if

you’re in need of a time filler (or killer) or are genuinely interested… go

for it.
I’d really like something to be made of this, but I’m pretty sure that

nothing will come of it, but hey, why not do it anyway!

1.2 What I Want
==========
In a sentence or so: A science fiction, galaxy spanning tale of domination

involving epic battles in space and civilization building.

OverseerDubb wrote:2.0 The Details
==========
Well, as they say: The Devil is in the details.

If a rough fit to the above description is all I wanted, I wouldn’t be

writing this would I? Quite a few games out there achieve a lot of my desires

but either miss out on the big “Wants” or have a way doing things that, while

not bad, just aren’t what I’d call ideal or polished.

So, the details:

2.1 The setting:
==========
Sci-Fi. Well that’s nice and vague isn’t it! Well, my ideal setting is a

future where (using humans as an example) we, as a race, have discovered some

way of travelling “faster than light” and are starting to move out amongst

the stars only to find that we are in fact not alone and are competing

against a few other races for space and resources.
Pick any game or movie that takes place in space and you’ll see this theme.
My take on it though is that all the species involved are only just starting

a phase of expansion. This however is not an indication of relative levels of

technological advancement of all the species, just that all involved are

starting to expand their territories.

2.2 Scale
=======
Planets , Moons and Asteroids within a solar system. Solar systems in an

interconnected network forming, what I’ll dub “Sectors” and Sectors in a grid

forming a galaxy. Each of these would be a “level of zoom” in game, also, the

numbers here could vary from a galaxy containing 2 solar systems to something

a little more epic with hundreds of solar systems.

Examples
Stars!
Likes: Top end of the scale is right. Many planets to explore and

colonize.
Cons: Not detailed enough. Stars! only included individual plantes, no

stars, no moons and no overall “galactic structure”.

Galactic Civilisations 2 (& all expansions)
Likes: It contains solar systems and sectors. Planets have different

“classes” for realism.
Cons: While more detailed than Stars!, it feels as though its “dumbed

down”. No “levels of zoom”.

Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain
Likes: It has a “galactic” view and “solar system” view.
Cons: While it has an “orbital” view, it is only for planets that are

colonized and is very limited ie you have a level 5 colony with a level 2

battle station.
I’d like a detailed view of all “usable” objects within a solar system.

Ranging from planets and moons to asteroid belts and even space ship

graveyards from battles that have been fought.

Sins of a Solar Empire
Likes: Good level of detail on bodies within the solar system.
Cons: “Zoom level” (yeah I know, an odd concept) is way off. Too

“zoomed in” in one instance, and too “zoomed out” in another.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
Likes: The Scale in this is almost perfect. You are presented with a

star with all important objects (and their orbits) drawn in simple geometry

superimposed over it. With the mouse you can select any object (moon, comet,

planet, fleets…) and zoom in on it. As you zoom in, the game replaces the

simple geometry with a nice 3D model. You get a sense of how big a solar

system is but all the information and locations are always easy to access.
Cons: None. This aspect of the game is highly polished (shame about

the rest of it!).

2.3 Custom Ships
============
Different chassis with different capacities and rolls.
Large selections of equipment.
The ability to use “default” designs or get into the nitty gritty of min-

maxing.
I have a fairly solid idea on how I’d like this to work and will flesh it out

in a game mechanics section later but as a rough idea, I imagine limitations

on hull configurations such as physical size of the chassis, number of

“slots” on the chassis and the size of the slots, size of equipment, power

draw of the equipment, crew needs and other equipment pre-requisites.
- For example (very arbitrary here!), a medium hull can mount a single

medium sized turret.
- A medium turret has 100 mass, needs 100 power, 2 dedicated crew, needs a

fire control computer and a basic sensor package.
- So, to install this medium turret you would need to meet the following

pre-reqs: an engine capable of moving the mass of the hull and the turret, a

power plant capable of powering the ships systems with at least 100 power

extra for the turret, facilities for 2 extra gunnery crew, a fire control

computer and basic sensor package.
- All these other items would have their own needs too.
- I would want all the equipment you place on a hull (well the external

bits hehe) to show up on the game model.

Stars!
Likes: Very customizable. Nameable variants and selectable icons.
Cons: Hull types are too specific, each equipment slot is limited only

in how many of that type of item you can place there ie 0/7 to 7/7. To

simple, no real consideration (just max it!), ship icons are generic and do

not reflect the equipment installed on the hull.

Navy Field
Likes: While not a sci-fi setting, it does have a fantastic level of

detail on ship (as in water ships hehe) components, both in stats and in game

models.
Cons: I haven’t played it so I cant be 100% sure, but I don’t think it

has the level of complexity I want.

Galactic Civilisations 2 (& all expansions)
Likes: Incredibly fun ship building!
Cons: Incredibly simplistic, from a stats point of view (very rock

paper scissors). And lets be honest, we all spend more time on the cosmetic

side of it (not a con, but hey).

2.4 Complex Resources
================
In all games I’ve played, all sides use the same 2 or 3 resources. This is

boring and unimaginative (but ultimately understandable from design point of

view, but this is MY dream damn it!). What I’d like is a huge list of

resources. A few examples: raw versions of a large portion of the periodic

table, refined versions of the afore mentioned elements, gems and crystals,

exotic elements (read: made up), populations could also be a resource.
Now the spin on this idea is that each race would need a different selection

of these resources with a deliberate overlaps. This encourages trade between

peaceful (or financially driven) species or aggression and war in the more

military minded.
Of course in complicated idea resources wouldn’t just “show up” on the map,

you’d need to conduct surveys on likely sites!
This idea (apart from me just liking it), also really maximises the need to

eXplore and eXploit.
Final note: Planets, stars and asteroid belts are HUGE and to fully exploit

them would take a very, very long time. As such, I don’t think resources

(with the exception of population) should be finite. The only limitations I

would place on them is the rate at witch you can extract them (technology,

rarity etc..).

OverseerDubb wrote:2.5 Complex Research
===============
I’m struggling to come up with an idea that “feels” right. I know I want

different trees for different races and I know how I want to define each

race. I want to do this with "Traits".
The next section has some general ideas on different racial traits and how

they could effect researching, so I guess a section on race traits is next.

2.6 Traits
======
I really like the idea of having a list of traits that you can combine to

make a custom race. The names of traits and how they relate and change how

you play game are only limited to you imagination. I have a constant stream

of them flowing through my head whenever I sit down to add to this (now

sprawling) document! Since the research section was so lacking (for the

moment), I’ll chuck in some ideas that relate to research.

Hive Mind: This could represent anything from Borg to Zerg) – Highly

focused research possible one field at a time but faster rate of progress.
Capitalist Society: A mix of ruling government and private

organisations lead to a diffused research effort – Many research fronts with

relatively slow progress
Analytical but uncreative: My take on this is for a race that excels

in refining existing technologies but have a hard time coming up with new,

unrelated fields. Work arounds could involve espionage, theft and salvage

(reverse engineering).

Possible traits that effect the style of research:

Advanced Tech Base: I mean for this to be a style thing, not a lasers

vs cave men advantage. Like this race uses crystal based computers or instead

of projectiles and missiles they use beam weapons.
Machine Race: A race like this would have no need to research such things as

terra-forming or life support and would be directed more at energy and

materials
Pure organics: Substitute research with evolution?
Space born race: A race that originated in space and cannot exist on a

planet. Planetary improvements replaced with planetary mining?
Alternate Reality: A race from a different dimension where the basic

rules of reality are different (idea stolen from Stars!). This would be a

radically different style of tech tree!

I think the three biggest sci-fi examples of this kind of system are Stars!,

Galactic Civilizations 2 and Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain.

2.7 Combat
=========
Defiantly need the option to let the computer “figure it out” as well as the

option to “do it yourself”.
-Computer controlled is a great idea except for when you WANT to do it

yourself!

I’d like a clear feeling of distances.
-Extreme is sensor only: Long range missiles.
-Long is within visual ranges. Lasers and large projectile weapons

(projectile weapons work at this range but with low accuracy)
-Medium range is optimal range for projectile weapons, other energy weapons

and ship to ship torpedoes (I define torpedoes as high yield, low guidance

missiles). Also the max range for strike craft (fighters) weapons (size

limits)
-Short range is for ramming, boarding and point defence (or even super high

powered weapons with incredibly low accuracy!)

I’d want a fairly realistic take on large vehicle combat. Like detailed hit

locations that damage equipment (Sensors down!), kill crew (reducing how

efficient a ship is run) and outright disable craft (main power down! Side

note, field repairs??).
Because of this detail, I’d like it to be nearly impossible to totally

destroy a largish ship with conventional weapons though reducing them to

hulks that can’t move, support its crew or fight back is a different thing

all together. This creates moments where you have to decide whether or not

you need to withdraw a craft from the front line (or take it back to port) or

risk losing your elite crew, the ship and her technologies to your enemy.

I also want physics to appear to take a part (though behind the scenes it

would be easy to fake) in the way ships handle. Different engines would have

stats like maximum top speed, maximum mass it can move, acceleration and

manoeuvrability. Adding equipment to chassis increases its over-all mass and

reduces the effectiveness of the installed engine(s). Doing it like this

means that armour doesn’t take equipment space, but as a rule of thumb has a

very high mass so design becomes a game of speed vs protection not just max

armour and max guns and max speed (though technology could help get you to

that point).

Final notes:
Big ships should be ~tough~ (think of the Battlestar Galactica =D ) but

should be a considerable investment in time and resources.
Huge battles = Huge graveyards full of corpses and scrap!
Energy shields should be less effective than armour BUT have the advantage of

recharging.
Missiles and torpedoes should be scary but severely limited buy ammo payloads
David is dreaming of epic broadsides!

2.8 Heroes and Characters
=================
I’ve always enjoyed the idea of “special characters” in games, regardless of

the setting. When done well, special characters can make you feel more

attached to the game you’re playing as well as give you an edge in certain

situations.
I’d like to take this idea and break it down into 2 types of characters,

People & Ships.

People
As ship crews (or I suppose governors/scientists) gain experience they should

“level up” (nice vague description here) with a chance of gaining a “name”

(General Blah for example).
General level ups should bring slight increases to all stats of the ship that

the crew operates.
Named crew members represent individuals in an empire that have skills above

and beyond those of their peers, they should be considered Heroes. Heroes

would convey a higher bonus to a ship stat or a small group of related stats

(related to the type of hero) and also provide a unique ability to the ship

(passive or a skill you click on).
Entire crews should be transferable between ships (treated as a single unit),

though I’d have to think of a way to deal with moving them to a

ship/instillation that has higher/lower crew requirements and how this would

effect their “level”.
Heroes will be treated as individuals that can be posted anywhere.

Examples (all arbitrary numbers & “skills”)
Generic Levels: A level 5 crew gains 5% bonus to sensor ranges, damage

control and shield outputs to represent their experience with and time spent

using the ships equipment.
Heroes: After an engagement with the enemy, the Sensors operator on the

Frigate “For Great Justice!” levels up and becomes known as Lieutenant “dead

eye” Bob. He now adds 15% to the maximum range of the ships sensor suite and

gains the ability to halve weapon lock times.

Ships
I’m not suggesting that ships should level like they were alive (unless they

are due to race type , but in that case they should be treated as a

hero!) but I do like the idea of a ship being modified by its crew over the

years so that it performs above its original benchmarks.
The best way I can think of to handle this idea is by having various types of

heroes being stationed on a particular ship for extended amounts of time. Any

modifications made should be related to the type of hero but have each

modifiable system have multiple possible results (for spice and variety).

Whether or not they modify a ship should be random to avoid abuse.
This system would help older, obsolete (technologically speaking) ships

perform along side newer ships or even have a new ship with an elite crew and

loaded with hero units become a terrifying engine of destruction (all your

eggs in one basket)! Obvious example here is the Millenium Falcon. More

specific examples here could be increased engine speeds, higher power

outputs, better sensors or shields… a little creativity here and adding new

mods to the list could be quite fun.

2.9 Civilization Building
================
NOTES TO EXPAND ON:
More of a Macro take on civ building. I don’t want to be placing individual

buildings on a planet like in Gal Civ 2, but I don’t want to be as simple as

“level 5 colony” like in Pax.
I don’t want to, as a general rule, deal with a colonies “happiness”. Mr

Grand Emperor of the Universe doesn’t deal with crud like that, that’s what

local government is for!

OverseerDubb wrote:2.10 Faster Than Light
================

I think a "standard" form of FTL should be applied across all groups (with

speed/range modifiers) with different methods (better?) being available with

certain traits.

Different FTL ideas: Anywhere to Anywhere Space folding (Battlestar/Macross),

Anywhere to Anywhere wormhole (Freespace/Starwars),
Anywhere to Anywhere actual FTL (Startrek), Specific point to specific point

(battletec) and instillation to instillation (stargate).

PolySoup wrote:I've been doing a lot of thinking along these lines myself.

I figure if we can hammer out enough detail in each area then there is no

reason why we can't try to build something in our copius (ha!) free time.

2.1 Setting (with a bit of 2.4 and 2.5 thrown in)
Somewhere else in the workshop there was a bit of a discussion on the

"realism" of having many races gaining FTL simultaneously. There are a couple

of story reasons that can make sense for this to happen. The first is say

"Hush! Think of the game balance!". The second is the GalCiv method: one race

discovers FTL and shares it with all races. The third is an "after the fall"

setting where a once great empire (or whatever) has collapsed sending some

worlds back to the dark ages, while others are able to hold on to some

important technologies and the industries they require. There are probably

quite a few other ideas that could be used to explain this away.

While all that is quite traditional in the 4X realm, I'd like us to consider

the possibility of having the player begin in a universe where a few other

empires may have already staked a claim among the stars. This could be

because FTL is not a default starting technology, but rather one (of many)

that can chosen when creating a race. This way you caould have a race that

does not start with FTL, but may have better industrial tech instead. It

would be harder to balance, but if a player starts with only one planet they

would still have the rest of their solar system to play with while they

research FTL.

2.2 Scale
This is the scale I desire to play. I think Light of Altair handles the low-

end well, as you can colonize planets, and moons each of which may have zero

or more moonlet-like bodies that can be remote-mined by building a structure

for each moonlet on the colony. Now if only it would let me do that across a

couple of dozen stars...

2.3 Custom Ships
I can think of three ways to customize ships.

Ship Class
Example: GalCiv where you start with a hull size and add what

ever will fit within the size limit.
Pros: Gives the player useful constraints to design around.
Cons: Very limited role variation between ships of similar tech

levels.

Hull Type
Example: Stars! where you have a number of hulls with different

slot layouts (or different size limits if you don't use slots).
Pros: The player still has some useful constraints to help with

designing, but has more choice in the type of ship to build.
Cons: Still somewhat limited in the variety of ships that can be

built.

Freeform
Example: I can't think of a computer game that does this, but there

are plenty of PnP RPGs that can do this. You pick what you want in your ship,

and it gets bigger, heavier, and costlier.
Pros: You can build anything you have the tech for.
Cons: No constraints mean the player has to shoulder the full burden

of design, may be hard to have the AI design inteligently.

I'd like to be able to design ships that cannot travel FTL. Things

like fighters and planetary defence ships would not need to be able to travel

FTL if they could be transported to where they needed to go. This in turn

would free up more space for weapons/defences/etc or just make them cheaper

to build. This way you could have an X-Wing vs TIE Fighter choice. Do you

make a few expensive fighters that you can use for hit-and-run attacks to

other stars, or do you make swarms of cheaper fighters that must be

transported to where they need to be?

2.4 Complex Resources
Perhaps these overlaps would depend mostly on the tech options open to that

race. For example, if there was more than one way to travel FTL, then each

different method could require a different resource to build it's FTL drive.

This could equally apply to other technologies as well.

2.5 Complex Research
I can think of two ways research has been handled in other games. The first

is the most common, you pick a technology you want and research it. The

second is the way Stars! handles it. You research a type of technology

and when you have met the requirements of a specific technology you get it.

The first gives the player complete control over what they are researching.

The second means that you can get more than one new item when you gain a tech

level, or you can get nothing. I don't know which I would rather, but it will

be fun trying to come up with a couple more ways to conduct research.

2.6 Traits
I think Stars! Supernova Genesis (may it rest in peace) may have been

on to something. Each race would pick from one of 3 or 4 base tech trees.

These trees could then be shaped further by other traits. This should have an

effect on espionage. It would be much easier to steal and use a tech based on

the same base tree as your own, than to try to use a tech that came from a

different base tree.

More to follow...

PolySoup wrote:2.7 Combat
What you've described sounds like a slightly more detailed version of the

combat in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Light of Altair has

limited payloads for missile and torpedos (only 4 per slot per combat) but

missiles do at least twice the damage of equivalent laser weapons, and

torpedos are terrifying doing 4 times the damage of the best laser weapon I

have seen in the game thus far. Two torpedos can take down any ship smaller

than a cruiser, and unlike normal missiles will still do some damage if they

are affected by anti-missile defences.

Ideas that ties-in with combat and ship designs:

3 drive types: Maneuver, Transit, FTL.
A Maneuver drive is required for every design.
A Transit drive is required for inter-planetary travel, requires a maneuver

drive.
An FTL drive is required for inter-stellar travel, requires both a transit

and a maneuver drive.

Most strike craft would have only a maneuver drive, relying on carriers to

get them in and out of combat.
Long-range strike craft could additionally have a transit drive at the

expense of weapons/armour/something else enabling them to fight independantly

of the main fleet.
Extreme-range strike craft could add an FTL drive enabling them to travel

independantly of the main fleet.

Ship component: Fleet Coordination Centre
This component helps with coordinating all aspects of running a fleet, from

supply logistics to combat maneuvers. It increases the maximum number of

ships that can be in the fleet. Only the highest rated FCC per fleet will

have any effect. This (large-ish) component would normally be placed on a

fleet flagship, but could also be used for large civilian fleets (remote

mining?).

Still thinking...

OverseerDubb wrote:In response to Polysoup's notes

2.1
Precursor objects activating mysteriously! God I love the idea of ancient,

previously unknown (by most!) artifacts all activating at the same time and

imparting FTL technology on various races. How each race translates this

information to physical technology could account for stat mods in different

races...

though, to be honest, we could do a setting that takes place solely in the

solar system withough FTL. The solar system is a very very big place, its

just that most games choose not to portray it like that.

OR, a single player campaign could start like this. You know, a central

government vs rebels and pirates WHEN BAM! FTL and aliens! A spin on the free

space twist

2.3
I envision a mix between a mix between your ship class and free form

examples. I say a mix so you can stagger access to larger and larger ships

(Fighter, corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, carrier & battleship for

example) over time via research and to stop player putting MASSIVE weapons on

tiny ships - though - I do really like the idea of putting, say, a small

destroyer classed power plant on a frigate .Each chassis would have

"slots" (see pic) for different types of equipment eg power plants, engines,

internal gear (computers, FTL & crew related) and external hard points. The

slots would limit the physical size of equipment but does not stop you

putting, for example, a turret originally designed for a larger (or smaller)

chassis on your design - as long as the hard point and the ships other

supporting systems can can take it.

To expand further on that last sentence, there would be many considerations

with designing a ship but there would be 2 PRIMARY concerns: Power output and

Mass.
At the core of every design is the power plant, basically how much power

there is to support all your ships gear. The majority of this power would go

to the propulsion system(s) you have installed but the rest would go towards

life support, electronics and weapons.
Secondly, every item has a mass rating, which added together will give you

your ships total MASS. This would effect the acceleration and maneuverability

(but not its top speed) of the engine(s) you installed. Better acceleration =

better engine with a higher power draw (maybe size?).

Mix-maxing with the choices you have is always a fun challenge as long as the

limits and how adding and subtracting items effects the system is clear.

Physical size conveyed as a GUI with drag/drop
stats with tallies/totals/max like: MASS, POWER OUTPUT, POWER DRAW, CREW

NEEDED, CREW SUPPORTED etc...

Polysoup wrote:I'd like to be able to design ships that cannot

travel FTL

I agree with you. Total design freedom.

my "slots" concept

in this concept pic you can see the mid ship hard point is quite large and

could potentially mount something huge.


2.4
Agreed, almost exactly what I was thinking. Like sentient machines needing

rare element X in the construction of their true thinking CPUs (as opposed to

traditional dumb machines).

NEW SECTION! FTL (I've added it above and at the bottom of this post)

2.5
I like the idea of having multiple ways for different races to progress.

Though I find myself leaning towards the system Stars! uses, though with more

than 7 fields.

2.6
Hmm, very good point. I like the idea that you can choose 1 or 2 main

traits that have large effects on game play, followed by a swath of lesser

traits that add flavour to your race ie 5% population growth rate or

efficient electronics (lower power cost on ship equipment).

2.7
Yep I'm glad you're on the same wavelength here!

NEW

2.10
I think a "standard" form of FTL should be applied across all groups (with

speed/range modifiers) with different methods (better?) being available with

certain traits.

Different FTL ideas: Anywhere to Anywhere Space folding (Battlestar/Macross),

Anywhere to Anywhere wormhole (Freespace/Starwars),
Anywhere to Anywhere actual FTL (Startrek), Specific point to specific point

(battletec) and instillation to instillation (stargate).

OverseerDubb wrote:

PolySoup wrote:2.10 FTL
One idea I've had about FTL would be to stea... borrow from EVE Online.

Common FTL would be jump-line based (a bit like Pax) with an advanced

artificial wormwhole FTL where the limits are mass and range. This way common

FTL would be the cheaper and safer of the two, but once you have the tech you

can fit a rift generator to a large or huge ship to create a temporary jump-

line within a (tech-based) range limit. This rift is not the most stable of

things, so the more mass that enters it the more likely that one or more

ships will be damaged or destroyed in transit. To help reduce the danger you

could have a rift beacon fitted to a ship (or space station) at the

destination. This beacon would increase the amount of mass that can travel

through the rift before the danger of damage/loss increases. The chance of

ships being damaged/lost should never be zero.

Sounds good. One thing I want to clarify is that I don't like the idea of go

from anywhere to anywhere as a standard like in Stars! Focusing where players

can go makes for fun strategies and tactics.

EDIT

I added a picture to my last post

PolySoup wrote:Browsing through GURPS Spaceships reminded me of a weapon

mount that is not often used: Spinal. This is a weapon that is too large to

be mounted normally, and instead the entire ship is built around it. This

could perhaps allow for a weapon two sizes too big to be added to a ship

design. It would of course require an equally huge power source and/or ammo

bay.

EDIT

Actually, there are a number of interesting ideas in that book for ship

technologies that would work with what we have so far. While the design rules

are pretty simple, they do cover most things you'd need and want in a ship.

OverseerDubb wrote:While walking the dog I thought of some more "tech

style" ideas.

We were already talking about different technologies and I'd already touched

on it with a few basic descriptions (full mechanical race, organic tech,

crystal based...).

What I was thinking about was how "close" these technologies are to your own

and how trading technologies could work.

For example a fully organic race would gain nothing from a trading theory or

physical technologies with a mechanical race but the roswell greys can give

the humans 5 beam cannons to retrofit to some of their ships.

or in the idea in point form:

Foreign technology compatability:
- Completely alien. Can't be reverse engineered and items cannot be addapted

to work with your tech.
- Foriegn. Can't be reverse engineered but can be adapted to work with your

tech.
- Similar. Can be reverse engineered and manufactured, but is a poor mans

copy.
- Fully compatable. Can be reverse engineered and built.

All that is asuming you have advanced to a similar level of technology.

PolySoup wrote:Here's a short question that will probably have a long

answer: How "hard" do you want your science?

Reaction-less drives for example will make combat faster and more exciting

and will avoid any fuel concerns, but they also mean that any ship that can

accelerate at 1G could get from Sol to Alpha Centauri in just over 3.5 years

without needing an FTL drive. Sure it's slow, but you might be able to set up

a base behind enemy lines that way.

Other super-sciences could have similar far-reaching effects, so we should be

careful with what we choose to include. On the other hand, not having any

super-science beyond FTL can give you results similar to Battlestar Galactica

or Battletech, so less super-science =/= less fun.

OverseerDubb wrote:

PolySoup wrote:Here's a short question that will

probably have a long answer: How "hard" do you want your science?

Reaction-less drives for example will make combat faster and more exciting

and will avoid any fuel concerns, but they also mean that any ship that can

accelerate at 1G could get from Sol to Alpha Centauri in just over 3.5 years

without needing an FTL drive. Sure it's slow, but you might be able to set up

a base behind enemy lines that way.

Other super-sciences could have similar far-reaching effects, so we should be

careful with what we choose to include. On the other hand, not having any

super-science beyond FTL can give you results similar to Battlestar Galactica

or Battletech, so less super-science =/= less fun.

Just make a ruling on no inter-system travel without some form of FTL,

whether its local to the ship or an installation of some sort? As for Super

Science, well, its fun and should be included.

I like the idea of finding ancient artifacts that instead of giving a one off

bonus or some such, become objects of incredible value and intense study ie

grant access to one of various special research trees depending on the

quality and type of artifact.

Um, cool ideas that wouldn't (shouldn't) destroy game balance...
An ancient star drive could grant (in this research order): inertia-less

drives for fighters, the ability to detect subspace nodes in your system,

ability to use said nodes within your system (point x to point y) etc..

PolySoup wrote:

OverseerDubb wrote:I like the idea of finding ancient

artifacts that instead of giving a one off bonus or some such, become

objects of incredible value and intense study ie grant access to one of

various special research trees depending on the quality and type of

artifact.

Like the hyperspace core discovered by the Hiigaran exiles that inspired them

to build the Mothership


How do you want to handle travel times? This could also relate to the length

of time a turn covers.

With a turn length of one week and reaction-less drives providing 1G of

continuous thrust, you could get from Earth to anywhere short of Saturn in

one turn, and as far as Pluto in three turns. This would make securing the

inner planets a nearly trivial matter as you could move a defensive fleet

anywhere it was needed quite easily, at least until the enemy gain a foothold

in the inner planets. Once they did you would be unable to move a fleet to a

world before it could be attacked, except by guesswork.

With a shorter turn, like one day, then you could have observational arrays

track a fleet to predict where it was heading, and have time to scramble a

defense fleet to meet them. At this time-scale the positions of planets in

their orbits can make a difference to travel times.

What about FTL travel? Is it instantaneous, or does it take time for a fleet

to travel along the jump-line? Does anything fun happen if it meets a hostile

fleet coming the other way?

OverseerDubb wrote:i'm thinking hard about this. I've been a bit busy so

all I've come up with is:

1 Astronomical unit is the distance from the sun to earth. It takes light 8

minutes to travel that distance, so obviously FTL needs to be faster than

that and sub-light speeds need to be slower.

Maybe at the start of the game, both should start off "slow" ?

EDIT

more soon

fonucmo wrote:what about orbits with respect to turn length?

if you have 2 conflicting empires sharing the inner planets of 1 solar

system, then the location of the planets in their respective orbits will be

important.

OverseerDubb wrote:

fonucmo wrote:what about orbits with respect to turn

length?

if you have 2 conflicting empires sharing the inner planets of 1 solar

system, then the location of the planets in their respective orbits will be

important.

You know what? That is a really cool idea that I didn't even consider.

PolySoup wrote:I've been thinking about drive technologies and logistics

and have come up with the following ideas.

1) Maneuver Drives (aka Combat Drives) require fuel. Increases in technology

improve acceleration and fuel consumption.

2) Transit Drives (except maybe the first couple of tech levels) are

reaction-less and do not use fuel, but have a very low acceleration. This

easily explains why they are not used as an alternative to FTL as they can

not easily reach fractional light-speed, but because they do not use fuel

they are a much better alternative to Maneuver Drives for interplanetary

travel. Transit drives can also be used in combat, but due to their low

acceleration they should only be used if the ship is out of fuel or their

Maneuver Drive has been disabled/destroyed.

3) Some FTL drives might require fuel to operate.

4) Weapons that require ammunition draw different amounts based on weapon

type and size from a generic ammunition supply stored on board ship. Example:

a small gauss gun might use up 1 ammo per shot, while a nuclear missile

launcher might use 10. A small fighter might have an ammo capacity of 80

(expandable with ship modules).

5) With a military fleet needing a lot of fuel and ammo the player should be

able to design fuel tankers and supply ships to accompany the fleet. This

also means that a player could then engage in a guerrilla war by striking at

unguarded fuel and supply ships in order to isolate a fleet that is away from

it's friendly bases. The player and AI should be able to re-supply allied

fleets as well as their own.

The Flying Monk wrote:I've been thinking about this for the last few days,

mostly about how to implement customisable ships and things into the game.

So...

The look of the ships in this will affect the way you can customise the in-

game meshes so this needs some consideration.

In 'classic' sci-fi designs most of the larger ships end up looking like

their sea based counterparts. Typically they are designed with a top and

bottom and having a constant gravity in all parts of the ship.
Think Star Wars and the likes.

On the other end of the scale are the realistic style. These mostly look like

concepts for NASA. Think 2001, Deep Impact or Sunshine.


Being able to customise ships like the way Dubb slots method would be easy to

implement. The only problem with this is that you need a lot of parts.

Otherwise you end up having only two or three real variants before they all

end up looking the same.

The tanks from WH40K deal with this well. Even using the same base tank part

(Hull) the number of doo dads that you can glue onto them make them highly

customisable. I was also thinking that small 'greeble' parts. These are small

(like 1*1 in size where a medium gun turret would be 2*2 or 3*3) these only

add 5% or so to stats but add to the overall look of the ship.

PolySoup wrote:Starship Design

Starscape uses a

similar ship design method. You pick an engine that uses a x b spaces, add

weapons, shields, ammo, etc each with it's own a x b spaces requirements.

Each hull has a different number and layout of spaces. Each item adds to the

ships mass, so the more you add the slower the ship moves with a given

engine. Some items draw power from the engine, and this can affect your rate

of fire and shield regeneration if your engine cannot put out enough power.

To help reduce the problem of not having enough power you can add capacitors

to act as a buffer that refills when you aren't drawing as much power.

I've also got a number of different offensive and defensive technologies

rolling around in my head, and will post them once I've got them sorted out.

OverseerDubb wrote:Andrew: Good direction with the different engine types.

I love the idea of supply lines. Ammo and Fuel can be shipped out in supply

ships but what we haven't talked about is repairs. Ships should be able to

repair minor damage to their systems on their own, repair crafts should be

able to increase this capacity and "dry dock" would be used to refit a ship

completly.

Rough example numbers and what not:
Ships crew only: ran repair 10% HP on components, as long as they have NOT

been destroyed.

Repair craft: 25% component HP, or 10% if component HAS BEEN destroyed

Dry dock: 100% repair.

Daniel: The style of your ship models will probably be decided on the type of

tech you take. If you play a run of the mill human type race then sure, NASA

style. Where as if you're the aliens from roswell...

Lots and lots of components with very specific uses to encourage diversity.

Also, It would probably be a pain to code, but I think if you attach a turret

to a hull, it should not just add 5% to stats but be have its own values. But

hey, we're just dealing with rough ideas anyway

Andrew #2: Excellent. Though I'd like to insert a comment here: The engine

should not be the power supply. Seperating the two lets you have more gear

combinations (and possible trade offs) and more research!

Polysoup wrote:I've also got a number of different offensive and defensive

technologies rolling around in my head, and will post them once I've got them

sorted out

Keep it coming! I'm glad I didn't post that massive wall of text for nothing



Oh and try and think of pros and cons for them, like armour plating is great

BUT it sure is heavy! Or, shields use a lot of power and don't take much

damage compared to armour, but they have a very low mass and recharge

themselves.

PolySoup wrote:Offensive and Defensive Technologies
There are 3 basic methods to deliver damage: Shot, Launched, and Beamed. Shot

includes all weapons that behave like to guns and mass-drivers. Launched

includes all guided and unguided self-propelled weapons. Beamed includes all

weapons that travel at or near light-speed and thus are effectively instant-

hit. There may be exceptions to these, but not many.

Each delivery method can be countered with a specific type of defence.

Shields protect against Beam weapons, Point-Defence protects against Launch

weapons (this includes countermeasures like chaff and flares), and Deflectors

protect against Shot weapons. Armour protects against all types (with

possible exceptions). Basically each defence will either (1) have a chance to

cause what would have been a hit to miss (Deflector, Point-Defence vs single

missile), or (2) reduce the damage potential before it hits the armour

(Shield, Point-Defence vs swarm of missiles). It may be possible at higher

tech levels for Deflectors and Shields to do both.

The product of this will be that Armour is the cheap and heavy way to protect

a ship, while all other forms of defence are expensive and light, but require

power (and possibly ammo for Point-Defence) to operate.

ECM instead of affecting only missiles as in most games, would instead work

against ships that were trying to target a ship with active ECM, making it

harder to get missile lock, to aim accurately, and to identify sub-systems.

Active ECM would however have a negative effect on the ships own sensors (but

not to the same degree), and would also make it easier to detect (but not

target) with long-range sensors (this may be important later when I add my

take on Intel and Espionage). The effects of ECM on targeting and sub-system

identification can be countered with ECCM.

OverseerDubb wrote:Shields in Nexus: The Jupiter incident were pretty

cool. It seemed like they had a damage threshold where if the weapon did not

hit above it, it was blocked completely and drained power from the shield and

dropped the threshold, thereby dropping the effectiveness of the shields

until they recharged.
Weapon hits that do damage above the threshold have their damage split,

anything up to the threshold is blocked with the rest hitting the hull. The

effectiveness is dropped as before.

Pax Imperium also had a take on energy fields. They had "screens", "shields"

and "fields".
Screens blocked all damage, but only by a limited % (20%, 30%, 35% etc).
Shields blocked beamed weapons (as you put it) up to the shields HP, then

they collapsed.
Fields blocked everything 100% until they ran out of HP, but, seeing as they

were WAY WAY up the tech tree this rarely ever happened. PS, really cool

graphics for shields and weapon strikes hehe

I like your idea better than the Pax one, but its good to have a broad set of

examples! Also, I think that shields that protect against multiple damage

types should only be given to a race that takes a specific racial trait (like

the "advanced" trait mention earlier on). This race would have better tech-

level equivalent shields than other races, but would put less importance on

other defences. Fast, light ships that are ultimately soft without their

technology. Having these guys as your best friends could lead to valuable

component trade...

PolySoup wrote:ECM instead of affecting only missiles as in most games,

would instead work against ships that were trying to target a ship with

active ECM, making it harder to get missile lock, to aim accurately, and to

identify sub-systems. Active ECM would however have a negative effect on the

ships own sensors (but not to the same degree), and would also make it easier

to detect (but not target) with long-range sensors (this may be important

later when I add my take on Intel and Espionage). The effects of ECM on

targeting and sub-system identification can be countered with ECCM.

Thats a bunch of extra internal components to make up.. wait.. that just

blossomed into a bunch of ideas, like a specific design of ship that is

LOADED with comms gear, to the point of no weapons

oh and is it just me, or has espionage been really weak in most games? How

would a radically different social structure effect what you "know" about

espionage?

The Flying Monk wrote:Dubb, That's sort of what I meant. Small turrets

would have their own stats. Just that lots of small greably turrets mounted

to the outside shouldn't add a massive increase in overall DPS.

Espionage could be interesting. Having a vastly different society or

worldview could cause a big difference in expected outcomes.
Say your spies get some info and think there is a massive fleet over at

planet X. This gets marked on your map in gray, showing that its speculative

not actually seen on sensors. The better your espionage rating and the more

you understand the other society there more accurate this is.

This could also lead to new tech like better cryptography or quantum point to

point communication.

OverseerDubb wrote:

The Flying Monk wrote:
Espionage could be interesting. Having a vastly different society or

worldview could cause a big difference in expected outcomes.
Say your spies get some info and think there is a massive fleet over at

planet X. This gets marked on your map in gray, showing that its speculative

not actually seen on sensors. The better your espionage rating and the more

you understand the other society there more accurate this is.

This could also lead to new tech like better cryptography or quantum point to

point communication.

Very cool idea, fog of war but with bad intel

Espionage missions ranging from basic population data to sabotaging the

planetary defence grid! Or even IFF codes for a fleet (codes that would

expire at an unkown time from when you get them based on the owners own

espionage/security tech level).

PolySoup wrote:Both of those are excelent ideas.

Recently I've been thinking of Intel at the solar system level. This is based

on two things. The first is that space is usually cold and quiet. The second

is that spaceships tend to be loud and hot. Almost everything on a spaceship

will produce either heat or EM noise, if not both.

Mass Effect inspired a solution to the heat problem, which is to have

thermal mass built into the ship (as an optional component naturally). This

can be used to absorb excess heat from the ship until the themal mass becomes

too hot, and then it starts to cook the ship from the inside out. At this

point the ship would need to resume using it's normal heat dispersal methods

and would shine brighter on IR than it normally would. Now generally this

thermal mass would not be large enough for a ship to stay cold while running

engines, but consider the following:

What if, rather than performing a normal interplanetary transit burn (running

engines all the way), the ship only accelerated for the first quarter of the

trip? While it would take longer, it could use it's thermal mass to stay cold

until the final deceleration burn, giving the defenders far less time to

organise a defence. This could translate to some sort of position or

initiative bonus during the battle. Assuming that the defenders did not

notice the initial burn, that is. It should be noted that the initial burn

would be harder to detect anyway, as it it further away from the destination,

and pointed in the wrong direction to be easily spotted.

So that covers heat, what about noise? Every active high energy device on the

ship is going to produce some sort of EM noise. Some devices, like energy

weapons, will obviously not be active while in transit, but others, like the

active sensors, are needed to ensure a safe journey. Normally during transit

active sensors are used to detect any pieces of space junk (natural or

artificial) that might strike the ship so that the ship can use anti-junk

point defence weapons to deflect or destroy these dangerous projectiles.

While these bits of junk might be infrequently encountered, they can really

put a damper on your day when they hit your hull at (relative) fractional

light-speed. What I suggest is that ships that want to run quiet can turn off

their active sensors, but should run a small risk each turn that they might

be struck by space junk and damaged (or possibly destroyed for smaller

ships).

By combining the two you could run build a strike fleet that tries to drop in

cold and quiet to gain enough of an advantage that they can take down an

otherwise superior force. As technology increases there would be a number of

improvements to the above, for example once you have deflectors you could

turn you active sensors off, but leave the deflectors on and while you'll be

a little noiser, you would be immune to space junk.

OverseerDubb wrote:Is re-entering a system from FTL "noisy" like in

freespace / battletech? Knowing that something just jumped into your space is

not the same thing as knowing where they are in 5 minutes from now.

Sensor specialist racial trait? I love this theory crafting hehe

PolySoup wrote:If we use Jumpline FTL, are the ends of a line fixed to a

physical location (Freespace, Pax), or are they just associated with a star?

Another way to ask this question is can a fleet blockade a Jumpline, or can a

fleet jump from one system to another with minimal chance of interception?

Alternatively you could have a system where Jumplines are connected to stars

and have no fixed location (possibly a jump orbit instead?) but Jumpdrives

could require time between jumps to recharge (this might only work well if

turns were about the one turn per day scale).

What about civilian traffic? Will there be actual ships that run trade routes

(a bit like GalCiv) or will they be abstracted? If trade ships actually move

around systems and between stars then you might be able to disguise some

military ships to use for commerce raiding, scouting, or deep strike

operations.

If jumps do not arrive at a single point, border control becomes more

interesting. Borders become limited to individual worlds and wherever you can

quickly get ships/sensors to. In a high traffic system you could be getting

multiple jump signatures every turn, making it harder to ID everyone that

jumps in. On the other hand, many border worlds or small R&D worlds would not

have as much traffic, making it easier to investigate every jump detected.

To help with border patrol, you could build (on one or more planets in a

system perhaps) some sort of customs or patrol base. This would be a civilian

agency that is outside of your direct control that tries to intercept any

ships entering the system to enforce taxes, check for contraband, etc. They

would also engage any pirates or hostile privateers they encountered. They

would not engage hostile military ships unless they were the last line

of defense.

fonucmo wrote:with the civilian traffic, you could also have hire

privateers and have all the stuff associated with piracy

OverseerDubb wrote:Firstly I think default FTL should use Jumplines

(adding that word to the firefox dictionary). Secondly, I think where you can

jump with default FTL should be based on your information level of a given

system.

Just say that every solar system has a Jumpline entrance/exit at the compass

points (N, E, S, W) at the edge of the stars gravity well. All races know

this, no dramas. Though, as you perform detailed surveys of the suns *insert

made up name here* field you can uncover, as battletech calls them, pirate

points. These points could be anywhere, with the most handy (for invaders,

smugglers and pirates alike) being in places that obscure sensor readings.
How you get this information could be via surveys, intelligence gathering or

espionage.

As for civilian traffic, I would love to see tonnes of it. Colonies should

look alive and busy! Oh and I love that border patrol idea.

fonucmo wrote:with the civilian traffic, you could also have hire

privateers and have all the stuff associated with piracy

Military action without association or consequence

OverseerDubb wrote:Ok, we need some resource model and civ building ideas

(i'm not referring to types of resources, but rather how they are gathered).

I've got some, but I'd like to see your takes on it.

PolySoup wrote:I can think of two basic economy models, stockpile and

flow. Stockpile is the standard affair, you collect resources and they are

stockpiled until needed and then spent like currency. Starcraft is an example

of this type. Flow is more like a river, where you can use up to the flow in

resources per turn. Supreme Commander is both, at least in the early and mid

game.

OverseerDubb wrote:Ok, a revisit to:

2.9 Civilization Building
================

First things first. Making up terminology is defiantly not my strong suit.

Instead of placing individual buildings on a planet (as in Galactic Civs 2)

or dumb it down to Mines and Factories (as in Stars!), I propose this:
You locate a site where you wish to build a colony, you bring a survey team

to the site and run a preliminary scan which shows 2 things.
1) How suitable the site is for a colony. This is determined by, first

your base racial type and secondly the technologies you have at your

disposal. Eg a reptile race would do well on a warm dry world…
2) A basic list of minerals available.
The suitability of the site covers how quickly your population will grow and

how many “zones” you can build. The population count will determine the

production capacity of your “zones”.

Zones are my answer to developing colonies. Just think of a colony like a

city in most RPGs where you have an artisans quarter, a merchants quarter or

a nobles quarter.
The example zones I’ve conjured up and what they produce are:

Population Center
Basic idea: This a zone dedicated to increasing you colonies population limit

and increasing your growth rate.
Produces: Population
Needs: $$$, Generic manufactured components.

Mining Sector
Basic idea: A zone dedicated to mining minerals. A mining zone has a limit on

the maximum amount of minerals it can mine in a turn/week/year (whatever).

Inspecting its details would give you access to the list of minerals (both

rare and common) that you have discovered (extended survey missions could

have a chance of finding more) and their concentrations. At that screen you

should be able to click a check box (or something) on each mineral (mine / do

not mine). Deselecting a mineral would increase the rate at which all other

minerals are mined. A mineral can not be mined at a rate faster than its

concentration.
Produces: Raw minerals
Needs: Generic manufactured components, population.

Industrial Sector
Basic idea: This zone takes raw minerals from mining sectors and refines them

and produces generic manufactured components. These components are used by

other zones to either aid in their function or to build specific items

(Complete ships and ship components for trade).
Produces: Generic manufactured goods, refined minerals.
Needs: Raw minerals, population.

Military Sector
Basic idea: This is a zone that serves two purposes, the first takes

population and produces trained military personnel (these are used to staff

your fleets) and secondly to build, repair and resupply your ships.
Produces: Trained population (different types eg, spies, marines, regular

crews), ships, ammunition, fuel.
Needs: $$$, Generic manufactured components, population, refined minerals.

Research Zone
Basic Idea: An enormous instillation dedicated to research
Produces: Prototype ship components (eg a single, immensely powerful laser

that uses a ridiculous amount of power. Later generations are weaker but have

acceptable power draw), new technologies.
Needs: $$$, Generic manufactured components, population, refined minerals.

Economic zone
Basic idea: A zone filled with spaceports and shops.
Produces: Trade, $$$, culture?, Generic manufactured components, refined

minerals, raw minerals, $$$, ships, ammunition, fuel.
Needs: Generic manufactured components, population, refined minerals, raw

minerals, $$$, ships, ammunition, fuel.

The basic idea of this is that you need to be build to a rough idea of what

you want your civ to do (well until you get enough territory to do it all).

To avoid “chicken before the egg” problems, we’ll make your home planet have

all of the above zones to start with.

NOTE: All zones should have tonnes of tweakable settings. They should work

fine by default, but if you need extra of a certain product you should be

able to change the manufacture settings.

So that is my idea, come forth with new ideas, tear this to bits, complicate

it more or even just add to it.


EDIT


On the topic of supply lines:
You Build a zone and then you link its out-put to a different zone. Civilian

traffic then ships it to its destination. A linked zone does not need to be

on the same colony, in fact I like the idea of pushing all your low level

products to your front line in order to build reinforcements quicker.

On the topic of other peoples supply lines. Should you be able to interrupt

the civilian traffic with pirates or even strike craft (fighters)? Sneak a

carrier group into a system and move them just into range of the supply lines

and disrupt them for a turn with your fighters before you slip back into

hiding?

OverseerDubb wrote:Ok, so now some less game idea stuff and more fluff

kind of stuff.

Basic "Laws of the Universe" Dun-DUN-dah! What kind of cool stuff from

various settings have you seen? Should they apply to our setting?

-How do shields work? Are they bubbles, are they "skin" tight?

-How does interstellar communications work? Are they instant? Are they just

less than instant or are they slow (but faster than light) or are they

limited to the speed of light? Do they use faster than light pulses that

travel in a straight line (as the crow flies)? Do they use a different layer

of space (like startrek)? Do they use wormholes?

-How does run of the mill FTL work? Do you travel in real space (star trek)?

Do you make a wormhole (star wars. You fall out of hyperspace without

propulsion)? Or do you access a different layer of space (Freespace style)?

Or do you fold space and time and pop from one spot to another (battlestar)?

-Can you copy and paste "a brain" from one body to a cloned one?

-Death & diesease?

-Can you compile matter from energy (in a useful manner)?

-Are there any mystical beings or objects (read: gods / magic items)? Or are

there only technologically supreme beings and items(read: godlike / advanced

devices)?

-Is there a mystical energy field? Or.. well none? “I've seen a lot of

strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one

all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field

controls my destiny.”

Um, got any more?
-

OverseerDubb wrote:

PolySoup wrote:I can think of two basic economy

models, stockpile and flow. Stockpile is the standard affair, you collect

resources and they are stockpiled until needed and then spent like currency.

Starcraft is an example of this type. Flow is more like a river, where you

can use up to the flow in resources per turn. Supreme Commander is both, at

least in the early and mid game.

I like the supreme commander model as it feels more like and "empires

industry". I mean the government doesn't stockpile all of australias

resources, it takes what it needs from both its own operations and civillian

ones. Flow seems a resource potential at any given point

What do you think of having a resource flow count (a seperate count for

minerals, ammo, fuel etc) for each colony so you can use supply lines to

forward resources to other colonies to boost their flow levels?

OverseerDubb wrote:Some more thoughts that I've been having:

Boarding actions

Two new lines of ship components.
1) Boarding Pods/Boarding pod bays and docking colars for direct ship to ship

docking.
2) Marine barracks and other internal defences

Boarding actions could have various levels of success:
Complete failure
Component Sabotage (damaged, but not destroyed ie Offline)
Component Destruction (put in at dry dock for a refit)
Complete success (all enemy crew neutralised

My question with this is should a boading party be able to commandeer an

enemy ship (at a very basic level of functionality) ie engines and

navigation?

Planetary bonuses

I've been playing a lot of Empire at War in the past few days, and it got me

thinking about planetary bonuses. I wonder, if crew and ships can become

unique units, why not planets? Most Sci-Fi settings have planets/colonies

that are a little more specialized than others of its type...
Two ways I can think of doing this (and they aren't mutually exclusive, in

fact they work very well together actually) are:

1)The planet itself has some unique feature that lends itself to a particular

zones function. Some random examples:

Beautiful beaches - Economic zones (tourists) - Sci-Fi example: Zegema Beach

in Starship Troopers
Abundant Surface minerals - mining zone
Unusual ruins - Research zone

2)The colony itself becomes a "character". Just say that you super specialise

a colony, like you turn 3/4 of its available space into one type of zone,

then it should have a chance (over time) to become famous for that type of

product/service and get a bonus for it. Random examples from different

settings:

Kuat Ship yards - Starwars - One of 5 planets with the infrastructure capable

of building Imperator class Star Destroyers (and up)
Vulcan - Star trek - A center of logic and learning
Coruscant - Star wars - people factory!

Its at this point that most of my examples from the starwars setting (lol),

and I'll leave it there.