Hi Tom,
As for the time, it would depend on the developer's research and his way of
programming. You would have supplies that gradually burn away: food, fresh
water, fuel etc. You have the automatic professions as cooks like in
Castaways, may be even signalmen and sonar crew, then you have parts of the
crew you set parameters and they perform them until you change them or they
have to change because something happens in the game, such as engineers. For
example, you set the corse and speed, but the ship finds an enemy and you
want to get to the full speed to engage it, so you command them to do that.
Or the ship gets hit and you command them to find the damage on the engines
and then to repair it etc. And finally, there are those who have to be
commanded every time manually such as weapons crew. Prepare, load, aim,
fire. But in the meantime they are idle and, well, just spend resources.
Of course, there should be the speed parameter too, so that you can't
command the engine crew to set at full speed and remain that way forever,
because there is so called cruising speed that is some 30-40% less than the
full speed, but spends 50-60% less fuel, so when you go at full speed you
burn your fuel faster, and at cruising speed you travel more for the same
energy.
Then when the ship is, say, at 20% of the available resources there is a
warning and the player should call or find a supply ship or a friendly port
to replenish. If the ship is available to embark helicopters or is even an
aircraft carrier, there would be the aviation control. The dedicated crew
would be instructed to and a number of aircraft determined by the player
would take off, so the ship's attack, defence and search would be widenned,
but on the other hand the player shouldn't forget to instruct the crew to
refuel and replenish the aircraft before the takeoff or after landing back.
When the ship is hit, the firemen crew is instructed to neutralize fire at
the hit part of the ship, and the facilities on that ship's part would
malfunction or function with less quality or efficacy: water penetration
reduces speed, but the player shouldn't forget to command the engineers to
lower the speed or water would penetrate more quickly, some random crew
would be lost, weapons could malfunction and the weapons' crew could remain
idle, but as all the crew on a ship is trained to work on neutralizing fire
and helping in situations when the ship is hit, the weapons' crew can then
take jobs of the firemen, so when they help the firemen the number of ticks
to repair the damages is reduced.
It would be very complicated as a project even to imagine, but as I said
before, the concepts already exist in various games.
I hope that I was more detailed this time in terms of game mechanics and how
things work. I am glad that you are interested in the idea, so if you have
more questions regarding this, ask away. :)
Best!
Milos Przic
Twitter: MilosPrzic
Skype: Milosh-hs
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Ward" <thomasward1...@gmail.com>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] A rare one from me: an idea for a game based on
Castaways and Lone Wolf
Hi Milos,
I get that. I guess my last message wasn't clear as to what I'm
looking for. What I'm looking for is very detailed specifics on game
mechanics of how it works rather than just a generic outline of the
game.
For example, each crewmen on the ship has to have a job or a number of
jobs that falls in his or her jurisdiction. If so what tasks will each
crewmen carry out. If one is an engineer what would he or she do
besides standing around in the engine room drinking cups of coffee
playing poker with the other engineers? If a crewmen happens to be a
weapons tech responsible for loading and arming missiles and torpedoes
in a combat situation what does that crewmen do while not in a combat
situation? How many engineers, communication techs, weapons techs, etc
are required for any specific job?
My point here is that there is lots to think about and all you have
done to this point is give me a very broad outline for a game but have
not talked about the sorts of details one would need in order to code
it. That's the difference between ideas and coding them. There are
mechanics of how it is all suppose to work, good or bad consequences
if this or that happens, and a lot of details are required to make
something that actually works.
To give you an idea take Castaways. A hunter brings back a new kill
every so many ticks. The kind of details therefore a developer would
need to know is how many ticks should elapse between a new kill, how
long it will take for someone to skin it, etc before it can be cooked.
The same sort of concept holds true for your ship game. If there are
engine troubles how long will it take for your crew of engineers to
fix it. What is a reasonable amount of time to elapse between engine
problems and resolution. It is those sorts of details a developer
needs before he or she can begin coding a game.
Cheers!
---
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