G'day all,
Firstly, please indulge me the opportunity to introduce myself to you
all. I'm a work colleague of mithro's. I have taken an interest in this
project since I've been in the process of trying to write my own 4X game
for nearly 20 years. I've had to restart a few times for a variety of
reasons, and with the latest attempt I got to starting on the universe
generator system of it. Mithro suggested that I take that task on within
the tp community instead, and use tp as the engine for my game. I think
that's a good idea!
So, that's what this e-mail is really about. I'd like to canvass
opinions as to what to include within the universe system and how to
represent it.
My overall idea of some required attributes and structure is something
like the following (this would look nicer if done with a UML tool
graphically, but I'll limit it to text to save some space and also to
allow you all to insert comments!) - please note that I'm trying to be
very generic here to accommodate a wide variety of game structures:
Absolute top level is the Multiverse.
Multiverse contains:
1 or more Universes
Universe contains:
1 or more Galaxies
an identifier
an optional physics engine
an optional list of connection points to other Universes, with a
corresponding format for that connection
Galaxy contains:
1 or more Systems
1 or more Nebulae
1 or more dust clouds
a name or identifier
position/velocity information for the physics engine
System contains:
1 or more Orbital planes
a name or identifier
position/velocity information for the physics engine
Orbital planes contain:
1 or more Stars
1 or more Planets
0 or more starbases
position/velocity information for the physics engine
Stars contain:
Colour
Temperature
Density
Stability
Type
Radius
identifier
Planets contain:
Game-related data (population? industrial items?
shipyards/starbases/etc.? Occupying players?)
Identifier
0 or more moons
Physical attributes (e.g. radius, density, atmospheric contents,
surface contents, indigenous life forms, etc)
Description string
Moons contain:
Game-related data (population? industrial items?
shipyards/starbases/etc.? Occupying players?)
Identifier
Physical attributes (e.g. radius, density, atmospheric contents,
surface contents, indigenous life forms, etc)
Description string
Starbases contain:
Game-related data (population? industrial items?
shipyards/starbases/etc.? Occupying players?)
Identifier
0 or more moons
Physical attributes (e.g. radius, density, atmospheric contents,
surface contents, indigenous life forms, etc)
Description string
(in other words, starbases are like miniature artificial planets)
My idea is that individual games be able to specify planet (and moon and
starbase) attributes via the ruleset, along with an identifier as to the
type of attribute required. So, it might be an integer, with a maximum
value. This would be stored in some kind of hash table via the attribute
identifier, along with some mechanism of the game knowing what to do
with the attribute.
Because not all games are likely to support parallel universe kind of
structures, or even multiple galaxies (the game I've designed does,
which is why I want to go to that level), I'm proposing that the ruleset
specify the top-level that is needed. So, for the RFTS emulator, you'd
just need 1 galaxy as the top-level.
Parallel to all this is the arrangement of maps. Is the game 2D or 3D?
If it is 2D, is the map wrapped around or is it a flat plane? For
parallel universes, we could make it so you can actually define these
things on a universe-by-universe arrangement, so you can have some 3D
universes, and others 2D on a toroid or sphere surface, or whatever.
Of course, parts of this are going to be quite complex, while the actual
structure seems to me to be really rather straight forward. One of the
key architectural requirements may be that for the physics engine(s) we
may need to hook in a script or something, rather than defining it all
within the game - so we'd be developing an API for game writers to plug
their modules in.
Please feel free to let me know what you think of all of this -
including the data structure outlined above.
Thanks,
Jason
--
Jason Wandel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I'm going green: whenever I get an idea from now on, I'll have an energy
saver light come on over my head.
That'll keep Malcolm Turnbull happy!
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