Untitled

+++General

Accretion will be a trading and empire-building game loosely inspired by anno and total war, with a little bit of star baron thrown in. Planets will be colonized to produce materials and goods, which can then be used for ship building and population growth.  In later stages, the player must compete with Ai players, with the final goal of controlling the universe.

 

  As described below, the universe is organized into groupings of planets, stars, then galaxies.  Gameplay starts with a single solar system, in which the player learns the controls, and starts their first settlement.  They soon build their first ships, and begin to colonize nearby planets. As they improve, they're soon able to build or capture their first interstellar ship, which allows them to spread to nearby stars.  Meanwhile, their system is periodically attacked by mauraders and other passerby.  Improved sensors allow them to detect threats well before they arrive.  Defense satellites,

 

+++Game field

The 'board' will consist of a variety of objects nested into interconnected groups.  The lowest level will be planets; each one is unique, featuring a random selection of ores and other resources that can be processed.  Habitable planets will be able to support colonization, which allows for personel training/etc.  Planets like gas giants will be difficult to process, but at high tech levels it may be possible to extract some resources from them.  Occasionally the player may find a planet composed entirely out of a specific metal, such as aluminum.  These will be valuable to player and npc alike. Many planets may include their own moons, which orbit the planet itself.  These can be colonized, but they're treated as part of the planet itself.

 

The next level of abstraction is the solar system.  Each star has it's own unique name (Ie 'Sedna'), and planets in that system are automatically named after it alphabetically (ie 'Sedna A' 'Sedna B'). An exeption to this rule is for habitable worlds which have their names changed based on order of colonization.  If 'Sedna C' was colonized, it would become 'Sedna Prime'; the next one would be 'Sedna Minor', 'Tertiary' etc.  Unless more tokens can be found the habitable count should be limited to three or so. Rocky planets with a certain atmosphere density and composition could be made habitable; for example a teraformer could be built that converts nitrous oxide into breathable air, or by importing/exporting atmosphere you can make pressures habitable. Factors like temperature, air pressure, gasses, gravity, etc could be factored into a 'habitability' index that makes new colonization more likely.  Habitability affects growth, allowing you to tailor a planet for better results.  Once you have the excess resources, terraforming would go from a time consuming super project, to a simple affair.  At later stages, mega ships and mass drivers could change a planets gravity, or even move entire worlds from one system to another.  If a gas giant reaches a certain size, it could be collapsed into a star, changing the habitability of nearby planets.

 

The next layer is the galactic scale.  Here, stars are grouped by the players that own them (excluding 'disputed territories' in which the planets of a star are owned by different players). As a galaxy is taken over, it can be treated as a single unit with relevant statistics derived from the star systems below as well as any trade routes. Smaller groups can be linked with trade routes, merging them into bigger and bigger clusters.

 

The final layer is the universal scale; here the galaxies and their owners are shown, and intergalactic fleets and gates can be managed.  The player can select a galaxy to view its total production numbers, and organize resource transfers between galaxies.  Once production is maxed out, colonization becomes trivial, and you can bring colosal amounts of resources to bear on a target.

 

The atomic unit of the game is the planet; A typical star system may average about 5 of them.  A galaxy may average about 20-50 stars, and the universe may contain about 100 galaxies.  This gives totals of about 5000 stars, and 25000 planets to play with.  Since each planet must be updated frequently, this would create a huge amount of overhead and micromanagement.  The solution is to make as much of it automated as possible, and limit the player to delegation and management of specific groups.  Production would happen on a galactic basis using internal tables to calculate the total production for all planets/stars in that system.  Once the player zoomed in on that system, these values would be applied appropriately to the child stars, and then to the individual planets beyond that.  If a player is centered on a planet, the game would only need to update the 5 planets, the 40 sister stars, and the 99 galaxies.  This means about 140 objects need updated, instead of 25000, about 180x faster than the nieve case.  Throw in the reduced overhead of skipping orbits and stuff, and the savings are closer to 1000x.  Trading is negotiated within the sphere of influence; galactic, stellar, and planetery craft move goods within a system.  Galactic and stellar craft move goods between stars, and galactic craft move between galaxies.  Each ship is unable to leave it's sphere unless it's docked with a craft of the appropriate grade.

 

+++Graphics

 On planetary scale, the planets are shown orbiting their host stars, which are centered on the screen.  At normal speed, their motions are barely perceptible; at higher speeds, they orbit quite noticably, with little trails tracing their paths.  The position is based on pre-cached orbit info, and a game-wide time index; this allows the position to be calculated dynamically as needed, instead of trying to apply kinematics to 25000 objects every 50ms.  This same principle applies to stars in a galaxy as well, but at a much slower pace.  On the universal scale, the expansion of space is assumed to be small enough that no animation is needed.

 

Planets may be rendered based on their statistics; metallic worlds could be gray, while gas giants would reflect their composition.  Same with stars, asteroids, warp gates and any other stuff that makes it's way in. The resource assignment/star+planet generation is done as needed; an uninhabited galaxy will appear as a generic galaxy until it's actually explored, at which point stars get generated, and then planets beyond that.  This greatly reduces overhead, since planets only need to be generated every few seconds or minutes, instead of a huge batch of 25k at the start of a game. Generation is limited based on the statistics of the parent object, and more details are added beyond that.  For example, a galaxy may start out with the stats 'mass, luminance, composition (ie metallic, gaseous with nebulae), and age' massive galaxies may contain more stars, while older ones would be more likely to contain rarer elements.

 

Once a galaxy is explored, the general stats are divied up among a variety of stars and other objects so that the system as a whole reflects the initial stats.  For each star, additional stats are layered on like planet count, habitablity, etc.  Finally, once a star is viewed the individual planets are generated with specific ores, orbits, etc.  From this information, the graphic representation can be generated.

 

+++Resources

A fundamental concept is resources.  The most basic elements are natural resources like metals and ores, as well as other stuff like hydrocarbons and water.  These are generated along with each planet when needed, as described above. Resources can be extracted using factories and drilling facilities.  These resources can then be sent to other worlds for processing and use.  Some res will be usable as-is; eg a planet with a methane atmosphere would just need an atmospheric extractor.  Other resources may be tiered based on difficulty of extraction:

 

Consider the resource 'iron'.  A planet may contain 500k tons of Tier 0 material, 5000k tons of Tier 1, and 50m tons of Tier 2.  Tier 0 is material that is easy to extract, such as large nuggets on the surface.  The mining equipment is cheap, the production rate is high, and the material is easy to process.  Tier 1 is harder to access, such as deep seams in the crust, or perhaps mineralized with other material.  Extraction rate would be lower than Tier 0, and the material would require extra processing.  To match Tier 0 production, you would need to invest in much more capital such as extra factories, or special equipment that boosts the rate.  Tier 2 is even worse.

 

Not all resources are equal; most planets would have some amount of tier 2 resources, 1 would be rarer, and 0 would be rarest of all most planets would have some amount of tier 1 aluminum, but tier 0 would be pretty rare. Because of the production and processing bonuses, mining selection would be dictated by the presence of tier 0's. Mining facilies would be limited to their tier and below; a t0 facility would be limited to t0 ore, but could be upgraded to t1.  The new t1 would be able to extract t1 ore, as well as t0 at a higher rate. Same with t2 extractors.  Regardless of level, extraction would focus on lowest tier first; once all t0 ore is gone, t1 is next, then t2, etc.

 

Production would yield different grades of ore, such as Grade C, Grade A, Grade S, etc.  As the grade improves, the volume decreases, as well as the time and energy to process into pure metal at a refinery. This eases transport requirements and further increases the value of tier 0 worlds.  

 

+++Ships

  Ship building is critical to gameplay, and management is similar to that of planets.  Ships can be for combat, freight, personel, or exploration; some are mixed, and each can be customized.  Ships can be grouped into fleets, which allows them to act as a single unit that has the sum of their parts plus a suitable tactical bonus based on composition.

 

  Speed varies with model, and may include a tier system as well.  The simplest ships are able to travel between planets, but sending them to other stars would take a very long time; galaxies would take hours or even days to travel to in real time.  Interstellar and galactic gates could be built as shortcuts, and would have great strategic value that reflects their cost.  The next tier of ship would allow travel between stars, and would be an order of magnitude faster than the lower tier.  They would also be more difficult to produce and may require special research, resources or facilities.  Able to control a galaxy, they'd be the bread and butter of an armada.  The final tier would be intergalactic craft, able to quickly travel between galaxies.  Besides basic combat and transport capacities, they would serve mainly as ship carriers.  Instead of sending a dozen of them to a nearby galaxy, you would load up a carrier with an assortment of interstellar craft along with a few escorts.  In a combat scenario, the convoy would release their craft creating a more powerful fleet.  After the engagement, the remaining ships would salvage any resources left behind, redock, then resume the trip.  In a worse case scenario, the carrier(s) may be destroyed, leaving the children ships stranded.  They would need to either be retrieved by a new t2 carrier, make a very long trip home, or possibly attempt to repair the destroyed vessel.  If personel are engineered to require resources to survive, they may be able to convert salvaged resources into a self-sustaining outpost that will keep them until help arrives.  For this purpose, a battle would generate a permanent wreckage field that could be 'mined' until depletion.  A blown up ship would spill a portion of its cargo into the field, as well as hull materials, engine parts, and other things that get added to the pool.  Some could be used as-is while others could be scrapped into generic material to be processed into whats needed.

 

  Ship speed is based on the engine(s) types and capacity. The mass of the craft, cargo, and attachments are weighed against the total, and the final speed is derived.  Overloading a craft reduces the final speed significantly, while an empty ship with light materials will move much faster.  Items have both weight which factors against the engine, and bulk which factors against space limits.  Thus a ship filled to capacity with lead will be much slower than the same ship filled with wood.

 

  Although each ship has its information and loadout maintained on an individual basis, management will be done by grouping them into fleets.  A fleet will behave as a 'super ship' with stats derived from its components.  The carrying capacity (bulk and weight) will be the sum of its ships, and attack/defense will be the sum multipled by a 'tactical ratio' based on the number and type of each ship. The movement speed will be limited to its slowest member.  Docking the slower ships into a faster carrier will boost this speed appropriately by docking the slowest ships first.  A fleet will operate in 3 modes.  The simplest is 'port mode' this occurs when a fleet is at a planet or other facility.  The ships are undocked from any carriers, and each member is added to the facilities' ship pool.  At lower zoom levels, the fleet is not integrated into the target pool, but maintains it's structure until you zoom that close. Low zoom is equivalent to the next mode, 'travel'.  In travel mode, slower ships are docked into faster carriers to get the speed bonus.  A docked ship has no attack or defense ability, but it's cargo counts toward the total fleet number, except in the case of special 'open' carriers (see below).  The final mode is attack mode, where all ships are undocked and the full attack power is maximized.  Movement speed is limited to the slowest member, but since combat is close quarters, this is a moot point.  Switching between attack and travel mode takes time so this can slow down travel between bodies if there is an attack.  Switching between port mode and either of the others is negligible, so there is no time penalty when defending a settlement.  Planets inheirit the capabilities of any ship in their pool, making planetary defense more managable.

 

  Fleets performing regular trips between two points will have 2 modes.  Group mode limits the fleet to the speed of its slowest member, while convoy mode allows all ships to function independently.  Convoy delivers goods faster, but has a much smaller attack/defense bonus.  Although movement is independent, the fleet itself can still be managed like a single ship.  In group mode, the game calculates a way point that matches the speed of the slowest ship.  When switching to convoy, all ship disregard this point, and aim for the target instead.  Switching back to group mode causes the faster ships to stop at the next waypoint and wait for any ships in transit to catch up.  They then move as a group to the next waypoint where they rejoin any waiting ships.  The 'current point' is dictated by the slowest member of the largest subgroup of ships. Switching back to convoy while regrouping causes all members to select the next waypoint in the sequence.

 

  A special class of ships is the carrier, a special class that can absorb smaller ships in a fleet, and can be used to haul slower ships that couldn't make the trip on their own.  They come in two types, 'closed' and 'open'.  A closed carrier acts like a flying hangar in which ships are kept inside and away from danger.  Ships docked inside a closed carrier have their attack and defense removed from the fleet pool, and their bulk and weight are counted against the carriers capacity.  In an attack, a docked ship does not incur any damage from outside sources unless the carrier gets destroyed in which they take a random amount of damage from the death as well as some residual from the attacking shot, although special weapons may be able to target them directly.  If a ship is destroyed within a carrier, it damages its host as well.

 

  In an 'open' carrier, the ships are attached to the outside of the craft.  And open carrier has a lower bulk/weight, higher speed, and less health. The docked ships are able to fire on attackers with any onboard weapons, but they are also able to take damage as well, protecting the carrier.  The mass of the ships count against the carriers engines, but not their bulks.  The carrier/children are treated as a single ship with their attack and defense counted towards a single total.  If the 'super ship' takes a hit, a child ship is randomly selected based on its bulk, and it takes the full hit individually.  If the carrier is relatively unloaded, it's more likely to take the hit instead.  When an open carrier is destroyed, it's children take less splash damage than if they were inside.  It may be possible to 'automatically unload' if a carriers destruction in imminent.  In this case, open carriers would unload faster than closed ones. When switching from travel to attack mode, it is not necessary to unload an open carrier unlike a closed one.  A final 'swarm mode' may be used to guarantee that all ships are undocked in order to get the highest tactical bonus.

 

  To make the toggling and combat automated, a fleet may have a special 'tolerance' slider that controls when a fleet changes mode.  At it's lowest setting, a fleet will always enter swarm mode at the first sign of attack, and at it's highest, it will always maintain travel mode, in an effort to get away.  In between, it will decide based on the relative strengths of the two sides.

 

  During a combat scenario, the ships are separated into three groups; unarmed and cargo ships are moved to the rear of the formation, where they are less likely to be attacked.  Long range, weaker and slower ships are moved to the middle; they protect the rear and support the front line.  They stay with the fleet. The final group are the forward attackers.  They have the highest attack power, defense, and speed and are always military type ships.  They first engage the enemies attack line, and then proceed to the middle and then rear. If either side is left with no attack capability, and the other can attack, they have the option to surrender or flee.  If they are captured, their personel are killed and their ships/cargo can be comandeered.

 

  In battle, hits are counted against the target ships shields or armor which slowly regenerates over time.  As the armor decreases, a hit is more likely to incur specific damages like a loss of weapons or engines for a duration.  At higher damages, cargo may be leaked into the debris field, ship components converted into generic material, and personel losses.

 

 

+++Shipping

  Shipping routes will be configurable like anno, but will be more of a 'preference' than specific quantities.  A planet that produces mainly iron (95%), as well as a small amount of uranium(5%) for shipment to a nearby world would send the materials as a weighted ratio. If a transport with 1000t capacity came by, it would pick up 950t of iron and 50t of uranium.  However, if uran is given a priority, you could set the pickup to be 200t of uranium and 800t of iron.  Finally, there could be a priority system where the ship takes all the uran available (ie 480t) and pads the rest with iron (520t).  The next time the ship comes back, there may be 125t of uran, so it'd take that plus 875 iron.

 

  The shipping system will also support one-time-transactions such as 'take all of these engine parts asap'. Another important setup is scheduled delivery with adjustable buffers.  Consider a planet that recieves ore and converts it into ingots.  The input is 25t ore per tick, and output is 15t ingots.  You could set a buffer of say 500t ore; as the factory works, it draws material from this buffer.  A ship assigned to bring ore in would arrive at the mining planet and see that the buffer is 300t/500t, the consumption rate is 25t, and the time to travel back is 10 ticks.  At that rate the buffer would be 300t-10*25t = 50t when it gets there.  So it would collect 450t of ore, the minimum to maintain the buffer.  This would leave 550t for other materials for a 1000t freighter.

 

  Now say we add a second ship to the route, this one with a 2000t capacity, and 5 ticks of travel time.  The first ship would see that the new ship is faster, and would allow it to take priority.  This new ship would arive at the mining world, calculate 300t-5*25t = 150t, and would pick up 350t.  The slower ship would then relegate itself to non-priority goods.  When deciding which ship carries what, the priority goods are given to the fastest ships with the highest combat ability first.  If the ship carries all priority goods and has room left over, this gets padded with non-priority goods scheduled.  If the ship is full and p.goods are left over, then the remaining p.goods are assigned to the next ship in the queue.  

 

+++Time

  Game speed will be variable, and will have major effects on the game elements.  Planets and stars will orbit faster, ships speed up, and the production rates of planets will increase appropriately.  At 5x, a factory that produces 5 tons of goods per tick will instead produce 25 tons; this scaling allows the tick rate to remain constant, instead of trying to compute 5 times the load (ie adds 25t of goods instead of 5+5+5+5+5). Because of the large scale of the board, and the high number of actors, much will have to be automated. Planets will be able to expand their production automatically, requesting resources as needed.  On the stellar scale, planets will function as a single unit, with production and goods transport simulated from precached speed and capacity values.  Same for galaxies.  

 

+++Personel

  People will be able to colonize habitable worlds, as well as non-habitable areas if the tech and res are available.  Growth rates are limited by the area; earth like places have a high growth, while an space station would be very low due to the small space.  People consume resources like food and medicine, and populations share stats like total health and hunger.  As a settlement grows, the requirements increase to include new needs (eg education, entertainment).  If a lower need isn't met, growth rate is severely crippled.  As a population grows, new members will occasionally become a 'specialist'.  Initally, these are low-level employs like pilots and maintainence.  As the pop increases in level, these specialists become more common, and new ones are more likely.  A mid-level settlement might start producing scientists or engineers; these can then be transfered to other places for use on ships.  This makes the player focus development on a few main worlds, in order to improve their fleets and technology.  Having a single, large, well-funded colony allows for better tech and more specialists than several smaller colonies with the same total size.  An important class of people are soldiers, pilots, and gunners.  They work on battle ships and can invade settlements or hijack ships.  During combat, they each have a small chance of being 'promoted' to a higher class (ie 'veteran gunner') that improves the attack power of their ship.  A resulting strategy would be to use weaker ships to attack enemy fleets, then replace the new veterans with generic units. The veterans can then be transeferred to a more powerful ship, greatly increasing the attack, repair ability, etc.  Thus small, cheaper fleets can be sent to hunt small enemy fleets to boost veterancy for a main fleet.