Strategic Space Command

An idea in progress, developed by our own hypnotoad.

The concept is to take the enthusiasm built up by Tcl-programs like eggdrop, and channel the energy to constructive ends. The game is a real-time strategy game set in space. Players have a home base from which to command their fleet. They also have a massive factory/flagship to project force out into space.

In space radiation and the extreme forces of flight have pushed humans out of the cockpit of strike craft. Combat is now done between automated drones. Because they are often operating at create distances these drones are highly-autonomous. Limitations in the speed of light make it impossible to safely control a spacecraft remotely, the decisions have to be made on-board. The successful Admiral does very little commanding in a battle. Lets the other Admiral's automations overwhelm him.

Players must write their own AIs to

explore the Universe
go into combat
harvest the vast resources of space
defend territory
maintain diplomatic relations and trade

Updates:

Hi folks, judging by the extreme interest in the topic I'm putting together a development website. In the meantime I'll blab out here until I get the blog online.

Having done some VR work in Secondlife, I plan on stealing the concept of the event triggered state machine. The machines themselves will be objects within a pseudo-code framework that will be chomped into a more performance minded format at logical places like upload and download. Different events will be caught by specially named methods. (I'll be putting together a database of the various event types.) The event names internal to the system will have a ssc_event_ on the front of them. Internal system calls will be ssc_. (Subject to reinterpretation).

The game will operate like a stock market simulator. A Universal state will be calculated first. Each object in the system will get an opportunity to respond to the Universal state. Once the Universal State is calculated, an algorithm will determine what objects get initiative, and in what order. Initiative allows an object to change course, fire weapons, transmit a command, etc. Like Magic the Gathering there will be turn phases (still to be worked out). Certain commands can only be initiated in certain phases. I have to get a wee bit more in depth into combat and trade design before cementing that.

Objects that do not have initiative are given first crack at responding, though. Again, it'll be somewhere between Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons, with a little Star Fleet Battles thrown in.

Once initiative and combat resolve, damage is dealt. The effects of damage resolve, and damage control begins. An object that is destroyed is destroyed following an opportunity to perform damage control.

Because the idea is to simulate entire fleets worth of battles, the combat will be a bit simpler than BattleTech or Star Fleet Battles. We will also be using the random number generator a lot.

If I wasn't coloring on the floor with my three-year-old I'd quick bang out an outline.... Stay tuned.

escargo 21 May 2007 - There used to be a programming game called "Robot Wars", where people programmed robot tank combat. That name has now been obscured by the television show.

It might be a simpler place to start than a more complex game. (Simpler does not necessarily mean more worthwhile though.)

It does remind me of an AI for driving a Starweb game[1].

DKF: There was another fun game called Core Wars[2] with those sorts of properties.

TP Tcl version of Robot Wars, TclRobots [3] and the two TclRobot Net Challenges [4]

[MRE]: Sounds to me like an AI for the play-by-email (PBEM) game about space trading. Was it called Galaxy?

escargo 31 May 2007 - Starweb had some trading, and it was a play-by-mail (and now e-mail) game. I don't know anything about other games.

There are a few games with the word Galaxy in their names here: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/space.html

Zarutian 31. maí 2007: play-by-email (PBEM) is an interesting concept and indeed strategic space command also.

 hypnotoad: do you have the basic framework ready soon? I wanna try it out ;-)

AM (1 june 2007) That reminds me of "chess by mail" where two players would write letters (yes, those paper sheets with words written on them) to each other, containing at least the next move. The Dutch word is "correspondentieschaak", which has a rather cute ring to it, but I am unable to think of a better English equivalent than the above.

DKF: It's called "correspondence chess" in English; virtually the same as in Dutch. Obvious once you know. :-)

SDW: The backend is being written for a simpler "Tk Fishtank" application I'm writing for a class I'm teaching.

escargo 18 Oct 2007 - I hope you have some snails in the fish tank to help keep the algae down.

SDW 23 Oct 2007 - You mollusks are all about keeping the photoplankton down. Anywho, the course has a website (from which the engine can be downloaded) at: [5])

Category Discussion | Category Games