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Hey everyone!
Here is the monthly update for Kinetic Void…
We have wrapped up the first wave of faction simulation, which is what was taking the longest in development time. It is also all code on the back end so we haven’t had much to show you. Matt has been heading up this system and here is what he has to say about it.
So lately I’ve been working on the faction system. Upon galaxy creation, a specified number of factions are inserted into the galaxy. They are given a starting system and then given a chance to expand so that each faction starts with a good number of systems under their control. Each faction has traits as proficiency in trade, war, and diplomacy. The starting values are determined traits set in txt files saved in the Factions directory so that users can tweak the feel of their factions, or create their own. Standings between factions are randomized to begin with.
Each simulation phase, factions collect resources and money from the systems they control and decide how to use it. They can expand trade fleets, their military, or invest in improving their owned solar systems. They can declare war and invade the systems of other factions. If they’re powerful or lucky enough, they can win that system for themselves. If not, they may try to establish a peace treaty. There are still many features I want to implement into this simulation (such as trade routes), but I hope this is a good start to a living galaxy for the player to experience.
This has been in the works longer than any of our other systems and with its complexity, I hope, explains the time its taken. Now we move on to some final touches for playability, interface, control, save state and a couple other minor things and then we will be go for alpha, I anticipate the release of alpha some time around mid, to late march. On the positive side of things, I will be able to start showing video of gameplay again, so expect our video logs to start up again!
Thank you for your patience I know everyone is getting excited. We are too!
Please check out our website at http://www.BadlandStudio.com and our steam store page at http://store.steampowered.com/app/227160
Awesome! I look forward to your video logs!
Yeah video logs sound awsome. Do you guys have a Youtube Channel one can subscribe to?
Keep up the good work guys, really looking forward to the game.
yes he dose here is a link to one of there vids so u can subscribe to him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YTqwBvxVWw
love it! It sounds like living in simms of a solar empire ;D
Can’t wait to see how its looking now.
EDIT: I’ll ad this info to the wikipedia page.
"The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund BurkeHave you guys played Europa Universalis? Would be pretty cool to see some of the elements of that get in here. Specifically, the “core” system, where each nation has specific provinces (or in this case, systems/planets) that it considers to be the core of it’s empire. The core areas produce much more resources than non-core areas, and if one of them is taken by another faction, they get a ”causus belli” (aka Just Cause) for going to war with that faction to take it back. New provinces can become cores if they’re owned for long enough (50 years in EU3), or by special events (ie: border disputes can give you cores on other people’s provinces).
Perhaps most importantly if a nation becomes completely conquered by another nation, then their cores will still be around, and if rebels manage to take control of those areas, then the conquered nation can re-appear wherever it has cores. This helps a lot with making the game more dynamic, with countries rising, falling, and re-surfacing many years later, whereas normally when a nation is destroyed, they’re just gone.
Other things might also make for interesting additions, for example:
Infamy: You gain infamy when you conquer provinces and a few other actions. High infamy causes other countries to dislike you, and if you go over a certain limit, everyone starts declaring war on you and other really bad things happen, like huge revolts.
Prestige: You gain prestige when you win battles/wars, lose it when you lose battles/wars, and it gives bonuses to almost everything you do. Some actions cost prestige, for example expanding your area of influence.
Monarch Power: This is something introduced in EU4, which hasn’t released yet, but basically it’s a system where your ruler (not necessarily a monarch) is rated 1-9 on Military, Diplomacy, and Administration, and gets points each month to spend on those fields. They can use those points to build structures, research tech, recruit generals, and lots of other things. Basically, it means that if you have a really good ruler, you can do all sorts of stuff to make your country more powerful, but if your ruler is weak, then you can fall behind.
Vassals: In addition to simply conquering your enemies, you can also force them to become your vassal, which means they have to do everything you say, help you with your wars, and pay you half their income. This can be better than straight-out conquering them, since you don’t have to worry about revolts from not having cores, and since the area is probably core for your vassal, they can administrate it more efficiently, and you may even get more money out of it than if you had annexed them.Obviously adding all of this would be too much to do, at least for a release version, but maybe you can use simplified versions of a few of these. Infamy, for example, seems like it could be fairly easy to implement.
On the topic of trade, there’s also a new trade system that’s being introduced with EU4, which is a vast improvement over their old system, and might help give you ideas on how to implement your own trade system. We don’t know all the details yet, since the game isn’t out yet, but we do have a Developer Diary that explains some of the basics.
Agent Peper you make some good points (I like principle of the core ideas) but you have to think that you are not playing a faction but a freebooter making the most of the situation.
Also this really should be in the suggestion section. And less info in the same post would also be nice (I’m not the best reader in the world).
Sorry for being negative and but its good to have you back on the forum.
"The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund BurkeBut Agentpeper’s idea could run on the background, can’t it?
And as a ‘freebooter’ you can influence those things.
As if the AI is playing all EUIII factions and you are a single man, able to influence those factions.Anyway, great to hear things are going well and to hear about the video-log-thingies! I’m really excited to see about how far you’ve come!
Keep it up!Nothing is true, everything is an expectationTrue you won’t be interacting with those mechanics directly, but one of the coolest things about Europa Universalis is that it’s a lot of fun not only to play, but to watch all the other countries play amongst themselves. I don’t know if KV can get to that level of nuance, or even if it would be worthwhile to do so, but it’s probably the best example of this kind of faction interaction that I can think of.
And there could be plenty of indirect interaction as well. For example, you could get a mission from a ruler who’s empire has fallen, who you can help re-form his empire by fighting off the occupying forces, or disrupting their trade, or rallying the people to your side, or simply serving as a courier to request aid from another power.
If one of the factions goes over it’s infamy limit, that would cause an epic war between the infamous (and likely quite large) faction and much of the rest of the galaxy, which is a spectacular backdrop to play on, especially when it occurs organically.
^^
I often let AI’s fight against each other in games that allow it, like Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance.
It’s awesome to see it.I think it would be great to lessen the feeling of ‘the universe turns around you’. Or at least, have as less of the feeling as possible, since I don’t know how the game plays. But it’s an interesting goal, I think.
(Sorry for continuing off-topic -_-’. Where can we continue this?)
Nothing is true, everything is an expectation
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