Archive through May 13, 2014
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Federation & Empire: F&E COMPUTER PROJECTS:
F&E Computer Development:
Archive through May 13, 2014
The on-line SIT you created was a nice place to do research. It was very easy to do searches.
Agreed. A very cool reference tool. Fast and easy. I was looking forward seeing it completed with all of your envisioned data. Thanks for what you did give.
Thanks, yeah, I liked it too, especially since it showed all the counters. I also loved having all the races that haven't been implemented yet (magellanic/andromedan/omega) even if they weren't official.
I'll get it up and running on the new server. It'll be a LOT faster and have a lot more bandwidth then, and not be subject to name changes.
I'm not real sure what the ADB policy is for "fan based websites" like a "fan unofficial SIT" would be. If its possible, I think people may like using it as a guide, even if it doesn't replace their 40 pages of PDF print outs from the official sources it can point them in the right direction.
My old name provider changed the IP, so the SIT site is down. Shoot me an email at bad_syntax@ yahoo.co m if you need the updated link.
There is no possibility of seeing a faithful version of the current F&E made into a computer game. The rules aren't clear enough, the data not complete enough, AI would be nearly impossible, and the whole multiple users moving at once thing is a huge pain to implement, and would suck during play.
So, I have a question. Keeping as much faithful to the current F&E as possible, is there any interest in a not-so-faithful F&E conversion that mirrors the same war? The whole system would have to change, but much could still stay the same (actual combat, construction, economy, diplomacy, etc) albeit simplified in many ways so a computer could better handle it
So it would require revisiting every single rule and game mechanic, making huge changes that would simply be shot down on any forum on here, and really change much of the game. It would be very familiar in many ways to those of you who have dedicated so many hours of play to it, but a newbie could jump in and still use it.
It would be a pretty big project, but very much possible. I could code it but my ability to write text is horrible, so me rewriting many of the rules simply isn't a viable option and somebody else would have to take that on.
So, would the fact that the new game changes some core mechanics be a complete turn off for folks, or would having F&E in pretty much any form as a stand alone game on the PC be worth that core mechanic change?
Just curious right now, I'd love to play F&E, but in my one game it just seemed that too many rules had holes and it took a HUGE amount of time to play just a single turn.
I disagree. A faithful version of F&E could be done.
I have no interest in a not-so-faithful F&E conversion done by you. Personal attack - Deleted
I agree that a faithful version of F&E could be done quite easily by someone who knows what they are doing (which is not me...YET).
Having worked as a designer at several computer game companies I can tell you that a straight translation of F&E could very easily be made as a computer game. It would actually be an easier game to produce, although you are right the AI would never be good enough for single player to be any good but that is true of all strategy games.
An interpretation of F&E as a computer game has been done several times, actually. Sword of the Stars is not really F&E like, but is a grand strategy space conquest game heavily based on the SFU. Master of Orion is a legnedary computer game that was essentially a fusion of F&E and Civilization... I am actually the person who game MicroProse the copy of F&E they had as inspiration:-)
Straight F&E as a computer game would actually be easy, but like all strategy games single player AI would be hopelessly bad.
I don't want to put words in Eric's mouth, but I think Eric's issue is that the game would be difficult to program because *nobody* really knows what the rules are. We all *think* we know the rules, but constantly we're having questions and rules and rulings that constantly change our understanding of how the rules work. So, if the humans don't really understand the rules, then it's kind of hard to tell the computer what to do.
Then again, it should be fairly straightforward (f time intensive) to create a client, like SFBOL, that checks up on rules for you as you play (as best understood) - and does cool stuff like automatic pin count analysis, etc. I would pay good money for such a tool.
I do remind people that you need ADB permission to do any version of "the same war" since the "general war" is a creation of ADB.
Let me restate, I did not mean it as a personal attack, but I was harsh.
My recollection is that Eric had posted some time ago something to the effect that he lost enthusiasm on the F&E project due to lack of interest by posters here and such. My concern is that this would happen again in a new project by him.
Yeah, Ted is right. The rules as written right now are human readable. Any good developer understand that humans don't read the same as computers. Humans tend to fill in the gaps with logic, while computers have to have every single bit of logic, in every possible situation, defined up front. The rules are simply not that clear, and its why 2 guys who have played the game for 20 years can sit down, and have questions every couple turns on what happens in a particular situation.
Heck, the SIT issue a couple pages back defines that rather well too, there are dozens of variables that need defined for thousands of ships. Again, right now humans make assumptions, and computers can't do that.
There are plenty of 4X games out there, but none are F&E. Many can be modded to be "like" star trek/F&E, but they will be their own incarnation and in no way related to F&E other than name alone. It'd be like me branding a new F&E Risk game, sure, its F&E, but its still just risk, and not F&E.
To create an *extremely* simplistic version sure, that isn't hard, but I'm pretty darned sure most people who would play it wouldn't want something so simple (wouldn't that be closer to that old federation space game that predates F&E?).
If every rule got completely clarified, every ship got defined, everything was *perfect*. There would still be the issue of AI, which would be extremely complex (not impossible, just far beyond anything I've ever seen) and the fact that you need another play to sit there while you move ship from hex A to B, he says yes or no, then hex B to C, and repeat that, a hundred times, every turn. While that interactive movement is key to F&E and makes it what it is and unique, it doesn't adapt very well to online play. Once people go online, their patience drops to a minimum.
Yes Steve, nobody suggested doing anything without permission, just a possibility of such a project from the fan aspect. Surely any project that moved forward would ask permission.
I was really just curious if anybody think a rewrite to justify having a computer version would be a good time investment, or if people are so die hard and committed to the current rules that anybody attempting it would be beaten down.
In the 7 weeks, plus or minus, that I worked on my incarnation, I had 16 people make some comment about it, 40 total comments, with 26 updates from me. It felt extremely one-sided, but progress went very quickly. Getting something most of the way there is possible, but it falls down to that 90% of the work is the last 10% of the project bit. Without proper SIT data and minimal levels of motivation, I didn't see a conversion of the current game as worth the time.
How many people play F&E worldwide? Hundreds maybe? I kinda don't think thousands. If people would pay $50 per copy, and sell 1000 copies, a 100% port may be worth it for 1 developer if he can knock it out in under a year. 10,000 copies at $50 each could justify 2 developers, an artist, and a GUI guy, for a year, maybe 2 if they worked for bread crumbs and license costs were low. They would have to do some DLC or subscription model to hang around for updates 3 years down the road.
Lots of people have asked for an F&E lite product for a long time, maybe if most of the rules could be ported to computer, some dynamics changed into an igo-ugo sorta system, a computer product could be viable. Things like OB/Construction/Economy could be identical, just a simpler way to move things around, deal with retreats/pinning, etc. Heck, you could even use an orders based system where both sides give a set of rules to a stack "pin if enemy approaches, flee if larger, etc" sorta rules, the both players do a "move" at once and it plays itself out. I dunno, probably rambling a bit.
Does anybody see a way to change all the movement within F&E to a simpler i-go/u-go or orders based system that a computer could handle better, while keeping the overall game feeling intact?
@Richard - I wasn't proposing taking this on, just gauging interest. I may yet head back into F&E, I didn't *cancel* the project, just stepped away. If I started playing F&E again I would start working on it again. It was my game with Ted, using Cyberboard (which was great), that made me create a die roller and the whole system. I don't like complaining without being able to put my money where my mouth is. Believe it or not, at least getting my current version of F&E to save/load is actually pretty high up on my plate, as that was the one last feature necessary to make it usable, so it isn't dead.
But I did remove all my cardboard from their pretty sorted trays and pile entire races into huge zip-locks 
I can't ever see using cardboard again in this day and age.
Quote:To create an *extremely* simplistic version sure, that isn't hard, but I'm pretty darned sure most people who would play it wouldn't want something so simple (wouldn't that be closer to that old federation space game that predates F&E?).
Actually, I would. I would be happy with SFBOL actually adding an F&E client. It's been sitting there for *ages*, but just hasn't been implemented. Heck, I don't even need all the bells and whistles. I'd be happy with a few boards (map, battle board, capital boards), counter trays, and markers (like Cyberboard) and the ability to move them on the map. Maybe a few charts and tables for easy reference, a few pre-generated scenarios (like the Wind), a die roller, and the ability to save games. I don't care if the client is wholly manual. SFBOL works like that right now. I see such a system as time intensive, but easy from an architecture perspective. The SITS don't need to be online, or the rules.
Over time the client could add functionality (like, for example, adding compot of counters put on a battle board, or counting the pincount of counters in a fleet tray).
Pretty sure there have been folks working on just such a project, but I suspect real life has gotten in the way of implementation.
Sadly, I have neither the time nor the skills to implement such a system.
That is such a system that I'm building for my Apocalypse Part 2 campaign.
Taking Web/programming classes for it and everything.
I think the game would be tedious as both players have to define fleets and carrier groups, etc. Even if the computer counted your "pin value" you might fiddle with the force composition to get the number you want. The real issue is the "interception" element, which requires the other player to watch every hex and movement and consider possible reactions. the computer could help (it could determine there is no possible reaction and greenlight the next move; it could highlight forces that could react) but it could never do the reaction for you.
A real math genius of a programmer who has a talent for creating AI could make certain parts of an F&E AI work well. For example, analyzing options available based on what can be pinned could be done very well. But in the end, AI for a strategy game is simply beyond current human ability. F&E would be particularly difficult, you'd want to accept going into it that the overall AI would not be good in the end no matter what you did.
But there is no market for a straight F&E computer game. It would either be a "translation to computer" as a "real" game any major publisher might do, or software to allow F&E players to play each other online. I would suggest the latter if anyone is contemplating doing something like this. Something like SFBOL for F&E that you never expect anyone outside of the F&E community to have an interest in.
Something like cyberboard, but with a modern interface and controls so doing things is more like a game than using an editor (like CB is). Where you could PBEM or connect online to play live as needed in the same game, with everything built in so no offline paperwork is needed (although us SFU types will do it anyway, haha).
I also thing a mass market "translation to computer" of F&E could be very, very popular if done right... you just have to convince someone to give you $20 million to let you try it. That is generally the hard part of going that route:-)
The guys here already have F&E cyberboard done.
Yeah, a tool to help with F&E isn't going to be any better or more stable than Cyberboard. Well, it could have a few more features, and eventually maybe be a bit better, but we do already have cyberboard and it works pretty well. Granted, it isn't made for F&E, that is what I was working on, but it is extremely capable of replacing the 10K counters on a map board begging for your cat to see a shadow around Klinshai.
If you haven't written full blown apps before, and you think you can start with F&E... well, good luck with that. You need experience and a solid understanding of application development to design such a system, it isn't just a few lines of code here and there.
"Partial AI" is completely useless. If it isn't fully functional, it isn't usable.
SVC is right. I already implemented "pin value", its simple (and economy, and dozens of other great things like that). But just think of how many special case escorts there are out there, special case carriers, and all the special things that can take place just to build a defense line. Its quite daunting (and right now simply incomplete).
Assuming you could do a 100% F&E conversion, and somehow make every rule work how everybody thinks it should. In all ways its 100% perfect..... it wouldn't be any fun, and would barely attract any players over what is in Cyberboard now.
To attract new players, and be more fun, it'll require a redesign to the core mechanics of how the game works. With a good conversion that still has a unique feel to it, that still feels like SFB, I think the potential for quite a few players (at least tens of thousands) is there with a good redesign, but without it, I just can't see much growth and only less and less interest each year.
That was why I sparked up the conversation, what kind of changes would have to be made do folks think could help a transition to computer while still keeping the unique feel alive?
The problem is you are declaring all this as if it's true. It's just your opinion, and not a very informed one, as you have very little experience actually playing F&E in the online methods that are available.
I strongly believe that it can be done and done well, better than Cyberboard, but it would take a programmer or team that was experienced in playing F&E and also knowledgable in the pros and cons of how the game is handled with Cyberboard, Vassal, and PBEM, as well as face to face.
A simple example would be to always have the SEQ size of a fleet contained by a fleet counter visible on the counter on the map.
There are several problems with making anything other than a better tool for the F&E community. CB is a general editor that can be used to play almost any board game online. It's great for what it is, and lets F&E players play F&E online. But, being a general editor, it is very limited and clunky in the way it works. The thing I see that could realistically be made is basically a much better version of cyberboard. Designed just for F&E, with a modern interface and conventional game commands. You could switch between PBEM and live online at will at any point in a turn. This could be realistically made by a small team/single person.
To make anything remotely resembling a typical computer game out of F&E that would have any chance of appealing to people other than F&E players would cost somewhere between $12-$20 million and take a team of 20 or more people 3 or 4 years to complete. And in spite of a genius mathmetician with a PHD from some ivy league university being paid $600,000 and spending all 3 years on it... the AI would still suck.
It also would not be straight F&E if done as this type of project, it would be a translation of F&E to the computer. I have a lot of ideas of how to do that well while retaining the feel of F&E... but you'll never get this made. It's very difficult to get funding to do anything other than an FPS, RTS, or RPG game. It is almost impossible to convince someone to make a strategy game.
Anything that would involve an AI opponent is just far more extensive of a project and financial obligation than you are giving it credit for. You could try something like this yourself, with some friends helping, as an indie project, but not really with a game you need a license for because there is no money in that for, in this case, ADB or Paramount.
I spent most of my life thinking about how to make SFB and F&E as computer games, so I could talk about this subject forever. But, really, to have any chance of success with the general gaming community F&E would be a very expensive project. It would have to be a true AAA title to have any chance at all of mass market success, which is true of any strategy game. Strategy games rarely have mass market success.
Experience playing F&E in any way has a minimal impact on the ability to write a computer version. Experience playing it beyond the base mechanics that can be learned in a day simply has no relevance to how easy/hard it is to program it. The rules will sit beside the developers desk for each coding portion.
Ya'll keep bringing up SEQ's like its a hard thing, it is so beyond simple that in a single line of code I can sum up a stack, a bunch of stacks, hell the entire map worth of stuff. It is trivial, and ANY even horrible attempt at implementing F&E on a computer will be able to do it *extremely* easily.
ANY form of counting, fighters/ships/SEQs/whatever, is simply not the challenge here. Even economy is *extremely* simple and I already implemented all that in my 7 weeks of a day here and there knocking stuff out. Implementing things like raids, retreat priorities, the bazillion little rules all over that apply to unique ships or specific classes of ships, and most of all just determining 50+ unique values for each ship is the hard part. Oh, and that assumes just an enhanced cyberboard replacement, not a standalone game.
These aren't my opinions I'm voicing here I'm pulling out of thin air, I have extensive experience with application design and board games. I am one of the few, if not only, developer on here, and I've been doing it in various capacities (somehow never on a team) for 20 years in my various IT roles.
As for the whole experience in F&E thing... oh yeah, sure, all you experienced folks that have been playing it longer than I've been developing and doing IT have mastered the game. That must be why the Q&A section has over 2000 comments from the last 3 years, including many questions from you and many other veteran players.
I think if SVC picked up master development skills overnight, and had all the time and motivation in the world, that even he would have serious issues converting the game as is onto a computer.
Just FYI, I was going to track nearly 100 pieces of information on each ship, OUTSIDE of the rules, just because its so easy. Sure, it doesn't matter at all that this particular D6M has killed 3 dreadnoughts and 17 cruisers, but isn't that fun stuff to know? Or that this particular tug has flown through enough hexes to make it to the nearest galaxy, or that fed CA over there has been crippled 11 times, or for some reason every time a particular Klingon E4 is on the battle line, a '6' is rolled on the offense. *I* thought stuff like that was nifty and added color and depth to the game. Plus, each ship could have a name and stuff, SFB scenarios could be generated, and games and ship performance/construction data compared online. All of that are things nobody is asking for, but were all so easy to implement and added so much color I couldn't help myself. Heck, even experience could be tracked, each battle adding 1% compot, and damage could be broken down into tenths or less, with no book keeping. Even refits could be tracked with minimal effort.
Oh, and to compare, I think Campaign for North Africa is one of the biggest single board games out there with counters (Europa obviously dwarfs it, but I haven't gotten my years late pre-order yet). Yet this game, with rules on Italians using more water for their pasta and tracking every single tank and plane, is FAR easier to implement on a computer than F&E. I think F&E would even be harder than BattleTech, which does have a computer version (MegaMek) which is really good, but far from in a complete enough state to compare it to F&E (and of course, it doesn't have reactions).
And again, I wasn't talking about just another cyberboard replacement (cyberboard is good enough to not be able to justify a replacement in many people's eyes) but a computer F&E style game that you can sit at home and play by yourself, without waiting 2 days for a PBEM file, or the cyberboard file from some opponent who just left town for some reason, without having to spend half the time digging for counters. However, I was hoping to keep as much as possible about the current F&E.
As for resources to make it? Hmmmm... sure as heck not tens of millions of dollars. I'd say:
1 graphics artist - they'd do a prettier map, the GUI controls, and draw good looking crippled/uncrippled ship hulls. Maybe even throw in some 3D like art if time permits. They would also do little ship explosion/cripple animations within the game.
1 very part time sound person - Need some little interface beeps, battle explosions, etc.
2-3 VERY experienced F&E non-dev folks to get the answers required in the SITs, and to very quickly answer questions as they come up. Instant messenger preferred.
1-3 developers. One could do it, but if broken down:
1 does construction/economy module
1 does combat module
1 does the map and interface
And finally a couple folks, non-dev types, to enter in all the OOBs, scenario starting areas, ship names, etc, etc. One could double as a project manager, though I don't think that is really necessary.
The AI would be a never ending task, and couldn't really be done (but will be considered at all times) until the whole thing is complete.
However, the SIT needs at least mostly done before the development could start, as its a prerequisite. The graphics/sounds/animations can be done very last. So really, you just need a developer or two that goes through each rules section, and codes the logic behind those rules into the game, while constantly asking the experienced folks for help. I'd say 2-3 years with 1 dev, maybe 1-2 with 2 or 3 devs. I assume part time, as I seriously doubt $50K+ could be acquired each year to find somebody willing to take a horrible pay cut to work on this.
But again, a 100% conversion would be boring as heck, and played by only a very select audience. A conversion would open up the door to a *much* larger market.
Marc M., I think that we've been discussing something much less grand in scope than what you suggest. Certainly I don't recall anyone suggesting that they would program in some sort of AI, but rather something like Cyberboard or what not, but made for Federation and Empire that 'knew' the rules and would assist in the play of that game.
It could certainly be done. I could do the basic 2010 F&E version right now, in the sense of a program that moderated play to assure that all of a player's moves were legal (though the whole interface would be in text, but I could generate graphical maps and such). It's just a matter of data structure manipulation and user interface.
Experience playing the game is a necessity as otherwise you will not have a strong enough grasp of the rules and how they work and will be unable to avoid serious errors in how the program handles less obvious interactions between rules.
It may be instructive to consider the development history of the computerized version of World in Flames by Matrix Games. It has taken a full-time professional developer, with help from a group of volunteers, over a decade to create a reasonable facsimile of the board game. And yet, not all the features of the board game were fully implemented, and it still lacks an AI.
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I do not see computer F&E as a financially viable project, although an improved cyberboard-type program may be doable.
Yes, Richard, that is what I am saying as well. Software written just for playing F&E is feasable, and could look and feel like any computer game. It could handle everything, with no need for any out of software record keeping. It would be like a computer game with no AI, that requires players for all sides. It would allow any aspects of the turn to be handled either PBEM or live online (battles could be handled much faster online while much of the rest of the turn is more conveniently handled by PBEM). This would be great. CB really is just an editor that you used to play a board game online, something more like a full-blown game that requires a human player to control all sides would be awesome.
F&E players don't really want the mass market version, anyway. For example, one necessary compromise would be the build/death balance. Almost nothing ever dies in F&E. 50 ships can meet 50 ships and nothing dies. You would lose the casual gamers interest in 10 minutes with this balance, it would have to change. Which all by itself would drastically alter the game you know as F&E. More ships die, more need to be built... from the perspective of an F&E player pretty much everything has changed.
I should say that I don't design games anymore. I haven't worked in the game industry since 2000 and "retired" from even trying anymore in 2005, but I spent most of my life thinking of myself as a game designer and worked in games in one form or another for almost 20 years. My greatest achievment as a designer would have to be IKNFL which is the basis of player ratings in all sports games too this day, but I was mostly involved with failed startups:-(
I have conciously avoided even thinking about game design for almost 10 years now until I got drawn into this conversation. Today I am in a kind of forced retirement in general due to health problems I was good at hiding when I was younger but am too old to conceal any longer. Those who have met me at tournaments would probably be suprised to find out that I have always have a very serious medical condition. In fact, this was the main reason I insisted on running my old tournament in 2 days instead of 3 to the point of the players rebelling, I wasn't physically capable of coming for a 3rd day but I kept my condition a secret back then so revealing that was not an option at the time.
Anyway, speaking of not doing any game design in 10 years... I have an idea for an F&E scenario but it would take me at least a year to understand F&E well enough to create it myself. Maybe I will start a conversation about it tomorrow so people who actually understand F&E can discuss the idea.
I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time bantering about it, or saying how it can or can't be done. I'm just doing it.
And yeah, I don't have 20 years of dev experience, or any at all, really. Maybe it takes a fresh mind to say, "how can I make this work", than one who has been there, done that, saying, nah, it can't happen.
Dunno.
I've always been a "can do" person, so I'm just going to do it. WITH my "Module V" rules. It won't be "vanilla" F&E, but that's not to say it couldn't be.