Regarding cities however, you play at a higher level than city design. As the leader of an interstellar empire, you wont have time to design all of your (likely hundreds) of vast cities. Only their functions, not their designs have importance. I would like to have 3D procedural cities so you could zoom in and look around, but that is hard and not necessary so if added, it will come after the initial release.

I like to consider my planets 4D. True 3D because you can zoom ring in on them from the solar system and see mountains and such as you explore, but also 4D because they change over time. They have will have seasons, ice ages, and other weather patters which effect vegetation, as well as slow changes to the continents themselves.

Anyway, thats my plan. Progress has been slow lately, but in various versions we have already had (uncontrolled) ships move in 3D, and had simplistic 3D planets.

By 3D we mean that this game is… well… 3D. The FG galaxy is completely 3D, meaning that our solar systems orbit around the center of the galaxy created a three dimensional galactic disk. Inside of these solar systems planets operate in the same way. When you have a ship, you can move it in a any direction, not simply on a 2d plane. Planets themselves are 3d spheres as well, not 2d planes like most other games similar to FG. When you zoom in on a planet, you will zoom in on a part of the sphere as you go closer and closer to the planets surface.

I guess its kind of hard to explain, but just everything will be 3D.

hmmm. maybe that is too cruel…

Which regulations? There was an era of deregulation small government economics on both sides of Clinton. Regan did a lot of it. Go look it up, Regan has his own stock market crash and Savings an Loans Crisis nearly identical to the present one related to his tax cuts and "trickle down economics" (Somewhat or greatly depending on your bias) related to the repeal of New Deal reforms put in place after the great depression. A repeat of his mistakes caused the current savings and loans crisis.

and not looking back to the great depression to see why the regulations that they were removing were in place

Which regulations were those?

we can simply let players suffer the consequences of their actions.

You mean resource-production will not be sustainable? But then a player can disband their colony and inhabit another planet! Or does this take resources also?

Regarding development:
I'll publish the docs.

Off-topic: Speaking of production… I've just read in Geography class that - believe it or not - humans do not plan long-term

Yep. Thats the cause of the economic crisis (people getting mortgages they would not be able to pay later, and not looking back to the great depression to see why the regulations that they were removing were in place). Thats the cause of the largest issue, overpopulation, and many others. There is evidence that Easter Island acutely had a pest problem (the rats ate the tree's seeds!), so that may be a different issue.

I am certainly interested in the effects, and having some sort of "environmental-activism" feature/tech in FG :P

Don't worry, we can simply let players suffer the consequences of their actions.

I could probably divert more time to the project if I knew where I was needed (ie. critiquing docs)?

You can look at the list of tasks on the dev site main page. Publishing docs might be the best task for you at the moment, tho you can get involved on some of the more complex math if you would rather.

I edited the downloads page a bit. I think it is more clear now. Big red warning text should do the trick.

LOL.
Good one Craig.

Perhaps if you place a mouse over a planet, it gets a bright aura around it (hmm, caused by radiation from your cursor interacting with the atmosphere of the planet) and you can click on the aura?

I could probably divert more time to the project if I knew where I was needed (ie. critiquing docs)?

Regarding Craig's post: Nice thoughts on relating scenery to music. I agree with the shipping prices and tariffs. As for combat stats, where can I read more about your idea? Having a climate-modifier makes sense, and weather/seasons could be implemented once the combat UI is functional.

Off-topic: Speaking of production… I've just read in Geography class that - believe it or not - humans do not plan long-term (in terms of the environment). Expansion is realistically based on living with nature, or over-exploiting it. At our current rate (globally), we will run out of farmland due to salinization, lack of crop-rotation, overpopulation, urbanized farmland, etc. (examples from the past = Rome, Easter Island, and Sumer). I do not know if sustainable expansion should affect gameplay or not. But as an Environmental Sciences student, I am certainly interested in the effects, and having some sort of "environmental-activism" feature/tech in FG :P

Craig Macomber: using it [new technology] in the presence of others makes them more likely to discover it.

Cool! This is a great idea.

The efficiency-bonuses to using the same tech repeatedly is also a good idea :)

Keep us posted on the "full time" opportunity, Matt :)
Working on FG full-time would be really cool, and it would also take a lot of dedication.

Craig Macomber: I'm glad you like it. It will be much more impressive soon.

That is a big statement Craig.
I struggle to design the simplest artwork (including 2-dimensional stuff), so I cannot imagine you making the texture even more realistic. Nevertheless, I am continually surprised by your abilities, and designing a planet should be fish and chips for you (though the fish may be a sturgeon ;).

Interesting… You are basically going to be "merging" all edges? The reference to bump mapped texture went right over my head, but when I am in doubt, there's Wikipedia!

Thanks for the feed back. You have improved our web site, and hopefully helped our future reputation. Your comments are appreciated.

Thanks for answering me guys :P

So, the thing to take away from this is that we are simply in a down stage, people are swamped with stuff to do other than FG, and so we need to hold on until things pick up, which they will.

The problem is we just haven't released the latest build, since we didn't deem it releasable yet and never made a real effort to do it. So the clients on the downloads page suck because they are ancient.

Maybe we should consider just removing all clients from our downloads page until we release a newer version. That way we avoid confusion and people don't think we've made much worse progress than we actually have.

Let me put it another way, that release is the start of the game, where the older one, was a hack to try and make ships work. There is a lot implemented you can't see in that release (full ship physics, an AI framework etc), but we haven't gotten far enough to have them visible to the user (we have no ships, no controls etc.). Also that release is from several months ago.

Tgb, you're suppose to make the release tool right? ;)

I (the main coder here) don't do as much windows testing as I should, so it might be slightly worse than the mac version, but based on my testing, I do think they are close to equally defective. We will be needing lots of windows testers tho, so user feed back is always appreciated.

Also, all platforms are equally attended to since the language we are using (REALbasic) compiles executables for Mac, Windows, and Linux using the same code.

Thanks for your concern. I will push to have a newer version released.

First of all, it crashes ever 2 minutes. Apparently relates to the music checkbox. I stopped using it and had it playing in the background by some music program, no biggy.

But from the video I saw, the Mac version has more options, and makes more… sense.

Is this what I'm supposed to see?

Also, resizing the window messes up the chat and view colonies buttons.

Anyway, all I (barely) manage to do is move the camera and start colonies. They don't appear in the show colonies button. I have no idea how to make a ship. Also I have to look at one planet from really really close just to have a chance to right-click it and start a colony. It's almost always a single pixel.

Basically, I doubt you worked on the Windows version seriously.

there is light at the end of the tunnel

I agree.

Despite this, there is light at the end of the tunnel. As Craig has mentioned, once we are all back in prime activity, or even when some of us are, there will certainly be much progress and many things to look forward to.

Also, even though I assure everyone that I will be working on FG long before this, I might get a chance to do some significant full time work on FG in the spring for a month or two. Depends on how my plans work out. But if that happens then FG will likely make significant progress in the first half of 2009.

Pertaining to that aspect I am wonder if it will be constantly updating once you find a planet or will it be only every time you patrol by it or if you have a spy there,

I am not sure about this myself :)
We have not decided how exploration (specifically, planetary biosphere-scans) will work.

I definitely agree with planets being a different color. Craig is our expert on planetary rendering.

Second, player planet naming is a great Idea, if the player "data bases" are not automatically updating it would make for a interesting fleet patrol.

Thanks, this is a cool idea :)
What should be the criteria for getting to name your planet?

a option to turn planet names on and of at the users discretion would also be a very good idea.

Hmm, I see your point.

Issue with star Alpha/Beta etc: What do you call the 800th one?

Oh, we can do a player-submission, like this one: Archives of the Chosen Space Archives

Either do a player-submission… Or copy the ones on that topic :evil-smiley:
My post is the first one on the link!
There should be about 300 names there :)

Yes and I am going into Software Engineering.

Is MSOE the "Milwaukee School of Eng."? What field are you going into?

Happy Thanksgiving!

New problem: The windows computer that MSOE gives us doesn't know how to start the drive! This sux!

So, I might be getting a MacBook for $100-ish dollars.

The good news: I can still program thru linux and email the code to other to build.

That's my status.

Anyway, I'm glad to see you. I am having issues with alpha masked tree texture you made me. It is likely my fault, however I think the png might have white where its transparent which causes issues when resized. If you could provide a version without the issue, or determine that there is some other issue, it would help.

Also, some time in the future, I'm going to want a normal bump mapped texture to play with. As it is, out textures can't really have any shading to create the illusion of depth. Bump mapping would allow (at some cost) pre-shading all the textures on the layer level. That would allow effects such as shaded translucent trees over shaded rough ground. No parallax or true depth, but we could eventually support multiple mesh layers (water above the sea floor, clouds in the sky, tree tops over ground)

Iz sweet Craig!

I played a bit with the tolerances, and made something more earth like.

Texture layer management is pretty much done, tho the GUI needs a few small things. Now I will direct my attention to functions, which are also pretty far along. Here is a texture I make using 3 material textures.

I just realized that I can interpolate to hide those square artifacts. It will cost some time, but not very much, and it should provide enough of a visual quality improvement that I can increase tolerances to get the time back. From now on, the textures will have a nice smooth appearance when transitioning between textures, even on the low detail fast renderings. Pictured is an old example with the squares.

Now if only all those options did stuff! It is certainly not done, but it is beyond a simple GUI mock up (the undo menu for example does work, and so does redo). The image displayed is generated (in less than a second) by the functions and layers listed, but you can't really edit them to a reasonable extent yet.

Thanks for reading. Come back when we have some real news. There will be interesting news in not too long. Maybe in a few weeks, maybe less.

For now, some random thoughts to keep interest in the project:
It would be possible to have layers in the planet data that reflect mood thus effecting the music.
We can have binary (and more) star systems with planets in both types or orbits (around the stars and around the barycenter (center of mass of the stars)). The current orbit system can handle this just fine, but some changes elsewhere would be needed. Don't go looking for a 2 star 2 moon eclipse screen shot tho, its very unlikely!
The economy will have shipping prices, tariffs, embargoes and such. Thus all the resources will have varied prices in different locations.
Weather and seasons on a planet can effect combat stats, resource production, and other things. For example, food could get expensive during drought or harsh winters, mining can become expensive in wet seasons, population growth can slow or even reverse when conditions suck. Very small forces can have a bonus vs. Large armies in the dark (night or arctic circle in the winter, maybe even when its really cloudy) for stealth reasons.
The hierarchical AI will allow ships to act on their own and in group effectively at the same time, as well as group of groups etc. The level of individualism for ships and groups for various factors will be player set along with priorities for ships and groups.
The blind growing tech tree will allow open the possibility of discovering a never before seen technology. Once discovered, it could be kept secret, but using it in the presence of others makes them more likely to discover it.
Using technologies a lot can increase their bonuses to things that use them.
Player will be able to set up extensive treaties, as well as actions triggered by their violations and other triggers.
With the cost of controlling planets increasing with the size of your nation, the quality of planets will be more important than their quantity. The higher quality planets will reside closer to the center of the galaxy usually. Thus, a player can ether engage in heavy PVP there, or spend more time exploring the rest of the galaxy to find valuable resource rich planets.

Which operating system do you run?

Have you played games in the real-time strategy genre before?

What is 3ds max like?

What is the 'EVE' feel of a game? It looks like a cinematic trailer, but the game has an interface. I would play it if it were free :)

Hey there. I'm very interested in your project. I am a writer/designer
and have written for one semi sci-fi themed MMO and a full sci-fi MMO.
One of which I still have my writings saved.

I program little to none, but seeing as your are using REALbasic it
doesn't look to different than BLITZbasic that I have piddled with.
Again I have tinkered in 3ds max but nothing really came of it, but I
know the basic interface and functions.

About a month ago I started designing my own game that is very similar
to this and would like to merge some ideas or if anything just put them
out there. My version was most likely going to be done in BLITZ with a
2D gui that had no combat; I was trying to go for a EVE online feel with
nothing but heavy economy and strategy.

Anyway before I start to ramble I would love to be considered for joining.
-Billy

I have to re-make the HUD in the new XML way before I can start any new stuff.

Also, we can't put ads on the encyclopedia site as again, its viewed from in game and thus we would not allow ad clicks (all external links are stopped for the in game browser), and thus could not profit from them.

Not to long? You quoted my same statement twice and gave 2 different long responses not answering it. Look how short my post is? Remember, I have to read your posts with time that could be spend developing the game (and you wanted to not focus on this subject, but rather develop the game?)

Assume we pay $0.10 cents per player referred to FG.
Assume 1/3 of players referred to FG decide to play the game.

1000 players * $0.10/referral * 3 referrals/player = $300
Therefore, with an initial investment of $300, we can attract 1000 people to play FG.

Let t = time after launch of Open Beta
Assume that at t = 4 weeks, we have attracted 1000 players into FG.
Assume that the rate of real-life referrals cancels the rate at which players quit FG.
Assume that each time a player clicks on an ad, we generate $0.05 revenue.
Assume each player clicks an average of one advertisement per week.
Assume revenue goes into referring new players to FG.

Δplayers/week (t) = revenue(t) * 1 referral/$0.10 * 1 player/3 referrals
revenue(t) = players(t) * 1 click/player * $0.05/click

Δplayers/week (t) = (players(t) * 1 click/player * $0.05/click) * 1 referral/$0.10 * 1 player/3 referrals = players(t) * 1/6
players(t) = k + Δplayers/week (t) * 6, where k is a constant
Well that was useless.

players(t) = k*growth^t
Heh, I hope to do the proof properly, in the future.

Since we know players(4 weeks) = 1000
Compounding weekly, we get:
players(t) = 1000*1.167^(t - 4 weeks)

In seven months, t = 7 months * 4 weeks/month = 28 weeks

players(28 weeks) = 1000*1.167^(24)
players(28 weeks) = 40710

This leaves us with four weeks to collect money in month eight…
revenue in the last four weeks = ?
revenue = # of weeks * players/week * 1 click/player * $0.05/click

1. of weeks = 4 weeks

players/week = 40710 players
revenue = $8100

Ok, so maybe FG will not be able to attract this many players, and advertising will become less effective as more players join.

Also, this value drops to below $1000 if compounded monthly instead of weekly.

I think that these calculations have a low validity, because after the first three months, the players : referrals ratio for FG (number of players who join after clicking on our ads) would drop below 1:3 (harder to attract players).

- free server has 'galaxy-resets' each month, and the winner gets a premium-account

Defining winner could be hard, but could be done (we might want a ranking system for other reasons). I would suggest for a free server having the game faster paced than a 1 month scale, meaning that it would be fully possible to go from nothing to leader within a month. Then the resets would not be needed. Resets would be very annoying if you start playing and a few days layer you get reset. People would only want to start after resets and stop playing if they fall behind. Also giving some one a premium account is also unclear. If they require a subscription, we can throw out subscriptions for life. Maybe a year or two tho.

- premium-server is accelerated (ships travel faster and production is higher)

I would say the exact opposite. The premium server is for long term play and thus the time scale of the game should be longer. This does not mean slower ships and such. It could be done by delaying the soft caps on growth to allow for more colonies and thus more ships. With the higher resources, production of individual ships would be faster, the the game would play on a longer time scale.

Regarding in game ads, I oppose them for a large number of reasons. It would be hard to implement, hard to get paid for, and hard to display without disrupting gameplay. Because of the scale mechanics of the game, people would ether never see the ads, or would have to see them way too much (zoom in on them, or not). Even planets are insignificant dots in space. Also, I see no math behind that 50$. Nothing about in game ads could be guaranteed. Finding people to sell the ads to would be a challenge, and thus if would not be easy to get more than 0.

Ads on the site however would be easy (would take less than a day of work to get up and running I think), but they would advertise other games, which is not something we really want. We have about 50 page views per day, and 340 unique visitors per month.

As far as advertising the game, I have collected a list of several sites which we could promote ourselves for free (I'll post in on the dev site later). Once we have a good game, and a fan base, we could grow through social contacts. We don't need big budget ads. With a bit of effort, we could bring in far more traffic that we want at the moment.

The opportunities are endless, but here is what I am worried about:
Fragmented Galaxy is TOUGH.
A good player means that weaker players DIE.
If you die, you get annoyed, and you QUIT.
So how can we get a lot of players, all co-operating together… It is something VERY IMPORTANT.

I don't see it being too much of an issue. Powerful players will not take over new player's colonies because doing so would make then no longer powerful (the only way to destroy a colony is to capture the planet, which is slow, and holding the planet during the process is expensive). Also, if attacked, you can always go somewhere else. The galaxy is big, you can go where it is slow and expensive to attack, as well as impossible to find. If you do die, you only lose your colonies and ships, not your tech. With my suggested faster paced free server, it would only take a day to get up and running again, or we could even make it much less (an hour or so). FG could be a very fast paced game if desired, where you could go from nothing to a top contender in a hour or less if you are skilled. We could also make it take a year. The tuning is very flexible.

Once the HUD editor is ready, I can start HUD creating to my heat's content.

What do you mean by "more functionality for the scripts to access"?

I mean more functionality for the scripts to access. :)
Really, just more stuff that the scripts can do.

I'm not going to bother going into the details at this point. It will be very clear when you have an editor to play with.

What are you talking about?
How are you a…
How do you plan to interpolate interpolation?

:D

Craig: I think it is important to not charge people until we have a game that is stable enough that it will not lose their data, and will be available most of the time. Once this point is reached, I think it is a good time to start accepting donations, but not nagging or anything.

I totally agree. Nagging people to donate, or making donations mandatory - this just isn't my style.

Craig: Paying players could play of the pro server, as well as the free one.

I like this :)
Further options:
- free server has 'galaxy-resets' each month, and the winner gets a premium-account
- premium-server is accelerated (ships travel faster and production is higher)

Matt: I think we should not leave out the prospect of hosting advertisements on our sites as well. These can generate some income, sometimes considerable income, and could lessen the financial load on the players or at the very least extend how far we can support a 100% free game.

I like this idea. We can easily make $50 a month with in-game advertisements, within 8 months after Open Beta (the game will have to be very addictive though, so that we can attract players to advertise to).
Also, sometimes, advertisements are a real hinderment - I meant hindrance - to gameplay. If you seen a website with more ads than text, then you know what I mean :D

Matt: isolates the different player bases from each other

Hmmm…
I see what you mean.
Running separate-servers may not be entirely advantageous, until we have, say, 1000-4000 players logging-in daily (a lot of players)!

Matt: Having all players on one server is ideal, but limiting the gameplay of only some of those accounts has several negative effects.

My feelings exactly!

Matt: Another example might be that paying members get increased AI help

This is a popular feature in many browser-based strategy-games (substituting AI for 'user-commands', since browser-based games seldom have AIs).

Craig: Also, I think it might be a good idea to have a server configured for more short term play (the free one) as well as a longer term one with more ships and such (the paid one).

If you think so, then the free server actually could have the same features as the premium, but also have the monthly/bi-monthly resets :)

Tristan: "You have y amount of time until your account is deleted. " If they login before that time is up we give them another x amount of time. If they don't login their nation would be crushed (by someone) where no refugees escape so they have no chance to continue that account. Their account would then be deleted.

That is horrible, but possible! I say they get to keep their research tree instead of their account being entirely deleted (only ships & colonies are deleted).

Crazy C: For instance, we could have floating billboards, designed like spacecraft, throughout the galaxy with static images on them. Sort of like moving banner ads.

:D That would be so great!
The 'Earth'/Admin ships, flying-around with banner-ads, possibly with a bonus for clicking them - no, that is illegal.
But still, Admin-ships with banners - that would be ideal :D
People would click on them, and best of all - we wouldn't annoy anyone (they'd see it as a joke, and as a very social-oriented dev once said: "I don't show ads to friends unless they're really funny"). I think this idea is funny, and plausible.

Craig: Valid idea [for advertising], however I feel that it would be somewhat challenging to get an advertising partner, and I would rather not had in game ads. We would have no reliable trusted view count, and no way to record reads/hits like web ads.

Hahaha, that is where my friends come in.
I am a keen beta-tester, I've beta-tested 24ish games (mostly MMOs), and the developers can easily advertise…

Crazy C: Speaking of advertising, how will we gain interest in the game? There are many other MMORTS games out there, which means there's a lot of competition. How will we bring potential users in?

One of the developers I am actually working with has done a lot of research on how to advertise his game:

BasTijs: You don't have to ask cpmstar, I already tested all most advertisers, also
the exchange ones. For advertising AYG/Apex/Adtoll work fine for me. Adtoll
starts from $0.20 dollar a week if your lucky (not CPC).

Here is some info from another dev, but I have better experience with AYG:

• ApexGamingAds

- bonus 20% first deposit
- clickfraud 1% (acceptable)
- impressions low
- singup conversion rate: High

Note: One month RON campaigns cost is close to $100

• AdToll

- bonus None
- clickfraud 0%
- impressions Very High
- singup conversion rate: medium

Note: RON ad campaign , $50 ,category online communities and gaming lasts 1
month with millions of impressions. Dedicated site advertising eg on CE
starts from 20 cent per week.

• ReachAds

- bonus None
- clickfraud 2%
- impressions [blow[/b]
- singup conversion rate: low

Note: very basic adsite, same engine as advertiseyourgame which explains the
clickfraud. Low budget $25/month for a ad campaign.

• AdvertiseYourGame (AYG)

- bonus 20% first deposit
- clickfraud +5%
- impressions low
- singup conversion rate: medium

Note: after contacting the owner about the clickfraud, got a nasty mail back
with forged logs so I asked a full refund through paypal.

• Ad2games

- bonus 25 euro (around $35) no deposit required
- clickfraud 0%
- impressions high
- singup conversion rate: high

Note: high budget needed to use them 75 euro deposit is gone in a few hours.

• Game-Advertsing-Online

- bonus None
- clickfraud 0%
- impressions high
- singup conversion rate: high

Note: extreme high budget needed, euro 250 deposit vanished within 3 hours,
same engine as apexgamingads

• pbbgads

- bonus None
- clickfraud 0%
- impressions low
- singup conversion rate: low

Note: You have to ad how many clicks/day else the ad will not be published
even after selecting it as campaign

• advertbox

- bonus 10k Free Impressions
- clickfraud - didn't check yet -
- impressions medium
- singup conversion rate: low

Note: Cheaper to buy advertising through their rate card at AdToll than on
their site $9/12 weeks

No compiled stats yet for

• cpmstar

min campaign deposit $1000 lasts 5 days possible for lower

*adgames

min campaign cost $100

Now I had a discussion with the owner of AYG as I posted it also on one of
my forums topic can be seen on one of my forums but I'm not sure if it's
allowed to post a link offsite. So PM me if you want the link.

Main issue was about clickfraud and next to that some nasty moves from the
owners side as he has also a browsrbased game and well voting site. NO
voting for his game at the voting site yet always nr1, at the ad network he
owns. His game seems to get the majority of impressions.

I didn't try Google Adwords out yet as I had poor results advertising a
different site (non game) which started to cost a bit to much for the
results obtained.

Getting payed for advertisements is not far-off.
You can generate 5-10 cents per click, and some websites are very generous. The thing is to trust the reviews from other game devs, before trusting the ads-company.

I don't think we will have much trouble getting 100 or so players once we have a free fun game.

Once we have a free game, I can mass-advertise on game-review sites, do some advertising in the right places, spend all the cash I have (the game had better be addictive and have a foolproofed donation/ads system), and then spend six hours a day welcoming players and keeping the public profile very good.
The problem is, I do not have time for this until May.

Tristan: We could start by putting up posters on our respective campuses (if allowed) since, at this stage, the game is free. We could even call it an open beta.

This is actually something that could work, since FG is so innovative :D
Another game would be tough to advertise, but College & University students are the players who would play FG (they are a big portion of our target-audience).

Matt: This is great, because it gives us plenty of time to think about creative income options, hopefully some that have not been tried by other companies to give us an edge.

The opportunities are endless, but here is what I am worried about:
Fragmented Galaxy is TOUGH.
A good player means that weaker players DIE.
If you die, you get annoyed, and you QUIT.
So how can we get a lot of players, all co-operating together… It is something VERY IMPORTANT.

hopefully some that have not been tried by other companies to give us an edge.

I really like our small, friendly, and innovative group of FG devs.

Thanks so much guys!