WYRDYSM GAMES

Quick introduction in order and questions about state of community / games. To put it simply I was a lurker a a long while back when BF was still young. I made a few ships back in sb2/3 and still recognize a few people on these forums. sadly since I lurked I knew few who seems now to no longer be here. So I must ask, what is the state of the community and metagame? right before I left I was interested in joining it and thinks unified rules for ship design would be fun.
Im interested in helping out or talking with anyone. It seems ship design has come a far way and im glad to see this.
do poke me though, give me a chat. Im willing to use skype, ventrillo, teamspeak whatever people are using here now to communicate outside the forums ^^ .

the community is pretty much dead and the metagame is dead sadly =/ things have been winding down here since the lack of any new releases. however, quite a few of the older members who are no longer active on the forums are often on the bsf irc chat channel (rizon, #BSF)

but anyway, despite the rather saddening state, it's always good to have anyone new post in the forums

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There is no OP, there is only more boosters...

ill check on the irc. thanks. Id like to bring some life in. If no one else is going to do a metagame then Im more than willing to run something small for people interested.

That would be nice, even(and especially actually) if its not on the scale of the meta game. Just something small, doesn't need any elaborate balancing or plots. Actually the quicker to resolution the better so we can start over and make any changes needed. Its alot harder than it sounds but that said if you think you can manage it then I'm in.

Really? nice, I was beginning to think I would not be able to find anyone to join me. I am considering having a seperate ftp server set up to handle the ships, scenario pages and parts pages (instead of letting random custom weapons float around. This is to keep balance as any custom weapon can be "used" as long as its uploaded and verified at the ftp server. If this works we can even do a bit of a star map, and have a system for organizing spatial expansion, starbase construction , mining and shipyard construction.

At that point however it becomes quite a bit of an rp and would need some unified web form for easy organization. Perhaps a google doc for each empire.

Edit: of course small works too. If none of that sounds good groups of friendly play on similar rules will always work.

I can easily set up new forum areas if you need them, no need to ask people to piss around with ftp clients and servers. Too much hassle for most people.

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　 ／l、
ﾞ（ﾟ､ ｡ ７
　l、ﾞ ~ヽ
　じしf_, )ノ

That would be great arcalane.

Mostly right now im finalizing some elements, speaking to friends and considering how to cut down the admin work.

I know some programmers who are close freinds and I dabble some too. Might make a custom executable for it so that players can take "turns" and interact with the server that way people have an easy time.

Im wanting the whole thing to last a long time but have quick "games" with 4-5 people to start and a small map.

may not use a map. may just let people have a common framework for design and battle. or both, depends on my time and those who are interested

If it's a standalone app that's fine, but decompiling, modifying and recompiling BSF is a big no-no.

_________________
　 ／l、
ﾞ（ﾟ､ ｡ ７
　l、ﾞ ~ヽ
　じしf_, )ノ

Right now im toying with my options. If anyone would be interested with playing or helping me develop this send me a pm. The main idea I want to stick with is that short meta games with population limits and restricted shipyard elements will be the main features. App development probably won't even happen, but I do want to have user customizable parts so that custom weapons and segments could be used, with full permission and access by all.

that would work by having a separate way to store the acceptable parts, having details for each part for example: (Bigreaver cannon. costs 40 cr, mount limit 5 +20 cr extra over the cap. what the weapon does, and any other info like required techs or mineral availability.

Id love to do it all with an application to track each empires credits, tech or minerals or whatever is used. this would optimally track map ownership (small maps, fast games) turn count, current turn and a way to send mail for each empires turn. log in to stop empire jacking, and dates for each "combat" to take place. Would be amazing if it could also track what was available for them to build,and their available designs and what they cost/ turns to build. (by tracking sb4 or shp files on the game server and the costs of each hull segment and part that goes into the ship.) other things that I would want are integrating what each empire owns cr and mineral wise , their upkeep, income and mining per turn (and optionally to roll the changes over whenever who is running each game or tournament would read the changes and enact them for each turn.

that is the best possible scenario sadly. more than likely this will never go that far, as it needs devoted players, developers (volunteers?) and someone to run each game.

ideas?

I feel like I am getting over my head in the awesome.

(oops I clicked new topic at first instead XD)

uh..ok im new to this "meta-game" thing but now im guessing its just fancy pacman talk for an MPG server please corect me if im wrong but im guessing im right
id love some basic ship-building rules for building ships not like programed rules but like basic rules to follow in thery
and il help in the metagame thign too il PM the guy once I click post here which im delaying by saying this so im going to stop talking now goodbye

Actually I kinda pictured the metagame like a large scale game of risk where we make the soldiers (ships) and someone would stage/record the battles instead of rolling dice.

there is also ships specs and other obscure things to add it fun.

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Community-elected ship polisher.
Owner of the Miora Colonies, a War for the Universe faction.

I've found that weapons damage and such aren't all that important to bsf. The ongoing problem of balancing is to relate shield/armor hp to weapons damage. Really stock does that pretty well; not much need to change it in my opinion. Reload and clip size are pretty well accounted for in stock balance as well. That essentially leaves a balance of number of weapons and firing arcs. In all my testing, with all other things being equal, these are the things which make or break a battle. I'd say thats where the focus should be since they are easy to balance compared to hp and damage.

I agree with Doogie about someone playing out the battles as a GM. Thats essentially what Arcalane did and it was pretty fun to read. If we could get those battles up on youtube, so much the better because its extra advertising. Aside from strategy(ie; what system do I want to attack and how many ships do i want to send) the player really only needs to choose between distributing points to firing arc, extra ships, or cost of weapons types, since number of weapons is easily set to a scale of ship size. While interesting, I think power cores and such are a bit too ambitious for this time around.

Similar to risk, the player should start off with a set amount of asset points, with which they can choose a varying number and type of ships depending on the cost of each. Each round they will get more points to distribute as they wish between those categories, but basically the more decisions we can take out of the players hands, the better actually. A UI program would ideally include some sort of galaxy map to let us 'send' our ships to a given area, a ship roster and record of number/type/upgrades of weapons and available upgrades, and of course an updated count of our points. No idea how complex that would be though.

Of course I'll go with whatever ends up being done.

*edit* even making ships should be dealt with early in the process, during overall balancing. Similar to the metagame's vetting of acceptable ship types, lets find a range of designs that work then get on to blowing them up! Each interested player need not design their own ship.

while each interested player need not design their own ships, I was going to implement a system to submit a ship to a "class" like a Missile cruiser, escort (think pd) , and such with different sub classes so its not just "cruiser" or "battleship".

I was thinking of setting baseline stats based off of 1000pt standard hull segments, 3000 pt block armor (think large wall of armor, serves the purpose of many smaller armor layers) 800pt scale armor (standard, layered design.)

All ships of course are going to be custom and while ships available per each game won't change during the game, I do want to encourage new weapon, hull, ship type, and ship design entries for the next game.

I do agreee on the fact of making a basline ship designs for the game since custom shps would be a little too much work to prevent noob ships with some super doom laser that destroys everything in the game...
perhaps somthing like Ogame or whatever where you have "resources" from like building space stations and stuff then the in-game will be like in the curent battleships forever where you have a control over the ships

If its done with small, fast games then custom ships can be reviewed and accepted between or during each game so they could be implemented during the next game. This way things are kept fun, but not repetitive.

Edit: for all intents and purposes my concept is complete now I just need to move on to development. I want to get the first test game done in a week with simple rules that will develop with each succession.

I will soon make a new thread specifically for my Mini Meta Game concept (MMG) (name not finalized. (thank god)).