The Universe
The universe will consist of the following
Star systems
Which have:
-Planets
-Stations (Three types: Refinery, Trade station, Space station)
-Moons
-Asteroid Belts
-Nebula’s (NPC-Pirates hide here)
-Jump Gates
Constellations
-
Constellations will consist of 5 Star systems
Regions
-Regions will consist of 6 to 10 Constellations, or 30 to 50 star systems.
Planet(s) & Moons
In each system will be one planet. and each planet will have up to 5 moons.
There will be multiple types of Atmosphere’s on planets and moons. Each type will have a max amount of population, and a specific type of Trade Good it will create. They are as follows
Earthen & Water Planets
will have high population, And will produce trade goods the Quickest.
Ice & Desert Planets
will have medium level population, and will produce goods at a moderate level.
Methane & Argon Gas Planets
will have low populations, they will produce goods like gas’s slowly, but will have higher trade value and profits.
Lava Planets
will have Very low populations, and they will produce Crystals and Gold, the most valuable and slowly produce Trade Good. These will bring traders the best income rates, but because of their produce rate being 1/10th of that of a earth planets production rate, will be hard to find in trade stations.
Each planet will produce demand a trade good for each technological level. The highest the technological level, the demand for each type comes or rises. For example, a a technological level 1 planet will only require space grain, which is found on earth and water planets. When their level rises they will want Uranium, and Steel from Desert and Ice planets, And so on.
Production of Trade Goods
Each planet will produce its respective trade good per an hour per a population. It will be something like
10,000,000 (People) = 10 Good Production Per hour
High population planets will have up to 1billion population
Medium Population planets will have up to 500 million
Low Population Planets will have up to 250 million
Very low population will have up to 100 million
Its important to note that planets will have technologies that improve production rates, as well as population limits.
All Trade Goods Produced by a planet Go’s Directly to the trade station (automatically)
Technological Levels
This is a hard subject to touch on because understand the system first requires you to be aware of a few things. First of all it requires knowledge of the “clan skill tree”
(see below).
Technological levels of planets and moves give access to specific types of buffs, system wide Or planetary defense. These buffs depend on the technological level of the planet. Each defense system has its advantage and disadvantage and each technology or defense used costs Credits. Some examples are
-Npc’s spawn to protect your planet or moon when enemies attack
-Small to large weapons platforms are distributed through the combat zone (Map) that attack enemies, and have life. (They are on sides of astrouds)
- Mine fields randomly placed in the combat zone that are permanent
There are also advantage technologies for Race-specific clans, and even faction-specific clans. These technologies require research from the skill tree (only accessed by a clan with a pure race or faction player population). These advance technologies also require specific levels of technologies to use. Further they have GS Cost to build, and a weekly upkeep. The Positive to all of these requirements, is they are incredibly powerful. Some examples are
Jericho
(Planetary shields). If all moons are taken, the planets activates a shield that prevents attack on the planet for 12 hours. Costs 1500 GS to build, and 125 gs a week to upkeep
Federation
(Planetary Cloaking device) If all moons are taken, the planets activates a Cloak that prevents attack on the planet for 12 hours.Costs 1500 gs to build, and 125 gs a week to upkeep
Empire
(Planetary Defense System) If all moons are taken, the planets activates a defense system that prevents attack on the planet for 12 hours. Costs 1500 GS to build, and 125 gs a week to upkeep
Some examples of Faction specific abilities are
Tech
(Regenerative shielding) When being part of this clan, your modulate shields also regenerate 2% Shielding per a second (Passive) Costs 1250 GS to research.
Federation
(Advance Cloaking Device) When being part of this clan you gain improved cloaking. If you break cloak by attack, your first attack will have a 100% Critical Strike chance.
Warden
(Armor Regeneration) When being part of this clan, Armor regenerates at 3% ever 3 Seconds (Passive)
Production of items
Planets also produce items based on its technological level for the parts shops.
(see production for more info)
Conquest Of System
Systems will be fairly simply to conquest. You will fly to a star system, you will have your fleet grouped, and you will engage an attack on a moon Via a pop up (hot keyd’ Interface). That Ui will have a list of all celestial Bodies in system (planets and moons). you will simply click on the object you want to attack, and hit attack. A confirmation will come up to confirm an attack. If you are not at war with the moon or planets owner, you will be required to pay 250,000 credits.
After conquering all moons, you will be able to attack the planet (provided the above technologies are not in place other wise you have to wait 12 hours). If you conquer the planet the sovereignty of the solar system will switch to your corporation. When this happens your corporation will gain control over the resources in space in the solar system, Like Trade posts, Refineries and space stations.
Mining
it was briefly mentioned that planets will require Metals (as well as credits or GS) to advance its technological level. In Total there is 5 technological levels to a planet, 6 levels to Racial owned corporation’s planets, and 7 levels to faction. There fore, planets that are purely faction based will have the strongest form of infrastructure if they so choose to develop it…
Mining for corporations will be very simple and easy to set up. asteroids in Core-systems will not produce metals when refined; However asteroids in conquerable space, will produce metals when refined. So corporate miners will produce both Goods for themselves, and Goods for the corporation, playing a primary spot in production of a corporation or alliances space.
Refineries can be built by corporations, as well as trade posts, they will cost GS to make, But every system will have a space station. refineries will also have an auto-tax system but in, and will collect 0-15% of all refined material for its owned corporation. Tax rates will be set in the station management tab. Gems will come from refining all ore, and will be able to be sold at any station, they will have absolutely no use other then to make exp and money (at least when the game opens up) As
PRODUCTION OF ITEMS WILL NOT BE BASED OFF MINED ORE.
Trading
Trading will also play an important part in corporation life. Corporations will have tax rates which they can set. Tax rates will be up to 100% (Maybe 50%). As the trader trades, Money will be auto-deposited in the corporate wallet. Trading also provides a direct benefit to the corporation.
the reason for this is because every planet has sims, and even sims population has desires for something. So a lava planet for example, will desire water. so water will sell high at a lava planet, but low at a water planet. Sims will automatically buy stuff from the trade stations.
So there will be a constant income and outcome of trade goods. Traders trading from station to station help move these goods around, when they sell goods that are desired in that system, they help raise the planets growth rates, and its produced technologies which in return produce faster population. Thus helping the corporations infrastructure grow, helping the corporate wallet as well as helping the trader make money.
Production of Items
item production will have recipes. These will require specific items that are bought at “parts shops”. Parts shops stock items based on its orbiting planets technological level. So for example, you will always have parts to build a mark 1 laser, but a mark 2 level will require technology level 2 on a planet or moon in system. Other wise you will have to travel to another system (that has the level) to get the parts from the space station.
Production of items will be based off a recipe. you will get them from various tasks, like quests, GS Shop, or looting.
Producing Items (Quality Level)
After learning the recipe you will be able to pick up the parts and make the item in a space station. items will have a 15 second to 90 second production time (no Cool down); However for example you have a laser plan that says 50 dps on it, you will start out at 50% Quality level.
As you produce it the quality improves from 25 dps, to 50 dps. Eventually you will gain the ability to make items beyond their design plans. they will cost the same goods, but your character will get good at making them, increasing the quality of the item. It will work something like this
(Grey) 50% Quality 0-15 of this item made
(White) 100%-109% Quality 15-25 of this item made
(Green) 110%-119% Quality 25-50 Of this item made
(Blue) 120%-129% Quality 50-75 Of this item made
(Purple) 130-139% Quality over 75.
However, making over 75 will not grant purple 100% of the time, instead they will grant a chance to get that quality level. Lets assume you have made over 75 of that item, these will be the percentages to get that level
(Grey) 0
(White) 10
(Green) 70%
(Blue) 12.5%
(Purple) 7.5%
This way there is stability to the player-market which brings us to the last part of of the universe
Mark
et
the market will play a role in two ways. First it will serve to auction off player created items, will have a bid/buyout system, and will have a 10% Cost to sell amount (For game-economic stability)
The second role it will play is providing ships to buy (Automatically). Ships will be sold on the market and added there automatically by the game. Players will eventually be able to make ships, but i have not worked out how that will take place yet. Likely i will come up with some concept of a ship-yard that will be built on level 3 planets that can produce ships.
the market in no way will have anything to do with trading or ore. these are direct sell features much like selling an heavy laser back to the market you don’t want. ore will only be refined, its not able to be sold. trade goods can only be bought or sold at a trade market, at a trade station.
Misc
Travel
Travel around the universe will be based on jump drives only. Jumping to a system will spawn you in random locations. This is to prevent Camping a system, or completely locking someone down. This will help encourage smaller skirmishes, rather then blobs which will result in fair, and funner game play, as well as server stability. ideally i don’t predict any combat over 75 vs 75 with a system like this. and it will likely be a long time before we see anything like that. Jump drives have a 3 minute cool down, but there is an optional way of travel.
JumpGates
Jump gates will be on both sides of all systems. They will enable the players to move from one system to the next with out using jump drives. They will also not effect the cool down of jump drives. these will be the idea form of travel, but in case of emergency ships can jump from one system to the next, for example of a trader is getting attack he can jump instead of worrying about getting to a gate; Or if a system is under attack corp members can jump in.
Its important to note jump drives have a range, based on the ship size. Smaller ships can jump longer distances but are also weaker and not suited for assaulting planets, as planetary defenses will be set up to be absolutely destructive to these types of ships.
Clan Skill system
This skill tree will also have Sub divisions for each race and faction. If the corporation is race or faction based the ceo will be able to research that tree. This skill tree will offer buffs to all corp members in the corporation no matter where they are. Each skill will cost exp. Exp will be granted from killing, selling Ore, or Trading items. Clans will have levels.
Some examples of clan buffs are
-movement speed buff
-reduce repair costs
-reduced jump cool down
-increased regeneration (energy, shields or armor)
-Increased income (trading, or selling ore-gems)
Special skills for a clan are
- when ever a player sells ore at a refiner you get 10% (not a tax, just a straight deposit into corporate wallet from the refinery to the corp).
-X amount of credits per every good bought by sims.
-Increased good production rates
-Increased max population of a planet
-increased max storage room on a trade station