If you're going to take on the whole net-ev thing, its gonna be hard, and a lot
of work, but I'll post my ideas of how things should be done. If I was you, I'd
make your four person shooter and then when you are done with that, use elements
from that to work on the bigger project.
Another thing you may want to consider, is the possiblity of using 3d ships, but
still having them fly on a 2d plane, this can give you much cooler effects with
lighting and weapons. But it would increase system requirements a bunch.
Requiring 3d acceleration of some kind.
Now here I go:
For this to work, you will need a dedicated server, and server software. The
server should be able to handle about 100 players, depending on the server, i
wouldn't know that though. Servers also have like about 100 systems or so each,
but many of these systems aren't always in use, because no players are in them.
You can connect servers to add more systems and the ability for more players,
servers shouldn't control a defined map of systems in a multi-server
configuration, they should be able to pass systems and their players to other
servers, but keep the systems each server controls clustered, but if half the
players decided to go into the northern part of the map, then that server could
pass half its systems the other servers, easing the load on the northern server,
this should be done on the fly.
The adminstrators of these servers would be responsible for evolving the
universe: Because as time goes on, new technologies are found and such. Any way
the administrators would ever few days add a few new, more powerful weapons,
modifiy a few (like make them cheaper, and use less space), and retire old
weapons. Same goes for ships and outfits. you might be able to find a way to
automate this. Administrators could create a list of names, and sometimes
retired names would come back up, but would do more damage. So when a player has
a weapon/outfit/ship that is being upgraded, they can pay a fee and have their
item updated as well, or they can sell it for the new cost. If an item/ship is
retired, then the player is given money = to the value of its last sale price.
For ships specifically, there will be a notice sent out to all players if their
ship is going to be retired, and they will have a week or so to get a new ship,
if they don't, then their ship is sold, and they end up on the closest planet
with a shipyard.
If the Administrators wanted they could create an entirely new universe as well,
with a different plot line. Which gets us into missions and the structure of
governments and companies. What I'd like to see, is a governments be controlled
by the people playing the game. You could let only people who have conquered a
planet start a government. they could merge with other governments to make one
and all the territory is combined, in most cases, this will be like a few systems
combined. Or govs could just be ally's. There would be two levels to the
governments, the workers, who are trying to make money, and the rulers, who are
people who've conquered planets, or have been voted in by all the members of the
gov. ie, one ruler nominates another player to join, and then all the rulers in
the gov take a vote, if more than 50% agree, then the player is now a ruler in
that gov. Anyway, planets have a tech level, which increases as the game goes
on, more research and stuff. Rulers can establish trade with other planets in
their kingdom, and thats one of their revenue sources. Also when players buy
things in a planets outfit shop/shipyard, they get the profit. Trade also has
the positive effect of increasing tech levels. As ideas spread. Trading with
your allied govs has a greater effect on tech level, even if they are a lower
tech level, both govs get bonus from it. Also taxes would be generated from the
population, make it a fixed rate so you don't have to worry about taxing them too
much. So if you have 10 million people, you get 100 million dollars or
something. I'm not sure how the bigger govs would make decisions yet on how to
spend money and who to establish trade routes with. Voting here as well?
Anyway, the gov's could spend the taxes gained from the above mentioned ways and
use them to increase the tech levels of their shipyards, and outfit shops, they
could spend it on defense fleets, and they can spend it on trading fleets, and
escorts for your fleets. These just are AI ships that appear in your systems,
and the systems around you. Your gov shouldn't be able to control systems like
more than 5 systems away from your nearest system, so you can't have a planet on
the other side of the galaxy while you have four planets on one side. You'd
designate one system as your capital, and it would get bonus's for being the
capital. Losing the system would result in a loss of production for all planets
until a new capital is built. The other things you could build, would be a
shipyard, trade center (you can still trade without this, but you don't get the
bonus the trade center offers), outfit shop, and bar, (you can get money if
people gamble, or buy a drink, probably not much though) and finally a
hypercommunications system which allows people to send messages to other players
across the galaxy, like ICQ, this is real cheap though, and has charges players
like 5 credits per message they send (which also cuts down on spam messages if
anyone's so lame), these messages are available at other communications systems,
the more expensive message like 100 credits would show up for the player while
they are out flying. And players can ignore other players in this, and the bar
is like an irc chat room, but it doesn't need all the features, rulers are the
ops. Rulers don't receive tribute from planets they've conqured, rather the
planets are happy with who ever rules them, as long as the next closest planet
isn't more than 5 systems away, in which case it rebels and becomes independent.
Anyway, so the rules may get to control millions of credits in taxes, but that
must be spent on the planets in the gov. Rules rather get a salary, based on the
number of rulers, and the tech levels of their planets.
Govs can also set aside a portion of their revenues to go to player escorts, and
player cargo delivery. While this is more expensive, as you are hiring out
instead of using the govs ships, it is sometimes more reliable if you have
enemies that like to steal your trading. This is where govs create missions, but
they are generated by the server.
Players can also create some missions if they are not in a gov. They can set
themselves up as escorts, and set a fee, they can fly around waiting for someone
to select them, their ship registers on the system their in and the adjacent
systems as available for escorting. Players can also do this via direct ship to
ship chat. Escorts can either accept or reject the contract, if they accept,
they are put on autopilot and jumped to the system the player is in. They can
then move around freely in the system, if the person they are escorting jumps
out, they automatically jump out with them. Now for how the pay scale works, the
escort gets 10% of the agreed amount per minute. This keeps them around if there
is a battle. If the player aborts the contract then the escort gets the other
90% per minute as per the contract, if the escort aborts the contract, they only
get the 10%. Players can also set up bounties on other players, if they don't
like them, and other players can accept the mission, multiple people at once, if
someone else who has not accepted the mission kills the player, then the money
goes back to the person who made the bounty. If someone who has accepted the
mission kills them, then they get the money. Which leads us to dying:
When A player dies I don't think they should be able to start out in their same
ship again, rather all ships have escape pods, and the player has to buy a new
ship, so a lot of money helps if you die, money is kept in the bank, added each
time you land.
Theres also story line missions, that administrators could create, and keep
adding new threads to. Many players could follow these missions, some could let
everyone achieve them, and some could be open for multiple people to accept them,
but only one person can beat the final mission. If the administrators were good,
they would make it challenging so you'd have to use your intelligence as well as
your skill to be the first to complete these missions.
That's all I can think of now, I'll probably think of more later, anyway hope
that helps someone.
Chamrin
see I even spell it right). You could have someone as the council, controlling the Strand governemtn officials....
The general solution is to use UDP and write your own packet resending algorithms, TCP is just too evil.