I began in May by creating a Dev Doc for the game and followed that up by looking at how I could divide the game up into pieces that I could create in a micro simulator in about a day each.
Sector Star System Generator
This was the first micro-sim I created. its design was to populate a sector of the Galaxy with Star Systems. It would not select Star type or what planet types were in each Star System. However, it would control the number of planets in each system. I created a weighted system to reflect a balance between today's current knowledge of average planet number per Star System and increasing playability.
Planned Updates: Generate the location cords for each Star System and set a range for number of Star Systems in each sector based on the distance of the sector from the center of the galaxy.
Star System Generator
The second micro-sim to be created. Its design was to select a Star type, the number of planets, and select planet types for each. In a more recent update it now selects planet size and Non-Planet Objects (NPO). The generator uses a copy of the weighted planet slot number system
from the Sector Star System Generator to allow for similar results in the number of Planet Slots in the Star System. A second weighted system is used when assigning types to each planet slot and a third weighted system is used to assign size to the planet slot. I say planet slor because after introducing the idea of NPO's all objects in a planet slot are treated the same.
Planned Updates: Link the micro-sim to the Sector Star System Generator and have it control the number of Planet Slots in the system.
Possible Updates: Generate planet richness. Moving the production bonus calculation from Planet Surface micro-sim to this one and have the Planet Surface use it as a flat bonus to tile information.
Racial Trait Selection
This micro-sim, currently on display and usable on the Portas Aurora website, has zero random number generation. There have been about 10 version of this micro-sim, mostly due to how the user inputs their selections and the feedback that they should receive after each selection.
While this the original version took about a day to create, thankfully that the information for the traits was already written out, it took more than a week to achieve its current state. It has a system to handle trait group display, current trait selection, interlock between paired traits, overview, and trait point calculations.
Possible Updates: Some ideas are to improve the right side display, add more explanation to the menus, add more traits to the current list. However, any of these are going to be based on feedback.
Planet Surface Generation
This micro-sim can be seen in a previous journal entry. divides the planet into 16 tiles and displays the biodiversity and mineral deposit of each.
Currently this micro-sim does not take any outside input. Users can click on any of the tiles to see a more detailed selection of information about a tile. This was designed to be more of a prototype to the Planet Surface Construction micro-sim.
Planned Updates: Link racial trait bonuses, and Star System inputs to create a more accurate view of the planet.
Shipyard
This is the most recent micro-sim in development. I knew that this one would take more than a day to create and so I had pushed it back, currently it is setting at 8 days. However, part of this is due to the information for the Shipyard is not up to a level that testing can catch enough bugs and that the ideas for the shipyard are a tight balance between creative and functional. I will do another journal entry on this later to see if I can get additional input.
The current plan is to develop a container that can use all of the micro-sims and allow a few people to test out the first version of the player interface. If there is anything you would like to see please leave a comment and I will do a journal entry over it.
