Long story short my nephew loves Kebab space program. Loves space and all things space related.
So while looking after him today I thought it would be interesting to make a CoG style game for him. He is 10.
So I though I’d see if there is any interest in helping me with the hard science of space travel. Make it fun and educational if I can.
So far planing wise I have
A very basic outline of a story. Near future Earth think 2030s or 2040s. A chance discovery via telescope or flyby probe in the outer solar system necessitating a manned flight. But for the last 20-25 years interest in space travel had waned and except for satellite lunches practicality non existing.
The MC is the Director of one of three space agencies. Basicly China. NASA and a UN backed Global Space Agency. All of which are racing to get there first.
The rest is up in the air. Story wise I see a series of prep missions leading to the final mission to what ever is in the outer solar system.
The MC has to make decisions on what technologies to employ. What kind of mission? Science? Recovery? Denial? What kind of infastructure will you set up to get there? Fuel dumps? Automated refineries? Mid mission refueling? Or Carry it all at the same time. What about the return trip.
And then there is the political and economic side. Fighting with politicians and companies for resources technology or money. Making deals for things but adding secondary objectives to your mission. And dealing with fallout when stuff goes wrong from rushing or mechanical failure or poor planning.
Any intrest in this? if so I’m looking for help with the understanding and discribing the technology involved. Getting the math right. And designing the verious ways you can go about making the outer solar system and back. Making it as realistic on the technical side as possible.
This sounds great! I would love to see this turn into a game. Although I know nothing about space other than it is a quite unhealthy breathing location. Would love to further my knowledge.
I made this account (I’ve been meaning to make a COG account for a while now, but eh) just to say this is a good idea, and I would be willing to help with my measly knowledge!
Lol well Kebal space program is all kinds of awesome!
So the little work I did last night was to establish that the MC gets to choose their early life. What gender. Where were they born? Did their parents or parent move after to a diffrent city/country. How rich their parents were.
And have that decide which schools are available. And then have them chose their area of study. Law/Administration, Buessness, Pysics, Chemistry, or Biology.
Then chose what field they were in before they were asked to lead their space program.
All these choices will feed into verious advantages and disadvantages the MC has when dealing with the world and the people in their agency.
I also thought about RO and since I’m primarily targeting my nephew who is 10 I don’t plan on any but I do think I’ll include that the MC can have a spouse and children.
Ah yes there will be a Kabab possibly in space even…
On that note I was planning for a fair amount of random variables to show that even with the best planning and the best equipment bad stuff happens
Good idea bad idea?
I know it will make the game harder to test
And that on one game the random number god Random will decide to hate you but sine it would also apply to the competition it should even out.
I have to wonder though how hard you want your science to be. Hard science is steeped with fact checking and a lot of theories and junk that goes over a lot of people’s heads unless they exclusively study that junk. If your target audience is around 10 (which I am ALL for, again, educational games! I love using ChoiceScript for that kind stuff!) you might wanna go a little softer.
Still, I am one-hundred-and-eight percent behind this concept! Go for it!
Question 1: The Games ultimate goal is well up in the air I was thinking of having three endgame goals one of which is selected based on how the player runs their agency. right now I’m working with a story of sending a manned mission to Saturn to investigate an Extra-solar object that is transmitting radio. could be natural, or it could be something else entirely.
Question 2: Space launching technology is still around in the story, it just hasn’t been used for man flight in 15 years. Satellite launches are still fairly common just low weight. under a ton
Game Mechanics.
I am planning on optional missions as well as a primary mission for each chapter.
I’m currently working on a reusable script for the launching and mission outcomes. I’ve condensed a lot of the MC or Agency Stats I was working with just to make it easier to plan. instead working with a resource level system as your resources are replenished every budget year but having no way to save the money.
Agency Stats
Funding: Well cash used for practical everything, but mostly used for maintenance of facilities and staff. oh and building rockets. (or other launch craft if you invest in an alternative launch style)
Expertise: Broken down into Engineering, Planning, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. each are stats that are applied to your rockets various components and are a representation of how good the agency is at designing or building or planning for those things. Because the Missions can be changed to an extent and to reduce outright failure because of a bad “roll” every point above the minimum necessary in the stat for the component acts as redundancy. so if a component requires level 3 Engineering and the agency has level 5 then the script will skip the first 2 failures (treating them as passes while noting the failure).
Public Opinion: How taxpayers (and others) view your program. The Better it is the more money you get for the next four years. the less the greater the chance your program may be canceled.
I wasn’t thinking of going really hard. I want to use the terminology as correctly as possible and be as accurate as I can while describing the maneuvers and the majority of the technology. But when it comes down to it, it is a story about a fictional space agency thirty-ish years from now. I’m going to be looking at current and near-future technologies the most no magical cryogenics or FTL wormhole drives, some missions may take six years or more to complete. but at the same time I want the “story” to be interesting and fun so Reality may have to take a back seat if necessary.
Múltiple ends are good for replaybility and also the mechanics seems fair.
Just one thing. How do you raise. for example. the engineer level of you agency? Trowing money at your engineers? making them work for XP points? Acomplishing contracts/objectives? And about the other agencies? our oponets are on the run for it?
And also, i like the idea of a different aproach to acomplish the short/middle term goals.
Space turism? reusable rockets? Nuclear engines? SSTOs? talkin robots? <3
Great!
If i understand this well. There are missions that you will be free to accept or ignore while others are story driven and linked with the main plot (like the end game saturn mission).
How it will work? You will make the game turn based? or certain variables like prestige or resources “trigger” the historical events at certain value…
I like your upgrade dynamic! so if the MC does not have resources for a upgrade, their can try to earn it by another way.
Actually it works along the same way my other game WIP script currently works which is there is a time variable. Which ticks down whenever the root or clock script is called. So kinda like a turn based
I think you mean kerbal?
