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BeyondCloister
2007.03.11, 07:40 AM
Project
Expansion

What is it?
Expansion is an exploring / trading based game set in an intergalactic future.

The aim is to find new planets and build travel gateways between them. These gateways will allow the creation of trade routes for the trading element of the game. The money made via trading will allow the players to fund further Expansion to new worlds. There will be other ways to raise funds, such as building a gateway and charging others to use it or a bit of the underworld dealings.

Where can I find it?
Time will tell.

End User Environment
The game will be played via web pages. The initial version will be heavily text based with a more graphical version to follow.

Development Environment
PHP
MySQL
HTML

Why do it?
Why not? Why do any kind of game?

The answer though is that I'm looking for a distraction from more serious work. I'm also wanting to stretch the legs of my PHP/MySQL engine that was designed for something entirely different. It is also part of a little experiment of mine.

Roadmap

Kick off project - (done with this post)
Post initial design documentents
Bring skelton engine online for alpha players
Bring beta engine online
Graphical upgrades
Expansion


Notes
This is just an initial draft posting and will be expanded as development progresses.

In the good old days this would be one of those Developer Diaries which the site sorely misses. (That's the political bit out of the way.)

The Mystery Counters
Currently almost all the counters are at zero.
MITOL: 1


Secret Goals
There are several secret goals to this projects. As they are met I will list them.

BeyondCloister
2007.03.11, 08:53 AM
Here is the first pass overview of the object structure for the game.

http://office.asae.co.uk/expansion/Design/objectstructure001.png

Note
This is very much just a brain dump of stuff that has been going around my head for the last few days since I decided to do this project.

BeyondCloister
2007.03.11, 09:15 AM
This is what the various classes and member variables represent.

Commodity
This is a Commodity in the game.

Amount - The amount of the commodity.
BuyPrice - The price paid for the commodity.
Name - The title of the commodity.
SellPrice - The price the commodity is being sold at.

Player
This is a player of the game.

Funds - This is the amount of cash the player has.
MaxTasks - The maximum tasks the player can do per turn.
Name - The name of the player.
Tasks - The number of things the player can do this turn.

Sites
This is an Industrial Unit kind of thing which trading / exploring is carried out from.

Attack - Attack value of the site.
Commodities - The Commodities at the Site.
Defence - The defence value of the site.
MaxShields - Fully charged Shiels value of the site.
Owner Player - This is who owns the site.
ShieldRecharge - The rate the shields recharge.
Shields - Current shield value.
Size - The size of the site. This can be expanded as the site grows as long as their is space on the World.

Transporter
A vehicle for moving Commodities between worlds.

Attack - Attack value of the Transporter.
Capacity - The maximum carrying capacipty of the Transporter.
Commodities - The Commodities being carried by the transporter.
Defence - Defence value of the Transporter.
Destination - The World the Transporter is travelling to.
Location - The World the transporter is currently located.
MaxShields - Fully charged up Shield value.
Name - The name of the Transporter.
Owner - The player that owns the Transporter.
ShieldRecharge - The rate the shields recharge.
Shields - Current shield level of Transporter.
Speed - The rate of travel for the Transporter.
Type - The type of Transporter.
Value - The value of the transporter.

TravelGateway
This is a Travel Gateway linking two worlds.

Destination - The World the Travel Gateway goes to.
Distance - The distance the Travel Gateway covers.
Owner - Who owns the Travel Gateway.
Source - The World the Travel Gateway goes from.
Tarrif - The charge for using the Travel Gateway.

World
This is a planet in the system.

Capacity - This is the maximum capacity the world has for sites.
Commodities - The resources the world has to offer.
Sites - The collection of Sites the world has.
TravelGateways - The collection of TravelGateways on the world.

BeyondCloister
2007.03.11, 10:32 AM
This diagram shows an overview of the what a player can.

Each activity will have a cost associated with it and the player will have budget per turn. Some of the activities will be free.

http://office.asae.co.uk/expansion/Design/uc_game_turn001.png