Revolting Sun

Code

Ideas

The original idea was for Revolting Sun to be a turn-based game, with base layouts and battles happening in an arbitrarily sized grid. Players will be able to choose either Human or Alien factions (possibly more in the future). Players will be able to form alliances with each other for various goals; trade, mercenary, etc.

Game Flow

Player creates an account and logs in.

Upon activating their account, the User is prompted to create an initial base (their headquarters) and an army.

After base creation is finished, the player will get to build their first squad (the size of which is up for suggestion). The player should be able to pick from a stock pool of generic soldiers.

After squad creation is finished, the player will be presented with the 'main' game screen, the world map. This map will show info on various battles and player/NPC movement.

When enough resources are gained, players may build new structures inside of their base. These structures would include things like a barracks for training soldiers, hangar for storing aircraft, science lab for researching technologies, etc.

If an enemy is detected within the player's range, allow the player to attack. This is done in several ways. If it's an enemy ship, the player may send fighters to shoot it down. Once it crashes, the player may send a transport with soldiers to initiate a ground combat battle at the wreckage site.

Another way would be if the detected enemy is already on the ground, at which point the player may send a transport to initiate combat.

Repeat until the player's base is destroyed or they conquer the universe (heh).

Stats

Some basic level of stats should be assigned to every object in the game. For example, a soldier might have stats such as 'Health', 'Accuracy', 'Piloting', and so forth; while a building might simply have a 'Durability' stat to track it's damage. Stats should be thought-out and added, even if they won't be used until a later date. This way, we can build the code around the existing attributes, instead of having to go back and add one here and there, etc.

Example Stats

Soldier:

• Name - String - Obvious use.
• Health - Integer - Obvious use.
• Class - String (or SoldierClass model) - Infantry, Medic, etc.
• Armor - Integer - Soldier's armor level. Might get moved into an equipment type thing.
• Actions - Integer - How many actions this soldier can perform per round. For example, firing a pistol might take two AP, while firing a rocket launcher might take five.
• Accuracy - Integer - Determines accuracy with weapons. Weapon accuracy would get factored into the final calculation, to give sniper rifles better accuracy, etc.
• Strength - Integer - Carrying capacity; other neat things like pulling wounded soldiers out of harms way (a skill maybe?)

Weapons:

• Name - String - Obvious use.
• Type - String - Pistol, Rifle, Grenade, etc.
• Accuracy - Integer - See the description of Soldier Accuracy.
• Ammo - Array - Current / Max amount of ammo. Stored as an array like this: [12, 30] Which means 12 rounds left, with a 30 round max clip.
• Damage - Integer - Obvious use.

Vehicles:

• Name - String - Obvious use.
• Type - String - Fighter, Transport, Tank, etc.
• Armor - Integer - Obvious use (like Health for a Soldier).
• Speed - Integer - Sort of like Action Points for a Soldier; might just name it Action Points instead of Speed.
• Weapons - Not sure of the best way to handle this yet. Since a Fighter can possibly have a machine gun and missles as weapons and a Transport could have no weapons at all.

Buildings:

• Name - String - Obvious use.
• Cost - Integer - Cost to build.
• Type - String - Barracks, Hangar, Lab, etc.
• Durability - Integer - Like Health for a Soldier.
• Research - This would probably be dependent upon the Type, since a Barracks should be generating Research points. Figure out a nice way to handle this.

Economy, Combat, and bears! Oh my!

I haven't really put much thought into how the economy and researching should be worked out. I've got a fairly good idea on how to make a balanced combat system, but the economy and research systems are still up in the air. Suggestions are definitely welcome.

Data Feeds

All of the game data should be available through a data exchange format, such as XML, JSON, YAML, etc. All interaction with the game data should be made using RESTful principles, so theoretically any client that knows how to use the four standard HTTP methods can be used to play the game, it's not limited to just a web browser. This could lead to console or GUI clients, and even mobile clients.