A game concept (Alpha 66)(RTS)

[Resender]

Alpha 66

In the summer of 1999 I came up with this concept of the game,it's name is random it was just someting that popped into my head when I first thought of the world,

it's lore and what it would entail.

I started off with 18 factions,it boiled down to 7,5 humans 2 alien. Each with more or less their own agenda.

Since I neither have the programming or artistic talent,not the money to fund this.

Alpha 66 is an RTS following the base building concept put forward by the classics of C&C & limited unit caps of Ground Control.

For the human factions building bases & maintaining a population will be the order of business.

While the alien factions will have to deal with limited troops send down from a mothership in orbit.

The different factions will be described in detail later,but I'm going to use examples of existing factions in other games to try & explain their reasoning.

I'm sharing it here,if someone picks it up (please do & please mention me),I will expand the lore ect... over the coming weeks,16 years are hard to condense into a single post.

Prelude

It's the 37'th century. A 1000 years have passed since the Merkath crusade swept through our galaxy wiping out all live.

As predicted the radiation from the Energicium deposits on Alpha 66 blinded the Merkath life detect sensors, allowing 10 million humans to be

the first beings to ever survive a crusade.

However things didn't go as plan,communications between the 5 stasis facilities has been interrupted, you are in command of 1.

Things for the Merkath haven't gone on as planned either, a 1000 years ago on the home of some bipedal species something happened.

And the tribesmen,the slaves that operated the crusades extermination machines rebelled,for the first time ever a crusade will fail.

History

*one billion years ago

-Alusians evolved on Krepallis IV

-Alusians explore & colonize the Milky Way galaxy

-13th Merkath crusade

-Alusians gone extinct

*2th half 21th century

-Pulse-jump drive allow humanity to travel at FTL speeds

-United Earth Nations founded to represent humanity in event of first contact

*22th century

-Mass scale colonisation Sol system finished

-First exo-solar colonies founded

-Energy to matter conversion invented

*23th century

-Mass exploration of the galaxy

-Charting of Alpha Star cluster

-Alpha 66 discovered

-Energicium discovered on ALpha 66

-First use recorded of build paste & fuel cells

*24th century

-Alpha 66 colonized

-Survey of the galaxy reveal no other civilization beyond our own

-Terran federation established

*26th century

-Ruins of the Alusians discoverd on Krepallis IV

*27th century

-14th Mertkath crusade

*28th century

-Predicted reawakening of humans in stasis on Alpha 66

*37th

-Actual reawakening of humans in stasis on Alpha 66

Technology & items

Pulse-jump

Way of travelling faster then light

Fuel-Cells

Containers that contain a semi-fluid,semi-solid fuel

Buildpaste

Substance used by humans to build structures & vehicles,can be 'transmuted' in materials desired

Energicium Crystal

Found on Alpha 66,emits unknown radiation (harmless to lifeforms),grows by absorbing em radiation & turning it into matter

Races

Humans

Place of origin:Earth

Average Height: -

Average lifespan: 90-120 standard years

Type: humanoid

Status: alive, survived 14th crusade

Alusians

Place of origin: Krepallis IV

Average Height: -

Average lifespan: 70-90 standard years

Type: humanoid

Status: wiped out 13th crusade

Merkath

Place of origin: Merkathi Prime (Merkath's prison galaxy)

Average height: -

Average lifespan: 25-40/100-125 standard years

Type: humanoid

Status: alive

Plasma-Worm(Merkath & Terra race)

Place of origin:unknown

Average length: 10.000 km

Average lifespan: unknown (although at least 14 billion standard years)

Type: hydrogen plasma based lifeform

Status: alive

Factions

*Uniteds (U.E.N.)

The uniteds wish to reestablish the Terran Federation & democracy,their military units are best compared to the GDI out of C&C (visually)

*Energicum Corp

The largest mining consortium on Alpha 66,they want to reastablish human dominance over the galaxy but would rather see CEO's instead of politicians in charge

Best compared to the caldari from the MMO (politically) and the Ordos from Dune (military)

*The Mercs

Only instrested in one thing,money and who pays the most money.

*The protectared of Messar

Often called the gypsies of space,although they find this offensive,the people who often the teachings of Messar are nomads that wander the galaxy.

Their bases consist out of mobile structures.

*The Hive

Former top sciencetists who believe that the 14th Crusade was a sign that humanity must evolve.

You can compare them best to the Zerg form Starcraft meet the Borg from Star Trek

*14th Crusade

Without their slaves,the leaders of the 14th crusade have turned to the forbidden technologies to continue thier quest,to wipe out all multicellular live in

our universe. Think of 'War of the world' qua war machines.

*Merkathi tribes

Former slaves looking for the temple of Terra,which is fabled to contain the key to their ultimate freedom.

The tribes use weapons more commonly associated with pre-industrial people but implement hyper advanced materials,making them just as deadly.

The tribes are capable of allying with humans.

[Resender]

Game mechanics part1

Each 'campaign' will offer you a randomly generated world,divided into a number of capturable regions.

The starting maps will always be the same,as will special objectives locations.

Each region has 2 turn mechanics(Humans).

*Tactical

During a tactical turn you either have to defend or conquer a region,if the region is not under threat of combat the tactical turn will auto run

providing you with a random amount of units & resources based on that regions production facilities.

The tactical turn plays out as a command & conquer style RTS

*Strategic

During the strategic turn you will be able to expand you military bases further,build out the civilian infrastructure,research ect...

When the strategic turn ends all construction and production in the region will be paused until the next turn on that region.

At the beginning of a campaign you will be asked for the length of the Strategic turns, you can let an AI run the strategic turn for you allowing you to

focus on other regions.

The strategic turn plays out as a city builder.

The region remains persistent between the 2 turns,however you will not be able to build or replace civilian structures during a tactical turn.

The Merkath factions only have 1 option,invade a region & claim it,they can only produce new untis on their motherships.

The campaign will end when any faction has a victory condition

*Military supremacy(1)

-Control 90% of the regions (alone)

-Control 85% of the regions with you being the largest force (alliance)

*Council(1)

-be elected leader of humanity

*Science(1)

-have the resources to build & launch a colony ship

*Transcendence(1)

-transcendence can be achieved by completing the research

-controlling the region with the 'Temple of Terra'

-have no crusade forces active on Alpha 66 during the turn

*Eradication(2)

-Eradicate all life on the planet

(1) Can be done by either human factions or Merkathi Tribes

(2) Can only be done by the Crusade

Units have a lifetime,factions deal differently with ageing units.

The uniteds can send the units into training facilities to boost training time & experience of new units,or they can reverse engineer to get a random bonus to

units of that same type.

The hive will dismember & disassemble its old units gaining some resources back from it

[Nemrav]

Sounds great, go for it, just because you don't have too much skill right now in programming doesn't mean you can't do it, its these big projects that push you to learn many new tricks (like my own game I'm doing right now)

Some things to keep in mind:

a) when working with a limited unit cap, you need to make sure nations with rush strategies aren't made obsolete due to not being able to push their numbers

engine, how will you handle unit movement and such, (assuming you intend to use unity) do you plan to do units using efficient-ish raycasting or easy (until multiplayer) rigidbodies .

c)your victory conditions, it sounds like you might have balance problems because the aliens have superior military in order to go along with their kill *all* humans goal.. but at the same time, if you have that, the humans may be way too hard...

[Resender]

Sounds great, go for it, just because you don't have too much skill right now in programming doesn't mean you can't do it, its these big projects that push you to learn many new tricks (like my own game I'm doing right now)

Some things to keep in mind:

a) when working with a limited unit cap, you need to make sure nations with rush strategies aren't made obsolete due to not being able to push their numbers

engine, how will you handle unit movement and such, (assuming you intend to use unity) do you plan to do units using efficient-ish raycasting or easy (until multiplayer) rigidbodies .

c)your victory conditions, it sounds like you might have balance problems because the aliens have superior military in order to go along with their kill *all* humans goal.. but at the same time, if you have that, the humans may be way too hard...

I will be discussing how balancing the Crusades war machine work

I should clarify maybe about ageing units/unit cap

The human factions don't have a unit cap but their units age, and become less efficient over time.The united faction can for instance retire older units and temporary pass the experience of the retired unit to new ones trained build.

I will discuss the concept further in a game mechanics post.

The Merkath have a unit cap,you will be able to produce new units on the motherships,but not infinite

The crusader has 2 handicaps that are part of the upcoming lore

The tribes are more guerilla sneak & ambush but more about that later

As for the crusades goal,there out to kill all live whether its human,animal or plant, their reasoning is part of the lore I'm still writing down in greater detail.

[Resender]

Game mechanics part2

Economy

The main resource are Energicium crystals,which only found on the planet Alpha 66. (Attempts to transplant these to other worlds have failed)

The blueish crystal was first encountered by the survey team of the Aurelius,which was surveying the Alpha star cluster for potential colony sites.

Alpha 66 was the 66th planet surveyed during the mission and because it showed little sign of a suitable candidate for colonization,nobody bothered to

name it.

Energicium crystals absorb energy & creates more crystal,a process that could be reversed,as discovered by the scientists aboard the Aurelius,which nearly led to

the destruction of the survey ship.

It comes in 3 colours: blue,purple and red.

Blue is the most common, brittle and easily harvested.

Purple is rarer,it harder to break and volatile.

Red is very rare,extremely volatile,almost impossible to harvest without blowing it up.

First a refinery must be build,the refinery will come with 1 harvester.

The refinery will distribute the harvested Energicum to either to Energicium power station or a matter replicator station(MRP)

The MRP consumes 1/4 of a Energicium crystal to produce 1 unit of matter,the MRP comes with 1 input & 4 outputs.

The outputs can be changed.

This brings us to the other 4 resources used:

*Building paste:needed to construct both vehicles & buildings.

*Fuel cells:needed to run vehicles,when a vehicle is build it consumes fuel cells and at the end of each turn each vehicle you own gets resupplied from

the global supply.

*Rations: a simple just eatable nutrient paste.

*Water: the water on the surface of Alpha 66 are very alkaline hence undrinkable.

You can build 2 structures during strategic turns to both produce food & drinkable water,allowing one to change the production slots for Rations & Water

to either Build paste or Fuel cells.

[Hooligan Labs]

The idea of asymmetric economy management sounds good! There are some people who love city management and some who hate it. This could cater to both.

I'm in the process of writing a strategy game in Unity. If you feel like trying that as a way of writing a video game its free and there are RTS tutorials coming out on YouTube.

[Resender]

Game Machancs part 3

Military dogma

This post will flesh out some basic rules for the humans factions military,I'm still précising them though.

On Alpha 66 units will be either infantry, ground vehicle,air vehicle. Despite Alpha 66 having water masses I quickly opted to not include water units in game.

Each faction has its own idea of how to construct an army,here are some concepts of how each faction shapes

*The uniteds

-Each militairy unit of the uniteds start with a weapon for each opposing class,the weapon switch is automatic but the weapon is not as powerfull as those

of the other factions.

-When a unit promotes you can specialize it's task.

-Retired units send to barracks will share their experience with the new recruits

*Energicum Corp

-Use energy weapons instead of kinetics

-Most of their vehicles can hover,allowing them to negate terrain obstacles.

-Units must be in range of a transmission tower to use their weapons

*These towers will automatically connect to an allied power source,so no need for any daisy chains.

*The Mercs

-Rely on stealth and covert units

-Merc's bases are modular,attaching components to existing structures to change their outputs

*The protectared of Messar

-The will rely on rush tactics to secure safe spots to allow their bases to caravan to

-With mobile structures base planning will be tougher

*The Hive

-The hive spreads out, turtles and rushes.

It's Energicium refinery for ounce will not provide a harverster but will instead form a mesh or creep over Energicium fields slowly consuming them