I really like these types of posts especially from the developers because it gives the gamers a chance to really impact the thoughts of the developer so here we go 🙂

Personally RPG/Strategy games are my favorite type of game, yeah I like some action but a real attention to detail RPG with a good plot/storyline will suck me in completely. Realism, for me a basic concept that has been lacking in games is cause/effect. Let's say you have some NPC traffic like freighters moving some food/supplies to a distant planet. They come under attack by some pirates/aliens, now if your in range of the distress call and you go and help the planet gets its supplies and prospers. But if you ignore it the planets colonies suffer and a lot of people die off and possible becomes weak to not be able to defend itself from attackers. Does the universe really need to be enormous? Not in my opinion if it is done right it could be 1-2 dozen sectors but with a economy that really fuels the universe and a active and responsive AI system to communicate with.

Basic setup would be the usual job board at any space station. You see jobs a plenty and the usual bounty hunting missions, now if you don't go and bring in that ruthless criminal he actually wrecks havoc and you hear about it in your news reports and other quests that are offered. You could almost use the radio system from Fallout 3 to communicate news/happenings in the universe when people are listening to it.

Do I think distances should be 1:1... no. Because that induces boredom if you cannot get to your destination within a timely manor. Physics, I think if at all possible should be implemented both in a advanced way and simple to open your game up to both audiences and could be easily toggled in the settings.

And if the player can have an experience like in ME1 or ME2 where you can move about your whole ship and talk to your engineers, science officers, weapons chief etc.. use your ships computers and just interact with your ship systems and maybe use small puzzles to fix or install ship systems. It changes things up in the game so your not always flying you could be just a drift in space working on improving your ship and installing new hull plating or improving the food generators 🙂

Is planet landing essential? Not exactly sure, might not be depending on your game mechanics and could be added in later. But if your universe is smaller landing on planets is very doable and would expand game play immensely. Especially if the player can leave the ship and have a Parkan II or ME1/2 experience on the surface.

How much realism you put into it will depend on who you trying to sell the game to,are you going after the niche audience or a more general audience.

As for myself there a few things I would like to see.

Like to see hundred if not thousands of star systems to vist.

Always like to see solar systems in a game with planets going in orbits round their stars,even if they cannot be landed on as to weather planets and stars are a realistic size I don’t know can it even be done in a game?.

One thing I would like to see is the Empire strikes back asteroids field it may not be realistic but it would be better than the static ones found in most games.

No jump gates as I think jump gates limit’s the size of a game but Iam not against having a limited gate system in the game as in the tv show Babylon5 where some ships had jump drive while other did not.

Fuel I think this hugely important in games and some thing too many Modern games leave out as with out fuel you leave out an entire layer of tactical thinking that player has to do.ie do I fly to that nice far way safe democracy and leave myself with no fuel to make an emergency jump in case Iam attacked. Or do I go to that

Near by anarchy system but have enough fuel to jump out if Iam attacked

Size of ship they must look like they can make FTL jump, fighter would have to be carried as they would not have enough space for jump engines and fuel tanks the big ship must feel like big ship no turning on a dime the smaller ones should feel nippy and fast.

I am personally a bit of a realism buff. If things in a game are not plausible then I am not interested.

When your talking about galaxy generation and the like I think it really is best to be as realistic as possible, that inludes the vast distances that are involved with realistic space.

But the thing to remember is that space games are set in the future. Which gives us lots of neat little gadgets we can use to overcome these vast distances. But it all must be believable.

Many Devs think thats its acceptable to present your space game akin to a ww2 dog-fighting game, Space has no friction its all part of the fun and challenge.

An amusing quote which is so true 🙂

An example of space gone horribly wrong:

The X series of games. 'Space' there consists of a box that is normally 200 x 200 x 200 km. Ships travel as fast as you do on your way home from work on the motorway. That sucks.

In fact you could place about 95% of space games here.

Example of space done well:

Frontier Elite 2 and FFE.

Vast distances, real physics and ships accelerate much faster to compensate for this.

Theres a game called VegaStrike which uses a very neat piece of psuedo science to overcome the vast distances. The ships are able to compress space in front of them which basically translates into extreme velocities.

In Frontier and FFE we have time-compression which does the same sort of thing.

Its done rather well in Orbiter, but that is a straight sim.

Are the distances not accurate in Frontier, FFE or Pioneer? They always felt right to me, but I have never actually checked 🙂

I think the game world and environment should definitly be realistic in a "hard sci-fi" way. I like it when things are believably explained. Further it inspires players to explore the world when things make sense.

In terms of gameplay though, realism may keep people from playing as seen in the X-Series or Eve. Gameplay mechanics tend to grow too complex for the casual gamer. It depends on your target audience though. Always remember you're creating a game that is supposed to be fun. And especially in this genre it might be a good idea to address as many players as possible, even those who normally wouldn't touch a space sim, to rebuild the once so huge fan base.

Realism should be applied wisely. Always ask yourself how you can add realism without making the game unnecessarily complex. Ship fuel for example is a wonderful idea. But's I'd just add a button the station interface that says "Refuel Ship" which will immediately gas up your vessel and withdraw an appropriate amount of credits from your account. Period.

Dynamic gas prices, manual proportioning and octane index would a) overload the interface and b) distract the player from the actual gameplay.

That’s way I think Elite is such a stand out game even after 26 years as it has that tactical layer of thinking with the fuel that the player may not even realise they are doing it.

As for control I think some sort of half way house between a full Newtonian and the more arcade physics of some games, and I would suggest that the flight model that used in the PS1 game Colony Wars Vengeance would be an ideal candidate with the provision that the inertia be removed.

That would allow the ship to accelerate forward while at the same time being able to rotate around in any direction to fire.

I think the important word here is sim. If I want to fly a craft like a plane, then I will load up IL-2, because that is a flight sim. In doing so I will use all the advantages the flight model will give me because it is accurately based on atmospheric flight, wind speed, friction with the air and so on and that's fun!.

On the other hand, space is a totally different ball game all together. If you want a space sim then the craft you fly should behave as if they were in that environment, which means a Newtonian flight model. Too many later "space sims" behave like flight sims which I think is just wrong. If you like that flight model, stick with flight sims. They do it so much better and provide a more satisfactory immersive experience. Space sims can do the same thing with a Newtonian flight model.

Think of it this way, imagine Micro$oft Flight Simulator used the same flight model as FE2 (confined within Earth's atmosphere), would it "feel" right, would it have been as popular as it now?

The point is flight sims and space sims are different mainly because of the environments they are simulating, yes there is a slight crossover when it comes to planetary landings, but other than that, each should give the player the fullest opportunity to exploit their respective environments to the full, when it comes to combat or even just sight seeing.

If it's just the "normal" space travel in one system without the use of superluminal mean, it's just as you said. Accelerate all the way until about halfway to the destination, then fire the steering thruster to rotate the ship and then decelerate from the mid point all the way to the destination. Depending on the engine technology advancement, it could then leave Newtonian physics and approaches the realm Einstein's relativity and all its features such as time dilatation. However, in a game it's probably best to just use something like fast travel like TES:Oblivion and add some off-course option whenever the ship has steering problem/malfunction. Obviously this feature won't be compatible with real time online game.

One thing I want to stress in any game concept regarding realistic game is when placing a feature, ask yourself: "Is this possible in real life?" According to your game universe, of course.