My vision document for Trillek

gistfile1.txt

Vision for Trillek
==================

This is my vision for Trillek. This is intentionally brief: it's not a
design document.

Pillar #1: Multiplayer
----------------------

Trillek is primarily a multiplayer game. It will have a singleplayer
component, but it won't have a narrative or an ending. Nothing in the
singleplayer mode will be inaccessible in multiplayer. Players will be able
to open their singleplayer worlds for access by their friends over LAN or
the internet.

Again, Trillek's focus is on multiplayer, but singleplayer will still exist,
and modders are of course free to create singleplayer campaigns, challenges
and adventures. The base game might in time incorporate things like these,
and maybe some achievements or something, but they will not be core targets
for initial development.

Pillar #2: The Ship
-------------------

The most important mechanics in Trillek are the ship and the computer that
controls it. Your ship is your means of travelling, your shelter, your
greatest asset, your only companion and your most powerful weapon. Your
ship is also infinitely customisable, physically and electronically.

Ships come in all shapes and sizes, from the tiniest fighters and shuttles 
to the mightiest super-dreadnoughts. Mining ships, military ships, explorer
vessels and general purpose shuttles will all exist, through customisation
for a purpose rather than arbitrary definition by developers. 

Every computer, thruster and rocketpod will consume power. Shields will
draw massive amounts of power. You will have to manage your power - or get
the computer to do so for you - if you want to survive. 

Pillar #3 - The Computer
------------------------

Programmable minicomputers are the backbone of any spaceship. The computer
complements the ship. The 'default' ship will come with an assortment of 
simple programs. These will allow you to manually control the ship,
including thrusters, weapons and warp drives. These won't last you long if
you want to customise or automate things or if you want to network multiple
computers to share the work. 

Thankfully, the ship's computers are fully programmable all the way down to
assembly language. They are full general purpose computers, modelled at a
low level. Whether you write an operating system in assembly or a friendlier
ship navigation tool in `sh`, in the end it will all be written by players.

Pillar #4 - The World
---------------------

There is no narrative, but there certainly is a world. Throughout the world
there will be secrets to find, such as mysterious floating hulks and strange
areas of hyperspatial interference. Some players will inevitably work out
the reasoning behind all of this, but it will not be spelt out explicitly. 

In the future, procedural generation of lost voice recordings, documents and
other similar items would be a worthy goal. Dwarf Fortress proved this was
viable for a single developer to implement. We can do it too. 

Pillar #5 - The Mods
--------------------

Last, but certainly not least, modding. Modding is a crucial aspect of the
game. Mods should be first-class within the engine from day one, rather than
tacked on at the end. Mods will allow the creation of new placeable objects,
new scenarios, new materials, and just about any other in-game object. They
can affect world generation and literally everything in the game. New CPU
architectures could even be implemented as mods, although obviously not as 
efficiently as ones implemented in the engine as core components. 

Modding is crucial to content creation and the survival of the game. A small
community cannot create or maintain large amounts of content. Players will
always want more than developers can provide. Modding is a way around that:
players will make their own content. This lets the development team spend
time working on core mechanics that really extend the frontiers of the game,
rather than automatic rifle #12 and small thruster #7. 

Skills
------

Your skills are those skills you acquire while playing the game. Your skill
at programming your ship's computer, your skill at manoeuvring your ship,
your skill at judging friend from foe, these will all improve as time goes on.
Your character does not have skills, you do.

Combat
------

Personal combat will not be a focus for the game, and certainly not early in
development. Melee combat will initially consist of only a simple attack,
nothing complicated like MnB:Warband, which is overcomplicated enough to be
an entire game of its own for players to get used to. Combat isn't the focus
of the game, so this is overkill. Ranged combat will initially the the use
of a few simple guns. Weapon customisation is a worthwhile goal for the future.
Boarding other ships should be more fun once this area of the game is further
extended. 

Ship-to-ship combat is, in comparison, a core feature. Rockets, guns and
missiles can all be attached at various points to ships and used defensively
and offensively. Shields, disruptors and other gadgets can all be used.