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+--- Thread: Musings about a tech tree (/showthread.php?tid=100)
Musings about a tech tree - JoeStrout - 10-17-2015
We are currently doing a lot of research and deep thinking about game design and High Frontier. At the same time, I'm currently at New Worlds 2015, hearing from a lot of incredibly smart people about how to open up the frontier for real.
For example, Jeff Greason (CTO of XCOR Aerospace) presented a very sensible plan for how to get where we want to go, much cheaper than the traditional NASA way of doing things, and in a much more sustainable manner too. Basically it goes like this:
- Develop a lunar orbit shuttle that can go back and forth between the Moon's surface, and lunar orbit or L1 (a balance point between the Earth and the Moon).
- Land a small plant to extract water from the polar ice, and split this into hydrogen and oxygen (i.e. rocket fuel!). Use this to fuel the lunar orbit shuttle. It can now go back and forth between the Moon and L1 as much as you like, at essentially no cost.
- Build a space station and fuel depot at L1. Fill it up with fuel using the lunar shuttle.
- Build a shuttle that goes back and forth between LEO and L1. Have that refuel from L1. Now you can bring stuff back and forth between LEO and L1 or the lunar surface at essentially no cost.
- Want to go somewhere else (say, Mars)? Use L1 as your staging area, fill up on lunar rocket fuel, and off you go.
So! Getting back to High Frontier as a game. We're thinking about changing the design a little as we start in on "career mode," which is the larger game you will be playing unless you choose sandbox mode.
Achievements would be replaced with "goals," which you usually select from a small list of "opportunities" (available goals). I say "usually" because, especially at the beginning of the game, we might automatically assign some simple goals to get you started. Many of the goals would along the lines of getting population X in orbit Y — gaining the experience of building a thriving settlement in that orbit.
Achieving those goals would give you "experience points" (XP). And then you would spend XP on a technology tree to build things like what Jeff Greason outlined above. These tech tree nodes would either reduce the cost of things, or make things (orbits, certain buildings, etc.) available that weren't available at all before.
So, if you want to be laser-focused on Mars, you would achieve whatever goals are easiest to get the XP, and spend those on tech tree nodes that lead to development of Mars. These nodes might be something like (just making stuff up here):
- L1 Station (cost: 5 XP)
- Lunar Shuttle (5 XP)
- LEO-L1 Shuttle (5 XP)
- Phobos Station (15 XP)
- Mars-Phobos Shuttle (15 XP)
On the other hand if the inner solar system is your thing, then at step 4 you would instead spend your XP on something like a Venus atmosphere scoop or floating station, opening up that world for orbital settlement.
What do y'all think? Sound like fun?