Spinner Describing PA

Posted by Christian Lassem

Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic 
From: "Christian Lassem" <[email protected]> - Find messages by this author  
Date: 1999/10/25 

Hi there!

Indeed, our idea had it's offspring of the games found there, along with an old idea we have been carrying aorund for a long time, in the spirit of old, but not forgotten, Elite.

The major difference is how players experience dynamics in gameplay, in a startcraft / C&C way, where you must choose a strategy on which buildings to build and which troops to send out, and a new level of more advanced combat. Our system is not like Utopia's "Add all attcking troops" and "check against all defending troops" system. Our system is far more advanced, with different weapon ranges (Destroyers shoot first, then Cruisers, then ....and so on...) Also, since losses are "random", the more fighters you have, the bigger the chance that one death will be a fighter. ALso, units have different armour, making a destroyer harder to kill than a Fighter. Also, different units can have different number of guns, as the Battleship has 3 cannons, the Fighter has only 1....

One other major difference is the PDS system, or Planetary Defence Systems.. If you have built some of the PDS Structures, you can configure your different Defence Systems to do different tasks, like try to Jam communications ot the attacking fleet, or negate any cloaking units if there are any. I am not going to spil all the fun in here, as I would like to leave quite a few surprises for the players, since very little is available in the beginning, but more and more gameplay will evolve as players get further into it.

Furhtermore, in Utopia, to use that game as an example, you dont really get the benefit from huge attacks, with multiple attackers. Each attack is handeled indivdually, and if your army cant break through the enemies defence alone, you won't get through. In our game, we handle such attacks as one big battle. All attacking fleets are added up, and checked as a whole, how they do against the targets defence.

Also, in our game, you have the option to send your fleets out on DEFEND missions, to orbit someone elses planet to defend him in case he is attacked, so alliance has a much bigger impact. In Utopia, if your regent is big, it doesnt really help you much. But if he sends out a huge fleet to guard your planet, it would help a lot more, see?

Utopia, and Earth 2025 has a very limited number of units and troops, and little variation. We have...A LOT MORE, and units can be used for more than just combat. Survailance, sabotage and stealing of resources can all be handeled by units, and you ca nspecialise in WAVE-Technology to gain subterfuge abilities, like spying and a few more goodies (-:

One last thing I can reveal without saying too much, is the thing called Global Events... AFter having played it for a while, suddenly, a huge army of UNKNOWN ship types enter your galaxy.....Along with unfriendly messages in your inbox... Anything is possible....

So, all in all, I think I can safely say, our game is made by GAMERS, with emphasize on gameplay, far deeper and broader than any of the EESITE games can offer. All in all, in my humble opinion, a much better game! Then again, how objective can I be, having made this (-:

And yes, I think Utopia is an OK game, having played is since the first Beta....

I hope this made you a little bit curious, and a bit smarter about the coming game....

Kind regards