Feedback request on new game system: The power grid

[AdamP]

This is for the most part a repost from my blog. I’m looking for a bit of feedback on this concept for my turn based strategy space game. I don’t have any Alphas posted yet as there isn’t much to do in the game. Thanks for any constructive feedback on the system! I know I have a number of rough edges to work out but I feel like it could be fun.

A bit of background on the game: Tags: Space, Ships, Equipment, Energy, Turn-based
You play with a single ship but are able to deploy drones to assist in combat. The drones are not autonomous and have mostly the same properties as a ship. Turns are taken by the human player and then the computer. Your ship, and the drones you control move and attack, then the computer goes. Battle continues until your current objective is completed, you get disabled, you disable your opponent, or you or your opponent run. Today I’m posting about a single aspect of that play: the power grid.

The power grid gives you a tactical display of your ships current systems and how they are “working”. Among other properties, each system can use power and take damage. Generally damaged systems are less effective, as are underpowered systems.



Here is an image of the power grid. I also have the equipment screen in this image, along with an item info page on the small pulse laser. As your ship takes damage your systems will be damaged. System armor will “absorb” the damage taken about two thirds of the time. Once the armor is gone of course the system will take the full brunt of the damage. You can see the armor as the light gray boxes on each side of each piece of equipment. After that armor is gone further damage starts to eat away at the system. Internal system structure is represented by the darker gray boxes between the armor. There is a “power line” running from the top to the bottom of each systems grid. This connects the system to the power source. When damage is applied to the grid a cell is chosen at random (weighted to affect a secondary armor source, more on that in a bit). Each cell that is destroyed is removed and the system is one percent less effective. If by chance the “power line” is hit and no longer connects the top to the bottom of the systems grid then that system loses power. The “power line” can be fixed during combat at a cost. That secondary armor I mentioned before is applied to the edges of each systems structure grid. Any cell that is “hardened” is two to five times more likely to get hit. When one of these “hardened” cells is hit, it is still destroyed and the system still takes the one percent efficiency loss, but the power line will remain safe. A “power line” cannot run through a “hardened” cell. If you can imagine an intense combat situation where the armor has been destroyed and the system is taking heavy damage, it may be necessary to reroute power around damaged cells to get the system back up and running.

As a visual indicated of the power status of a piece of equipment the power line pulses from bottom to top. The more power assigned to a system the faster this pulse is. If no power is going to a system then there is no pulse.

Notice that some equipment has red and green buttons along with a slider. This controls the amount of power being sent to a piece of equipment. When fully powered and there is no structural damage on a system the effectiveness of that equipment is one hundred percent. As the system takes damage its effectiveness will degrade. Upping the power to that system may offset that, or even bring the total effectiveness above one hundred percent. At a cost. For every point above the max power rating that equipment has a one percent chance of being damaged during use. A heavily damaged system could be ran at one hundred percent effectiveness if it is over powered, but will likely take damage since it might be powered 135% or more above its rating.

The power generator, just like any system, can be damaged. As the power generator takes damage it starts to loose effectiveness. This loss causes less power to be generated, thus reducing the power applied to each piece of equipment. You’ll notice a number below each picture of equipment in the power grid. This number controls the priority of that system. The higher the priority the more likely the computer is to keep power levels on that system high, at the cost of lowering the power sent to other systems. You can still manually tweak the power sent to each system, but setting a priority lets you sort of forget about the whole mess until you need to go in and fix something major that has broken.

So that is that. I like it but at the same time I understand how bloated it is as a system. I feel like I’ve accomplished my goals with this. Those were to make a system that feels like I need to make decisions during combat. When something blows up I need to dedicate resources to fixing it mid combat so I can continue the fight. Or I need to shift strategy by cutting the damaged system off from power and sending that power somewhere else. If I know I need to run on the next turn I can over-power my shields and engines at the cost of under powering my weapons. The possibilities seem endless!

What does everyone think? More refinement needed? Too complicated for a game? Too many features? I’m all ears… or eyes..? Yeah I guess eyes since I’ll be reading comments and not hearing them. Well I could read them out loud. Then I’d need all my ears.. and my eyes so I can read out loud. Ok, so I’m all eyes, unless I read out loud, in which case I’m half ears and half eyes.

[Applewood]

I think it's a nice level of detail to add to these sorts of games. However that screen looks clunky as hell - totally over-engineered. And by that, I don't mean the programmer art, I mean the forty thousand items I need to look at. If this was a real world actual military thing, the appropriations comittee would shitcan it immediately - by the time the captain found and used and acted on all the info, he'd be dead anyway.

I'm fairly sure that the only person that cares this deeply about microdetail will be you, whilst others will be put off by how complicated it looks. I'd simplify right down to "off, ticking over, on, overload" with some big buttons or summat.

[AdamP]

Ug.. Programmer art? I was proud of that… I was having fun learning blender! That aside, yeah you’re probably right. It’s tough to admit because it’s really neat and all but you’re probably right. I’ve gotten four comments now about this “power grid” thing. Every one of them said it’s too complicated. I am certainly not creating a sim and I guess I shouldn’t pretend to. I’m glad I posted though! Some “grounding” is always good. Suck it up and move on!

So about your thoughts. What was “ticking over” as an option? Four buttons: On, Off, Overload and ticking over.

Thanks for your advice.

[Applewood]

Glad you took it how it was intended.

Just trying to figure out how to keep the core idea but make it more accessable - easier to read and look at. But I may have misunderstood

[AdamP]

I believe you understood very well! It took me an hour or so yesterday to understand just how much of the system is preserved with only those four buttons! After looking at your idea I managed to drop 80% of the complexity and loose perhaps 10% of the features.

I’ve gone with four buttons per “equipped item” [off] [low] [full] [overload]

That’s it.

Using those you can still mix and match what systems are used and to what level, but without all the complex grids.

Thank you Applewood, and I honestly meant that. I wish I had more design sense, but I suppose that may come with continued effort.

[Applewood]

You're welcome. 10% royalty kickback wouldn't be turned away, lol. (j/k)