MOO1 remake - what would you change?

[ignatius]

Since I rediscovered MOO1 a few months ago, I have to agree with Sirians conclusion that this is in fact one of the best 4X games ever made. Since some of you guys also seem to hope for a modern remake - what would you change?

my top 5 trivial changes:

1. no free war declarations
2. partially built ships go to reserve when switching production
3. unarmed ships can coexist in orbit
4. increase first vote planet threshold to 80%
5. make Psilons poor at weapons research

my top 5 tech changes:

1. planetary warp interdictor (attacking fleets cannot retreat)
2. linear planetology cleanup tech path
3. topolocical techs (planetary repulsor shield = enemy fleets need 1 more turn to arrive, hyperspace express lanes = double warp speed between own colonies); restrict stargates to small/medium ships
4. subspace energy transport (doubles max. reserve funding)
5. low / medium / high energy focus

my top 5 conceptual changes:

1. retreating stacks don't get their bombs and missles reloaded (even if battle is won) until spending a turn in orbit
2. proportional kill modell for bioweapons and collateral damage
3. occupation status for planets with enemy fleets in orbit (occupant gets council votes, planetary production goes to enemy reserves)
4. planet specific overhead for transferring to/from planetary reserve depending on number and distance of friendly neighbour planets (core planets have low, isolated planets high reserve overheads); replace explicit transfers by tax status (funded/tax free/normal/all to reserve)
5. replace sabotage by a civ1-like "incite revolt" function modified by number and distance of friendly neighbour planets, treat like rebellion event, revolting planets have their missle bases disabled until reclaimed by gropo

My top 5 new features:

1. multiplayer
2. optionally replace tactical combat by a "battle order" system (objective/target and retreat conditions for each stack) for multiplayer combat
3. client/server architecture with AI bots
4. progressive saves with replay option
5. text report and postscript map generation

cu

Ignatius

 

[vmxa]

I would settle for some updated graphics and a few bug fixes, as long as it use the Windows interface.

 

[Blake]

Sane and competent slider management.

When the governor automatically adjusts the slider for whatever reason it should use this logic for assigning the freed up slider ticks:
1) Everything needed for pollution cleanup.
2) Clean up bioweapon damage.
3) Perform special "extra growth enhancing" terraforming actions.
4) Max factories (to the point where it says "MAX" not "RESERVE"
5) Max ecology slider to the point where it's clean (ie max out terraforming and pop growth, but remembering 4 takes precedence)
6) Tech, unless the world is rich, in which case RESERVE.


Balance Changes:
Repulsar beam should only either only fire once per combat round, or once per ship (ie the ship can get repulsed then come in for another run and fire).

Annoyances:
Tone down AI diplomacy spam and tweak "Enemy of my Enemy", get it straight:
The enemy of my enemy is only my friend when they aren't simultaneously also my enemy. If I'm actively bombing your worlds I DO NOT WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND regardless of who else I'm waging campaigns of mass genocide against.


Other than that, mainly I would add awareness to the AI about balancing out it's research fields - like how it needs to get some ranks of every "type" of technology, robotic controls, terraforming, range tech, engines, armor, guns, bombs etc.

As you can see I wouldn't change anything to make the game rules more complex, MOO is great because it's simple. There are just a few things which are broken.

 

[IamI3rian]

@ignatius I have no problem with the whole retreat and get bombs back thing. Supply ships are certainly there, waiting to restock them. At least in my mind. I'm also not sure I agree with the orbiting fleets change 'occupying' the planet, in particular getting the council votes.

One more of your observances I would consider 'changing' would be the vote threshold (sp?). Good idea you have there, but I'd prefer a customizable choice maybe 30-90% or some such. I'd also like to have an option to turn it off I think.

I REALLY like your tech suggestions, in particular the warp interdictor, and the repulsor field.

I think it might be 'fair' to make Psilons poor (or even a new category 'worse') at weapons tech, but I like them unbalanced. There's an element they bring to a game that's just not there when they aren't. Also, I'm not sure how good that might be. Psilons without missile tech could be pretty big pushovers, and I like the way every race has a 'feel' that I think would be a bit more compromised if Psilons weren't great, and Mrrshan weren't stinkers. The differneces in the races is a good thing I think, and not a bad one.

I think small ships are favored enough as it is, no reason to make large/huge not fit into a star gate too, no matter how much sense it makes. If there was a suitable limitation to smalls or a benefit to large/huge, perhaps large/huge would be the only 'double' hulled ships possible, and thus would be able to 'survive' longer. For this though, double hulled tech would need to be cheaper though. I don't know... might be a moot point since I rarely use either double hull, or star gates.

@Blake I agree with everything you suggest, with the exception of 'auto switching' the factories to MAX. I'd prefer that the governor set it to be the maximum based on planet size, not population. I.E. 200 on a new homeworld, not 88 on a new pop 44 homeworld.

As far as what I'd want to see in there, I'd love to see updated grafix and AI, but I'd REALLY want to have 'custom' races like are in MoO2. I'd also like to be able to design 'custom' opponents this way. I'd want a cheat to see who you're opponents are for sake of making variants, but I'd want the galaxy map NOT to say who they are, until you meet them. I'd want capturing Orion to be a victory condition also I think. Then we might ACTUALLY need to do so, to prevent the AI from getting there first. More races, and specifically, more races available as opponents (like higher max opponents per map). For techs, I'm not sure, but I think I'd like it if there were beam weapons to defend planets too. 3 space beam cannons, built seperately from missile bases, maybe.

 

[ignatius]

@vmxa:

> I would settle for some updated graphics and a few bug fixes, as long as it use the Windows interface.

Well, that would really be a pitty, because then I, as a Linux user, wouldn't be able to play it. Also, the native Windows interface is IMO plain ugly esp. for games (think civ2 or panzer general 2).

Realistically, though, if it is going to happen at all, it would most likely be a cross plattform Open Source game anyway.

@Blake

I agree with the slider stuff, in fact, there should be a "buildup" option which brings up the colony including planetary and the first missle base in the mathematically optimal way (with or without reserve spending) including things like eco pop spending and terraforming when applicable which would eliminate a good deal of micromanagement esp. for latter cols. Similar function for "tech buildup" or "reserve buildup" which maximixe the respective total output over time would also be nice.

As for repulsors: I aktually like them the way they are - otherwise, there would be no defense against huge small bomber stacks until late in the games (that the AI cannot handle them competently is another issue, though). But consider that splitting HEF into three techs (for +1 +2 and +3 range) would balance repulsors somewhat, anyway.

> As you can see I wouldn't change anything to make the game rules more complex, MOO is great because it's simple.

absolutely! The real strengh of MOO1 is indeed its conceptual clarity: Only one ressource type with only two production factors (pop and factories) and only a handful of modifiers, a genius tech system with 6 ladders and the techlevel concept, mostly abstracted combat (shipstacks and gropo) and the High Council. Obviously, those should not be multiplied beyond necessity. That's why I tried very hard to fit any suggestion into the existing framework. Perfection is not when you run out of things to add, but when there's nothing left to take away.

@IamI3rian

to clarify the reloding issue: I would not require the ships to reload only at friendly colonies - the ships shall reload any time they finish their turn in orbit (ANY orbit, even if there are no colonies at all). I just consider the possibility that a small stack of missle boats can slowly eat away a huge fleet over many turns with impunity to be more of a bug than a feature - it's also tedious and repetative to pull off and makes for boring and unsatifying gameplay, so I'd rather see this option off the table completely. YMMV, of course.

as for the "topological" techs, they are in fact part of a more general idea, I didn't mention in the original post: I think that one thing where MOO1 is somewhat lacking is the territorial aspect of your empire. As it is, your empire is the sum of its planets and it doesn't make much difference (none at all as soon as you have star gates, which is why I would like to seen them limited to small/medium ships or done away completely as nobody seems to use them anyway) whether it spreads out or forms a compact territory with reasonable borders.

The idea is that you (implicitly) have to "reconfigure" your factories when you switch to a new ship class (at e.g. 1 BC/factory), which also gives (a very moderate) notion of economy of scale (basically you lose one turn of production overall: 50% on the 1st, 25% on the 2nd 12.5% on the 3rd, etc.). It then would make sense to have new classes built only on a few planets. Together with the location dependent reserve tax (which should be able to go all the way down to zero for your core worlds), reserve spending (when replaced by "tax status" instead of the current explicit transfers) could then replace the tedius relocation webs, where you have to click through dozens of planets (less micromanagement). The other effect would be that it is easier to stand up a new core world with reserve spending than creating an outpost in the middle of enemy territory (which just feels "right" to me) and also that "rush buying" defensive fleets or col-ships incurs some penalty. The only drawback would be that this would indeed introduce a new concept and make the game more complicated (IMO for the better, but still), which is why I didn't include it in my top5 lists.

As for the customization options: 100% d'accord - I basically took them for granted in an Open Source remake, otherwise, they would rank top on my list, too.

 

[vmxa]

"Well, that would really be a pitty, because then I, as a Linux user, wouldn't be able to play it. Also, the native Windows interface is IMO plain ugly esp. for games (think civ2 or panzer general 2)."

No one does anything with Linux in mind, it just is too small of a market. The interface I was tlaking about is direct X, direct Draw and that is so it will be able to run on what ever Window platform that comes out.

 

[Murky]

I think the great thing about Moo is that it is easy to learn yet difficult to master. The interface is simple and efficient. It seems to have just the right level of abstraction for this type of game. There isn't so much detail that you get bogged down in boring micro-management but not so automated that all you do is click next-turn again and again. It requires a good strategic mindset more than anything else. It’s a great game for it's time.

A good remake would be to update the graphics and add multiplayer. Maybe borrow some of the good ideas from MOO2 like the Heroes and Antarans. Just make sure to avoid feature overkill like with MOO3. Keep the tech tree small and simple.

 

[Sullla]

A good remake would be to update the graphics and add multiplayer. Maybe borrow some of the good ideas from MOO2 like the Heroes and Antarans.

That would be a sure way to kill the classic simplicity of Master of Orion (especially those Antarans - talk about a neat-sounding idea that ultimately destroyed the franchise!)

The only thing I would change would be to fix outright bugs in the game's code: the negative fleet bug and so on. Once you start mucking around with gameplay changes, it wouldn't be MOO anymore.

 

[vmxa]

That is what I wopuld prefer. Fix a few of the problems, improve some of the graphic and make it work on todays platforms.

Then you could do like Test Of Time. They offered the original game with some improved graphics and a coule of minor interface tweaks and an altered version.

 

[Zed-F]

Are you asking about for a remake, or a game inspired by MOO?

There are lots of directions one could go with the latter. See Sword of the Stars for one example. A remake, on the other hand, is not a commercially viable product. It would have to be a labour of love for a single designer or some such.

If I were to do a remake (which I'm not) I would stick as closely to the original source material as possible. The reason: to avoid feature creep. Someone doing a remake would be starting from a blank slate as far as code base goes and would have to program everything from the ground up. Starting with the original MOO as presented would be a good boundary box for the project.

'Bug fixes' would come with the territory; you're starting from scratch so you might as well program it to work correctly. The same goes for gameplay elements that existed in MOO but never quite worked correctly, such as the 'allocate x% of funds to newly discovered factory construction tech' which sucks up half your cleanup funds and locked sliders too. Or some of the more egregious diplomacy problems and other exploits. If you're recoding them from scratch, you might as well avoid the pitfalls the original designers fell into.

But new features and new gameplay elements should be right out, at least for the initial version. You need to have a place where you can say, 'I'm done with the first version and it's ready for release,' otherwise you'll keep adding more cool stuff as you go and will keep programming forever without ever releasing anything. Once you've finished everything that's in the boundary box entitled 'The Original MOO', then you can start thinking about what would make for a good second release.

Anything else and you're not doing a remake; you're doing a different game that happens to be inspired by MOO.

 

[Murky]

That would be a sure way to kill the classic simplicity of Master of Orion (especially those Antarans - talk about a neat-sounding idea that ultimately destroyed the franchise!)

What destroyed the franchise was the MOO3 monstrosity that someone tried to call a game. Mostly it is the AI playing and you get the click next-turn until someone wins. The Anatarans are a good idea but they are optional. MOO2 may be even more popular than the original because it has multi-player.

The only thing I would change would be to fix outright bugs in the game's code: the negative fleet bug and so on. Once you start mucking around with gameplay changes, it wouldn't be MOO anymore.

So long as a change adds something most people like and the basic game play is still the same, its still MOO just with a little more added to it.

I do think it's a good idea to draw the line somewhere. With MOO3 they made too many changes to the basic game play (like trying to add a 5th X) then it was no longer MOO. Instead it was a horrid mutation that should never have been released to the public.

 

[vmxa]

Zed it was just a fantasy confab. Two efforts at remaking got quite a bit done, but it would require more than one person to get it done. It would be a very large under taking.

 

[ignatius]

Exactly: Like probably any other CS guy, too, when I see a nice piece of software, I almost automatically think about how I would go about designing something similar, what things I would improve and how. It comes natural and is a lot of fun. When it's an Open Source project, I often come up with small patches to implement some features I thought would be nice to have, or fix some bug or misfeatures. Alas, no such luck with MOO1.

Even if I have thought about stuff like overall design, basic game concepts, even down to the point of how to implement multiplayer, which libraries to use etc. I of course know, that realistically, I do not have the time to even come up with a minimal prototype with placeholer graphics, minimal UI and token AI, to get a project going, let alone to ever finish something worth playing.

But still, as for me MOO1 so far comes closest to my idea of what a trun based 4X strategy game should be and as you guys obviously share a similar view (otherwise you wouldn't hang around here) it interests me what your "wishlist" for a remake (not a mere reimplementation but rather "a game inspired by MOO" as Zed put it) would look like.

cu

Ignatius

 

[Zed-F]

Zed it was just a fantasy confab. Two efforts at remaking got quite a bit done, but it would require more than one person to get it done. It would be a very large under taking.

I don't think the original MOO had more than a couple or at most a handful of people working on it. There are also other games with roughly MOO's level of sophistication being released all the time by indie developers. Certainly it is possible with today's tools to build a relatively simple game like MOO by one's self, or with a very small team of developers. But you're right that even a simple game does take a large amount of commitment and a substantial amount of time.

 

[neutrino]

MOO1 is pretty solid in its concepts and playability. But if I were to tinker it, let me see ....

I am going to break down some of my ideas by game concepts.

Races:

1. Silicoid: Normal environment = 1/2 growth rate. Hostile environment = normal growth rate. Hostile + Rich = fertile growth rate. Hostile + Ultra Rich = gaia growth rate. Normal environment + complete terraforming = hostile barren. Cannot use nor be damaged by bio weapons. The idea is to make the Silicoids diametrically opposite the rest of the humanoids.

2. Bulrathi: All large and huge hulls get +25% hit point bonus. (For example, a large neutronium hull has 400 hit points. With this Bulrathi bonus, it effectively has 500 hit points.) All shipboard shields get +1 class bonus at no additional cost. (A Class V effectively becomes Class VI.)

3. Alkari: All small and medium hulls automatically have inertial stabilizers at no extra cost. All hulls can purchase inertial stabilizer, but offers the bonus of inertial nullifier. All missiles, except scatter-packs, have +1 speed and +1 targeting bonuses in addition to their default values.

4. Mrrshan: All non-particle beam weapons reduce the target's shield strength by 33%. (Class IX -> Class VI.) All particle beam weapons reduce the target's shield strength by 67%. (Class XV -> Class V.) This bonus is not cumulative with Oracle Interface.

5. Human: All Human medium to huge hulls get Auto Repair at no extra cost. Scrapping a fleet recovers 33% of its cost, instead of 25%. Spending costs on ships and security are reduced by 15%. (For example, ship spending at 14% is modified to 11.9%.)

6. Darlock: Darlock spies can choose which enemy planet to sabotage. This availability is dependent on resources allocated to spying activities: Underdeveloped planets become available at lower cost, but highly developed planets are not. In addition to sabotaging missile bases and factories, the Darlock can attack a planet's RP allocation. (For example, attacking a planet's tech production, while its sun will go supernova in a few turns!)

7. Psilon: Space scanners get additional +3 parsec bonus. (For example, with Advanced Space Scanner, the Psilon can explore planets from colony bases up to 12 parsecs away and detects enemy ships from 6 parsecs away from own ships.)

8. Sakkra: Gets Bio Toxin Antidote by default. Up to 75% of a planet's population is available for transport.

9. Meklar: Can research Improved Robotic Controls IX, not available to other races.

10. Klackon: Every 20 population is equivalent to one Heavy Neutron Blaster (range 2, damage 3-24). This is in addition to constructed planetary missile bases.

 

[neutrino]

Still writing ...... now some non-weapon ship systems that I can think of ...

Cloaking Device: The one that is included in MOO1 is rather lame, I should say. (As a player, it is simply not worth it. Installing Inertial Stabilizer or Zyro Shield would be a wiser investment.) It should be something that I would seriously bet my ship's career on!

The Cloaking Device has two objectives: To achieve both strategic and tactical surprises. However, it imposes considerable cost, size, power, and space. Therefore, there is a significant trade-off.

A ship equipped with Cloaking Device can achieve strategic surprise by not showing up in the map screen. Therefore, its destination cannot be discerned. Depending on the opponent's space scanner tech and own ships' cloaking tech, three possibilities: a) invisible, b) unknown ship, c) detected. a) The ships' whereabout and destination are unknown. b) There are ships out there traveling to a certain planet, but their composition is unknown. c) There are ships out there and are heading towards a certain planet.

In battle, ships with Cloaking Device can strike first, provided that their cloaking tech is equal or greater than the battle computer tech of opposing ships and planets. One restriction, however: Ships cannot fire nor guide missiles and torps while cloaked. (But this could be useful for ships needing to either retreat like hell or stay out of firefight to undergo auto repair.)

Ships equipped with cloaking device cannot be cloaked, if they are using Intergalactic Star Gates.

Cloaking Device tech tree:

1. Cloaking Device I: Voided by Deep Space Scanner and Battle Computer Mark III during strategic deployment. Voided by Battle Computer Mark III during battle. Ships using CD I cannot move faster than Warp 1.

2. Cloaking Device II: Voided by Improved Space Scanner and BC Mk V during strategic deployment. Voided by BC Mk V during battle. Ships using CD II cannot move faster than Warp 2.

3. Cloaking Device III: Voided by Advanced Space Scanner and BC Mk VIII during strategic deployment. Voided by BC Mk VIII during battle. Ships using CD III cannot move faster than Warp 3.

4. Cloaking Device IV: Voided by Advanced Space Scanner and BC Mk X during strategic deployment. Voided by BC Mk X during battle. Ships using CD IV cannot move faster than warp 4.

5. Cloaking Device V: Voided by Advanced Space Scanner and BC Mk XI during strategic deployment. Voided by BC Mk XI during battle. Ships using CD V cannot move faster than warp 5.

6. Cloaking Device VI: Completely invisible during strategic deployment. 50% chance voided if the target planet has Sub Space Interdictor during battle. Ships using CD VI cannot move faster than warp 5.

 

[vmxa]

The idea of the racial boost sound good and make some sense, but I fear that several would alter the play balance too much.

It would be cool if those changes were added to a special level only. IOW all the normal stats were in effect for the regular levels and you could chose to play this special level with as many of these changes as made it into the version.

 

[neutrino]

The idea of the racial boost sound good and make some sense, but I fear that several would alter the play balance too much.

It would be cool if those changes were added to a special level only. IOW all the normal stats were in effect for the regular levels and you could chose to play this special level with as many of these changes as made it into the version.

I felt that the racial bonuses in MOO1 was a bit bland. With exaggerated racial bonuses, I think they should force human players to implement different strategies and tactics. At the same time, they should also make computer players more challenging. Of course, the numbers that I have used are not final; they should be tinkered around to find a reasonable balance.

 

[neutrino]

As we are all familiar with, MOO1 shipbuilding allows up to 6 designs. For those of us who like designing and experimenting with many different ships, this may be a bit claustrophobic.

Why not allow a number of design slots per hull size? For example, 3 x small, 3 x medium, 3 x large, 3 x huge, thus a player can design up to 12 different ship designs? (The multiplier can be other than 3.)

This can also be structured based on each race. Let me see ...

1. Alkari: 5 x small, 4 x medium, 2 x large, 1 x huge.

2. Bulrathi, Meklar: 2 x small, 2 x medium, 4 x large, 4 x huge.

3. Darlok, Human, Psilon: 3 x each hull size.

4. Klackon: 4 x small, 2 x medium, 2 x large, 4 x huge.

5. Mrrshan: 3 x small, 4 x medium, 3 x large, 2 x huge.

6. Sakkra: 4 x small, 2 x medium, 4 x large, 2 x huge.

7. Silicoid: 2 x small, 3 x medium, 4 x large, 3 x huge.

In this instance, the sum of ship design slots for each race is 12.

 

[vmxa]

I felt that the racial bonuses in MOO1 was a bit bland. With exaggerated racial bonuses, I think they should force human players to implement different strategies and tactics. At the same time, they should also make computer players more challenging. Of course, the numbers that I have used are not final; they should be tinkered around to find a reasonable balance.

I was not disagreeing so much as I was saying you would need to do a ton of testing to see if any of those things changed the balance too much.

Don't for get the AI has to content with each other.