Game Development: An ESG proposal

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

One recent proposal for a direct-fire option for the ESG in Star Fleet Battles serves as an example of unforeseen problems with rules interactions.

The general concept was that the normal rules for ESGs would operate except as modified by the ability to use the system in direct-fire mode.

This sounds simple enough, but here are a few issues that would have to be resolved (if the decision was made to allow this).

What happens if two ESG ships fire their ESGs at a single target on the same impulse? The normal rules for ESG fields would say that the two ship's systems interfere with and (to the extent they are equal) cancel each other out without damaging the target. But what if the ESGs in direct fire mode are hitting different shields, or even coming from directly opposite sides of the target?

You might say "Well obviously the Lyran player would have to not fire one ship's ESGs on that impulse, it is just a coordination problem", but it is not. Lyrans fight Civil Wars, and it is possible (even without the appearance of an LDR ship, or a WYN or Orion ship with an ESG in its option mounts) to appear in three way battle where no one is allied. So the question would have to be answered.

Then there is the "what if the ship is the target of an ESG in direct-fire mode and a Hydran Hellbore on the same impulse?"

What if the line of fire of a ESG ship A crosses the line of fire of ESG ship B? This could happen as both ESG ships might be trying to exploit down facing shields on different targets (Ship A fires its ESG through its #2 shield at Target B, while ship C is firing its ESG through its #6 shield at target D). The same essential question has to be answered for a hellbore being fired on the same impulse that happens to cross the line of fire of the ESG pulse.

This is all in part because the proposal is to allow the ESG to operate normally (hit every target in the hexes it is fired across up to its maximum range of three hexes subject to whether or not enough damage points remain after striking closer targets to affect the more distant ones), which means that it is a "barrier" to other things that it normally interacts with.

It was the designer's intent that this would just be "a rule", thus requiring no changes to the existing SSDs. In that, he was partly right as such a change to how ESGs operate, even if only a new "option" would actually cause one change to the SSDs: It would increase the ship's BPVs.

The problem is that allowing targeted use of the ESG would make the Lyran ships far more powerful, particularly because many of the defenses normally available to a ship, and particularly squadrons and fleets, fighting a Lyran force with such a capability would be gone. (Hard to launch shuttles or roll mines out of the hatch to reduce the damage if you do not know the ESG is going to be burst at you). And the more focused salvos would result in greater damage to individual ships. (A weapon that "does not miss" that cannot even be countered by electronic warfare. Sure, he has to get to range three to hit you with a burst at all, but there are seldom circumstances where ships are moving every impulse, and that makes it possible for two or three different Lyran ships to pound one specific target ship over several impulses with a guaranteed 15 points of damage per ESG as the proposal does not reduce the damage the ESG does at any given range. That forces the defender to stack his ships to avoid them being crushed by this effect.)

It is not just a matter of having ideas, the operational and tactical considerations as well as the rules interactions have to be worked out.

HOW NOT TO GET INTO THE GAME BUSINESS

I constantly see things on industry mailing lists and in my Email where people want advice on entering the game business. The best advice I have is my free book which you can find at www.starfleetgames.com/book as a nice multi-chapter PDF.

In one recent case, an individual wrote to say: "I just lost my job and have decided to be a game designer for a living. I need a stable income of $4,000 a month. How long would it take me to get there? Three months? Six?"

I laughed and cried at the same time. For one thing, I don't make $4,000 a month now and I've been in the industry 28 years. (A few years I have made that much, barely, but not in the current market.) The sad fact is that except for the lucky three or four, game designers won't ever make that much. Worse, you probably cannot make a living as an independent game designer at all, since game publishing companies were (99% of the time) created to publish the owner's games because no other company would publish them.

In another case from some time ago (I'm going to blur some facts here so that nobody can tell who I'm talking about), a young game enthusiast decided to quit his day job and focus his full time efforts on game design and publishing. His wife said that she would allow this only if he "brought home" a paycheck of a defined amount each month. He had some money from an inheritance which was separate property and his wife allowed that he could use this. Well, he went through the nest egg, borrowed money from savings without telling his wife, maxed out the credit card he got for the business, and then got two more cards (those offers in the mail) without telling his wife and maxed them out. All the time (his company last 18 months and did a dozen products) he was "bringing home" the required paycheck. His company was making a profit beyond expenses, but not enough to cover the paycheck, but the paycheck continued because (a) his wife insisted and (b) he was sure he would start making more sales any time. One of the credit cards was a $5,000 cash advance spent on advertising (which produced few if any new sales). Every month, he wrote that paycheck but came up short elsewhere. He had established credit with the printers and with the companies that sold him advertising pages so he ended up deeply in debt to the printer and to advertising publishers. Worse, his first product (which sold well enough) ran out of print, but it was going to cost $20K to reprint it and the dwindling rate of sales (nowhere near as good as it had been 18 months earlier) would not support the debt load, but he "had" to reprint it to avoid looking like a company on the way out. Finally, with no more places to borrow money and creditors threatening legal action, he took the case to his wife for a home equity loan. She, of course, had no clue that his company was $40K in debt (for which he as personally liable) or that most of the family savings account was gone. It's a wonder she didn't kill him or leave him, but she did force him out of the game business immediately. He sold out for what he could get and applied that money to the debts. Moral of the story, if you are married, make your wife a part of every business decision and do not keep secrets from her about family money.

In another case (actually, there are four or five of these I have seen, all about the same), an enthusiastic game designer who knew nothing about the industry but was sure his game was the next big thing got a home equity loan, printed thousands of copies of his game, and THEN (and only then) asked other game companies how to contact stores and wholesalers to sell his game. He had no clue what size the market was (few games sell over a couple of thousand copies) or who the wholesalers were or what it would take to get them to buy (some now demand that you pay them $500 for advertising before they will carry your game) or even what the discount structure was (which meant that his cost per game was fairly close to the 40% of the retail price he had printed on the games). Moral of the story, learn as much as you can about the industry before you spend a dime getting into it. GO READ MY BOOK FIRST.

I see lots of gamers who think that running a retail store, and on-line discount store, or a game publishing company involves low work and high reward. It does not. If it did, a lot more people would be in this business.

A Wish for Victory

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

There is nothing special about today, but I thought I would take a moment to extend my thanks to every member of the U.S. armed forces, and those of our active allies, who are serving or have served in the ongoing war on terror. I deeply regret and apologize for my own personal absence from the field and deeply wish that I could have been there to help you all shoulder the burden. No matter what is said in effort to prevent you from gaining a victory in this war that you have all worked so hard to attain, you have my own support and belief not just in the cause in which you serve, but in your own personal desire to see that victory attained.

The above are just words, no matter how heartfelt on my part. I should be there, should have been there. Do not believe that there are not people here, in the U.S., that are praying for your success. That we are not hurt by every loss you suffer, that we do not wish the job could be done safely and that all of you would return home whole and healthy. War has never been that way, and never will be. We mourn your losses, feel sorrow for your pain, but we believe in you and the goal.

Do not let the nattering class destroy your morale or convince you that the goal is not one worth attaining.

Remember that South Korea was not a democracy after World War II, but Service men fought, and died, there, and today it is a vibrant democracy. Things can change. It takes time, blood, and tears, but it does happen.

Real Enemies

This is Steven Petrick Posting:

Hollywood likes to make a lot of movies about U.S. soldiers acting against the U.S. government to impose a dictatorship. There are a lot of films in that genre.

I have no doubt that there are a few individuals in the U.S. Military that might entertain such notions.

I also have no doubt that as long as the members of the U.S. Military are generally drawn from intelligent and educated people the chances of this are vanishingly small (and not because Hollywood is so frequently warning us of all the evil men in the U.S. Military).

Partly I think this because U.S. Military men do not swear unquestioning obedience to the President, or to Congress, or even to the increasingly powerful Supreme Court.

Even member of the U.S. Military, whether Active, Guard, or Reserve, and whether Air Force, Army, or Marines, begins his service by taking an oath. That oath states:

"I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

(The National Guard also swears fealty to their individual states)

Note that the oath requires the service member to obey the orders of the President and the officers appoints over him or her "according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice". This requires the service member to obey LAWFUL orders. Quite literally, the President could order American Soldiers to seize Congress, and they would be lawfully bound to disobey what constitutes an illegal order. Because the oath is to "support and defend the Constitution", and overturning Congress by force of arms would be a violation of that oath.

If anyone ever tries to change the oath to one of allegiance to a single person or group of persons, like oaths of personal loyalty to Congress (much less a sitting President) that would be a point of worry.

But the real threats to the Constitution are the schools failing to teach what the Constitution is (frightening that some people are commissioned or enlisted who grew up here and have never, ever, read the Constitution themselves). And an increasing attitude amongst some that oaths should be broken whenever it is convenient to do so. [Like a sitting President giving false testimony under oath, or sitting Congressmen enacting legislation that is in violation of the Constitution they also swore to protect and defend), or a Supreme Court (which also swore to protect and defend the Constitution) that wants to rule on Constitutional issues based on foreign law.]

FEDERATION COMMANDER: PLAY IT ON-LINE

Many people do not know that you can play FEDERATION COMMANDER on-line in real time against live opponents.

Eight years ago, www.SFBonline.com was created to provide players of STAR FLEET BATTLES with an on-line gaming experience. It was a smash hit as hundreds of gamers joined the battles. Tournaments and other competitions, plus general opening gaming, have gone on around the clock since then.

This successful operation has now been expanded to include FEDERATION COMMANDER!

Now you can play with real live human (not to mention Klingon, Romulan, Kzinti, Gorn, Tholian, Orion, and other) opponents all over the world in real time 24 hours a day! The computer automates many functions and acts as a friendly assistant for mundane chores.

For the modest subscription fee of less than $4 a month, you have access to all of the ships in the FEDERATION COMMANDER game system as well as new ships still in playtest and development. The Java Runtime system is compatible with Windows and Macintosh systems.

Never worry about a lack of opponents. Never worry about opponents who don't show up for games day because of silly reasons like family reunions or their own weddings. Don't be cut off from your regular gaming group while on vacations or business trips.

Even better, you can join in on-line tournaments and campaigns, and your victories will add up to a higher and higher average score!

The system also allows you to chat with friends, taunt your enemies, and watch other players fight their own savage battles. (Why learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from someone else's?) This "observer" system allows players of either game to learn the ins and outs of the other game before deciding to invest time and money in it.

So come to www.SFBonline.com right away. You can even fly the Federation CA or Klingon D7 as a free trial, or watch any game in play. Legendary SFB aces and new FEDERATION COMMANDER aces strut their stuff in combat arenas all the time, and you can learn from the best.

Improbable is Sometimes Reality

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

Sometimes real life incidents seem completely improbable.

Consider the recent rescue of a number of high profile kidnap victims held by Colombian Rebel/Narcotics Cartel FARC.

The story goes that the Colombian intelligence agency, capitalizing on the death of FARC's founding leader and lots of recent heavy casualties among its other leadership, sent a message from one new leader to another. This was possible because the two new leaders had never met. The message instructed the junior of the two leaders to take the prisoners to a location and place them on helicopters to be flown to a new secure site.

The order was obeyed, and after the helicopters were boarded, the guards of the prisoners found themselves prisoners of Colombian security troops.

It will make a neat movie sometime, no matter how improbable it will seem.

The Mummy

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

I went to see the third "Mummy" installment. To be fair, Jet Lee is one of the actors I generally enjoy watching so he was a draw, but the overall tone of the film as more "knock-down drag-out brawl" rather than horror was the larger plus.

I do not like "horror films". I sometimes express this as I think "Alien" is a lousy film, but I enjoy "Aliens" because it, too, was a knock-down drag-out brawl.

A lot of the computer animation was very good. While the Yetis did not really, really look real, they did seamlessly mesh with the action.

Perhaps my single biggest gripe about the film was bulk of the "living henchmen" (the guys armed with rifles and other "modern accouterments", about a company of troops, in the final battle. They just "vanished". Even if one can accept the Emperor's troops turning to ceramic dust and blowing away, and the ancient undead opposing force finally collapsing to dust and blowing away, these guys should still have been present (along with a crashed and burning airplane and a few other things).

Overall, personally, I like the film, and honestly do hope that there will be yet another sequel, even if they have to find another new Mummy to fight (rather than facing the original for a third time or facing Jet Lee for a second time).