There is a single Galaxy with several BILLION stars. Each player is assigned their very own star system (Your 'Star Number' (think 'Soul Number') controls which star you get to control.)

In the center of the Galaxy is a massive black hole (called "The Hub") which is so massive that it has formed wormholes to each of the stars in the Galaxy.

Wormholes are chaotic things and sometimes are 'closed' which won't allow you to travel through them.

In practical terms, whenever you are logged in to the game (running the game in Internet mode), the wormhole to your star system is 'open' (unless you have reached your max population... similar to being able to set a MIX server to N players max).

There is NO mix server involved. Every copy of the game running is a server for its own star system. YOUR star system. Your PC holds all the 'official' data about your star system (building and space station locations, for example.)

When people warp through the wormhole to your star system, they actually connect to your PC (you become the server, they are the client) and wait (with lovely wormhole animation) while your PC sends them new information about your Star System (where the factories are, etc.) Just because their copy of the game now knows where everything is, doesn't mean that the player knows. In general, the player must visit a planet before they know anything about it.

While your copy of the game is the 'server' for your personal star system, you can actually visit other star systems while playing (so long as their wormholes are open.) Kinda weird that you might be visiting another star while your computer is busy making your own star available to other players visiting it, but such is the wonder that is Rocket Club.

This turns into an EXTREMELY easy to implement network topology, where the Hub can maintain a list of all the active players/star systems. (So I can have buddy lists, paging, deferred messaging...)

Some features will probably require a GS (a Golden Star) which I will make the same as a Golden Soul, so your existing GS will work in WoS, Arcadia AND Rocket club. (Your warpath activation code will NOT work in Rocket Club...)

OK, so far we have:

* every player has their own star system
* only star systems whose players are online right this second have open wormholes (and can be visited)
* only two forms of play: Solo (your own star system only) and Internet (all open wormholes)

Ignore for a moment, the problem of visiting stars with no owners. I want to allow a bit of that (also in solo mode) for 'bot stars.

Also ignore the user who wants to own TWO (or more) star systems with a single PC.

[Thanks, Cam. That actually means a lot to me! You're swell! I have broken my initial thesis into pieces which I hope to keep up to date as I refine the design.
-s]

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THE UNSOLICITED VAPORWARE TESTIMONIALS
(I'm consolidating praise here -s)
--------------------------------------

"VERRRRY AWESOME DAN!!!!!! I've only read half of it, but just wanted to say AWESOME. And I cant wait to see what your genius mind churns out! Good Luck, Im sure it will be great!" -Bandit

"Awsome ideas." -Mosquito

"Rocket Club will take a lot of time to actually write. Dan deserves to be compensated for his time." -Guppyman

"We've all paid more than $25 for games that weren't half as good as what Dan produces for us." -Cartoon

"Yes! You go Dan!" -Lynx2

"Great Ideas, Samnys![sic]" -Leniad

"Once again Dan, RC sounds really, really awosme, I can not tell you how awsome it sounds. I really feel that in the future, RC will be considered your masterpiece!(unless of course, you make soemthing even better." -Camanator

The first time you run the game, you get assigned your unique serial number. You may later choose to upgrade by buying a "Golden Star" which might enable additional features.

My current plan is to accept Golden Soul activation codes. So a single Golden Soul purchase works for WoS, Arcadia, *and* Rocket Club. (but not Warpath... sorry)

Anyway, the next thing that happens is you get to pick your Star System. You get a simple browser which just shows them to you one at a time in random, with stats and a planetary orbit map. I'll probably have some sort of access to this later, so you can explore 'unowned' star systems in this way.

But you must pick your star system, and I must guarantee you are the only one to pick it (I guess....)

At present this is the only star you get. One star owned per PC)

When your star system is assigned, it contains your Homebase (on your Home planet) and your StarBase (in orbit around your Home Planet). These are both permanent safe areas which can never be destroyed.

Your Homebase is the base of operations of your star system's club (which may ultimately have no members at all) and has:

* a Club Bank
* a Club Store

Anyone may attempt to do business with any bank or store, with varying results.

Your HomePort (star port in orbit) is also a safe area and has:

* a Refueling Zone
* a starting module to which you may attach additional modules over time.

Each solar system is generated randomly, but from the same random seed, so everyone agrees on where the planets are.

Every system gets the same number of heavenly bodies, but randomly distributed between planets and moons. With roughly equal total surface area.

Golden Stars will probably get to rename their planets and moons, but the original random name will always be the "galactic standard" name (think "Moscow" versus "Mockba" "Peking" vs "Beijing" etc.)

Each planet/moon will have a random distribution of 'elements' (funny names to be provided, but think "ore" "oil" "gas" "helium" etc.)

Each solar system will have an equitable balance of these elements, but you will have to visit and scan planets to survey their elements.

Elements are used by factories to make objects

Your Star System comes with two safe areas, and the rest is totally wild.

Some objects (HomeBase, HomePort) cannot be destroyed. This is where your Star System's Club Bank and Club Store are.

Some radius around Home objects is also safe from attack. You can freely build factories, and general city/spacestation modules in these areas without fear of their destruction.

But other than that, think RTS game. You depend on treaties and defenses to maintain your stuff, and nothing is intended to last forever, or be that hard to re-create.

Still, you SHOULD be able to build attractive Home Bases which are safe. With Space Bars, etc.

Note: since no one can reach your Star System while your wormhole is closed (i.e. you shut down the game) you can fairly safely build anywhere in your star system and not have to worry about it getting destroyed when you're not playing.

If you build in foreign star systems, you do not have this protection, since people may visit that star system while you're asleep and blow away all your stuff. But if you're friends with that foreign star system, they might very well protect your stuff for you, when needed.

Still, like a good RTS gamer, you should always be thinking in terms of building defenses for your bases.

So, you have a star system. Big deal. Now you need a body.

You may create up to (ten?) characters (not infinite, like WoS). Not sure how many.

When you create a new character (possibly clearing a previous character 'slot' to do so), you get to pick name, skin, empire, etc.

Your empire specifies your bone structure and walking animations. Your skin is the texture which is wrapped onto those bones.

You should be able to select skins from a common library, as well as creating your own with simple painting tools.

Creating a new empire will be more challenging and not available in the first versions, but I do want to allow that in the long run.

The goal is to have a persistent alliance matrix between empires (maintained by the hub) so that over time the relationships between different empires can change.

Part of that is controlled by 'bots, but also your individual actions can be tracked and influence the alliance matrix.

Note that the empire alliances are completely separate from the club alliances.

Note: Alliances are intended to affect 'bot characters, as well as store prices, club membership, etc.

Here we borrow liberally from the Real Time Strategy games.

To make an object, you need a factory. That factory then needs raw materials, time, and some cash to make the object.

A single Factory might make several different related items.

If you have the cash you can buy a factory seed, then visit some planet surface and plant it (it can then no longer be moved) or plant it in orbit as a space station.

Each item requires its own combination of elements to be made ("Ion cannon requires 3 kilos of Helium. 40 kilos of lead, and 14 kilos of Deathium")

Factories have 'hoppers' full of raw materials.

You can deliver materials (and get paid) or you can build 'extractors' and place them near the factory.

A Helium extractor (each extractor does one element) pulls helium from the planet at a particular rate (no extractors in space stations). That rate is a function of the uality of the extractor AND the relative presence of Helium on that planet.

So the best place to make ion cannons is on a planet with those raw materials.

I suppose even without an extractor a factory will (slowly) auto-extract.

A factory maintains an 'order list' of the next ten (five?) objects to be made, in order.

It builds things one at a time, and then delivers the seed to the person who ordered it (you do not have to visit the planet to receive your seed).

You can only have one order in the queue of each factory. (so other people have a chance). You can cancel your order any time before it is finished. But if you re-place the order, you go to the back of the queue.

Depending on your 'club factory skill' your orders might have higher or lower priority than exsting orders, so you might constantly get pushed back, or easily jump to the front of the queue.

This might really just be your club rank.

You place orders over the radio. This might be an explicit trade between two players (money for seeds), A 'scripted' reward for helping some bot planet meet some need. A borrow/repay transaction between you and a club.

Or, the placing of factory orders.

For each star you have visited, you can pull up an info screen for each planet/moon you have orbited. For each of those you can get a status display. Hopefully this will look cool, but one part of it is a world map with icons on it representing factories and such.

Selecting a factory from that level opens a comm channel to it and shows its current order list. This is also where you place orders.

Factories are owned by Clubs (and profits go to the club). (clubs may charge dues and/or pay stipends to their members, varying with their seniority).

If you leave the game, all your pending orders in factories are discarded (and you probably get your money refunded... or you don't pay until delivery is probably the simplest) or 10% up front (non-refundable) and 90% on delivery (refundable).

If the star system wormhole shuts down, your orders in that star system might also be lost.

Recap:

* Borrow money for a ship factory
* Make and sell ships
* save up and buy/install extractors
* Make and sell better ships faster
* (bots will buy, as needed, at crummy prices)
* Get in ship and fly away
* Go shoot enemy factories
* Build a cannon factory
* protect your factories with cannons
* defend against attackers.

Anyway, think Command and Conquer or StarCraft for the factories. They CAN be destroyed. They SHOULD be defended

There is no universal chat window for all 1,000 players to use at once (I'm shooting for 1K simultaneous players. Possibility exists for parallel universes (different hubs, same stars).

You can manually create a communications channel and then invite as many as you like to join it.

You can chat one on one with anyone, including one on one 'atomic' sales transactions.

You can chat to 'everyone in the same star system'

You can whisper to individuals within that system.

You can gossip to a sub-channel within that system.

You can (Golden Stars only) leave messages for people not on line

You can maintain buddy lists (fingers crossed) and get notified on buddy arrivals.

Chat is more like Diablo than WoS, with chat text on top of the 3D display screen. That doesn't appeal to me much, so let's see if I can better that.

In the game, your movement is reported only to people nearby you in the same star system. Packet traffic is handled by the Star Server (the PC of the person who owns that star).

If the Star Server shuts down, its worm hole closes and you are thrown back to the hub. You certain lose visual contact with anyone else who had been in that Star System at the time.

While in the Star System your movement can be:

InterPlanetary:

You are flying around between planets. You must be interplanetary before you can initiate a warp.

This requires an interplanetary-capable spaceship, which you probably won't have right away (new players are stuck in the cradle of civilizaion until they have developed their homeworld, or gotten help.)

From Interplanetary, if you slow down close to a planet or moon, you enter...

Orbital:

In orbital mode, you always see the planet 'below' you and your flight commands are interpreted suitably to stay inside a concentric sphere of 'orbital area'

If you rise too high in that onion slice, you escape to interplanetary.

If you sink to low, you go into...

Aircraft Mode:

Here you are flying over the planet's terrain. (flight simulator mode). If you land your vehicle, you go into...

Walking Mode:

here you are walking around on the terrain (or maybe swimming/sailing/submarining).

All movement is controlled by either the arrow keys, or a joystick. but NOT by the mouse. The mouse is kept available for clicking on things and/or changing your camera angle.

No matter what movement level you are at, you can use weapons to attack other things at that same level.

Hopefully you can also attack things on the level above or below, at least with regards to ground/air.

At any given moment, you have one weapon 'selected' on your current vehicle

Your reasons for blowing stuff up are:

1.) for fun!
2.) to stave off encroaching invaders before they get too strong of a toe-hold in your territory.
3.) for fun!

In general, I think you do NOT advance in 'level' simply by blowing stuff up. But you may receive economic benefits which result in your having access to better weapons and defenses.

Why have any monsters at all on the ground level then?

1.) for fun!
2.) guard animals? (base defenses)
3.) perhaps improves some skill.. like aiming accuracy
4.) An excuse for cool skeleton animations.
5.) I dunno.
6.) Solo mode fun

The goal of death is to render you weaponless, so you can no longer shoot at the factory which was defending itself when it 'killed' you.

Things I want the player to be able to add to the game:

* New modules (models and texture skins) for buildings, habitats, vehicles, weapons, etc.

* New factories to make them.

* New Empires with skeleton animations

* New character skins to stretch over skeleton

* full 3D (Direct3D)
* arrow keys/joystick for movement
* semi-transparent overlay huds
* no pause. (real time game)
* mouse for point, click, camera control
* full screen or windowed mode
* 'regular' IM chat windows in windowed mode
* web browsers in windowed mode
* Shoot for 50s sci-fi movie art direction where possible.
* possibly some customization of UI skins

-----

I think the visual metaphor will be "as seen through your space helmet" (whether or not your skin shows you having one... but I hope many skins have that 50s scifi look with helmets, 'wings' on the shoulders (those epaulet things), and at least one character inexplicably wearing shorts.

ANYWAY, so the main display is a full 3D view with a template control overlay which basically frames it such that the biggest chunk in the middle is pure window (with occasional hud overlay) and any necessary buttons and dials are around the edge, concentrated in the corners.

let's draw it!

code:

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+--------------------------+
|   -------------------    |
|  /                    \  |
| |                      | |
| |                      | |
| |                      | |
| |                      | |
|  \                    /  |
|   -------------------    |
+--------------------------+

---

Hmm, even better.. looks a little like an old TV :-)

Anyway, like that, but more beautiful, with the majority of the screen NOT covered up.

Tell-tales at the top, comm on the lower left, hud controls at lower right.

Activate controls by mouse click or FKey. Many controls bring up more or less transparent huds, which hopefully you can drag around, but might just auto 'expand' from an edge panel (like a sheet of glass shooting out from the left with the info panel on it in translucent mode)

Since I will, for the first time, have a universal central server (but just keeping track of the namespace.. not doing any packet traffic per se, or database storage), I should be able to keep you reasonably informed about a short list of buddies. (these would be mutual-buddies)

It will be slightly easier to open comm channels to buddies.

I will avoid giving you complete lists of all 1,000 players. But I will, in fact, eventually tell you about everyone, if you stay online long enough.

Unlike WoS and Arcadia, you will never 'poll for servers' manually.

I want to design in strong anti-hacking measures (yeah yeah) and strong punitive responses to hacking (total banishment from hub).

I want to minimize the motivation for hacking by basing advancement on inter-personal club interactions and less on # of monsters killed. No attribute should be permanent, so if you hack your club's love of you, the club can remove it (and kick you out).

The usual de-bleeping, gagging, censoring, muting, and banning from individual star systems and the entire galaxy.

I'll probably do language rating again, as I like that. :-)

* scripted 'bot star systems. Not sure how you get assigned a star system for bot purposes, but this would be the moral equivalent of making a "wos world"

It wouldn't be YOUR star system, but it would have planets, bases, etc of the empire you selected.

Synthetic radio communications with the bots would result in their giving you 'quests' which ultimately paid you in money or items.

This might be a finer granularity than a star system, so that different people might be able to create quests for the same star system.

Probably there would be some object "the castle" which you could bind your scipts to and stick on some planet somewhere. It would send beacons as needed, hold synthetic conversations, beg for help, and reward same.

Something along the lines of a city, I guess. Always in an 'un-owned' star system and more or less indestuctible.

Anyway, the biggest simplification in the above is the wormhole deal and the fact that if only 20 people are playing, you only have 20 star systems to explore.

I feel bad about that, but I think it might actually be a key game element. Makes it 'exciting' when a new player joins.

The real limitation is just that you cannot CHANGE a star system that has no host. So you can't build a new factory there, thought it might be fine to take advantage of an existing factory (but maybe you have to bring your own raw materials.. I dunno.)

Life is just simpler to think of it in this way for now.

And, to be clear, even though every player HAS a home star system, they don't HAVE to use it. (other than tolerate the fact that all their characters get born in that systems home base).

And even though every player HAS their own club, they don't HAVE to belong to it.

Clubless characters would, I guess, have to make it on their own, though they could still borrow money from any player or club willing to extend them credit.

I see each club memeber having some sort of line of credit which they could dip into on their own, and more than that would require clibmeister approval (or even a club vote)

* Run game first time, get star system
* create first character, pick empire and skin
* Start at homeBase on homePlanet
* Join club
* Borrow club money for a widget factory
* Make and sell widgets
* save up and buy/install extractors
* Make and sell better widgets faster

* (bots will buy, as needed, at crummy prices)
* repay club loan and save money
* buy simple ship
* travel to orbit and dock with basePort
* ferry materials from ground to orbit
* make more money
* equip ship with cool stuff
* get weapons and air-ready ship
* Go shoot enemy factories
* Build a cannon factory
* protect your factories with cannons
* defend against attackers.
* get interplanetary engines
* colonize your own star system
* make more factories
* get your club cash flow positive
* stave off invading factories
* make assault tanks and planes and attack
* get clubmembers to help
* pay merc 'bots to help
* get warp engines
* warp to new star systems
* make club and empire alliances
* pay taxes, build more factories
* ferry goods between star systems
* fight pirates/be a pirate
* scavenge seeds from dead ships
* Turn your homeBase and HomePort into shining cities of wonder
* Equip your foreign bases with strong defenses
* advance in your club.
* help your club dominate the galaxy.

Each club has a store on its home planet. (There are also bot stores here and there)

Unlike WoS, I think stores will only stock what they actually have.

So... before a store can sell an item, someone has to first sell that item to the store.

So... say you have managed to build something with a factory, and the seed has been radio-ed to you. You can hold the seed in your pocket, plant it and use it, or you can dial up a store and offer to sell the seed to it.

Bot stores will buy anything, but not necessarily at a good price.

Club stores will buy from the proper people, and pay an appropriate price.

Or you can sell straight to an individual and they might sell it to a store at a better price than you would have gotten.. maybe.

Anyway, part of the 'work' of the game is that you make money by selling stuff. You need money so you can buy stuff.

There are some items which are universally available, like fuel.

You can call up any bank on the phone and attempt to transact business. Depending on the bank's attitude about you, your club, and your empire, your results may vary.

You have a personal account, and each club has an account. The money supply can only be inflated by 'bots (who buy stuff from you when no one else will). Each club starts off with a billion credits or so.

You start off with however much money your club will loan you.

Banking Transactions:

* review balance (yours and your clubs... clubs might have "open books" for all to see)

* borrow against line of credit (no approval needed)

* take out loan (approval of club required)

* make payments against loan balances.

You can only transact with a Club Bank while that club's star system's wormhole is open. But you don't have to actually travel to that star system to do business.

A big piece of the UI will be the encyclopedia which remembers everything you have experienced.

Something heirarchical..

list of stars you have visit
list of planets around a given star
list of moons around a given planet

With probably some sort of bookmark/shortcut to keep track of your most popular places, once the list has gotten long.

The encyclopedia is probably also the interface to "every player you have ever heard of" (info about them, last time you saw them, where they are now, if known, etc.)

Again with some prioritization for buddies, fellow clubmembers, people you don't like, etc.

---

I would like this to look nice... Remember the cool 'laptop' Paul Atreides has in "Dune"?

You should be able to drill down to the map level of any heavenly body (you have visited) and let it act as a 'phone book' for placing calls to banks, stores, factories, etc. (that you know about)

Since I can't have people sending broadcast messages to every player in the game, instead I plan to have 'beacons'

These come in several flavors, which boil down to:

* Distress call from player
* Distress call from Club Asset
* Distress call from 'bot (scripted quest)
* Offer of Merchandise

The nature of beacons is such that they are not sent instantly, not to every single player, and contain no actual data.

Your response to a beacon is to:

* not be subscribed to it in the first place
* ignore it
* open a comm channel to it.

Of course, as god, I can send a super beacon on the order of "Hub collapsing! All wormholes will close in 30 seconds!"

But their major purpose is for people who have lost their ship and need a ride somewhere, or a factory reporting "base under attack" to its clubmembers.

Beacons will try to go the shortest possible distance (for example, that factory beacon would only go to clubmembers in the star system already, if there were some.) That sort of thing.

Point is: not all beacons are heard.

Factories should be able to completely drain a planets resources over a long period of time, making the planet unstable (severe weather conditions, earthquakes, mutated population, etc.) and then need to be shut down or the planet could blow up or become uninhabitable. Landing on an unstable planet to shut down the factory could then become a quest. Once shut down, the planets resources would gradually recover.

For the encyclopedia, where it lists the systems you've visited, it should also list the last date you visited as well. You were prbably going to do this one anyway.

You mentioned that "Golden Stars" could leave messages for people who are offline, why not give Golden Stars another beacon as well? If I was a GS, I could leave a "Navigation Beacon" in a system where I found a good deal and maybe designate who I want to be able to see it, then send a message to my club or a buddy telling them about it.

One more thing, I don't think a Golden Soul should transfer over. Even if Rocket Club only gets half of what you've posted, it'll be worth $25 for a Golden Star.

I think the thing which means the most to me is that a person with a developed star system should not be punished for buying a Golden Star (and have to start over).

So.. that means that your 'soul number' needs to be separate from your 'star number'

So.. I think I juat have to bite the bullet and say that.

---

I suppose the good news about that, is I can give you a 'star system browser' which lets you check out lots of different star systems and pick the one you want (hey, you have a couple billion to choose from.) You just can't pick one someone else has already picked. (I hope!)

I was a little worried that people might not like the star system I assigned them at random.

---

I have a whole mess of ideas\questions\suggestions\ect for you Dan, as usual. I hope I have time once I'm in the states to post 'em.

Once again Dan, RC sounds really, really awosme, I can not tell you how awsome it sounds. I really feel that in the future, RC will be considered your masterpiece!(unless of course, you make soemthing even better )

[Have a safe flight! -s]

[That would be called "playing in solo mode in your own star system" and you can do that. You just can't visit other star systems while your own wormhole is closed. -s]

+Golden Stars:
Start with none, $10 for each one. These allow you to start clans, and create clan planets with banks and that kind of service. Possibly some sort of trading areas as well, basically planets with many more services. People without Golden Stars cannot steal these, making clan planets more "Powerful".

Keep in mind people without the appropriate # of stars would still be able to ATTACK these places, but when they got to the "Flag" (Or when all enemies are destroyed in the area, the better Idea I think), they would recieve a message that they cant get this because they don't have another star, and they can go to (webpage here) to see the current prices.

;------------------

Seperate Idea: Having a game this wide-scale, I would recommend having mods.

I know you have disliked this idea for WoS, and you have many good resons for this, but if you made a seperate client for mods of some kind, it may be possible to work out for rocket club. I truly think it would lead to less hair-pulling for everyone.

And I won't carry the argument any farther than that, because I know you probably allready have your mind set on this issue :-)

-Merlin

Anyway, on another note I was gunna suggest you be able to change the club that your star system belongs to. Like, if i dont want to have my own club, lets say as the leader of my "own" club/star system, i decide to make my star system a UBGA system. This way, the UBGA Club gets to increase their "bank max limit" and my system now gets classified as "UBGA" rather than solely my chars. I can also have my own system back, by withdrawing it from the "UBGA Confederation" as easily as someone quits a guild.
It just seems like it would be easier this way, mabey not the programming but the game play.

About this hub thing: Can you fly around in/orbiting the hub? What will be in this area? How do you choose which star system you go to? (Maybe the hub is just a menu, and there's a list of open star systems)

About this combining of elements: Will this be a sort of invention process? If I invent something brand new, really cool and hard to do, will someone be able to buy my item, look at it, then make their own? Will this be sort of like a weapon editor in other games (Range: 8, Color: Red, Explosion: Huge) by setting different amounts of elements?

When you hop from one star system to another (requiring warp drive, which you probably won't have right away as a new player), you are actually hopping to a different server, and the hub is facilitating that connection switch.

During the connection switch, I will display some sort of "cosmic special spatial effect" to distract you from the fact that I am downloading a bunch of stuff from the new server you are connecting to.

Here is the menu system layout. Menu 'buttons' link you to other menus, until finally you are actually playing the game.

Most menus provide a 'back' button to return to the previous menu.

1.) TITLE

This is the animation you see at start of game. It takes you to the MAIN MENU in all cases.

2.) MAIN MENU

This is the top of the menu tree:

* STAR BROWSER (Let's you review star systems and pick one as your home system. For now you only do this once.)

* BLAST OFF (You must have already picked a star) Takes you to SELECT PILOT

* GO AWOL (Quit Game)

* Miscellaneous Web Links

3.) STAR SELECT

This lets you browse the billions of available star systems. Not in great detail, You just get to see their basic layout of planets.

If you have not already selected your home star, this is where you do it.

You go back to the MAIN MENU when you're done here.

4.) PILOT SELECT

Here you pick from one of your 'saved games' (characters), or push the ENLIST button to create a new pilot.

You may go back to the MAIN MENU, or forward to SELECT HUB, (if you have selected a pilot).

5.) NEW PILOT

Here you create a new character, specifying name, empire, skin, and probably some attributes (giving you some number of 'points' to allocate between a set of skills, I guess. But this might be your only chance to configure yourself. I mean, I'm not sure that you will get more points later -- though you might be able to realloc the old points. But since I don't know what the skills are going to be yet, let's not go there)

You can go back to SELECT PILOT or forward to SELECT HUB

6.) SELECT HUB

This is where you decide solo versus multiplayer. The *only* form of multiplayer at present is "The Hub" (Internet). But if there are ever multiple Hubs (including the LAN Hub...) this is where they would show up.

You may go back to SELECT PILOT or forward into the game (leaving the menu system)

If you have selected Hub-Play, there will be some additional delay while things set-up, before you are actually playing.

7.) IN-GAME MENU.

While playing, the ESC key brings up the in-game menu. Here you find:

* Save Game (though saving will be automatic, like in WoS)

* Resume Game (close the menu.. pressing escape a second time should also do this)

* Return to Hub (disconnect you from star system and return you to the SELECT HUB menu)

* Quit Game (Go Awol again)

* Options (assuming there are some.. this is likely where the ability to change your skin and such would be handled.)

----

Hey, everybody loves skirmish mode, right? I might be able to get one 'for free' by doing this:

1.) You already have a home star system and some pilots

2.) The STAR BROWSER is thus only of academic interest for the most part, since you can't select anything but your home system to actually start the game in (you magically warp home every time you quit the game... otherwise I have wormhole problems...)

Unlesssss....

3.) Selecting anything other than your home star on the Star Browser, enters you into Skirmish Mode

This means that you still pick one of your pilots (no creating new ones, though, I think) but you become the server for that star system (can't be an 'owned' star system) which is now in skirmish mode.

Anyone who wants can come visit you there and battle. But anything built in the system probably won't last. (In theory, such buildings would last until you visited the same star on someone else's system in skirmish mode.. I mean the current server wins)

[well, I have to live with the fundamental situation that people have control over their own PCs. So hopefully you will also (by cord-pulling) be denying yourself the chance to get some cash off of them. Plus maybe I can get you ranked as a cord-puller so people know ahead of time that your star system is no fun. -s]

I'm starting to not like this Hub idea so much. If you basically have total control over your own star system, with the indestructible Home Planet and Home Starbase, then no one really has a chance to defeat you there, since as soon as they log off, you can go and destroy their (mostly) undefended stuff in your system? If the only star systems you can enter are the systems of online players, then how can the Galactic Empire ever give us someone to fight? How can we ever have Merlin Vader and Cam Skywalker?

[Somehow I think we'll have the opposite problem all things considered. I think it's more likely that rampaging bands of hoodlums would get a kick out of destroying everything in sight, more so than people will be excessive cord-pullers. Or rather, people would use cord-pulling to protect themselves from hoodlums.

In either case, this is exactly why I want your home star to have a few totally safe areas where you can build edifices which stand for eternity and act as showcases of your creativity and talent.

The vast majority of your star system will not enjoy these protections, and the emotional weight of things you build in unprotected areas should be thought of as the factories and tanks you might build in StarCraft. You don't expect those to last forever, just to server a purpose during their brief lifetimes.

Also, it may well turn out to be possible for an incursion into your space creating something which is difficult for you to destroy. For example, perhaps some objects can ONLY be destroyed while you are on-line. Or while their owner is online or in the same star system or something like that. Or while their club is around... etc. -s]

On a different note, how about you make one of the benefits of having a Golden Star the ability to use the element Gold? With Gold, you could make Big Expensive Flashy Gold Jewelry. You put BEFGJ on your trained guard animals and...Bling Bling! Your giant mutant attack rabbits are living large! Also, you could have Platinum Stars...

[um.... -s]

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[also, I hope that the planets have enough surface area that people can sneakily build stuff without you noticing until they have a massive army in your backyard...

ALSO... people might run 'servers' in the sense of just leaving their copy of the game running. This allows other players to meet and battle on completely equal terms, assuming that the dispassionate server-runner doesn't play favorites.. Again, possibly leading to a 'fun' rating for the player/server.

ANYWAY, your points are, of course, valid. We just have to make things as wonderful as possible with existing resources. -s]

Also, for the beta, may I recommend you somehow restrict it to a smaller number of people (since it will end up being a pay game in all reality), and make the universe really tiny? Make it a scale model of the real game :-)