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Author Topic: Browser-based space empires game?  (Read 2752 times)

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Browser-based space empires game?
« on: July 27, 2006, 02:37:02 am »
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I've been looking for a browser space empires-type game for a while, and nothing has really struck my fancy. The interfaces all seem clunky and counter-intuitive, there aren't nearly enough options for building up defenses and customizing warships, and the entire experience, in general, seems very limited.

Can anyone reccomend a decent space empires browser-based game?
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2006, 03:14:50 am »
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Um... If your looking for browser, you are looking for flash or java. Flash and java games generaly arent very good when it comes to things like this. Although its not really a space empires game, its a spaceshipish game. Its called stellar conflicts, located at gecko-games.com . Its in flash, I'll give you my account with tons of money on it if you want.
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2006, 03:34:18 am »
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I looked that game up; it's nice, but it can't hold a candle to Escape Velocity. =)

Actually, what I was looking for was a sort of game where you could build up a fleet, conquer a few star systems, collect taxes, build up your fleet some more, ad inifitum. I was curious because I've been idly tapping away at this procedural universe generator all morning, and thought it might be useful as a back-end for a simple web game. However, I haven't played a game like that since before Y2k, so I was looking for some modern examples. =)

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about PHP, SQL, Java, or anything neccesary for building a website outside of the tricks I used to pretty up my myspace profile, so I might not be able to make anything happen with this engine. =/

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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2006, 03:38:10 am »
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Without a login or anything, you wouldnt need PHP or sql. Unless you are planing on making the game in java, you dont need that either. All you need is flash. Ah yes, escape velocity. Wonderfull to play, even better to heck. There are a few Turn based games you could find in torrents. There is one thats kinda like the civilization games called Galactic Empires 2: Dread Lords. Also there is Space Rangers(not as bad as it sounds). Is there any particualar reason you want to make it a browser game?
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #4 on: July 27, 2006, 03:46:44 am »
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I've spent many hours in the EV universe. Good times. =)

For this particular game, I was hoping to have players log in, customize their space navies, and invade neighboring star systems with the intention of building up a huge empire. I have decent ship construction, battle determination, and universe generation routines set up, but without a front end to access all of them, I can't really do anything with them. So I'd probably need some sort of internet technology; I mentioned php and sql because I heard they were standards.

I'm trying to make a browser game because (a) I'd like to try something new, and (b) I'm not going to have much time to work on new games in the near future, when I start working on my med school applications. In the meantime, I wanted to work on something that wouldn't require as much hand-tweaking of content: I figured if I could make a multiplayer game that was generated entirely procedurally, I could have a lot of fun with that. I also heard that php was fairly easy to pick up - do you have any experience with it?

I've been working on procedural algorithms for a fair bit, now. I even worked on a nice random world generator and posted it to the forums here.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2006, 03:48:45 am by FarFromHomeFish »
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #5 on: July 27, 2006, 03:51:55 am »
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Quote from: FarFromHomeFish on July 27, 2006, 03:46:44 am
I've spent many hours in the EV universe. Good times. =)

For this particular game, I was hoping to have players log in, customize their space navies, and invade neighboring star systems with the intention of building up a huge empire. I have decent ship construction, battle determination, and universe generation routines set up, but without a front end to access all of them, I can't really do anything with them. So I'd probably need some sort of internet technology; I mentioned php and sql because I heard they were standards.

I'm trying to make a browser game because (a) I'd like to try something new, and (b) I'm not going to have much time to work on new games in the near future, when I start working on my med school applications. In the meantime, I wanted to work on something that wouldn't require as much hand-tweaking of content: I figured if I could make a multiplayer game that was generated entirely procedurally, I could have a lot of fun with that. I also heard that php was fairly easy to pick up - do you have any experience with it?
Yep, I like PHP and I can use it well. But doing these things browser based would be extremely hard. Online games made in any language aren't very good. You would want to have a server of some sort. If you have a static IP adress, that would be good. PHP won't help you with anything on the actualy page, moving ships ext. It could help with database stuff and logging in. If by Browser based you mean generated frame by frame and displayed on the page as an image map, forget it. Too slow, too tedious. You would want to learn flash. Make a single player game, then go from there. I can help ya with the flash and stuff. Browser games are generally slower and are VERY FREAKIN HARD to set up with the server and everything, so I suggest doing it in an esier way first.
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #6 on: July 27, 2006, 04:00:19 am »
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While having everything animated on a frame-by-frame basis would be cool, that's not what I'm looking for. I was thinking a much simpler, more data-driven interface: you could organize ships into a list, have them starfall towards an Enemy's star system and engage the defense forces there. Almost entirely text-based. =) So all I would need is some way of generating web-pages on the fly.

I figure, if enough time was spent making the interface beautiful and accessible, and trying to cut the learning curve down as much as possible, and the game had enough options to keep the player's interest (with tons of ship customization), it might be kinda sorta appealing. So, instead of a RTS, it would be more sort of a RTT game - like a hex-based, turn-based war game.

I can get my hands on a server with asp, php, sql and whatnot. That's not a problem; I could always rent one if worse came to worse. But I don't know how to actually program in those languages and APIs! =)
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #7 on: July 27, 2006, 04:26:02 am »
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Quote from: FarFromHomeFish on July 27, 2006, 04:00:19 am
While having everything animated on a frame-by-frame basis would be cool, that's not what I'm looking for. I was thinking a much simpler, more data-driven interface: you could organize ships into a list, have them starfall towards an Enemy's star system and engage the defense forces there. Almost entirely text-based. =) So all I would need is some way of generating web-pages on the fly.

I figure, if enough time was spent making the interface beautiful and accessible, and trying to cut the learning curve down as much as possible, and the game had enough options to keep the player's interest (with tons of ship customization), it might be kinda sorta appealing. So, instead of a RTS, it would be more sort of a RTT game - like a hex-based, turn-based war game.

I can get my hands on a server with asp, php, sql and whatnot. That's not a problem; I could always rent one if worse came to worse. But I don't know how to actually program in those languages and APIs! =)
I don't quite understand what you're saying. It would be a text based thing? Text based would be like a chat room with extra features.
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #8 on: July 27, 2006, 05:00:06 am »
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Well, text-based in the sense that there's no fancy rendering engine: every turn, you could select your fleets from drop-down menus and have them attack your enemies, and then recieve the results of that battle when your next turn comes around. Sure, there might be a chat room built in, but it would only be a side-attraction, as opposed to the main event.

I mocked a basic interface up. Imagine a collection of pages that looked similar to this one: this page shows you a local glactic map, the currently selected system ( the map centers on a particular system), the fleets in the system you're looking at...

Another page might show a list of all your fleets, organized by strength. Clicking on a fleet might bring you to a different page that listed every ship in that fleet, and a list of current orders for that fleet (patrol this region of space for ten turns, then attack this system).

Another page might list all of your allies, with interfaces that allowed you to request support.

The entire thing would be relatively slow paced - you might only have one turn every few hours or once a day.

Err... is that any clearer?
« Last Edit: July 27, 2006, 05:03:15 am by FarFromHomeFish »
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2006, 05:16:12 am »
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Quote from: FarFromHomeFish on July 27, 2006, 05:00:06 am
Well, text-based in the sense that there's no fancy rendering engine: every turn, you could select your fleets from drop-down menus and have them attack your enemies, and then recieve the results of that battle when your next turn comes around. Sure, there might be a chat room built in, but it would only be a side-attraction, as opposed to the main event.

I mocked a basic interface up. Imagine a collection of pages that looked similar to this one: this page shows you a local glactic map, the currently selected system ( the map centers on a particular system), the fleets in the system you're looking at...

Another page might show a list of all your fleets, organized by strength. Clicking on a fleet might bring you to a different page that listed every ship in that fleet, and a list of current orders for that fleet (patrol this region of space for ten turns, then attack this system).

Another page might list all of your allies, with interfaces that allowed you to request support.

The entire thing would be relatively slow paced - you might only have one turn every few hours or once a day.

Err... is that any clearer?
Somewhat. Yeah, you could do that in flash rather easily. So there are just pages of information that you can customize and stuff. Then you interact and tell them to attack. You could do this via HTML and maps, but it would be more complex than doing it in flash. I could help ya with some of it if you like. You wouldn't need a big classy server, since its slow paced a database should do.
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #10 on: July 27, 2006, 10:49:34 pm »
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Yeah, I was thinking a super expensive server wouldn't be neccesary. =)

So, I know nothing about php, sql, or flash. To generate these simple pages and have interaction between the server and the client pages (including a realtime updated chat box, everything else should execute on a simple slow-paced turn schedule), would it be easier to learn php and a smattering of java, or flash?

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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #11 on: July 28, 2006, 12:14:20 am »
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Yeah, it wouldnt take long to learn enough to get something like this going really, a few weeks to get a good understanding of it all and probably get underway. I'm sure you're more than competent in terms of algorithms and stuff, so it wouldn't really take long to put them into practice once you've got a hold of some PHP / Java practice.

I myself am working on an entirely PHP MYSQL HTML based RPG. No space ships or galaxies unfortunately, quite simply a city, and a character, which you go around fighting other players and bots, bettering yourself, gaining stats, weapons, armour and rank etc.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2006, 12:18:59 am by Dayjo »
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #12 on: July 28, 2006, 12:24:36 am »
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you should try clash-n-slash.  Though it isnt free, the trial version is still fun.
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2006, 03:08:16 am »
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clash-n-slash is kinda cool, and its certainly purdy... but again, not what I'm looking for. =)

I quickly mocked up a website background using some ut textures, with the WoW website as a basis. While I already have rules for ship construction, combat resolution, and whatnot, I still need rules for the background of the game - what structures you can build on your planets, what modifiers they confer, and so on. Perhaps, for example, there will be an 'academy' structure which will create better captains which you can deploy on your ships; ships with captains will have better survivability and a positive modifier to their weapons fire.

And I also, obviously, need to learn php. Where can I get started with that? =)

[edit]
Dayjo, or anyone else, maybe you could tell me how php works: is it entirely server-side, or can it also be used client-side? Does each php script generate one full page, or can php scripts call each other, like in C or VB?
« Last Edit: July 28, 2006, 03:13:29 am by FarFromHomeFish »
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #14 on: July 28, 2006, 03:36:34 am »
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Quote from: FarFromHomeFish on July 28, 2006, 03:08:16 am
clash-n-slash is kinda cool, and its certainly purdy... but again, not what I'm looking for. =)

I quickly mocked up a website background using some ut textures, with the WoW website as a basis. While I already have rules for ship construction, combat resolution, and whatnot, I still need rules for the background of the game - what structures you can build on your planets, what modifiers they confer, and so on. Perhaps, for example, there will be an 'academy' structure which will create better captains which you can deploy on your ships; ships with captains will have better survivability and a positive modifier to their weapons fire.

And I also, obviously, need to learn php. Where can I get started with that? =)

[edit]
Dayjo, or anyone else, maybe you could tell me how php works: is it entirely server-side, or can it also be used client-side? Does each php script generate one full page, or can php scripts call each other, like in C or VB?
PHP is completely server side and cannot be client side. For client side stuff, use javascript. PHP can call on other scripts using the include function. This takes all of the other scripts code/html and pastes it into the documents where the include is.
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #15 on: July 28, 2006, 03:42:15 am »
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Thanks tons for your help, Joeshmo. =)
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #16 on: July 28, 2006, 03:43:02 am »
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No problem. Oh yes, we forgot to mention javascript. It is also usefull.
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #17 on: July 28, 2006, 04:57:13 am »
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Ha... well, I'll stick to learning php and mysql queries for now. Java is cool, and would be neccesary for DICKBUTT features (like a scrolling galactic map), but I'll hold off on that until I have the basic site built.

I just set up a windows 2000 testbed for my scripts and databases... I'm running out to purchase a sams or reily book for php/mysql, and I'll be able to get to work learning this stuff in rather short order.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2006, 09:36:47 am by FarFromHomeFish »
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #18 on: July 28, 2006, 06:23:38 am »
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I kept reading, BOWSER........... = =
I thought it was something about Super Mario Galaxy, like new information on the game or something,
Guess not...  :P
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Re: Browser-based space empires game?
« Reply #19 on: July 28, 2006, 10:14:52 am »
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I learned the basics of PHP and MYSQL in like an hour or two, mainly because I needed to write a user management system at that time, and I'm still learning new things about it, I really just learn 'on the fly', reading up on things that I only need. Probably not the most efficient way, but I seem to do that with most things.

Getting a book sounds like a good idea, and Joeshmo gave a good description about PHP, the "includes" that Joeshmo is talking about is really just a good way of normalising all your files, so having a functions file, which you just include into the files you need the functions in etc.
I'm guessing you've used SQL before, so it shouldnt be much of a problem.

I think it's quite a fun thing to try and do really, web-based game stuff. :)
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