Interesting ideas, Jacques. Now that I have big enough universe to actually explore until I die of old age, I've though a lot about making the exploring concept actually interesting and fun, unlike in previous games of this genre. I describe some of the ideas in my development wiki, and I'm always open for further suggestions.
I'm not going for the doomsday setting of Battlestar Galactica, but I'd still like to include some form of distant planet colonization. I'm thinking of working for a government or some other faction, and help them spread their sphere of influence by finding habitable planets around the galaxy and doing some massive passenger and cargo runs to colonize them. The changes in the universe will be persistent: colonized worlds will remain that way, populations grow and shrink and economies flourish and collapse. Dynamic wars and conquests can alter the allegiance of the colonized worlds, so government boundaries are certainly not set in stone.
I'm personally partial to galactic warfare and "invading other solar systems" as you put it, but the game will not be built only around wars. The wars in this game will have subtle political twists with varying tension levels, and when grown powerful enough, even the player has the ability to influence the relations between factions and take part in the actual warfare as a privateer. Ultimately I'm aiming for some kind of a mixture between the galactic "space mogulism" of Egosoft's X-series and strategic action of Starshatter, but with a lot more lively dynamic universe and factions lead by AI with their own agendas.
I know I'm aiming unrealistically high in this early phase of the project, but the beauty of a game of this genre is that more features can be constantly added in small steps between intermediate releases. So, not all of the budding ideas have to be implemented here and now. Ananta will start small.
I'm not going for the doomsday setting of Battlestar Galactica, but I'd still like to include some form of distant planet colonization. I'm thinking of working for a government or some other faction, and help them spread their sphere of influence by finding habitable planets around the galaxy and doing some massive passenger and cargo runs to colonize them. The changes in the universe will be persistent: colonized worlds will remain that way, populations grow and shrink and economies flourish and collapse. Dynamic wars and conquests can alter the allegiance of the colonized worlds, so government boundaries are certainly not set in stone.
I'm personally partial to galactic warfare and "invading other solar systems" as you put it, but the game will not be built only around wars. The wars in this game will have subtle political twists with varying tension levels, and when grown powerful enough, even the player has the ability to influence the relations between factions and take part in the actual warfare as a privateer. Ultimately I'm aiming for some kind of a mixture between the galactic "space mogulism" of Egosoft's X-series and strategic action of Starshatter, but with a lot more lively dynamic universe and factions lead by AI with their own agendas.
I know I'm aiming unrealistically high in this early phase of the project, but the beauty of a game of this genre is that more features can be constantly added in small steps between intermediate releases. So, not all of the budding ideas have to be implemented here and now. Ananta will start small.