Hello, for some time I have had an idea for a game, I would love to hear what you think of the concept and what I need to start making a game over it.

The concept is something like this:
Its the future and you are a human who becomes a mech creator. You can free roam a galaxy, driving your mothership from system to system to visit colonized worlds; designing, fabricating and selling these war machines from zero; with the money earned you research the tech to create the parts needed (reactors, cooling, armor systems. weapons...) and then further improve theirs %´s of perfomance with extra investment. Then taking all your developed parts you piece together the mech that will have stats (based on pieces) and start selling it depending on a planetary demand. Planet demand would change based on if they are at war or peace.

You get the chance to affect a planet by using your money to stabilize it (getting some benefits, like if a planet is at peace you can build a company branch to get constant revenue, improve their economy...) or destabilize it into a civil war depending what factions are present (like democratic goverments won´t declare war on each other but a dictatorship will jump to war after you give them a huge cash injection). Also by buying carrier spaceships it would be possible to field your own developed mechs on strategic maps where they autobattle against the enemies present (humans, alien or whatever) so you can get a new tech, ores, complete a mission or help a warring faction. You also create space stations (mining, logistical and others), but the main focus is always your fleet.

So instead of being the mech pilot you are the dude who makes and sells them while being a wandering war profiteer rolled with a megacorporation, jumping from system to system and improving your tech, maybe get a reputation system depending on your actions (who you help and how scummy you are), with upgradable mothership (by buying better ones and improving it with new facilities).

It would be like a galaxy simulator married to a simple economic system (ore market) with research and customizable units. The idea of living worlds like the ones in "Mount and Blade"where there are many factions doing their thing in a huge sandbox always attracted me a lot, I have always dreamed of creating something based over that, can it be made in Godot? and how?.

One sample of how the assembling mechs could go (not mine):

On a side note, I have been toying with this idea way before Armored core restarted the mech craze. And I like way more the grim and crude Battletech style rather than the stylished japanese one.

  • Toxe replied to this.

    Danimal Alright so I volunteer to burden the mean questions. 😉

    The first important one: How many games have you made before or this your first venture into making games?

      Just a few of very shitty unfinished ones and none in Godot 😃
      I know I should start small and build from there while learning about everything related, but I kind of prefer going by blocks and then merging all together even if it becomes nuclear waste in the end and goes supernova. I´m not new to the arena and participated in a few open games(which disbanded with time). That said, is there some kind of samples or documentation that can guide me? What do you think about the concept? I guess it´s kind of a very niche personal interest, but I need to know if godot is able to run a Sandbox with AI run factions.

        Danimal kind of prefer going by blocks and then merging all together

        if you have an obsessive personality, it's not a bad way to learn. you might wind up with something unique and polished as your concept evolves over time.
        if you get bored easily, i highly urge you to reconsider, because your project will be dead in a couple weeks.

        Danimal That said, is there some kind of samples or documentation

        check out all these bookmarks i've got:
        https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/performance/optimizing_3d_performance.html
        https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/3d/3d_rendering_limitations.html#texture-size-limits
        https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/performance/gpu_optimization.html
        https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/shaders/shader_reference/index.html
        https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/shaders/making_trees.html
        https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/shaders/shader_reference/shading_language.html
        https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/scripting/gdscript/gdscript_basics.html

        and these non-godot-specific bookmarks:
        https://cgobsession.com/what-game-texture-resolutions-should-you-use/
        https://soundimage.org/images-home-page/ (thanks matyas)
        https://lettier.github.io/3d-game-shaders-for-beginners/lookup-table.html
        https://www.youtube.com/@Caliko/videos (sometimes a new sound can get your brain going)

        pro-tip: save webpages to your computer

        good luck :)

            Thank you for your answer, I´ll make sure to read them and have a look at the other info from Godot docs.

            This sounds interesting. As others have said, you’ll want to split this into “modules” that have reasonable size.

            One such natural module is the galaxy travel: I am picturing a top-down 2D style and you guide your ship to find planets that will sell you the mech components you need.

            If you are so inclined, you can imagine some planets want to buy just components, and this way you can buy and sell your way to having enough to buying all the components, so you can assemble them into a mech.

            This can be a complete small game, with a bit of Elite😃angeous flavor. Buy low, sell high.

            Later you can combine this with other modules to make the complete game, but the advantage of this way of splitting is that you have a slice of your game that you can playtest and tune to make sure it’s fun.

            Yes, the way I imagine it is quite overwhelming, a galaxy split between humans and enemy aliens, and human factions going to war with each other and attacking or defending from the aliens and you in the middle doing your thing. That alone sounds hard to code...

            As for the other part you would design in house all parts, so instead of findind "Astral runner legs" you first research them (by reverse enginering from enemies or rewarded from a quest), produce a blueprint and incorporate it into any mech template you are assembling for selling. The assembled mech will have then variable stats depending on used pieces and how much prototyping you did, quality of the engineers you are employing... and might turn out with some kind of bonus or fault that will decrease or increase price and perfomance. Malus like missaligned, unbalanced, overheating... or their opposite bonus. Then with the money from selling, you can refine your existant pieces to be cheaper, faster, simpler to produce... so you can potentially refine all base components and release a higher performance Mk2.

            If the mechs are just for sale you won´t really care about their stats, but I want to attach an autobattler so you want your hardware to be able to destroy the opposition, that´s a better encouragement to get better models rather than just getting a bit more of money per sale.

            The player must do their best to get new pieces blueprints with better base stats to use on their models, that would be one of the main progression elements, I have many other ideas to flesh the concept but I dont want to cover the post in a wall of text.

            Yes. So with the knowledge that many people run out of steam before finishing their grand vision (I’m not saying it necessarily happen to you), what you need to figure out is a plan for what to code first and so on, such that if you stop before the complete end you’ll still have a good game in your hands.

            6 months later

            Hello again, after some months of lurking around the forum and now with the drop of workload in my company due to the summer 😃 I decided to finally get my feet wet with Godot and try to get something done with my idea. I had a look at your links but I have a few doubts before even starting:

            • Language to use: I have some experience with C, but it was long ago and I´m totally rusty by now; is GDScript a better option for me? it seems to be recommended since it´s optimized for Godot. Think of me as a total newbie, which one do I pick taking easiness and number of examples around into account?
            • Godot version to use: 3.5 is said to be very stable and have lots documentation and add-ons around, but 4.x looks nice even if unstable and incomplete. Should i use the newest or am I better off with the old one?
            • Is there some starting framework? I would prefer to start right away instead of going tru all the examples and learn the ropes on the go.
            • Is there a good examples page? Most likely what I want to do has been done to death before by someone even if partially.

            To resume what I wish to do:
            Space sim with simple economy (just a fluctuating market for different ores)
            Research system
            Lots of slider for editing the mech components on and individual basis
            Customizable units using created components
            Autobattler using those units

            Style: 3d pixel art, so low poly overall

            I would appreciate some pointers to make those.

            • xyz replied to this.

              I recommend:

              • GDScript. It’s easy to use and it can get you results quickly.
              • Godot 4 since you’re starting a new project. It will get better over time, 3.5 will not.
              • There is a starting “framework”, try the Maack template: https://github.com/Maaack/Godot-Menus-Template

              For 3D models most people use Blender, I would recommend it too - it’s free, though there is a learning curve. You can also search for free 3D assets to get started but eventually you’ll want to know how to make your own or edit existing ones.

                Danimal To resume what I wish to do:
                Space sim with simple economy (just a fluctuating market for different ores)
                Research system
                Lots of slider for editing the mech components on and individual basis
                Customizable units using created components
                Autobattler using those units

                Don't start with such a large project. Complete something much much smaller first.

                    axolotl Thanks for the help; I got the art side covered since I have always been on the artist side of things (coding being my weakness). I already made two models of what the art direction could be like, it´s Blender btw (does it look good to you?):
                    https://opengameart.org/content/roller-tank
                    https://opengameart.org/content/pixel-futuristic-soldier

                    xyz I´m quite aware this is going to be scary, so I will take it step by step, first trying to get a ship moving around a space skybox and then build around it bit by bit. I actually feel better if I see results, so maybe I´ll try to create working versions of everything in separate "games" to get the know how before merging it all.

                          Danimal The models looks great, good job!

                          Also starting small is a great idea, we always recommend that so good job.

                            Personally I'd like to make a Lemmings clone with Beavers making Dams, and if the Dam bursts, game over.

                            Danimal i wish i could create something so clean 😃, that resembles something real 😃. Very good.

                              Thanks guys, in 3d pixel art you can go cartoony with solid colors like mine or use "dirty" textures. By dirty I refer to techniques like dithering to help color transitions or simulate shadows, or just outright noise to make it look the ones from old consoles (not mine):

                              https://opengameart.org/content/low-spec-reticulans

                              Adding some light noise to my textures is easy; which style do you guys prefer, clean cartoony or dirty 90´s?. The problem is to keep all assests consistant so if I use models from other people going dirty might be the only way, it´s hard to pass so many already made spaceships:
                              https://opengameart.org/content/lowpoly-spaceships-pack

                                Danimal The sprites resemble the main character from an old Xbox game "Destroy All Humans" which was released a few years back.

                                You might want to edit slightly to not get into copyright traps.

                                    GodotBeginnerRich It´s not mine and it´s a "grey", the most common and overused interpretation of an alien since the Roswell´s fake autopsy. That game was just one of many to copy the alien from that video.