Suggestions

[mineteaser]

Hello, I really liked this game. It's not only fun to play, but very beautiful to look at (something I like in a game (though obviously not the only thing)).
I only have one suggestion, but I guess a whole thread for people's suggestions would be a lot more appropriate and cut back on meaningless topics.

My suggestion is to add planets in the mix of asteroids. The planets would be slightly bigger than the asteroids and obviously would have larger benefits than asteroids if owned such as more trees, better stats, and other such qualities. The planets would also orbit the sun, making you have to wait for the right time to strike. There obviously wouldn't be a lot of planets (probably only 3 or 2). I know this is a simple game, and planets might be a little complicated, but maybe you should add it as an option.

EDIT: Oh, and I would like to see procedural trees where they would randomly have between maybe 2-5 branches or maybe every time a tree branches out it has a different number of branches. Like it starts off with 3 branches, but those branches branch out to 2 branches and those branches branch out to 4 branches. I think it would be a very interesting visual effect.

[Rollins B.]

EDIT: Oh, and I would like to see procedural trees where they would randomly have between maybe 2-5 branches or maybe every time a tree branches out it has a different number of branches. Like it starts off with 3 branches, but those branches branch out to 2 branches and those branches branch out to 4 branches. I think it would be a very interesting visual effect.

http://http://www.omni-labs.com/

If you look a little down the page, Alex put up a video of new tree code he is working on.

The only problem with the planets would that they would have to be extra hard to conquer. Or you might even have to do something like break a little outer shield before you reach the core.

[Alex]

We have plans for both these things, yes. As you can see we have some prototype tree code up and running, but it's not integrated into the game yet. I need to get back to that and balance it out a bit and extend it a little.

With the asteroids, we're going to vary their size, with several gameplay implications resulting from that. You'll see when we do another release

[ryandaniels]

I absolutely LOVE this game! One suggestion I have is about unit control. I would like to see the greater control over the seeds, such as:

1. Be able select a percentage to take from a asteroid, because somethimes you need alot, but taking everything just means the guys you are attacking will just run away from the fight to the exposed asteroid, which makes you have to run back and forth trying to catch them. I would suggest maybe having this accomplish by when the player left clicks and drags, he has the ability to scroll with the mouse wheel to select what percentage to send, 100% by default.

2. Mass move orders; Be able to conscript a percentage of all your forces to a certain astreroid(s).

Oh, and I just wanted to post a screenshot off my first game, I was taking my nemisis's last, and possibly home, asteroid;

By ryandaniels at 2008-07-20

[Rudolf]

Hey man, thanks for the suggestions. We are implementing a similar system as what you are suggesting that will allow you to quickly and easily select a group of seedlings of varying sizes. The mega selection is an interesting one, we will have to think about it but with some of our changes in the pipeline it probably won't be appliccable anymore.

Nice screenie! I love moments like that in the game.

[Kaze]

Here's some suggestions which I'd really like to see in this game..

• Multiplayer! Yes! This would be amazing!
• Higher contrast between race colors; I've found myself playing against the same colour (Or similar colour) a few times.
• A larger world! Perhaps you could include more asteroid belts? Or maybe an infinite sized game world?  
• Saving/loading

[Rollins B.]

• Multiplayer! Yes! This would be amazing!
• Higher contrast between race colors; I've found myself playing against the same colour (Or similar colour) a few times.
• A larger world! Perhaps you could include more asteroid belts? Or maybe an infinite sized game world?  
• Saving/loading

Multiplayer? That ... would be ... AMAZING! The only problem would be setting up a server to run the games. I don't know if you guys have any spare servers sitting around, but what could work is PC Based servers. Soldat comes packaged with a program that runs a game server on your PC while you play. The only problem is the guy that designed the game is Polish, so you might not be able to get much help from him. Of course, I'm sure you'd be able to figure it out on your own.

The infinite sized game world would be something awesome to implement too. Maybe it could scale up from Asteriod Belt>Solar System>Galaxy. Ever stage has to be accomplished from the ground up. It would afford hours upon hours of game play.

[mineteaser]

Maybe it could scale up from Asteriod Belt>Solar System>Galaxy.

I really, really, really like that idea. You guys should implement it.
And MULTIPLAYER! AWESOMENESS! Maybe even powerups >_> or not, I don't care about those as much. Also, I think the star in the center should have some use as well. I don't know what that might be, but it just seems as if it's missing something...

[Alex]

there's definitely something similar to Sins if a Solar empire in the way Dyson works. For some thing like that we'd have to impement a couple more levels of detail in the graphics, reduce the number of seedlings or optimise their a.i., and maybe provide some boundary condition that stops you going from one group to another before you've taken over say a certain proportion of you local belt. Sounds fun, maybe if there is time after we've sorted out the stuff we want to do first we will look at stuff like this

[Rollins B.]

there's definitely something similar to Sins if a Solar empire in the way Dyson works.

After playing SOASE, I needed about a hundred aspirin. Everything was way to complicated. Dyson is definitely like SOASE, but about a million times more user friendly.

Congrats on the $200 cash in. It got me thinking though. Do you guys have a paypal? If you do, I might be able to "convince" my parents to give a little cash to help you guys along.

Also, I find it weird that the same spambots join the Omnilabs and Dyson forums at the same time.

[Alex]

Hi Rollins! That is monumentally generous of you. Thank you for the offer. We haven't put up a donation box yet, but we're hoping to get that done soon. We are planning to make Dyson into a game we can sell, or at least sell a portion of, which should be interesting. That won't be for a while, but yeah. Heads up. All news will be well broadcasted

[Vlad]

Count me in the "loving this game" camp, but I also have a few suggestions to throw in...

Mostly, I'd love to see some sort of territory system, or maybe just beef up the defensive capabilities of an individual asteroid.  As-is, I can have an asteroid with a full six trees, 100+ seedlings, and even with a force that size, the AI only needs to take out a single tree and get maybe 10 seedlings into the core to take the planet over.  Now not only have I lost a good source of production, but if I want to retake it, I've got to sacrifice enough seedlings to take over the core, plus another 50 to plant the additional five trees again.  Perhaps make it so that the asteroid can't be captured until all trees are destroyed, giving trees more value than just production.

The whole idea of "territory" comes from the fact that aside from one playthrough of the game, every attempt has come down to huge swarms of AI fighters floating around the map and swarming all over my territories as soon as I move enough ships off it to take it over.  I can't order the ships back until they get where they're going, so I have to pull them from surroundnig territories, leaving them exposed.  So, when the attackers see the cavalry coming to them, they always take off running and end up capturing at least one or two of the asteroids that the other ships came from.  And since it takes far fewer attackers to take over an asteroid than it does to re-establish one, I end up slowly losing ships at best, or in a long, drawn-out stalemate at worst.  I was thinking that maybe some sort of bonus for adjacent asteroids would be useful to help with this:  You could capture any asteroid at any time, but having adjacent ones to the one you're capturing will make it easier (less ships to take the core or something).  This way an enemy could still attempt a risky attack into the heart of your turf if they wanted, but they wouldn't be able to completely steamroll your defenders as easily as they can now.  Similarly, this could also be helped by making ships orbiting asteroids attack passing enemies.  You could then just stack certain asteroids with ships to defend certain areas.

Trees:  It'd be nice to have a list of the current tree status on a given asteroid on the prompt on the lower right (the one with the "plant" button).  As-is, if I'm rebuilding an asteroid that just got attacked, I have no idea how many trees it has without either zooming way in or mousing over the asteroid itself.  On a related note, I think my most wanted feature is some sort of "always on" indicator of how many trees an asteroid has.  You can get a good feel for the number of ships orbiting an asteroid by the density of dots surrounding it, but when I'm controlling half the map and just had ten random asteroids attacked, I hate having to mouse over every single one to make sure that they're all at 6/6.

[Pfhortipfhy]

My suggestion is adding to the FAQ the estimated time of arrival of a mac version, or whether or not one is coming at all.  I haven't actually played this game yet, but it looks great!

[ryandaniels]

Count me in the "loving this game" camp, but I also have a few suggestions to throw in...

Mostly, I'd love to see some sort of territory system, or maybe just beef up the defensive capabilities of an individual asteroid.  As-is, I can have an asteroid with a full six trees, 100+ seedlings, and even with a force that size, the AI only needs to take out a single tree and get maybe 10 seedlings into the core to take the planet over.  Now not only have I lost a good source of production, but if I want to retake it, I've got to sacrifice enough seedlings to take over the core, plus another 50 to plant the additional five trees again.  Perhaps make it so that the asteroid can't be captured until all trees are destroyed, giving trees more value than just production.

The whole idea of "territory" comes from the fact that aside from one playthrough of the game, every attempt has come down to huge swarms of AI fighters floating around the map and swarming all over my territories as soon as I move enough ships off it to take it over.  I can't order the ships back until they get where they're going, so I have to pull them from surroundnig territories, leaving them exposed.  So, when the attackers see the cavalry coming to them, they always take off running and end up capturing at least one or two of the asteroids that the other ships came from.  And since it takes far fewer attackers to take over an asteroid than it does to re-establish one, I end up slowly losing ships at best, or in a long, drawn-out stalemate at worst.  I was thinking that maybe some sort of bonus for adjacent asteroids would be useful to help with this:  You could capture any asteroid at any time, but having adjacent ones to the one you're capturing will make it easier (less ships to take the core or something).  This way an enemy could still attempt a risky attack into the heart of your turf if they wanted, but they wouldn't be able to completely steamroll your defenders as easily as they can now.  Similarly, this could also be helped by making ships orbiting asteroids attack passing enemies.  You could then just stack certain asteroids with ships to defend certain areas.

Trees:  It'd be nice to have a list of the current tree status on a given asteroid on the prompt on the lower right (the one with the "plant" button).  As-is, if I'm rebuilding an asteroid that just got attacked, I have no idea how many trees it has without either zooming way in or mousing over the asteroid itself.  On a related note, I think my most wanted feature is some sort of "always on" indicator of how many trees an asteroid has.  You can get a good feel for the number of ships orbiting an asteroid by the density of dots surrounding it, but when I'm controlling half the map and just had ten random asteroids attacked, I hate having to mouse over every single one to make sure that they're all at 6/6.

I like your ideas, but, just on a strategy note, right now the game is really offense-based, and so defense doesn't work very well. You have to go on the offensive. I can take the whole belt in about 20 minutes by just sending out scouts as quickly as I can to all the asteroids, finding the ones that are uninhabited. Then, you start end out teams of around 10 to 20 seeds to every one of those asteroids, not even planting any trees. You use the seeds that are too far from the frontlines to be of any help in offense to plant a few trees on the choice asteroids, and build up large militias, which you then you use those to squash roving bands of enemies and the local asteroids they own.

[Rollins B.]

Count me in the "loving this game" camp, but I also have a few suggestions to throw in...

I like your ideas, but, just on a strategy note, right now the game is really offense-based...

I have to agree with Ryan that the game is a lot about offense, but Vlad's ideas are pure gold. I do find it frustrating to see a swarm of AI opponents pass 3 feet away from an occupied planet and my warriors do jack s**t about it.

What I'd add to Vlad's defense idea's would be the capability to run patrols. The game could actually do this for you. It could simply take about a third of an asteroids population and distribute it to any close by asteroids. If it does this again and again, you'd end up having a practically endless flow of seedlings patrolling around your owned territories. Of course, this system could be super hard to implement, so it might just be a better idea to have a player controlled patrolling mode.

Once you selected the size of your patrol force, you could chose a path for them to continuously take. They'd proceed to skip form asteroid to asteroid, pausing at each for a couple of seconds, and continuing on if no enemies are detected. The only problem I can see right know is how to select said patrols for reassignment or otherwise. Another panel bound to a certain key, lets say "P", could be popped up and down to see all patrols currently running. They could then be individually selected for editing or to be called of for a more specific task.

[Rudolf]

Hey guys reading all these posts is quite encouraging as much of it is represented in the work already under way. I hope you will be pleased with the next version that we are planning. As I have said a few times now the current game is not feature complete but we are implementing the lacking features now. Our unique take on territory is being tested as we speak, as is defensive play. The seedlings themselves will be much more diverse  useful and the whole thing will be way more balanced and strategically interesting. A UI overhaul is planned as well of course and then there are some other additions that we want to keep to ourselves for a bit longer.

It is nicely progressing and we will keep you posted on when a new vesion will come out

[Preachieved]

A little suggestion on the defensive portion. How about structures at the cost of seedlings. like a shield for an asteroid that has to be destroyed before the trees can be attacked. Maybe some things to alter the stats of the asteroid to produce different seedling types.

[Alex]

Thanks for the suggestions. We are implementing a way to spend seedlings on defense, in a way. Should work. Modifying asteroid stats is definitely something I'm interested in. We've got some neat ideas for that too, which should make the game more interesting/involving to play too.

Sorry about the spam bots.

[Suprsim]

This looks to be, perhaps, one of the first suggestions since the new release, so let me just say I never got a chance to play the previous version, I was only introduced to Dyson last night (I <3 Indiegames.com ^_^ ). This is a fantastic game! You guys have really made something special. Its like you took some of the really fun components out of SoaSE and made a beautiful new game! Not that I mean to imply you took inspiration from them or anything >_>

Anyways, this is a suggestion thread so on with the suggestions!

A way-point system. I don't mean you should be able to set way-points for a group of seeds, so that they attack asteroid after asteroid (that would seem to defeat the limited moving range in the new version) but if you could set an asteroid to have any newly spawned seeds move to an adjacent asteroid would be interesting. This would help with endgame movement, I think.

While I imagine, and as I've seen suggested by others, you are coming up with more trees to grow on the asteroids, you never know what has and hasn't been thought of:
-shield: despite some of my best efforts, it always happens. The enemy sends in 150 seeds to attack my asteroid that has 400 seeds guarding it. While I know I wont lose it, they still manage to destroy all my trees and take it over for a few moments. Whether or not this could be built at a more expensive cost or perhaps acquired only after certain prerequisites are met (3 out of 4 trees used, or all current trees grown to 75% of their maximum height or something) as I could see building a shield right away as being slightly lopsided.
-Artillery: While having trees that defend my asteroids are nice, perhaps a tree that can attack a nearby asteroid might be neat to try out. They could be used defensively too, aiding nearby asteroids that are being attacked.
-Core defense: have a "root" which protects an asteroid from capture, even if one of the tress is killed and the enemy has access to the core. It could help improve energy regeneration, or kill enemies who make it inside the asteroid

I recall reading something about an editor being put in place, all procedural of course, but I think it would be neat to design custom maps, down to the last detail. It would be fun to design interesting scenarios, say with 2 major choke points, or a player starting with many asteroids while three teamates work to bring him down. That being said, the generated ones do provide excellent replayability!

I know multiplayer has been suggested already, many times, and I'm sure you don't need to hear it again, but just LAN would be fantastic!

I don't know how the game is gonna play out as it progresses, but these are just my thoughts ^_^ Please make the game to be your very own! I really enjoy Dyson so far and I look forward to future developments, so clearly you know what your doing so far!  
P.S. A donation, or maybe even a "pre-buy" option (Like Cortex Command or Mount&Blade might be something to look into. I'd be all over that!)

[Thymouspanis]

For me, I think, the biggest part of the game's appeal is the beauty of a single, simple system governing the simulation on every scale. Unlike every other strategy game I've played, there are no passively disturbing abstractions — they are avoided in the game's unfamiliar and already abstract object of simulation. This is how the seedlings' blossoming on the tree and dropping off is such a marvelous improvement. This is, at least to me, the game's strength, and despite its subtlety it should be played to. Even a detail as simple as making the seedlings congregate at the site before they plant their tree would richen the experience a lot.

The only part of the current version that must to be "fixed" is the movement control, particularly for sending specified numbers. Forgive me if you've already come up with a solution, but I thought of one: when an owned asteroid is clicked and held, lines appear connecting it to its reachable neighbors; releasing on one of the asteroids sends the whole garrison there, and releasing partway along the line sends a fraction proportional to to how far along the line the mouse is. Of course, the number to be sent would appear next to the cursor when mousing over the line. This would reduce the time commitment to sending part of a garrison, and free up the right mouse button. Way-points would also help a lot late-game, as was just observed, but seedlings should only be sent automatically when there are more than a certain number present, defined either manually by the player, or simply how many are present when the way-point is set.

Any changes other than relieving the movement frustration are in the category of improvements.

In terms of aesthetics, some procedurally-generated visual elements naturally occurring on asteroids would give them more character and could be used to show their composition in a natural way. I realize that real asteroids don't look any more interesting than their shapes, but features like random polygonal rocks, biological plants, relics, or particle effects (I recommend geyser-like), are definitely within creative license if you are willing to take it in a bit of a fantastical direction.

In terms of gameplay, diversity of situation and of appropriate strategy should take precedence over well-tuned difficulty. The difficulty of a level seems to vary depending mostly on how the AI factions interact in your absence. My strategy of planting only dyson trees almost exclusively on large, red-yellow asteroids did not require alteration on any level. The difficulty can be improved much more simply than the strategy by having the game "cheat" on undiscovered planets in response to how the player, or maybe just the AI, is faring. Improving the strategy is a complicated task that can be taken in so many directions, though I think it should still be secondary to what I mentioned at the beginning of this post. On this topic the only suggestions I'd make are to make the red circle much bigger around small asteroids than around large ones, which would nicely diversify their function and make small ones useful, and to add more variables to composition and/or other varying asteroid features that effect their strategic significance.

I noticed that trees stop producing seedlings on heavily-populated asteroids. The game shouldn't do this hoping the player won't notice; it should be an apparent gameplay element. This could be done by introducing a third tree whose product a seedling must periodically consume to remain, introduced with a few number changes.

[hummumgerr]

Excellent game. I'm glad I stumbled across it & good luck at the IGF!
I have two suggestions, for what they're worth.

First, unlike some of the other posts in this thread, I would try to avoid or eliminate any numerical values in the game display wherever possible. I enjoy the ambient, otherworldly feeling of this game and all the numbers take away from that, in my opinion. For example, instead of "1/3...2/3...3/3" to indicate the number of trees growing on an asteroid, you could use empty and filled-in circles, or some other graphical representation of the same value.

Second, your game reminded me strongly of an SF short story by David Brin called "Lungfish". It's available to read for free on his website at http://http://www.davidbrin.com/lungfish1.htm - If you have a chance to read it, I hope it might spark some inspiration for this game.

Best of luck!

[Alex]

Excellent game. I'm glad I stumbled across it & good luck at the IGF!
I have two suggestions, for what they're worth.

First, unlike some of the other posts in this thread, I would try to avoid or eliminate any numerical values in the game display wherever possible. I enjoy the ambient, otherworldly feeling of this game and all the numbers take away from that, in my opinion. For example, instead of "1/3...2/3...3/3" to indicate the number of trees growing on an asteroid, you could use empty and filled-in circles, or some other graphical representation of the same value.

Second, your game reminded me strongly of an SF short story by David Brin called "Lungfish". It's available to read for free on his website at http://http://www.davidbrin.com/lungfish1.htm - If you have a chance to read it, I hope it might spark some inspiration for this game.

Best of luck!

Thanks for this, I'll have a read later It's scary how many people are coming up with suggestions that are in line with our plans for the game.

[Lediur]

It would be helpful to have a 'retreat' function to back away from attacking an asteroid. The game has bugged out on me and half of my forces have been attacking one of the enemy asteroids for 10 minutes without avail.

[ForceField]

To begin with, this is a truly unique and fantastic game and there are some excellent suggestions in this thread. I'm surprised that this one has not been posted.

 I frequently require the use of a "retreat" function to withdraw seedlings I have just sent to attack a neighboring asteroid to come back and defend my asteroid. This is especially important in the beginning of the game when I send out 1 seedling to each neighboring asteroid to explore them. I noticed that when you try to recall seedlings in an un-owned asteroid they will not return until all enemies/trees have been cleared. Another scenario where this is useful is when sending out a capture party of 6-10 seedlings to an uninhabited asteroid. Meanwhile, my asteroid gets attacked so an "emergency recall" would be useful in sending them back.

Other minor/optional features you may want to consider:

- Ability to speed up time

- Map editor/creator (with the ability to mod/create additional levels)

Previous ideas I agree with:

- The addition of multiplayer (as this would perhaps make replayability limitless and would provide for a different game experience). This also adds more value to the game itself if, as you mentioned, you decide to sell this game.

- A way point feature that directs newly spawned seedlings to an owned asteroid of your choice. For this feature it would be best to allow seedlings to travel outside the red ring of influence, but only to owned asteroids (on a connected path only).

- An easier way to select a specific number of seedlings to send (e.g. via keyboard digits). For instance, if an asteroid has 1000 seedlings, and you wish to attack 3 surrounding asteroids simultaneously with 200 each, it would be impractical with the right mouse button.

Note: I have only tried the latest version 1.08

EDIT: Wow, to the previous poster that beat me by 20 minutes as of my post on retreating

[Candlejack]

I believe the main appeal of this game should be a complete lack of micro management. The organizing seeds would greatly increase the tactical potential of this game and setting waypoints would help eliminate repetitive tasks.

[AriesT]

Hey guys,
I've been playing your game for a while and after I offered Alex to help you with the game, I decided to write some thoughts down which came during my session.
Alex did already tell me that the game is far from being complete or perfect but I hope my suggestions can help you a bit.

- The Asteroid
In my opinion, the interaction with the asteroid itself should be better. Maybe you can make the game more tactical if you can deside where to build the trees.

- The Seedlings
The idea of directing them indirectly is nice, reminds me of Darwinia, but defining the amount of seedlings should be solved in a different way. In dangerous situations, when big green ones attack for example, clicking the right mouse button and holding it up to 30 or 40 can waste a lot of important time.
Like candlejack already wrote, there should be a more detailed control of the Dysons.

- attack of the enemies
Alex already said that the respawn time still has to be balanced.
But it can be very frustrating if the "strongest" asteroid is next to yours in Level 1 and you get killed after 5 minutes.
Maybe there has to be kind of a visible classification of which asteroid has stronger enemies than others.
This maybe can be shown with the size or the color of the asteroid.

Also you could make it that only the asteroids around your own can attack your enemies. So the game is not unfair anymore in some situations (I got attacked by 4 enemies at the same time in Level 2)

Thats it from me right now, I hope my post is helpful.

[AriesT]

I want to add a thought:

- Difficulty
I got huge problems in starting Level 2 because the enemy already has got a lot of units and they are stronger than mine. So in my last session, I couldn't even reach a second asteroid before they attacked my base and I went game over, yeah, after 4 minutes. And not just once, no, four times in a row.
Maybe you should integrate a parameter to avoid enemy attacks during the first 3 minutes - or until the player starts moving to another asteroid - so the seedlings can grow.

- growing time
maybe you should regulate the growing time. It takes a bit too long to actually start to take over an asteroid because you have to wait very long to have at least 30 seedlings to start any attack.
Just my 2 cents.  

[Rudolf]

Thanks again for all the feedback guys/gals! Luckily , most of  the suggestions and or issues are actually already covered by our plans, and they are in the pipeline for implementation. On top of that there will be some serious additions that should surprise you, hopefully in a positive way.

I am going to update the FAQ soon to reflect some of our plans so watch this space!

[AriesT]

With the UI, I'm in full agreement. We've had to use a certain extent of text and numbers just to get the information out there. Developing a completely symbolic UI I think will be time consuming, and so far we've not had enough time, or had higher priorities. But yes, In keeping with the ambient aesthetics of the game, iot would be good to have as little "HUD" as possible, incorporating all that info seamlessly into the game's graphics.

One suggestion referring to the Core Energy.
In my opinion just a number is not interesting here. What about making a green energy-circle around the core to indicate the cores energy?

Kinda like that:
[attachment=0:396a51uv]core_energy.png[/attachment:396a51uv]
(I can't draw)

[Squonk]

Some stray thoughts on the subject: As several people have noted, the relatively simple design, as well as the aesthetics/ambience, is a major appeal of the game. I agree that several good ideas have been brought up in this thread. For instance, being able to send seedlings away from neutral/hostile asteroids would be nice. Way points could also be very useful, if implemented smoothly. At the same time, I'm confident that the design will be kept minimalistic. It would obviously be a shame to have eg. a complex hierarchy of breedable trees, à la cities in (the board game) Settlers of Catan, or technology levels in games like Warcraft.

I've been thinking a possible way of selecting chunks of seedlings, would be with a kind of mouse gestures. Say you hold the button and scoop out a portion of seedlings from around an asteroid, and you get an approximate percentage. I guess you could even mark groups of asteroids in this way, for example to set a common way point (send all spawned seedlings from all these asteroids to this one asteroid).

Trying to imagine new kinds of seedlings and trees is of course tempting. But again, some of the immediate appeal would disappear if the player had to learn to understand a big rule set. I think one way to do it, would be to work on differentiating the asteroids more.  There is already the system with force/strength/speed, which is a bit sketchy in the current version? I'm sure there are other ways to make asteroids interesting, as well. For example, different asteroids could have varying degrees of fertility within one map. In a barren galaxy, you might see asteroids that can only hold two trees (but maybe even an occational four). This could make certain places more lucrative to invade or use as a base. It also struck me that a weed might be an interesting feature, that doesn't involve a higher degree of complexity to the player. Simply a tree that sprouts and occupies one "tree slot" of an asteroid, but doesn't spawn seedlings or serve any other purpose (that sounds easy, but I'm sure it would lead to some very difficult design decisions). Thinking of the Little prince, I guess Baobab tree would be the right name (:

Very well. I'm just adding a cheer to the crowd, and hoping you can get some inspiration from my ramblings.

[Candlejack]

I definitely agree with the mouse gestures idea since I use them all the time in Firefox.

[metarinka]

better scripting support for us who are making levels!

I wonder if you have any plans to document the scripting/ expand it.

visuals
slight variations in asteroid color? perhaps when a faction owns an asteroid it will glow that color (right now the trees send out beautiful spikes, they are a nice touch)

perhaps some interesting particle effects for the the seedlings themselves? I'm thinking along the lines of contrails or glows that increase with the more seedlings you have clumped together.

random back ground or asteroid color. maybe just subtle variations of what it has now? I think the game would lookg dood with a blue pastel background

[Alex]

Cheers guys, great suggestions.

With the HUD, we've got some thigns in store which should help things a bit while also reducing the amount of text we're using.

The idea was to have a level scripting system, which hopefully we can still do. Currently there's not a great deal you can do. I'll put up a post now.

Visuals variation - hopefully this will get pretty interesting we got some plans and ideas. The background colour one is a great idea and is something I've considered (pretty sure Rudolf and I discussed it together, can't remember now).

[octavian]

Why not make the whole thing more organic?

I can think of dozens of really interesting things you could implement in this game. I see no need for “asteroids” and “planets”, it’s supposed to be abstract, minimalistic and visceral, why not take in inspiration from all sort of places like, for instance, cell biology. Bacterial growth patterns i.e. slow growth followed by exponential growth ending with a stationary phase. Cell division would be a really interesting thing to implement.

Agent-based model? I want to see that. In a flock of birds all of them try to fly towards the centre while avoiding collision and matching speed with other birds. Three rules. Awesome visuals.

Or talk about neurons and you have discharge patterns, polarity, synapses  and the list goes on and on. You don’t even have to know what polarity in neurons is/does. It can just click in your mind, and make you say neuron polarity, heck if I know, but I know how a magnet works and it would be neat if we could implement polarity in the game. Now that’s interesting. Pesky minus seedlings attacking? Just send in some plus seedlings and watch them stick. Or send some minus ones... just because you’re feeling evil.

And there you enter the realm of physics. Again, purely intuitive, it doesn’t require research. Atoms, electrons, ionization, fission, fusion, waves, particles and so forth.

[vdgmprgrmr]

Something I think this game could use is a "screenshot" function, so we don't have to go through the PrintScreen process to share pictures of epic battles. Maybe just press a key or click a button in the corner (if you're trying to keep a mouse-only interface)

Another thing that I don't really have a suggestion for fixing, but know is a problem, is that there seems to be only one winning strategy; spread quickly and destroy what's left.

Once a player figures that out, the game pretty much becomes a grind. They know what to do, how to do it, and they can do it easily, then they win. Would it be possible to, maybe, give the AI players random "strategy" attributes?

Perhaps give each team a preference for which attribute they value the most, so they'll show preference for asteroids with that attribute, and make some teams follow a "spread and destroy" tactic while some set up a stalwart spot in the belt and slowly expand, and some amass fighting forces filled with fast, weak seedlings, while others' armies consist of slow, brutishly strong seedlings, while others' might have average seedlings that can take tons of damage. But you would have to make sure that the two strategies (or more) don't easily overcome any of the others, like it is now. A good way this might be done would be to allow seedlings to attack mid-flight. Expanding on the suggestions for patrols, you might be able to incorporate it into the Spheres of Influence; mark one asteroid as a "patrol asteroid" and have a certain percentage of its inhabitants go around to each asteroid in its range, then if a large group of enemy seedlings enters any of the patrolled asteroids' ranges, the patrol would either take the whole of itself and follow the intruders or just send a percentage of itself to follow them and attack them. Of course, it might also be useful to not have seedlings chasing down enemies, if the enemies just stay in place to fight off the attack, and you don't have a huge group patrolling, but a line of smaller groups, it would form a sort of reaction; small infringements on the patrol would only take a few seedlings to take down, and the few seedlings would be able to do it before a huge back-up was caused, while large infringements would cause huge back-ups and the patrol line would naturally form into a large attack force.

A good feature for potential patrols might also be the ability to set up stationary patrols; just groups of seedlings that hang around in space and attack enemies that come near.

Alright, so now let's hope someone high up can make use of my rambley post...

[Rudolf]

Hey vldmrprgdrrptrgr :-)

The game will indeed develop the organic theme more, and this will actually tie in to some of the gameplpay hopefully eliminating the grind aspect. (Mysterious I know but we have some very cool plans we are working on)

[topmo3]

May be other peoples like me will want to see some statistics after win or loose level:
It may be graph of various values in time as colored line for each team (total population, numbers of asteroids, total energy strength etc).

[Sejster]

First of all: Great game, really should have been Bytejacker Free Indie Of The Year. (Second place is awesome, congratulations! )

Consequent simplicity in graphics, clear and meaningful visuals
They really correspond to the ruleset. Please stay with them!
Don't add much more detail without function. (Organic, varied asteroids may be borderline, too.    (Though I'd really like to play Dyson with the Wii controls.)

All in all, I rather wrote what you shouldn't do.

[Rudolf]

Interestingly if we look at everybody's feedback so far the two features most often requested are multiplayer and waypoints.
For what its worth, we are just as happy with feedback telling us what you guys gals/don't like as feedback on things you do. it all gets looked at and all gets evaluated alongside our own plans.

[Rudolf]

May be other peoples like me will want to see some statistics after win or loose level:
It may be graph of various values in time as colored line for each team (total population, numbers of asteroids, total energy strength etc).

One of the things we are looking into is to have the info box display general game info when you have nothing selected.

[polyp]

First let me comment on what an amazing job you have done on creating this game. I don't know very much about game design but from what I do know, I can tell that you guys have work hard on this.

I would like to point out that this game has many congruencies with natural phenominon. It really reminded me of coral (check out this article: http://http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/coralcare/a/coralcompetitio.htm)

this thread got me thinking about what I would like to see added to this game:
*If you capture an enemy asteroid and there are still trees on it, I think it would be cool if you could capture those trees intact.
*If you wanted to change the type of tree I think you should be able to either transform the tree into the other type or transform it into seedlings (which would let you use the scorched earth policy if trees could be captured).
*Another feature I think would be interesting, would be allowing seedlings to have the abilities to retreat, and to attack enemy seedlings that fly a path to close to them.
*Yet another idea would be to have large planets that have multiple capturable "energy centers" so you could own a fraction of a planet and have a war over it.
*I would like to see other types of seedlings/trees, for example: ranged warfare seedlings that shoot projectiles life defense trees but take more time to grow (and defense seedling grower trees); carrier seedlings that have projectiles and could help synchronize attacks; melee defense trees that have more attack power and/or health since they lack range, they would also stick to carrier seedlings and deal damage over time...
*my last suggestion would be to have a variety of lifeforms other than dyson that could be procedurally generated... ex.-A giant space whale/bird/thing comes out of nowhere and attacks you; you land on an uncaptured planet only to find that it already supports some strange form of life that resists you

Thanks for listening. Remember these are not even suggestions, just ideas. Oh and did I mention how great a game this is?

[Candlejack]

That might remove some of the game's charm. I think the sound and music might be too quite. Also, do you plan on taking the procedural generation any further?

[mihalidis]

Hi all

i posted this in another thread, but after thinking it through i decided to re-post it here to keep all the ideas in one place.

The problem
To me being able to build limitless armies makes the game too easy.
Just keeping an eye out for that 32 seed cap and then amassing them on a nearby planet makes it just too easy to overwhelm NPCs.

The only way to lose is if you're getting overrun in the very beginning, after that its a no holds barred contest.

idea #1
A simple idea would be to introduce the concept of disease or sickness, having half you population wiped out because some contagious disease goes from seed to seed forcing you to quarantine a planet or something. This would make it possible for you to lose halfway into a game.

Generally speaking, the idea of something being passed from one seed to the other could be exploited much more.
These seeds could be seen as biological things so its not implausible.
For example power ups could be distributed

idea #2
Make the seedlings have a limited age.
Biological things right? They wont live forever, so after some time they die out.
Keeps you from building armies too big.

Here too is room for experimentation, in the beginning a seedling could be 'young' and without much power, in their prime they could reach full power levels, at the end they get old and, well, you get the idea.

Just my thoughts

[dbltnk]

Hey guys. Compliments first: Dyson really caught me. It is the only indie freeware game that ever convinced me to play it for three days. =D

Still, I've got a few suggestions that could improve the gameplay a lot without cluttering it with new features.

a) There is a need for automated movement of your seedlings to other asteroids. At the moment it's very boring and time demanding to keep your supply coming. But there is no need for a complex waypoint system to solve this. Just do one-way links from one asteroid to another. It could be a s simple as this: Hold shift and drag-and-drop (by holding the left mouse button) from one asteroid A to asteroid B. This will instantly and from now on send all your seedlings who are located on asteroid A onwards to asteroid B. By linking asteroids in this way, you could easily automate your support routes. Shift-Drag one planet into the empty space clears the supply route. Beware: If you intend on relying on micro-management to make the game more difficult, this will make it easier. =D

b) There needs to be a faster way to select large numbers of seedlings. This could be solves like this: holding CRTL while left-clicking on a asteroid selects [20/50/100] (whatever the playtests suggest) seedlings. Click again to add another [20/50/100].

c) There needs to be a display of your tree's hit points on a asteroid. Currently, it's hard to see how fast the enemy is damaging your trees. Similar to how you did the visual feedback on the seedlings' attributes, I would suggest to just let your trees shrink (maybe branches could break away) when they are losing hit points.

[Candlejack]

I was going to suggest making an advanced version of Dyson for retail with all kinds of awesome stuff added and a ton more procedural generation. But then I thought that isn't something you would do(unless you want to hear what I was thinking anyway).

Anyway, I think you should make the Dyson tree trunk and branches get thicker as they get older. I also think the background could be spiced up. Maybe add giant roots linking to the center of the asteroid belt to give the feeling that the world of Dyson is factual.

[crazeh.monkeh]

Everything I can think of to improve the game has already been mentioned, but I guess I will just throw it out there anyway.

The ability to tell an asteroid that all of the seeds it produces should be sent to this asteroid. Maybe even down to a tree-by-tree level, say, if you wanted half of your seedlings to migrate to this asteroid, and the other to that asteroid. Going along with that, a patrol system might be nice, but I am not as sure about that one.

I think the aging of the seedlings and the trees would be good. Seedlings die after they reach a certain age, trees stop producing seedlings after a certain age.The trees dying would make people pay more attention to there first few asteroids. BUT if the trees are dying I think we should have some way of removing trees. Maybe not get your original seedlings back, but destroy them, somehow.

I think a disease idea would be kind of cool, but idk. Some Kind of random disaster, though would make things interesting. Make it something in the level, though. That way it is up to the level designer whether to have one or not, and what the frequency is.

A retreat option would be nice

I like the idea of each color of enemy using a different strategy, and I am really glad you already have that in the works.

I think that is it for now. I may edit in more if I think of it in like, an hour or so.

[ccjav]

My idea is (at least it might be similar to what the above post meant by retreat), that when you own a planet and it gets taken over but you have guys left, they are pretty much doomed unless you send reinforcements... To save those guys should be an option, not necessarily with a retreat button but perhaps just being able to control the flow of movement from uncontrolled planets

[Rudolf]

More control over precious seedlings, and over groups of seedlings is on our list. We have a good idea on how to do this but need to test it a bit

[Candlejack]

I think of asteroids as light sources that Dyson seeds use energy from for traveling from asteroid to asteroid. It has to be a certain color of light to work though and that's why they can't retreat.

[HydraEclipse]

I think this is a wonderfully clever RTS, elevating the game type to something akin to art.
However I think that the biggest problem with the game is that there doesn't appear to be any way to save a game in progress,
so the game becomes somewhat resistant to short play bursts. I was just wondering if this is something that is being worked on, or if it is too difficult to put into the coding at this point, as to me all asthetic and gameplay suggestions are secondary to this feature.

[Rudolf]

I am happy to say that there will definitely be a save feature in the final version in the game. :-)

[Ballisticsfood]

First off, awesome game. Simple, fun to play, and quite challenging. I also really like the music.

Two suggestions, one is aesthetical and one is gameplay related.

Firstly: Colour selection. I don't know why, I just find it really weird moving from green to purple to blue back to green throughout the levels. Having a colour selection box would be great.

Secondly: Waypoints/supply routes. Several times I've ended up with asteroids deep inside my territory just accumulating seedlings and I've had to micromanage them to the front lines where they're actually needed. Having a waypoint system that let you automate routes for the seedlings to run on would be a great help. Maybe if you used control left click to establish an automatic route and then had it disengage if you moved any seedlings from the asteroid.

[OboeNerd]

I'm one of those people who want online multiplayer.

And maybe a custom colour selection too, that would be nice.

Dyson's a great game, keep it going.

[Candlejack]

The ability to select multiple asteroids to use in an attack at once in the same way Phage Wars does it.

[Yblad]

First of all, I love the game. I only just downloaded the new release yesterday, and it’s a great improvement on the original.

I have two things to say. Firstly, I suffer from a slight glitch in which anything which attempts to display over the game flickers crazily, is this a known problem?

As for suggestions, I think it would be great if it was possible to make some sort of alliance with other colours when you are both threatened by a larger enemy, or some kind of non-aggression pact for a set number of minutes that the AI would only agree to if it was under threat.

Keep up the good work

[AriesT]

The ability to select multiple asteroids to use in an attack at once in the same way Phage Wars does it.

Or - like some others suggested - make rally points where you can concentrate your Dysons for attacking, if you want.

[totally]

Hi devs! Thanks for the great game!
Here are my suggestions:



Things I want to see in the 1.09 version:

(1) Ability to turn the sound OFF -- separate volume bars for effects and music.

(2) Waypoints: for example hold down the SHIFT to enter multiple waypoints when moving through your own asteroids (one enemy asteroid can be included in the path). Pressing the opposite mouse button cancels the order.

(3) New graphic for the check box, I can hardly tell when it is on or off.

(4) The size of the asteroids determines how much trees can be constructed on it and how fast they grow (bigger asteroid -- more trees, faster tree growth). Also max size of the tree depends on the asteroids size.

(5) Same limitations for the AI in terms of movement -- it is very annoying when AI can move across the map and take over your asteroid which is deep inside your territory.

(6) Planting tree animation: seedling dont disapear but gather in one place on the asteroids ground and mutate themselves into a tree root which then grows into the core.



For future versions:

(6) Different shapes for asteroids: smooth surface, but not a perfect circle. Asteroids with moons?

(7) Moving or even ROTATING asteroids.

(8) Choosing your colors.




Maybe rethink the basic dynamics of the game.

(9) Asteroids with resources: tree pumps oil (or food, or something) from the core and converts it into seedlings. Core oil slowly regenerates. The idea is to expand to other asteroids in order to gain more seedlings quickly.


(10) Currently the process of overtaking enemy asteroids is not very organic. The part when seedling travels through the roots of an enemy tree and attacks the core (when the enemy tree is the enemy) is not very clear to me. My suggestion: attacks starts as usual (seedlings attack the upper part of the tree), when it is gone, seedling (one at a time) start eating the enemy root, when the root is eaten away, the hole collapses and your own tree can be planted on surface. Seedling can eat finite length of the enemy root before dying. Of course the enemy root keeps growing all the time so when you run out of seedlings, the enemy tree will eventually grow to the original size. Tree root thickness in determined by the age and size of the tree.



Keep up the good work, the final game is gonna be awesome.

[crazeh.monkeh]

(4) The size of the asteroids determines how much trees can be constructed on it and how fast they grow (bigger asteroid -- more trees, faster tree growth). Also max size of the tree depends on the asteroids size.

This one would be cool, but I would make it so that big planets can have more trees, but they grow faster on small planets. or have that determined in the level coding. Just so that there is some strategic reason to capture the small planets.

(5) Same limitations for the AI in terms of movement -- it is very annoying when AI can move across the map and take over your asteroid which is deep inside your territory.

THIS. I never even thought about mentioning it, but he does have a point. There doesn't seem to be any sort of limitations set on the AI's movement. they can go from one side of the belt to the other without taking any asteroids in the middle.

[totally]

(11) Idea for selecting multiple seedlings (but not all): move cursor over your asteroid, hold down the right mouse button, while holding scroll up (starts from 1) with mouse middle button, move cursor over another asteroid, release right mouse button. Pressing left mouse button or releasing on empty space cancels the order.

(4) The size of the asteroids determines how much trees can be constructed on it and how fast they grow (bigger asteroid -- more trees, faster tree growth). Also max size of the tree depends on the asteroids size.

This one would be cool, but I would make it so that big planets can have more trees, but they grow faster on small planets. or have that determined in the level coding. Just so that there is some strategic reason to capture the small planets.

Yeah, that is true. On smaller asteroids trees can grow faster cause they need a smaller root to get to the core. Also smaller asteroids are more likely to be used as defence stations (with defence trees only), which is one more reason to limit AI movement capability.

[Candlejack]

The ability to select multiple asteroids to use in an attack at once in the same way Phage Wars does it.

Or - like some others suggested - make rally points where you can concentrate your Dysons for attacking, if you want.

You could always select multiple asteroids and send them to a single one for the same effect.

[crazeh.monkeh]

(11) Idea for selecting multiple seedlings (but not all): move cursor over your asteroid, hold down the right mouse button, while holding scroll up (starts from 1) with mouse middle button, move cursor over another asteroid, release right mouse button. Pressing left mouse button or releasing on empty space cancels the order.

Now let me see you do it on a laptop.

/Or maybe my track-pad-thing is just tiny
//But I don't think it is

[totally]

(11) Idea for selecting multiple seedlings (but not all): move cursor over your asteroid, hold down the right mouse button, while holding scroll up (starts from 1) with mouse middle button, move cursor over another asteroid, release right mouse button. Pressing left mouse button or releasing on empty space cancels the order.

Now let me see you do it on a laptop.

/Or maybe my track-pad-thing is just tiny
//But I don't think it is

What? Your commodore 64 doesn't have a mouse?

The command can be doubled via keyboard shortcut or something. Now, this feature can be expanded to work with waypoint system, so every waypoint can have different number of seedlings moving. For example we start with 50 of seedlings moving from A to B, then say 10 seedlings from B to C, and 30 seedlings from C to D and so on.


edit: noticed that idea to select certain ammount of seedlings was already posted couple of pages ago.

[Rudolf]

Hey guys, thanks for all the comments. Alex and myself have been working like busy bees to prepare for the IGF and include some improvements to the game. Some will make it into the next build, and we have many lanned for a long time now for the finalversion of the game.

A few things:

Waypoints.
This seems to be THE discussion point so I will comment on this first. We are still improving and adding features that affect the way that seedlings travel between asteroids. Once we have implemented all this THEN we will decide if we need anything like this. We have some things planned that may eliminate the complaint altogether. We will see.
For now we have made some improvements to the game that should make this slightly less lacking. This will appear in the next build.

Selecting multiple seedlings/more control over seedling selection.
We have had designs for this for a long time now, but we haven't gotten to it yet. No worries, this will be addressed

Picking your team colour
Keep an eye on this space ;-)

Multiplayer
Will not be part of this development cycle of Dyson.
(Who knows, we may do a seperate multiplayer version of Dyson. we may not, but for now we are focusing our attention on singleplayer.)
For those of you who are REALLY annoyed by this; I am also a developing a multiplayer only game called Neopolis.
Placeholder site here: www.neopolis-game.com News when it occurs also here: www.omni-labs.com
I generally don't talk about it here as this is the site dedicated to Dyson and I don't want to detract from that.

Asteroid sizes being related to tree numbers
We have been talking about this for a while and probably test the feature together with some other improvements over the conquest model.


Hope that helps people, thanks for all the time spent playing hte game and giving us your feedback. it is all used to make the game better!

[Candlejack]

If you add my thicker tree trunks idea, you could also use thinning of the tree trunk as a damage indicator. I would also like to have tiny roots wrapped around asteroid cores that represent how much energy the asteroid has left.

[totally]

Nice!

Asteroid sizes being related to tree numbers
We have been talking about this for a while and probably test the feature together with some other improvements over the conquest model.

Asteroid sizes being related to tree numbers AND tree size would be even more awesome.



Another one: how about small obstacle asteroids (tree planting disabled)?
Different shaped asteroids will rock --  a perfect circle is a bit boring.

[Candlejack]

I'm pretty sure Dyson doesn't need any elements of reality obscuring its abstract beauty.

[Golbez]

I really love this game, the way it makes you balance attack and defence is incredible.

One thing I would like is making the starting points of you and your enemys less random.
I know randomness is a great thing in this game, but it can make the game too hard or too easy depending where your opponents start.
Also, mission number 2 should be a later mission, since it seems to be the hardest one

[hairybuddha]

Beautiful game guys, I really like the simplicity of the controls and the elements

One idea I thought I might share: You could give the asteroids atmosphere dependent on their size, and seed health could diminish over time depending on altitude. So a seed at ground level lasts forever/slowly regenerates, but higher up would start to use up its energy reserves against the cold, and in space would die quickly. Asteroids atmospheres could then brush against each other to link them, while still giving players the option of cutting across space if it was worth it. It would also mean seeds with different properties were able to survive different journeys. Atmospheres wouldn't even need to be visible, just implied by how high the Dyson seeds naturally flew.

Other requests: Random maps so players can generate small levels for a quick game and larger maps with clusters and filaments and loads of bottlenecks for more epic encounters.

Finally: Any plans for a mobile/cell phone version?

[Alex]

We considered some kind of hostile atmosphere to discourage sending through other atmospheres. We haven't implemented something like that yet because of a few factors - one is that we implemented sending distance limits and allowed seedlings to attack passerby enemies, and another is that we'd have to incorporate decision making for sending through hostile atmospheres into the AI which would be a pain and we intend to rewrite the AI anyway.

[colonyan]

     
      concern- Game becomes rather easy if you succeed in initial build up
 
      Size Control
      To nerf down the growing momentum in size, add a factor called "Stress".
      Once population exceed some point, factor "Stress" kicks in that asteroid.
      (like 32 for each asteroid)(its already implemented right...?)
      More population exceed the limit, greater the "Stress".
      Greater the stress, seedling dies more.
      If there's several hundred of them, they should die pretty fast.

      Deadbodies
      Deadbodies should give negative hygien effect.
      This will trasnlate into slower seedling hatching/birth.
      Also, deadbodies translate in to more "Stress".   
      Deadbodies disintegrate with time.

      Habitacle improvement+Aesthetic
      GreenPlant to reduce the stress factor. Max reduction must under 50%
      They also disintegrate deadbodies faster.
      Will be planted using some seedlings.
      Canbe represented as asteroid aestetic for visual variation.
      By the way one specie's plant can be stress for enemy specie.

      Solar Flare Captor
      If particular asteroid produces strong seedlings, invest on that asteroid, to improve the
      fertility on that planet. (Lets suppose whole map is always rayed by sunlight)
      Build "FlareCaptorLeaf" using seedlings(a lot, like 45~60). It will grow like tree without using
      dyson tree slot. As it grows it adds extra speed for seedling spawn of its asteroids dysontree.
      Only one "FlareCaptorLeaf" per asteroid.
 
      **Investment option means better defence required**
      Unexpensive growing spider nest like structure which only capture and hold enemy seedlings
      for brief time. Combine with defence tree, one bomb can kill several.

      Investment option means special purpose units required
      I'm offending game taboo of adding more unit/tree type.
      "workling dyson tree"- They produce faster but they fight pretty bad.
      They can be used exclusively to fasten up the investment on asteroids.
      Since they spawn faster, you can save your fighters for front line.

      All above adds extra job for ai coding.....
      Maybe in future.... when multiplayer comesin....   

      Single player mode
      Already mentioned event like spreading virus deseases and stationary and migrating
      space monsters would be fun.
     
      Single player mode2
      Give handicap to ai like production speed up?
      Difficulty setting?

      Thankyou for reading!
   

     

     

     




     

[Alex]

Spookily, colonyan, you've come up with some almost identical ideas we'll be implementing over the next few months. We'll have a way to improve asteroids, using at least one more unit type, and be improving defense too.

I like the idea of stress. We are still thinking very hard about population limits. The whole thing with the corpse decomposition and the atmospheric plants is a great trinity of ideas. Great work! I can't say we'll include it but I love the idea anyway 

[Zeh Don]

After playing your game, and fishing around for some older versions to see how it's come along, I have to admit I'm very impressed with the work you guys are doing. The art style is bold, functional and entirely unique - no small feat in today's graphic's heavy industry. I'm also very impressed at the sheer gameplay mechanics - simple, and yet they embody the most basic level of strategy which is why it works so very well. And the music suits the style perfectly by bleeding into the background as atmospheric as opposed to the sensual assault most games attempt. This is, by far, the most impressive original and independent I.P. I've come across in a long time.

I don't really want to suggest too much, as judging from how the game has progressed (limiting the movement radius between asteroids was a great step) you guys seem to be headed in the right direction. However, I wanted to point out that an apparently unstoppable strategy in the current version of Dyson is to take a 'corner' and collect all of your seedlings on a handful of asteroids before moving them out and tearing up the other Asteroids. I've successfully managed to complete the game using this strategy without failing once. The A.I. only appears to attack in small swarms of seedlings which, against an army of 500 seedlings, is destroyed time and again. I'm not sure of your intended vision for the game, but you need to introduce either mechanics or seedling types to counter this strategy for the game to balance out against sitting back and gathering units. I'd recommend either introducing an Asteroid size to maximum seedling count ratio, preventing the player from moving 500 seedlings around the map. This would create bottlenecks by using small clusters of the smaller Asteroids within the Asteroid fields preventing the player from moving their one massive swarm around the entire map, sort making "bridges" requiring the player to either divide their units temporarily and move them, or make smaller groups of seedlings but have multiple groups as opposed to a single, massive swarm. Just a suggestion, however.

Also, I've noticed that there is not much player feedback from the U.I. - for example, 32 seedlings appears to be the maximum allowed on a planet before production is halted, however this information isn't shown to the player. And when moving too many seedlings, over 540 or some such appears to be the limit, they won't move when instructed however the reason for this isn't explained to the player. These small ques help first time players get used to the rules of your game, as well ensuring a player is always able to make the best decision about their situation which is very important in strategy games such as this.

Despite my criticisms, Dyson is a fantastically original game and already feels very polished and the only reason I've pointed out such small flaws is because you've done everything else so very right. You should be very proud of your game, I'm not an easy person to addict to any one game, but you've done so effortlessly.

[Rudolf]

Great feedback, much appreciated :-)

We are very aware that the game is fundamentally unbalanced at the moment, this is mostly because we have not yet implemented/finetuned those mechanics that will cause attrition in seedling numbers. while travelling or encountering enemy AI. The AI will also be completely revisited and a big part of that is this exact problem. So yeah, agreed, and we are on the case :-)

[chrisa52]

I really like this game but woud suggest the following tweaks/changes 

1. It would be great to set up PATHS between asteroids so you could shuttle fleets up to the main action easier.
   Spending time moving fleets around does not allow you to concentrate on the action.

2. The circular playing is kind of boring after a while.
    I suggest you create ribbons or circles/ovals ALSO make them randomly sparse, not uniform density of asteroids
    The different shape and random density will make specific asteroids critical because you need them to move forward or defend your space.

3. With reference to #2 I would make some asteroids similar to wormholes.
    Allow movement from that asteroid to some random? or other asteroid elsewhere in the circle/oval/universe.
    This would again make it more interesting, because you would to capture these and defend them for obvious reasons.

4. Other suggestions - have not read/found any detailed directions (so take with a grain of salt).
   + Please allow the ability to recall fleets.
   + I've found the opponent has sent fleets from all kinds of random locations deep into my territory.
     How exactly can you do that as player? Are there certain asteroids that can do this?
     Some explanation would help. I'll look for directions.
   + I also got the bug where one asteroid had no enemies 300+ units and could not be captured.
     I think one of the units must have got stuck in the entrance 

Anyway, GREAT came, I'm sure it will get much better with all the suggestions from everyone.

[Candlejack]

How about this, seedlings fly around in different power levels(similar to atoms) of the asteroids. The lower the power level a seedling is dwelling in, the more light they get(which allows them to travel farther). The amount of seedlings you can send at once decreases over distance. You can still send a lot of seedlings at once, but they need to go down to certain power level before they have enough energy. They would still orbit chaotically around the asteroid, but would always try to maintain even power levels.

[Ghost_sheep]

Hey Guys,

Goed spel, echt sUper!

Another idea might be to have a circling moving planet/asteroid more to the center of the map. Better would be even to have it move in an elliptic fashion, so it only 'touches' the asteroid belt at 2 places.

In this way you could load up a couple of hundred seeds when it passes by, then they are useless to you for a while because the planet is out of range of the asteroid belt, and then make a surprise attack in the middle of your enemies colony and frustrate his center.

Or....be crushed immediatly because you didn't know there would be
THAT much nme seedlings 

Ok carry on, make it work!

[totally]

Checkboxes for music and effects. Sometimes I listen to talk radio when playing Dyson and, to be honest, sound effects tend to get a bit annoying. So could you guys put another checkbox to mute the sound effects?


(Seedlings can now be called back to own asteroid. Nice.)

[Candlejack]

I have another idea for the overpopulation problem. Some seedlings slowly lose their color and slow down on overpopulated asteroids. When they lose all of their color, they lifelessly orbit the asteroid until some seedlings leave(then they start to thaw). All frozen seedlings become the color of the light that thawed them so your frozen army might become your enemies. Also, impenetrable bases set up in corners could be solved by having "lantern seedlings" that can carry swarms across long distances.

[crazeh.monkeh]

I have another idea for the overpopulation problem. Some seedlings slowly lose their color and slow down on overpopulated asteroids. When they lose all of their color, they lifelessly orbit the asteroid until some seedlings leave(then they start to thaw). All frozen seedlings become the color of the light that thawed them so your frozen army might become your enemies. Also, impenetrable bases set up in corners could be solved by having "lantern seedlings" that can carry swarms across long distances.

I'm not sure how well that would fit in with the rest of the game, but I actually like that a lot... the other idea wasn't bad either. I think you would need a special tree to grow these "lantern seedlings", though

[Candlejack]

I was thinking they could only grow on certain sized trees, and you would have to give up a few seedlings to grow one.

[Muffins]

To solve the problem of seedling routing, why not allow asteroids to combine. Trees grow. Make them grow a bit faster, and don't cap the growth, so that a tree from one asteroid could grow to reach another asteroid. when that happens, the seedlings orbit both asteroids as if it were one non-circular one, and the capacity of the asteroid is increased. The seedlings produced on one asteroid would still have the same qualities of that asteroid, but ones produced on the joining tree would have the average of the two asteroids(or make it so that the joining tree cannot produce asteroids). Eventually you could have large structures built up this way. Enemies could destroy the joining tree, but it would temporarily block their motion through a system(make it a weak link, so that it is still possible to lose once you have one of these structures). The joining tree could even evolve more like a vine once it is on both asteroids, becoming more linear with fewer branches(though more interesting to look at than a single line). In addition, you could set a default part of the combined asteroid for seedlings to orbit by default(similar to a rally point). What do you think?

[Alex]

That is a cool idea Muffins Really like it!

[Crimsoncow]

Saw this somewhere on a thread and I thought I could add to it.

Spawn Speed
The basic idea is that the more powerful the seedling is, the slower the spawn.  Spawn speed would be based on the total "points" of the three atributes of the asteroid. 

[Muffins]

I agree, although it should not be that a twice-as-strong seedling takes double the time to spawn, maybe 4/3 the time. Seedling strength does not influence buying cost, so there shouldn't be too much of a slowdown.

[Candlejack]

They grow the same speed because smaller seeds typically exist on small asteroids.

text

The problem is that you can back into a corner and that asteroid becomes untouchable. That idea would fortify asteroids even more. If we had bigger non-circular asteroid fields, then it would work wonderfully.

Edit: Have you thought about making Dyson 3D?

[Alex]

I think the game would be far harder to read and to interact with in 3D. Also I can't think of any real benefit to the game design that would arise from doing so. It would be harder to make it look great too, IMO.

[flowbot]

Could we set up a seperate section on the forum for levels, level packs, and level creation? That would be great.

Flowbot

[ab aeterno]

after reading muffins idea I'm really intrigued, but also a bit cautious, since you'd basically be creating a large wall of asteroids linked together; as well, muffins' idea sounds extremely passive. What if the tree roots away from another asteroid?

Why not be able to create bridges from one asteroid to another in the same vein as the trees growing, except you control which asteroid goes to which asteroid (obviously it would have to be in your area of control), and the cost be you giving up so many seedlings, who "become" the bridge? it's basically the same idea, just given a bit more direction imo.

Imo, make the seedling cost 50

[Candlejack]

I don't really see the appeal to it. After all, isn't it just a wall between asteroids that generates seedlings?

[ab aeterno]

well really the benefit of the bridges would be that you'd create an infrastructure with your asteroids and allow seedlings to travel these bridges all the way to the frontlines very quickly, instead of having to send them from one asteroid to another

like, instead of

Seed -----> asteroid ----> asteroid ----> asteroid ----> asteroid

you'd click once and drag your seedlings from one asteroid to another, perhaps all the way across the field, to another asteroid, as long as the two are connected by bridges, so it'd just be

Seed ----> bridged asteroid

I mean, don't you get annoyed carrying individual seeds to frontal asteroids all the way from the back of your colony?


which brings up another idea: if you were to design these bridges, why not create a command allowing us to predetermine where our seedlings are going? like,

Asteroid 1 is at the back, but is bridged to asteroid 2 up front. I designate that 20 seedlings will stay at asteroid 1, while any more that are spawned will automatically go to asteroid 2. Would there be a way for you to create something that would allow us to do that?

'cause that's really the only problem I have with this game is that it takes so long to move my seedlings

plus, with these bridges being used by all the teams, it would create much more intense battlegrounds, you know?

[Candlejack]

The distances between asteroids are quite long in comparison to the size of the Dyson trees, so I don't think growing the vines would make sense. Maybe Dyson trees should automatically start releasing seedlings with threads on them after while and they weave the bridges from tree to tree slowly over time. Then again, this might cause problems because of so many strings being rendered at once and destroying a tree would break the web(maybe they could barrow strength from other connected trees).

[ab aeterno]

neither do I, which is why I suggested making bridges instead

if I were to have to think of one way I considered ideal for this kind of thing, it'd be to make you have to use up a tree slot at the cost of 20 seedlings which creates the bridge, and after a while the bridge would start producing hybrid seedlings from the two asteroids.

[Alex]

Could we set up a seperate section on the forum for levels, level packs, and level creation? That would be great.

Flowbot

Great idea, will do.

Others: Really fun ideas, I love how organic they sound!

[flowbot]

Great idea, will do.

Others: Really fun ideas, I love how organic they sound!
[/quote]

Thanks!

[Candlejack]

neither do I, which is why I suggested making bridges instead

if I were to have to think of one way I considered ideal for this kind of thing, it'd be to make you have to use up a tree slot at the cost of 20 seedlings which creates the bridge, and after a while the bridge would start producing hybrid seedlings from the two asteroids.

But my idea is prettier and involves keeping track of less seedling types.

[ab aeterno]

but your idea involves using seedlings to build a bridge by having them attach threads to the other asteroid, meaning the seedlings would have strings attached to them, which is just awkward graphically and brings up the question of whether or not they are able to fight or not.

and who really tracks seedling types

[Alex]

and who really tracks seedling types

In the final implementation, you will be able to track seedling types and we're going to make it so that this will actually be something that will help you win if you do it.

Regarding linking up asteroids, we probably won't do this. It does sound like it might work as a method of improving transportation for the player, so that there's less clicking around, but it's quite an elaborate solution to the problem and introduces problems with attributes (e.g. if two asteroids are linked, what happens to the attributes? if all your asteroids are lined up, what happens then?). It's a cool idea though, be it strings or vines

[ab aeterno]

then, instead of all the complications of another structure, why not just allow us to place a destination for newly sprouted seedlings to go to so that we don't have to waste time dragging them across a map?

[Candlejack]

That's already being added.

[ab aeterno]

how do you know? maybe i've missed this somehow