[C4:AC] Taking the Initiative - Some Short-Term Goals

[Senethro]

We have a functional Mission Statement even if its not in pretty language yet, we have a sizable and energetic list of members and we have a month of time to kill before Civilization 4 is released. As I've been nominated to take the whole blame if it all goes wrong, I'd really like to see us succeed and I know that I'm going to do my best.

Here are some things that I would like to see us have accomplished as a demonstration that we can work effectively as a team as well as laying the foundations for what follows. The deadlines I've suggested are not absolute but I believe easily achievable if we harness our current momentum.


1) At some point in the next 24 hours the wiki at smac.civilization4.net will be available to all. Each member should register an account. For ease of identification, please use your forum name.


2) In 3 weeks time I think it would be good to have at least a first draft of the design document, stating what goes in our mod. I don’t expect this to be completely extensive or dogma as it will be partly reliant on Civ4 itself and will no doubt undergo heavy revising. I'll be posting a brainstorming thread for this shortly to organise discussion.


3) We need to create a knowledge database of SMAC's gameplay and its files. We're going to need this as a reference for when the real programming begins. The wiki (smac.civilization4.net) has been created with this in mind and I hope that over the next 2 months we can fully describe every aspect of SMAC gameplay, list every facility and tech and file in the installation directory.

As an example that this possibly tedious task is necessary, did you know that biology labs repair Native Life in the same way that Command Centres repair units? Or that drone riots cause a morale penalty to units homed to that base? We need documentation, especially of the undocumented features. I’m sure you’ll all learn something

As the wiki is not visible to all yet nor has it been organised, there will be more on this later.


4) We could do with laying down our basic operating procedure - how we go about with the actual creation of new work. I see this as being best determined by the Lead Programmer as it is he who be directing most of our efforts. If binTravkin will officially accept the position of our Lead Programmer in recognition of his knowledge and experience, it would be good to hear him expand on his first thoughts he stated in the “Prelude to a mod” thread.


That’s all I can think of for now. We need to determine other short term goals we can be getting on with so lets get some discussion going.

[binTravkin]

If binTravkin will officially accept the position of our Lead Programmer in recognition of his knowledge and experience, it would be good to hear him expand on his first thoughts he stated in the “Prelude to a mod” thread.

I can accept the position only on behalf of my organisational skills and innovativeness as Chaos Theory is a more expierenced programmer than me, at least in C++..
(but I think he won't be interested in organisation, thus it anyways falls to me )

And sure, I'll elaborate on the organisational thing, if it's accepted I could even set up up an example (programmer's part) 2morrow.
Will be then followed by my proposal of staff grouping and task cathegorisation/identification.

[PJayTycy]

About the knowledge base, while I'm not a true undocumented-features specialist, I think it's pretty easy to set the categroies we need to document. 90% of it will be easy and can be copied from aphax.txt or the datalinks. Other things will have to be added by experienced players and CMN's.

=> Factions
=> Technologies
=> Facilities
=> Secret Projects
=> Weapons
=> Armor
=> Chassis
=> Special abillities
=> Combat rules (air, artillery, native, ...)
=> Special landmarks

=> Formulas (drones, efficiency, mineral cost, upgrade cost, probe actions cost, food/mineral/energy production / cell ....)


I have 3 comments about this:
1) The last one (formulas) is a little catch-all and I'm not too happy with it, but I don't see a better way for the moment.
2) Are there other categories I missed ?
3) Is it necessary to include things without undocumented features (like : food/mineral/energy production per cell and weapon/armor types) ?

[Fosse]

What does a design document for something like this entail? The ultimate design document is, of course, SMAC. But ours needs to provide a baisis to ground the actions of the team and inform and attract new participants.

But the document we need for the project must include... what? Process, reasoning, goals timeline? I can start to assemble this document based on what's already been posted as soon as I know the extend of what needs to go into it. Today is actually a very slow day for me so I can get a start on it as soon as I know what it's going to need to look like.

[Darsnan]

Re: [C4:AC] Taking the Initiative - Some Short-Term Goals

Originally posted by Senethro

2) .... I'll be posting a brainstorming thread for this shortly to organise discussion.

Good! Should I port in all my previously posted brainstorming ideas into this thread?

Originally posted by Senethro
3) We need to create a knowledge database of SMAC's gameplay and its files. We're going to need this as a reference for when the real programming begins. The wiki (smac.civilization4.net) has been created with this in mind and I hope that over the next 2 months we can fully describe every aspect of SMAC gameplay, list every facility and tech and file in the installation directory.

I can go over all of the CVR graphics files and document what they are this evening, if you think this would be beneficial.


D

[Senethro]

Originally posted by Fosse
What does a design document for something like this entail? -snip-

The design document will detail how we interpret SMAC into a Civ4 environment. Don't waste your time just yet, I'm going to try an provoke a big discussion on this that will generate more material for you.

Originally posted by Darsnan
Good! Should I port in all my previously posted brainstorming ideas into this thread?

I can go over all of the CVR graphics files and document what they are this evening, if you think this would be beneficial.
D

The questions you and Illu posed were going to top my thread and actually going to form the basis for the format of the brainstorming session.

As for the caviar files details, hold your horses, I've not got a wiki for you to put them in yet

[Blake]

Something we'll need to (or should) do is create an exhaustive list of every quantifiable feature. These fit into 3 broad categories:
A) SMAC features with no Civ4 equivalent. (for example orbitals, commerce, native life)
B) SMAC features with a Civ4 equivalent. (for example the combat system, terrain improvements, climate system)
C) Civ4 features with no SMAC equivalent. (for example religion, resources)

Presumably everything in A will have to be implemented, but we may have to decide between implementing "exactly the same" or just "in the spirit of".
For B's we'll have to decide whether we want to keep the Civ4 system or rip it out and replace it (or somewhere in between).
For C's we'll have to decide if we want to purge the feature or modify it for SMAC.
The difficulty of each should also be assessed to some degree, at least to the level of "Easy, Moderate, Hard".
Many will be pretty obvious. I doubt anyone wants retarded automated former behavior reproduced.
A few will be subject to fierce debate, it may be worth considering implementing multiple options for some (like have a toggle in options for advanced resource model).

This list would help prioritize & allocate modding tasks, and also solidify the design. Ofcourse most of the concrete stuff can only be done after Civ4 has been released.

[Darsnan]

Update: I have catalogued about 1/3 of the CVR files to date (am putting the info into an Excel spreadsheet). Should finish later this weekend....


D

[Darsnan]

Caviar catologue completed. Unfortunately not too descriptive in some cases, but it does cover the gamut.


D