> *Originally posted by **[nikeas](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=19#10800876)**:* > cant you just name it "space game" or smth As long as it's supported by opinions of active FGF users - yes, I can name it "space game". If you menage to win the game, I could even rename it to "cat-god emperor rules the galaxy"

> *Originally posted by **[yeasy](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10800982)**:* > > *Originally posted by **[nikeas](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=19#10800876)**:* > > cant you just name it "space game" or smth > > As long as it's supported by opinions of active FGF users - yes, I can name it "space game". > > If you menage to win the game, I could even rename it to "cat-god emperor rules the galaxy" > > YESPLS

I had a dream a month ago and could never remember it until now. In this dream, I lived in a dystopian world where I had been arrested for something I never found out about. So, instead of serving time as a punishment, I had to go fight for my life in a forest with a bunch of other people my age. There was some kind of alien that had landed on Earth that could assimilate stuff to the molecular level, so it acted just like [The Thing](htthttp://thething.wikia.com/wiki/The_Thing_(organism). So, if we could kill this alien, we would get off scot-free. The twist was, you could only kill the alien if you were the only one alive, and you had no weapons. Even weirder, in my dream, the other criminals names were usernames of people of FGF. I guess I spent a lot of time on FGF the day of the dream. Anyway, I only ever got to interact with BCLEGENDS, who I had an alliance with, reaper, who became assimilated (please read article I linked) and no one knew it until the very end until it was announced that adv0catus, the only other person who I "saw" (I made up everyone's appearance except for mine, reaper looked like his previous avatar, I looked like my avatar but not animeish because that's how I actually look, adv0catus had short brown hair, and was kinda short, and BC had cute black hair and was really tall) got killed. So, BC and I were like "oh, shit, it was reaper all along" and we knew only one of us could kill the alien because the government was dumb, so BC sacrificed himself for me, and I killed the alien in a way I can't remember, and that was it. I plan to write a book about this because when I woke up I was like "hell yeah, that's gonna sell". But why not also turn this into a RP with romantic and survival elements? It's like The Hunger Games meets The Thing meets [Hearts Alive](htthttp://www.kongregate.com/forums/7099-forum-games/topics/607634-rp-hearts-alive-game-thread?page=1#posts-10250156p://). It would be cool if someone who was better at making and maintaining games could try this out. I would sign up for it, and I bet a lot of other people would too. There's a lot of kinks, so maybe I could collaborate with whoever wants to take this up via PM to work out the plot, mechanics, and such. I would be happy to do that. I would even be a co-host, because those kinds of games are super cool. The game could be called "Castaway Forest" for starters. I came with that off the top of my head, so that may not be the actual name if this becomes a thing. So, if you are interested in working on this with me, because I can't do it myself, please leave me a message. :)

> *Originally posted by **[yeasy](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=19#10800866)**:* > As for the suggested name of game thread, I'm going to be honest - I don't like it, as (in my opinion) flagships aren't iconic part of the game (they're actually a very small part, so it might be highly misleading) and it does not reflect true nature of game. However, it was supported by TWJ and I highly value mendelde's professional approach to FGF games, so there's probably a good advertisement value behind it. I'm not the best in figuring that stuff out. Well, it's a 4X space game (actually, only 3X since we don't need to explore the map), and my approach to naming is to use something that describes what it does, and to describe the sort-of-generic things wouldn't set it apart. But the fact that it has these flagships, that the flagships are set apart by having extra lives, and that these were also among the first bits of the game you posted make them a good naming candidate for me. You also suggested that we'd need lore to unlock them, so they're woven in the game somehow, and they make for good intermediate goals. If you have a better idea of what your lore is, you could choose a title based on that, but as you haven't posted on that, that's going to be hard for us to suggest on, unless you want us to go ahead and create the lore. Nikeas would, I assume, use something as a name that is more memorable and more of a story hook, I'm thinking "dank flagships" or "chewy galaxy" (with the ~~soft~~ hard center)or "yeasy's game of galaxy conquest" or "galaxy crusaders" or "Columbus 3000" or "How to kill a galaxy". You may also assume that nikeas is better at advertising than I am.

To users who didn't sign to 'Flagships' yet: Why? Is it too complex? No time? Too much commitment? Sci-fi or fantasy? Strategy or RP? What elements do you like? What elements do you not like? (optional) Do you understand different approaches to play the game? (optional) Are you able to determine playstyle that would remove your problems with the game? Any general / other feedback?

> *Originally posted by **[yeasy](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10807770)**:* > To users who didn't sign to 'Flagships' yet: > > Why? > Is it too complex? > No time? Too much commitment? > Sci-fi or fantasy? > Strategy or RP? > What elements do you like? > What elements do you not like? > (optional) Do you understand different approaches to play the game? > (optional) Are you able to determine playstyle that would remove your problems with the game? > Any general / other feedback? > > > Flagships looks like a really good game with an incredible amount of detail put into it. It also reminds me of Civilization, which is awesome. But the reason why I didn't sign for it is that it seemed complex and I was worried that I wouldn't have enough time to play it. Lately I feel that I am in a position to commit myself to a game or two, but Flagships looks like somehting that would demand a high level of attention and commitment. I didn't want to start it and then find myself unable to put in as much activity as I needed/wanted to. I would definitely feel guilty about being inactive, especially after [LABYRINTHIUM]. And besides that, I don't think that strategy forum games are really my thing, but I guess I'm not sure about that yet; I haven't really tried one yet. All of the stats and data to read through and remember and deal with... it intimidates me ~~because I'm lazy~~. I really hope that you get more players for it because there is a truly amazing amount of work and detail put into it (seriously, with a bit of coding someone could easily make this it a video game that would make Sid Meier jealous), but I don't think that it's my kind of game.

# Flagships in a nutshell > *Originally posted by **[Ganthro](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10809558)**:* > All of the stats and data to read through and remember and deal with... it intimidates me ~~because I'm lazy~~. yeasy has been stressing that you don't really need to read through all of it. The most complex part of it is the tech tree with 54 different nodes, but even that is less complex than it looks because many techs do similar things, and they don't have levels. Basically, you the player have very few resources to keep track of. 1. **Territory. ** This is your home system and anything you conquer or colonize. This gives you production and research points each turn. 2. **Production points.** This allows you to build ships, and later, space stations. The first ships you build are simple fighters that can't be specialized. 3. **Ships.** You can have defenders on any of your systems and stations, and a single fleet to conquer and attack. You get more fleets later. Combat is random, but have more power and you'll likely win. Power is a stat that each ship has - a single number. 3. **Research points.** You unlock the tech tree with these, and you can win with them as well. There are 6 tech tree branches: * War unlocks bigger ships. These ships have slots for combat modules. * War-Research unlocks the combat modules and allows you to have more fleets * Research unlocks diplomacy and the inner map * Research-Production has various bonuses that help you expand faster * Production allows your systems to install more modules, increases production, and lowers costs. * Production-War gives you more production/turn and has space station upgrades. To start with, you only really have 3 upgrades to choose from, and 6 at most at any time. 4. **Lore points**. You get these by roleplaying and can use them for diplomacy (and even to win). Another big part of the game is modules. You build these into ships and space stations to specialize them and award them bonuses. You don't have any module slots to start with, and you need to unlock the module tiers one by one, so you don't need to learn them all at once. There are 15 different combat modules for ships and 6 different neutral modules for stations and systems. So that's the game, basically, the rest is details, and most those are locked at the beginning. (You can ally with another player, but even that is locked at first.)

> *Originally posted by **[mendelde](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10809629)**:* > [...] Mendelde in a nutshell. Please give me your talent to make short, simple and easily comprehensible posts, that cover all of necessary informations (contrary to my overcomplicated walls of text). Can I steal your reply and put it somewhere in basics or smth? As introduction, probably. --- @Ganthro Thanks for great feedback. I'll look into it. I'll try to make my next games simplier and less demanding. I appreciate players who don't risk becoming inactive during gameplay. It would hurt this game more than lack of initial players. (Bonus questions, If you don't mind) Should 1 post / 72h time be extended or adjusted in future? What parts of game do you consider as too demanding? Mechanics? Having to analyze your strategic position? Lore-related roleplaying part? Or just all things, mashed altogether? --- **@Edit** Still looking for more feedback from other non-signed users, it'll be really helpful and allow me to develop better games in future.

While I signed it, I do think I may have some input on why it may not have a lot of signs. I do think that its very nature of being heavily PvP may make some players uncomfortable as Back900 mentioned in the thread that he didn't want to go at it alone. I could imagine the sheer amount of info one would need to consider in the end game (not just your own, but also your enemies info) would be kind of overwhelming especially if you need to be concerned about seven others players resources and army info as well as consider all the power and location of every hostile fleet and the possibility that any alliances you enter may not exactly be stable, especially early on. Reading through the thread, I do feel like if alliances were a thing that could be dissolved easily, both parties in an alliance would need to start expending their own resources as fast as possible (If I interpretted it correctly, resources are pooled?) as if one side drains the other of resources they could just betray them as they have little reason to stay with a faction much weaker than them. Even if it wasn't pooled, being able to betray each other would be mega stressful in the late game. For example Faction A sends resources to Faction B to defend against the last faction, Faction C which has a grand army (and let's say their ally went the way of the space dinosaur). There's no reason for Faction B to stay with Faction A and they could ally with Faction C to crush Faction A which sent resources to defend their ally. Of course with this thinking, there's no reason to send resources, and Faction B would be put in a scenario where it can't expect supplies. From what I gathered, I do think a weak alliance system may be a bit of a problem. And of course not entering an alliance means you're kind of screwed if everyone else teams up since making a mistake without others covering your back may cause players to lose morale pretty quickly. I don't play a lot of MOBAs, but I do think that a MOBA might be a place to look for inspiration. For example in MOBAs heroes kind of tend to have specific functions and aren't well rounded, but work well together as a team. Perhaps see if players would be more interested if it wasn't everyone for themselves, but stuff like maybe like two or three factions/galactic federations having conflicts with each other on different ends of the galaxy? I can imagine some people might enjoy being defensive and turtling while others may want to figure out how to break through an enemys defense without focusing on defending themselves. I'm hesitant to suggest each person is only assigned one partner as someone may end up drawing the short end of the straw, but with two or more allies, a bad partner is probably much less of a problem, and people can focus on working together much better without the fear of getting destroyed by their own allies as soon as they're off guard. I would personally prefer something like a 4v4 if there's eight players as there's more leeway for everyone to make mistakes which could make the game more lenient and thus more people may want to try it. With something like assigned galactic federation teams, I would assume it would be easier for players to catch each other up on what's happening which may make it easier for those who don't have a lot of time to plan out their moves as well as if they go inactive, the problem may be solved by having them automatically distribute resources to their allies which in turn would give their allies incentive to defend them without being a burden since they'll be a resource factory. That and in universe, it may make for a bit more interesting choices in customized stuff as some planets may chose to take a merchant planet background and focus on resource and more defensive technologies or technologies to compliment their allies playstyles since from what I gather, the current game promotes focusing on yourself without considering what customized stuff your allies might have. I mean it could make the initial nerf/buff bid using lore points a bit interesting if players work together since I assume with seven initial enemies, some tech will likely get ignored, but if each side could see the other sides tech, they can make more strategic bids. Or if they're different galactic federations, they might even be able to bid on a buff for their entire side making not only every player unique, but each alliance unique too. Of course I'm a total noob when it comes to things like this, so only my speculation on why people might not be joining.

> *Originally posted by **[yeasy](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10809736)**:* > Can I steal your reply and put it somewhere in basics or smth? As introduction, probably. Yes, please do. Edit as you need.

> *Originally posted by **[yeasy](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10807770)**:* > To users who didn't sign to 'Flagships' yet: > > Why? > Is it too complex? > No time? Too much commitment? > Sci-fi or fantasy? > Strategy or RP? > What elements do you like? > What elements do you not like? > (optional) Do you understand different approaches to play the game? > (optional) Are you able to determine playstyle that would remove your problems with the game? > Any general / other feedback? > > > Messaged you my reason. Don't know if you saw. Game looks good, but I also don't have much commitment right now. Good think I'm not Editor at the moment, I need like a week of slacking off right now. (Don't deny my Editor application immediately pls)

> *Originally posted by **[TheWildJamie](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10810666)**:* > Messaged you my reason. Don't know if you saw. Game looks good, but I also don't have much commitment right now. Good think I'm not Editor at the moment, I need like a week of slacking off right now. (Don't deny my Editor application immediately pls) Yup, I had read all three messages, but I didn't think it's necessary to respond, as it didn't address any problems with the game itself. You don't want to reserve sign or anything like that, I assume? Is your first game over soon? It's mafia, yup? We might be able to wait for you. ~~I'll just convince some people to NK or lynch you, to speed things up.~~ @ General, to 'inactive' people who want to play (If there're any) Maybe two (less active) players could play on one account, one would post lore, second would post actions? Or second one would post actions when first is inactive? If anyone would like to do smth like that, please let me know in the thread. I will just point out that skipping turns (thus posting once per 144h) might be possible, If you send me orders for your next turns (fleet movement / purchases, if any). Additionaly, your production and research will increase, your inactivity will just not allow you to spend points or react immediately. I don't think inactivity will be **that** a big problem, unless you really want to focus on the lore, but you still have 9 days~ to finish all three (short!!!) tasks. Production and research doesn't halt. The only thing that I don't want is players quitting in middle of the game. --- @Ganthro/TWD If you really think that your possible inactivity is the only things that prevents you from playing the game (and that you won't quit in the middle), I'm open to similar solutions. Having 2 more players (you) will allow game to start, but only as long as previous player pool won't drop out. ~~Honestly, Ganthro's avatar looks like perfect sci-fi candidate to rule galactic empire and (yes, I'm sexist) having a female user in group will help to diversity lore-related part of gameplay.~~ @FC I kinda don't want to change nature of game currently without having a proper discussion with other potential players (it looks like hella lot of changes too), but I might make some improvements in next games - as long as other players are satisfied with proposed project. Feel free to suggest your ideas in second game.

Activity update: I am still looking forward to Flagships. (Please don't notice this is for postcount.)

Once Cave Story is over, I'll be going through all the current games to see which one I would like to join.

> *Originally posted by **[TheWildJamie](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10815241)**:* > Once Cave Story is over, I'll be going through all the current games to see which one I would like to join. Yeasy uses sense motive. It's super effective.

> *Originally posted by **[yeasy](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10816060)**:* > > *Originally posted by **[TheWildJamie](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10815241)**:* > > Once Cave Story is over, I'll be going through all the current games to see which one I would like to join. > > Yeasy uses sense motive. It's super effective. Sorry yeasy, the game you have is a type I don't usually enjoy. I enjoy Mafia, RP, and Competitive/Strategy, not RPG. I know yours is strategy, just not the type I'm looking for. Much apologies. :(

> *Originally posted by **[TheWildJamie](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10819576)**:* > > Sorry yeasy, the game you have is a type I don't usually enjoy. I enjoy Mafia, RP, and Competitive/Strategy, not RPG. I know yours is strategy, just not the type I'm looking for. Much apologies. :( There's nothing to be sorry for, I will simply remember that you were hiding your true intentions during surveys. > *Originally posted by **[TheWildJamie](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=19#10794009)**:* > I **would sign** but I'm only letting myself be in one game at a time due to school. Sorry. I explicitly stated that player must be interested (shouldn't sign otherwise) in game during my first days of game creation, so your previous claim ( ' I would sign, but... ' ) contradicts (atleast, in my opinion) your current words ( ' type I don't usually enjoy ' ). Your forum behavior suggested that you were atleast a bit dishonest in your first post. I don't know what your goal was, but please refrain from being misleading in future as it doesn't help game development, corrupts important data and focuses my energy in wrong direction.

A puzzle game was locked by a mod yesterday because it didn't "really seem that comprehensive". It seems it is "inappropriate" to post games that are not comprehensive enough. Since I design some games myself, I would hate to post a game here that wasn't comprehensive. Unfortunately, I don't understand at all what makes a games be comprehensive or not. Could someone explain this, please? I get the impression that this is obvious to everyone but me.

There were no rules to the game; he just posted some sort of rambling message filled with broken links and expected everyone to automatically know what to do.

> *Originally posted by **[mendelde](/forums/7099/topics/579767?page=20#10832893)**:* > A puzzle game was locked by a mod yesterday because it didn't "really seem that comprehensive". It seems it is "inappropriate" to post games that are not comprehensive enough. Since I design some games myself, I would hate to post a game here that wasn't comprehensive. Unfortunately, I don't understand at all what makes a games be comprehensive or not. Could someone explain this, please? I get the impression that this is obvious to everyone but me. It's a guess, but from the way it was written, I assumed the ramblings and stuff were supposed to be hints to what might have been a scavenger hunt of some sort.

Yeah, it's a crypto puzzle. There's a pastebin link, but it didn't tell me much, and I didn't spend much time on it because it is locked anyway, but it clearly is a coded message that can be deciphered. Do you remember how we used to do hidden text? That got cut with the forum upgrade, so the author used links. It's pretty obvious that they were never meant to be links when you look at the page source (through "inspect element", or simpler means like quoting the post, which -- guess what -- is no longer possible. There are hints at numbers, both strewn through the text and obvious ones like `Y={1=A}`, which should turn out to be 25. And yes, I know automatically what do do: figure out what the hidden message is. The author also wrote that if you don't know what to do, you can message them. But apparently this kind of puzzle doesn't fly here, so instead of sending a PM to the author, it got flagged and locked. And I don't understand why, or how I can predict that happening. I'm convinced that the author did in good faith post a puzzle of the kind some of us like to solve. You know what would have happened if pigjr had made a post like that? Probably nothing.

Previous puzzle games have had the rules explicitly stated (for the most part; I suppose I should give a mention to the "secret cohost" of CR2, since that info wasn't included in that game's ruleset). I think his game could be successful if he reposted it with a defined ruleset.

If I find a game's rules are unclear, or I don't see them, I have some options: * PM the author * post a reply: _"What exactly are we supposed to do here?"_ * flag the thread Why would anyone think the latter is an acceptable option?

It's possible that someone may have thought the game wasn't a game, but was instead some sort of spam message maybe? Like it might look like an unclear puzzle if one reads it and tries to intrepret it, but another person might just take a quick glace at it and assume it's just a random garbled message about nothing and flag the post as a result.

Yeah, that's why it might have gotten flagged, someone didn't notice the last line of the first post. Still, that's not what it got locked for. :-/