Remnants of the Precursors: Master of Orion, but modern, free, and smart

Another interesting aspect of this project is the number of people who want to translate the game into other languages. I am doing my best to accommodate them – Polish, Spanish and Greek translations are in various stages of progress.

Hey guys, I was on the Space Game Junkie podcast recently and talked a lot about the game. If you are interested, you can listen to it here: https://www.spacegamejunkie.com/podcasts/sgj-podcast-205-remnants-precursors/

An updated, long-term roadmap is now available for those who like to see how many zillion moving parts have to be tracked in a project like this. https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/05/31/state-of-the-game-2/

That’s quite a long listof things left to do! To think that this is already mostly done and MoO1 is a fairly straightforward game as space 4x’s go.

Yes, it seems crazy! I think that very thought process is why so many projects and Kickstarters failed. The developers make a demo or get something working and think, “wow, this is almost done! This will be finished in 6 months, for sure”

Then when they start actually trying to finish things, suddenly the enormity of all of the details involved become overwhelming. I’m very aware of this, professionally, which is why I am kind of anal-retentive about coming up with a schedule and constantly rechecking and revising it – I know that it will always take longer than my gut feeling tells me.

I do think Remnants will be feature complete and ready for a beta by the end of next year.

Two years is a long time but you must be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel by now.

Right now I’ve got a game halfway done where the AI was doing pretty well. I’ll get around to finishing it one of these days. Would it help if I sent you saves from every 25 turns so you could see how the game progressed over time?

Normally I would say “yes” but I am now so far along towards Alpha 4 that it’s less useful unless you’ve found a particular bug that needs to be fixed. Also, keep in mind that your saved games will be incompatible with the next alpha, so you might want to finish a game soon!

I’ve also just added some additional comments about the roadmap published yesterday that I hope will address concerns about it: https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/06/01/the-roadmap-pick-two/

All I can say is that I grabbed Master of Orion (finally!) from GoG, and I have been missing your interface!

Wait until the next alpha in July. There are 3-4 more UIs that are going to be modernized from their 90s look.

Speaking of the new interfaces, here’s a video showing the before & after of some of the updated videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSKatDIoaEU

Just scanning through the video, the new interfaces look pretty sweet! Though there is something to be said for a simple list of available techs per category.

Unfortunately, the old MOO1 listing was really too simple.

For example, it showed all of the techs you’ve researched in the selected category, but it didn’t show what techs were available for research. In addition, a separate click was required to see the description of the tech.

The biggest visual improvement is the separation of the techs into their tiers, which is an important concept in the game but was completely invisible to the player.

But mainly, the biggest factor was approachability. I felt like the “industry standard” and, most importantly, player expectation is for a graphical representation of the tech tree. The idea is that when a player goes to this screen, he immediately thinks, “oh, this is a tech tree. I know how this works”

That new screen looks great, but does it show what your tech levels are?

It makes sense. Thanks for the explanation!

No. Those were removed. It was a meaningless metric.

But aren’t they used all over the game, like for miniaturization? I thought having a high computer tech level for your spies was really important.

Yes, tech levels are used for miniaturization and increased computer technology improves spying. All of those things work in the game exactly as in the original…

However, the displayed number for the tech level is almost completely devoid of meaning. What does a 35 Construction tech level really mean? First of all, how is it calculated? Most players don’t know. Secondly, how much miniaturization benefit does it give you? Again, most players don’t know because the internal formula for that is kind of complicated and is never represented visually in the game. All you really know is that there’s a relationship there and that 35 is better than 34, which is better than 33, and so on. Also the only way to raise that is to learn a new technology, preferably in the top tier.

As I was designing this UI with the graphic designer, this exact question came up. I explained to her what all of those things meant and how it worked. But that information is never communicated to the player in the game and, even if it were, it wouldn’t change anything in the players’ decision-making process.

In the end, we both agreed that the most sensible decision was just to leave it out and focus on things that mattered more directly to the player.

Sorry for the long answer!

Okay, that makes perfect sense. I know that a high tech level is good, so I place some value on getting obsolete techs, but it doesn’t help me to see the number. The only place where it might be useful is if on the intelligence screen it showed how your computer tech compares to your opponents.

Alpha 4 is now available for download and play! Check it out at https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2017/09/01/alpha-4-is-available/

The Mrrshan are now in the game and there were quite a few UI improvements.

Woooooooooohoooooo!