Here follows the proto of a D-Proposal. Some of the fragments might be a bit forced, but not too so in my opinion.
---------- The Shuttle The Shuttle is an object In Space, and it is a class Sitting Duck space exploration vessel, where all active players are stationed. It has three Stations: the Lower Deck, the Engine Room and the Bridge. The Shuttle will undertake journeys between two wormholes In Space, travelling on a straight line divided into a number of AUs represented by the following style of map: @->---@ Where @ is a wormhole, > is the Shuttle and every symbol taking up one AU (dashes representing one AU of empty space). Any object that is In Space is to be represented on this map and has a position, a delta, a hit point total and possibly other stats as well. An object's position is its distance from the left wormhole (the Shuttle in the example has a position of 2). An objects delta is its speed, ranges from -5 to 5 and can only be whole numbers. At the beginning of each week, the position of an object In Space is increased by its delta.The Shuttle's default position and delta are 1 and its hit point total 12. An object that takes damage loses that many hit points; if an object is reduced to 0 hit points or less it is destroyed. A wormhole has inf. hit points. Every player has a Station switch, with possible values Outside, Lower Deck, Engine Room and Bridge (default). At most once every 12 hours a player may flip their Station switch to the value of an adjacent room, where Lower Deck is adjacent to Engine Room which is also adjacent to Bridge. This is known as walking to the room indicated by the new value. A player whose Station switch is x "is (stationed) in/on the x". Buttons: Every day, each player may choose one button to push in eir Station. This causes the Shuttle to take a certain action at the start of the next day. Each button may only be pushed once a day. The following buttons exist on the Lower Deck: - Missile Launch - Pulse Cannon Fire (1) - Reload The following buttons exist in the Engine Room: - Reactor Recharge - More Speed (1) - Turbo (2) - Zero-Point Handbrake (1) The following buttons exist on the Bridge: - Heavy Laser Cannon Fire (1) - Reload - Record Captain's Log (1) Shuttle Actions Charges, measuring energy aboard the ship, is a currency. Only Stations may own Charges. When the Shuttle sets out for a new journey all Stations have 2 Charges each. When the button Reactor Recharge is pushed, the Shuttle awards the Engine Room Charges 3 charges. When either Reload button is pushed, the Shuttle Charges to be transferred from the Engine Room to the Station with that button until either the Engine Room is empty or the other Station has 4 Charges. Many of the actions taken by the Shuttle when the buttons are pushed cost energy; they have the cost in Charges in brackets next to the name of their button. This energy is taken from the Station with that button if present, otherwise, the action fails. When the More Speed button is pushed, the Shuttle increases its delta by 1. When the Turbo button is pushed, the Shuttle increases its position by 2. When the Zero-Point Handbrake button is pushed, the Shuttle reduces its delta to 0. When the Missile Launch button is pushed, a missile (denoted <) is dispatched In Space. Missiles have a position one less than that of the Shuttle, a delta of -2, a total of 5 hit points and an explosion value of 2. If there is a Missile next to the Shuttle, dispatching another Missile fails. When a Cannon Fire button is pushed, the Shuttle fires the indicated cannon which might cause damage to other objects In Space. The Pulse Cannon causes 3 damage to all objects with a position within 2 from that of the Shuttle. The Heavy Laser Cannon causes 6 damage to the closest object with a position between 1 and 9 greater than that of the Shuttle. The player pushing the Heavy Laser Cannon Fire button may choose to push it harder, which increses the Charge cost by 1, the damage caused by 2, and causes the Shuttle to reduce its position by one. Doing this when it causes the ship to collide with anything is the class-1 crime of Hoisting One's Own Petard. Recording the Captain's log causes the Shuttle to activate the very fancy recording device for full hologram recording, which causes all other systems to go offline, and the Shuttle cannot take any other actions until the end of the next day. During this time any other player can, with 2 support, initiate a mutiny which flips moves the pusher of the Captain's Log button to the Outside. If this does not happen, the player doing the recording may save it for a cost of 2 ergs. A player who successfully performs this action twice within a single month satisfies the winning condition of Continuity. Journeys As soon as the Shuttle is destroyed or reaches the right wormhole, any player can with notice start a new journey. This causes all Threats to be destroyed and all Station switches and all stats of all objects In Space to be restored to their defaults. The player initiating the journey becomes known as the Enemy, eir Station is flipped to Outside, and e SHALL as soon as possible publish the map of the journey, deciding the position of the second wormhole and thereby the length of the journey. The second wormhole can never have a position of less than 10. The Enemy is an imposed office, and recordkeeper of all Threats and their respective stats. If the Shuttle is destroyed, the Enemy is awarded a Leadership Token and may not become the Enemy for the next journey. If the Shuttle reaches the second wormhole, each active player whose Station is not Outside is rewarded a capacitor. The Threats The position of the second wormhole is known as the Difficulty of the current journey. At the start of a journey, the Enemy is awarded a number of Threat Points (a non-tradable currency) equal to the Difficulty of the journey times three. At any time during the journey may he create a Threat by specifying the following: - Its name - Its symbol - Its hit point total (H) - Its delta (d) - Its explosion (e) - Its attack (a) - Its starting position (p) - Its scouting ability (s) This is done by paying a number of Threat Points equal to the following formula: H+|d|+e+a+s+10-|S-p|, where S is the current position of the Shuttle. It must be positioned between the two wormholes and cannot have the same starting position as the Shuttle. Space Flight: At the start of each day, the following procedure is performed: i) The Shuttle performs the action associated with the buttons pushed during the previous day. These are performed in the order the button were pushed. ii) Each threat performs its attack. This does damage to the closest object in the Threats trajectory (based on the sign of its delta, positive if 0) equal to its attack value. Each threat then generates a number of Threat Points equal to its scouting ability value, which are awarded the Enemy. iii) If the day began a new week, each object is moved according to its delta. iv) If any two objects have the same position, they collide. If any object collides with a wormhole, it disappears. Threats that disappear this way generate Threat Points equal to their current cost, which are awarded to the Enemy. Otherwise if two objects collide, the one with less remaining hit points is destroyed and explodes, causing damage to the other object equal to its remaining hit points times its explosion value. If two objects with the same amount of hit points collide, they cause each other damage equal to their respective explosion values. The Ship Computor The Ship Computor is an office, and tracks of the following: - Station switches - The map of all objects In Space - Charges - Threat Points - The Difficulty of the current journey - The stats of the Shuttle and all Missiles ---------- tl;dr: one player plays the enemy and builds threats that he hurls at the players, who are stuck in a shuttle (on a one-dimensional journey) in which they can take one action per day, mostly consisting of shooting and reloading. Does this make sense? Is it too much to keep track of? Do we want this kind of gameplay, even if it is/gets streamlined enough? Yes, it's a rip-off from Space Alert, but enough people have not played that game to make that fact a point in its favour: Space Alert gameplay deserves to be experienced. -- -Tiger
