Progress Report

Now that I have several different kinds of star ships and weapons setup, I need a way to get them into a game. Up to now, I have been creating test games by manually editing the XML files that make up a game and going from there. But now I need a web page where a user can create a game, add his or her fleet to the game and allow other gamers to sign up for it. Basically, I need an easy way for players to start their own games.

So that is what I am working on now. I am thinking of using the concept of "command points" which all players will have. Think of this as cred with your superiors -- it allows you to requisition more ships or larger ships for a particular battle. If you keep losing battles (especially when the odds were in your favor), your ability to convince your superiors to send you more ships goes down.

When you create or join a game, you can add ships to the battle by requisitioning them from HQ. As other players join, they too can add whatever ships they can scrape up. When all players are ready, the battle begins.

This concept is something that can be built on a lot in the future to give players some motivation to win battles rather than just giving up or retreating.