Your framework is a liability
Your framework is a liability.
Every library you import before you start the project means more for someone else to digest and understand. Each complex ‘clever’ library equals another few minutes per team member trying to interpret why you imported it, how to use it, and where the configuration goes. Every framework you decide to use is a early decision about how your project will fundamentally work, which might turn out to be the wrong one. Each library is an opportunity for someone else to introduce a bug into your project.
The only asset a framework or library gives you is a faster route to your feature. Anything else will drag you down.
If your framework is heavy and onerous, then your code will have a large net negative liability before you’ve even begun. You’ll be constrained to follow a certain set of patterns, which you might end up fighting against later on. Work on the app first: your
A few examples of where I’ve benefited from not blindly installing the “standard stack”:
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I’ve recently started building some new projects wholly in Sinatra, pulling in various gems only when I need to, rather than starting with Rails from the outset. Sol Trader’s website is pure Sinatra. It was simply much quicker to get started, and I found I could layer on functionality as I needed it. Several months on, I’ve yet to need to turn to a Rails app.
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When I came to add Paypal integration to the site, I looked at various gems, and decided they were just going to drag me down with extra configuration and hassle. I ended up building Paypal IPN integration in about 30 lines using pure ruby: no libraries. Most of that code was tests.
Don’t get me wrong: I still use frameworks for some of my projects, and libraries for all of them, but I’m learning to stop and think before cargo culting the latest stack of 25 different libraries before I can get anything done.
Import a lightweight framework or library when you need to. Consider when you might be chaining yourself to it, which might make a later pivot difficult. It’s much easier to add a framework than to remove one from your project: pick the easiest thing to move away from.
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Your Code Is A Liability
Every chunk of code you commit is more for someone else to read, digest and understand.
Every complex “clever” expression requires another few minutes of effort for each of your team. They must now interpret what you wrote and why you wrote it.
Every line you add limits your project’s responsiveness to change.
Your code is a liability. Never forget this.
Read moreThe Sol Trader Christmas Eve update: moddable missions
The relative radio silence from Sol Trader Towers is for a reason: I’ve been working hard on a flexible and moddable mission structure, that allows players to take a variety of interesting quests in-game.
This build is now available on the forums should you have access (there’s still time if you don’t.)
I’ve built a few missions to start with, including delivering parcels for business or personal reasons, taking characters on business trips and making other characters disappear. It’s great fun to have a variety of things to do for characters now and adds yet more colour to the game. Because it’s completely moddable, I’m also excited to see what storylines other people come up with!
Under the hood
The full details of how to create your own missions are available as a lengthy forum post, which will be kept up to date with changes and clarifications. Here’s an overview:
The missions are organised into packs, which exists under the data/missions
subfolder. If you have access to the beta builds, you’ll see there’s one pack there already: these are the missions that are built in to the game.
There are several csv files in each mission folder:
requirements.csv
: This file details the cases in which this mission might be triggered. Each character in the game has a chance of picking this mission (and becoming the ‘giver’ of the mission), based on the conditions imposed by this file.conversation_player.csv
: The extra conversation options available to the player because of this mission.conversation_ai_response.csv
: The extra options the AI can choose from as conversation responses.opinions.csv
: The extra opinion triggers, used for reactions to the generation and completion of these missions.strings.csv
: The new strings needed for the previous CSV files.
The possibilities for you to build your own missions are expanding all the time, as I add new missions triggers and possible goals for the AI.
What’s next?
At the moment it’s possible to take on any mission from any person, which isn’t very realistic. I need to allow players to gain other character’s trust, so that they will only give you sensitive missions in certain cases. Additionally it will soon be possible to start a career with an organisation, which will give you a rank, a certain amount of built in trust, and access to more senior characters.
I’m also going to be working on the in-space AI very soon. At the moment only freelance traders fly around between planets: it’s time we had passenger ships, military guards and pirates thrown into the mix.
Have a fantastic Christmas and I’ll see you all in the new year with some more updates.
Read moreNew Sol Trader beta: the science of blame and unforgiveness
Previously I wrote about how I’m modelling opinions and prejudice in Sol Trader. It’s time to put some of that information to use.
The opinions a character has of other people, based on the partial events that they know about them, will now directly affect the things that happen in the history generation. This creates new events, which will in turn feed more character opinions.
There’s a new beta available on the forums if you have insider access.
Dudley and Meredith
In the example on the left, we can see that an acrimonious divorce of Meredith’s parents has left an indelible mark on her childhood. She now has a very low opinion of her father, Dudley.
When characters are adults, they can then generate a series of ‘favours’ (or ‘missions’) that they want completed. This is a source of work for the players, although completing certain missions does have real consequences on your relationships with the target of the mission. If they find out you’ve taken a mission against them, then they won’t be happy with you.
To continue our example, Meredith, whom we are now married to, wants us to find out some potentially incriminating information about our own father-in-law, Dudley. It’s up to us whether we take it or not. If he finds out, we’ll make an enemy of him.
As the game goes on, the player will get embroiled in these relationships between the various characters and be able to directly affect their stories. Choosing what to take on and who to ally yourself with forms a major part of Sol Trader’s gameplay.
Sarina’s spiral of doom
Another example: the sad tale of Sarina, our older half sister. I picked Dagny and Warren in history generation to be my character’s parents, knowing that Dagny was cheating on her husband Hayden, mostly to see what happened. Little did I know how much it would affect Sarina, Dagny and Hayden’s eight year old daughter. When she found out about my birth, she got very upset.
She didn’t blame me, thankfully, although she never thought much of me. However, she never really spoke to our mother again, especially since her beloved father Hayden died soon after we were born.
She left home at a young age, and became a political assistant, but she didn’t make too many friends. She was doing ok for a time, only to find out that the love of her life, Richard Ruhr, had been having an affair behind her back all along.
She divorced him, got depressed, quit her job and by the time I grew to adulthood at the start of the game, she was living in a hippie commune somewhere on Mercury, trying desperately to get some gossip on her ex-husband.
New beta out now
This new beta is now available from the forum if you have purchased insider access (if you haven’t there’s still time.) Let me know if you find any other interesting stories such as these!
Read moreModelling opinions and prejudices in Sol Trader
I’ve been working hard on the Sol Trader core gameplay mechanics in the last two weeks. High up on my list was a way of generating more interesting missions for the characters to complete.
In order to have a reason to gather dirt, find locations or desire an early end for an enemy, our characters need to feel strongly about other people they know. This is where their opinions and prejudices come in.
Characters already keep track of the events they know about for each other character in the game. Now they can form an opinion of a character based on the partial set of info they know about someone else’s past.
The plan is to use these thoughts about each other to make decisions about who they’re friends with, deal with relationship breakdown, blame and prejudice.
Here’s an example of how we configure this under the hood for an occasion where a character is caught and reported for taking bribes:
Anyone knowing about this event will think the character is less deserving of sympathy and assume the character is less moral. If we’re the one catching them take the bribes, then the briber becomes much less influential over us. If we’re the one being caught, then the one catching us is definitely no longer our friend. Depending on our profession, we will brief against them or possibly try to take them out.
Now characters have opinions about others, we can use these to guide their conversation choices, who they’re likely to target, give us gossip on, etc. It’s all game design fuel for other behaviours in the game, and will combine to form interesting unexpected effects and tell original stories each time.
Next time I’ll discuss about the new events that get created in the history generation because of these new opinions. Our stylised formulaic view of history is about to become, well, a lot more messed up. Rather like real history…
Read moreSol Trader combat preview
Since the Kickstarter was successfully funded last month, I’ve been working hard the next major feature: combat!
Here’s a short video showing progress so far. If you’re on the beta of the game, head over to the forums - you can grab a new copy of the game today and start shooting things for yourself! (There’s still time to jump on the beta if you aren’t already…)
Since the Kickstarter finished, I’ve added sound effects and explosions, and I’ve done a lot of work under the hood on the entity component system to allow the to removal of components from entities.
This was fiddly as I had to change the implementation of some of my fundamental low level data structures in order to support fast removal. It’s worth it, though. Now when a ship blows up, I simply remove the components that made it a physical thing (Spatial, PhysicalObject, Renderable, Enterable, etc) and leave the components for its logical existence (Ownable, Nameable, etc) so that characters don’t forget about it.
I’ve also added the basics of ‘bad’ events when combat takes place. When a ship is destroyed, the game kills everyone who happened to be on the ship, and adds ‘killed’ events for them, blaming the pilot of the attacking ship. These events will come back to haunt the attackers in future, as word gets around about who is responsible…
Lastly, I’ve added the first draft of the inevitable “game over” screen, with a Rogue-like throwback style :) This one is a work in progress and will get more interesting later on:
If you’re the kind of person who likes to get the up-to-the-minute news on development, and doesn’t mind lots of detail, you can see the latest development notes on our Trello board. You can even comment and vote on cards - I welcome any feedback!
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