TL;DR
- Manifesto of the game world
- Large-scale battle simulation
A Manifesto of the Future Game World
I spent a lot of time discussing different ideas with friends, trying to understand what might resonate with them, what could spark interest. Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be not very effective. Everyone has their own temperament, their own expectations from games, different preferences. In the end, those discussions didn’t bring much clarity.
But a few ideas did emerge — ideas that resonated with me, that gave me a sense of anticipation. And that turned out to be the most important thing. What matters most is that I feel excited when I imagine what this project could become in the future.
It was important for me to formulate something like a manifesto — a clear statement of how I see this game evolving, what ideas inspire me, and why. And, of course, to find like-minded people who feel the same way.
So here is the current manifesto.
Manifesto of the Game World
This game is being created as a long-living universe that exists independently of whether a player is logged in right now or not.
This is not a game for everyone — and that is a conscious choice. It is for those who enjoy thinking, designing, planning, and watching how their decisions slowly reshape the world over time.
Persistence as a Foundation
One world forever: persistence without compromise.
Unlike games built around seasons and multiple servers, this is a single server with a single persistent world. It ticks 24/7 and evolves on its own: economies fluctuate, alliances collapse, new legends are born. There is no “reset”. Your actions become part of history.One world. One server. One story. The economy is never wiped. Political conflicts do not disappear. Losses remain losses, and achievements are the result of long-term decisions. This world does not restart — it continues.
Automation Instead of Grind
The fun here is not in clicking mine or attack a thousand times, but in building a system that works on its own — the way you believe is most efficient. Automation is not a side feature; it is one of the core player skills.
The enjoyment comes from engineering. You create or buy scripts that let your ships mine, trade, build, and fight autonomously — even while you’re offline. Competition is not about who grinds longer, but whose algorithms are smarter.
A Fleet, Not a Single Ship
The player is not a lone pilot, but a fleet commander. You assemble fleets for specific tasks, decide which ships and roles are needed, define behavior, priorities, and action scenarios. You decide what your fleet is doing right now.
At the same time, manual control remains important. In critical situations, direct control can be faster, more precise, and more effective. Focusing personally on a specific ship provides tangible bonuses and can turn the tide where automation would fail.
A Living NPC World and Independent Corporations
The galaxy breathes on its own. NPC corporations mine, produce, trade, and wage wars — with or without you. Each has its own strategic goals, real economy, and fleets. They extract resources, manufacture ships and equipment, lose them in battles, invest in infrastructure, expand — or collapse.
Players are not the center of the universe, but extremely valuable assets. Corporations benefit from hiring players because players are more flexible and far more effective. Players benefit from corporations because they gain access to resources, technologies, protection, and influence.
Player Progression
Progression exists on several independent layers.
- Personal skills. Character skills are permanent. Once acquired, they stay with you forever.
- Material growth and empire building. Ships, fleets, infrastructure, stations, logistics, supply chains. None of this is permanent. Ships can be lost. Infrastructure can be destroyed. Empires can fall into chaos. That risk is exactly what gives these achievements meaning — and it’s also what leaves visible marks on the shared world.
- Mastery of automation. A separate progression layer. Players build their own libraries of ship behavior scripts, fleet logic, and automated action chains. They refine and adapt them for different situations. This progress is permanent — although scripts can become outdated, metas can shift, and old solutions may need to be rethought.
- Social progression. Building strong communities through organizations and alliances. Political decisions that affect the universe. PvP ranks, tournaments, reputation. A player’s social weight can become just as valuable a resource as ships or money.
Risk and Loss
Ships can be lost in battle. Combat follows a full-loot PvP principle — the winner gets what the loser failed to protect.
But risk here is not a punishment and not a goal in itself. It exists so that victories have weight, defeats leave scars, and decisions are made consciously.
Losing a fleet is not “the end of progression” — it is part of the player’s story. True triumph is only possible where there was a real chance to lose everything. Defeats become a source of new ideas, strategic rethinking, and more sophisticated solutions in the future. Risk is the price of freedom. It is what makes victories real — and the world alive.
Fair Complexity
If a system works, the player can understand why.
Minimal hidden magic. Clear dependencies.The ability to analyze, optimize, and improve decisions — for those who want to understand, not guess.
A Large-Scale Battle
For a long time, I had one question in mind: how would the entire system behave under heavy load? How would the server handle it? And how would the client render all of this?
So I decided to run a simulation of a large battle: two fleets colliding and engaging each other. I wrote a separate combat behavior template for each ship. This template is applied individually, meaning every ship has its own script and its own dedicated process running it (a bit of backend magic here).
The result: two fleets of 100 ships each. They approach each other, collide, bump, attack, calculate movement trajectories, and select targets. I also added two observers (players) watching the battle, because I was interested in synchronization and data relevance across different clients.
And this is what I got.
Personally, I think it turned out pretty cool :)
From the outside it might look chaotic — triangles, beams, explosions, unclear visuals. But I’m genuinely happy that the system behaved exactly as it was designed to, without issues. And all of this runs on my laptop, which is far from new.
I already see several potential optimization points, so as a starting point this feels great — with plenty of room for growth, complexity, and scaling.