Remembering PRESTAGS

This looks a lot like Space Empires

I am not always obsessing about John Michael Young.

Getting into my rhythm now

Another weekend, 38 hours and another victory.

In fact, although I took a few restarts to choose this game, I have not felt like I have been in any danger of losing yet, despite the fact that the AI has finished a few turns behind me each time. This tine I played on a larger planet with loads of opponents, but again they seemed happy to leave me in my empire to build and win.

I focused my affinity on harmony this time, and was disgusting pro alien, and rarely retaliated to an alien attack. A true slime hugger, as you ca see in the top left and corner with a harmony rathing of 18. I have achieved 36% of available achievements

Back to Thygs in Space now.

EDEE upgrade time

When the greatest and latest Ubuntu Linux comes out, it is not so much a case of "do I need it?", but "how fast can I install it?".

This release mostly has usability enhancements in the Unity interface and the office software Libra Office.

However, it also includes a new Ubuntu Developer Tools Center, which is awesome because I am a developer (more than I have every been in the last 25 years!) and Ubuntu loves developers!

This particuarly means that I now have an android development kit on my computer. This will be vital, because as soon as either of my dear friends actually contributes something to Thygs in Space, they will expect to see it on their phone and tablet the next day, so I will have to move fast (in about 12 years time).

Anyways, as part of the upgrade this time, I acquired a new, faster disk for Ubuntu to run on (because Steve Balmer is not for sharing my PC with anyone - he thinks it is his to do what he likes with.)

So I pop in a new disk and what is the first application I look for? OK, so that was Thunderbird email, follow by Vim, then Python  then... The fifteenth application I looked for was EDEE, so I went to the killer bee site (http://killerbeesoftware.com) to get the software only to find that the version is up to 4.012. My last upgrade had been to 4.009, and I suspect yours is too. So before I make the fateful change, I wanted to check that you guys are ready to upgrade:

Oh, and if anyone else has a super cool laptop that just needs to run Utopic Unicorn, let me know!

Thygs in Space - Research

Here are my thoughts for research in Thygs in space.

Basically green are complete techs, blue can be researched and red has missing requirements . You can tap a tech to see a short blurb and what it permits. If you are researching, you can see a progress bar. You can set your investment for the next turn. Any ideas for actual techs in the game?

I've been bad

...and I can't blame it on the Jesuits this time!

According to steam that was a 12 hour effort today. It fels like longer. I have not been a good parent!

Some what did I find:

1. Trade is a lot of fun
2. More technoogy than you can reasearch - you have too choose
3. Very hard to find the next texh you need - the layout is confusing. So I made a lot of mistakes.
4. Totally ignored military (Paul woulds have found me digustingly peaceful). I did have to take a city and two outposts as I was being pressed, but most of the game I maintained a successful Maniot line.
5. Largely ignored the aliens and they largely ignored me. Perhaps I made some inadvertant good choices early in the game
6. Victory was tricky as you do not know if you can complete. My first shot a victory stalled when I had the wrong affinity. I should have read the Civilpedia.
7. Units were a bit boring, but I'm sure if I researched them more, I would have got more.
8. Lots of weird alien resources. Quite fun. You can see them all at the start, but can't use them until you research suitable tech.

Overall, a fun, indulgent Saturday, I'm waiting to hear Paul's impressions.

Back to Thygs in Space now to create its research tree.

Hexes that move in space

There are now hexes in space and they move. Well, to be precise, it is the observer who moves, but from an Einstein view, no difference. So you can now drag the map around to check where Paul's next invasion is coming from. Click the image to see it move!

Please check it out at http://redwaratah.com/tis. Move the mouse to the middle of a hex, press down the mouse button and wiggle. No! Wiggle the mouse!

What is next?

Some research goals. I would love some help with this!!!!!

Thygs in Space - how to navigate between panels

I have a bit more progress. You can now switch between the panels. At present, I only have panels for Map, Research and Production, but you could have it for Battle, Chat, Statistics etc.

I'm struggling to get the page to fit on my mobile. Soetimes it works and sometime it is odd. What gets me this that there is no clear way of doing it on the internet - at least not for a purely graphical method. However, I should be able to refine that as I learn more.

When you click on an open menu button, the menu pops open with a title bar. The title bar has a green arrow for switching between modes. This actually changes the who screen, but right now there is nothing on the whole screen, so it is less than impressive

Please give it a test http://redwaratah.com/tis

What's next

I'm going to draw some hexes and some stars.

Back to Thygs in Space - at last

Turn done, tax done, invoicing done and family asleep. Back to Thygs in Space...

How to get more in less

My first attempt at Thygs in Space was to have tabs to open different screens. Paul pointed out that this might not work on a mobile phone, and alas he was right. It is display, but it was bloody hard to press the tabs reliably, and they did take up almost 10% of the screen.

Here is a different tact. There is a finger sized tab on the right hand side. When you tap/click it, it pops open with controls. (The text is just filler to make sure that the stuff on the panel stays there when it opens and closes.)

Tap it again and it goes away.

This should allow us to play on the screen and only see the controls when we want them.

Test please

Point your mobile phone to http://redwaratah.com/tis and let me know if it works for you.

Next Week

I'll stick some icons on the tab next week.

Then Python created tabs

And Paul looked at them and said, "They seem to work but are not very exciting."

So Python demonstrated that they worked well on a tablet, and Paul said "That is good, although it seems to be upside down!":

Check it out on http://thygsinspace.redwaratah.com

 

Genesis

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Let the annals record that Peter, Paul and Python's great opus began on Saturday, 16 August 2014 under the auspices of Putin and Red Lettuce

First thoughts

Here are my first thoughts

• Designed to sit on a tablet
• Tabs at the bottom for different views.
• This is the board view
• Current stack is highlighted.
• You can select with a tap and move with a drag from here
• Scroll with a flick, or on a PC, right button drag

Space App Category

I have created a new category called "Space App". If we mark all of the Thygs in Space ideas, graphics, questions etc with this category it will make it easier for the Python to check them.

Thygs in Space

The boys have decided that the universe lacks a hex based wargame based in the future with star systems, ships, queer technologies, combat and gaming pleasure. Here is a business plan to make it possible.

Title

Working title is "Thygs in Space" until we come up with something better.

Goals

1. Hex based game, to capture the romance of board gaming
2. Tablet (Android/iPad based) platform to capture the busy user, although there will also be a web based version as two of the designers do not have ready access to a table.
3. Try to make a bit of money, or at least make our boys weekend tax deductable

First Steps

The game is going to require rules, "counters", maps, annd, because it is on computer, a user interface. Basically, it needs everything.

The user interface will not be too hard to start with. I suspect I can quickly tweak the Moderni Agone interface to give is a game with counters and maps. I have some ideas for simple rules. so that that will be enough to give us a start. I am expecting regular suggestions and test reports from Peter and Paul to keep this part of the ball rolling.

To help me with this stage, I could use help from our children with:

• Ship and star artwork. Anything Sci Fi will do
• Names for stars, planets, ships, races, technical stuff
• Technologies that might be important in the future
• Bad stuff that you might find in space (like space time tsunami), and bad social disorder (like zombie apocalyse)

Stage Two

Maybe around Christmas time we will look at what we have and decide if it is worth pursuing. If so, we will look at:

• Crowd funding
• Incorporating
• Outsource coding and graphics to Freelancer
• Purchasing tablets each to properly test it

Stage Three

Hard to see, the future is. Hidden by the dark side. Hrrem