Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Development => Programming => Topic started by: UltimaRatioRegum on June 11, 2012, 02:58:19 PM
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Hi all! Now that it's approaching a first 0.0.1 release, I thought I'd post a proper thread about my current project:
Ultima Ratio Regum is the early stages of a `strategy roguelike`. It aims to eventually be a fusion of the two genres - rather than a strategy game where you command with omniscience (even in ancient eras), you instead command as an individual character also in the game. Orders must be issued in person; you can lose contact with distant armies; but the same mechanics affect the AI players who also lack omniscience and depend upon the knowledge of situations they themselves can garner. Worlds can be generated over a vast array of sizes, climates and types, with or without mythological elements, from several different eras (and technological levels), but all ultimately with no fixed objective but a world full of civilizations and factions to be allied with or battled against. It aims for depth in character development and world events, but with much in the 'middle' - constructing buildings, city growth, resource management - abstracted out (as other games exist which handle those well).
After a year of development, URR has been released in alpha version: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/06/11/downloads (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/06/11/downloads)
Here's a world map:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Smallmap.png)
Full size @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/02/Map.png (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/02/Map.png)
In-game screenshot, fighting a stunned Cyclops and then 'Look'ing at yourself:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/New21.png)
If you're interested, you can check my weekly-updated devblog at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/), follow my Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/#!/UltimaRegum (https://twitter.com/#!/UltimaRegum), or Like the FB page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ultima-Ratio-Regum/219012228145728 (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ultima-Ratio-Regum/219012228145728).
I'd love to answer any questions, comments, or what have you! As I said above, I'm aiming for 0.0.1 release on the 30th of June which is primarily a demo of the world generation, mechanics like walking, swimming, climbing, jumping etc, and a little bit of combat.
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Looks interesting and over-ambitious. I really hope you have the long-term determination to see this through :) I've been following on Twitter curious as to how this will pan out.
A few quick interface points:
- Left-adjust the combat log text. Hard to read at the mo.
- Colour theme the log text so it's easy to see what's going well or bad. "You miss" should be red, "you hit" green etc. Don't use too many colours, and keep consistent. Problem is the log is repetitive at the moment and it's easy to miss important details. I don't care what type of club he's wielding, I only care if he breaks my arm off.
- Group injuries together on the status window, and don't bother saying if something is uninjured.
- Have a little rethink on the display of grass in that second screenshot. At the moment it's messy, and it's hard to pick out the important details. Too much colour is the biggest problem. Stick to a small palette of similar colours, or preferably one constant colour. Also I'd suggest . instead of : for the symbol to make it cleaner.
For future development I would suggest focussing on the combat and in particular getting multi-unit combat fun and interesting. The rest of the game should surround this, as this is the unique point of the game that will hopefully stand out as the fun element. Also, it's probably more fun to code. Jumping and climbing are far less interesting. You won't get anyone to play your game if it's an epic jumping simulator with a side of combat ;)
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Looks interesting and over-ambitious. I really hope you have the long-term determination to see this through :) I've been following on Twitter curious as to how this will pan out.
A few quick interface points:
- Left-adjust the combat log text. Hard to read at the mo.
- Colour theme the log text so it's easy to see what's going well or bad. "You miss" should be red, "you hit" green etc. Don't use too many colours, and keep consistent. Problem is the log is repetitive at the moment and it's easy to miss important details. I don't care what type of club he's wielding, I only care if he breaks my arm off.
- Group injuries together on the status window, and don't bother saying if something is uninjured.
- Have a little rethink on the display of grass in that second screenshot. At the moment it's messy, and it's hard to pick out the important details. Too much colour is the biggest problem. Stick to a small palette of similar colours, or preferably one constant colour. Also I'd suggest . instead of : for the symbol to make it cleaner.
For future development I would suggest focussing on the combat and in particular getting multi-unit combat fun and interesting. The rest of the game should surround this, as this is the unique point of the game that will hopefully stand out as the fun element. Also, it's probably more fun to code. Jumping and climbing are far less interesting. You won't get anyone to play your game if it's an epic jumping simulator with a side of combat ;)
Thanks for the feedback :). To take your points in order:
- Yes, it's hugely ambitious; I've been going about a year and a bit so far, and I don't anticipate completion even remotely soon, but I'm ok with that.
- I have tried left-adjusting the log, and I find it trickier to read. I might just put in an option for it to be centred/left adjusted the player can change. EDIT: having just tried it again quickly, I'm less opposed. I might make left default after all :).
- That screenshot was a tad out of date: the colour-coding is actually very consistent, though that doesn't show it. Red is critically bad, orange is bad, yellow is neutral, light green is good, green is very good, light grey is general, and activities relating to weapons display in the appropriate colour for their status (legendary, famed, whatever). The "you cannot wield that" messages are now yellow (and only showed up so often because I was trying lots of combinations!). Red is only for attacks that do serious damage to you, so they are rare and highly noticeable. Well, rare if you aren't being mauled, anyway :).
- The combat log has also been reduced, and in 0.0.2, I intend to chop it down further to two messages per attack. As well as color-coding, they have >> for messages to do with weapons, or [ for armor, and similar other codes. The issue is that there is a lot of information to impart - being blocked, stopped by armor, damage to armor, damage to flesh, bone, etc, and that's tough to cram into a single line, but I think 2 is feasible.
- What do you mean by group? In a large battle, only messages involving you or those (friend or foe) in square adjacent to you will get messages, otherwise there would simply be far too many...
- The grass has been changed a little, but the 'Tundra' ground colours still maintain the most variation. Currently, tundra looks like this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Tundra2.png)
which I think is acceptable. With that said, a few people have requested a 'simpler' version of the ground, so I may implement that later.
I fully take your point about movement, but combat cannot be fully created until you, and the AI, can exploit the full range of movements. I don't want to fully program AI and then add climbing or swimming and have to go back and add it to every AI. That's the reason I'm focusing on UI and world generation at the moment in order to lay the ground work for the future. As the development plan on my site says, a lot of 0.0.2 goals are other general mechanics that apply to all creatures (like food, encumbrance, etc) since I don't want to produce combat in detail until everything of that sort is in. With that said, you can still fight a few creatures in 0.0.1/2, but those are going to be very few and very basic until all the factors that affect creatures have been programmed!
Your comments have encouraged me to take a new screenshot, which I've stuck above instead of the old two! So, yellow denotes the act of attacking in combat, and then subsequent messages give detail. I do intend to reduce it down to just one or two messages for every attack, regardless of how (un)successful it is, but messages with that kind of 'component' structure are something I'm going to work on for 0.0.2.
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Latest: despite the recommendation, a lot this week has focused on mechanics like swimming, moving with damaged or broken legs, damaged or broken arms, climbing, dragging yourself along, sneaking... anyway, more in the devblog at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/06/18/pre-alpha-update/. I'd be interested to hear what people think about the mechanics listed in the entry re: damaged limbs and the ways they affect your speed.
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Oh sweet I was wondering if this one was going anywhere. Good to see.
Left justify might make it more readable, have to agree with Darren there.
I love these over ambitious monsters. Lol!
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Oh sweet I was wondering if this one was going anywhere. Good to see.
Left justify might make it more readable, have to agree with Darren there.
I love these over ambitious monsters. Lol!
Thanks :) - yeah, I agree, I've left justified it now!
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Well, hopefully just a week until 0.0.1! In the mean time, I've stuck up some examples of the many, many kinds of worlds you can generate in the game @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/07/03/cartography/ , for instance, the 'ice age' pangaea below:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/07/Pangaea-Ice-1024x1024.png)
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It's just been released! Yikes. See more info @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/07/09/alpha-0-1-0/
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It's just been released! Yikes. See more info @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/07/09/alpha-0-1-0/
Congrats on the Alpha release!
The vast array of skills available is pretty overwhelming. I was happy to see some presets to choose from, but I would very much like to see either ADOM style or Ogre Battle character generation-- general questions about moral situations and stuff like that to generate our character. It may also be better if the skills are combined into sets-- would also be interesting if some skills aren't explicitly known to the player, but that's not remotely necessary either way.
I agree with some of the previous posts that the landscape can be a bit jarring, but it's obvious enough where trees and cliffs are. I did not, however, notice a Cyclops that blended very nicely into the terrain.
I assume the health/stats portion of the gui isn't up because we're invincible for now, correct? I love where the combat is going- only being able to hit the legs of the cyclops was pretty interesting. Will there be a variety of attack types and a combat economy revolving around stamina and stuff of that sort?
Lastly- I hit a crash shortly after running defeating the cyclops. I'm not sure what the cause was, but it happened when making a few moves after probing the full functionality of the current GUI.
Love the work put into it man- good job.
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Congrats on the Alpha release!
The vast array of skills available is pretty overwhelming. I was happy to see some presets to choose from, but I would very much like to see either ADOM style or Ogre Battle character generation-- general questions about moral situations and stuff like that to generate our character. It may also be better if the skills are combined into sets-- would also be interesting if some skills aren't explicitly known to the player, but that's not remotely necessary either way.
I agree with some of the previous posts that the landscape can be a bit jarring, but it's obvious enough where trees and cliffs are. I did not, however, notice a Cyclops that blended very nicely into the terrain.
I assume the health/stats portion of the gui isn't up because we're invincible for now, correct? I love where the combat is going- only being able to hit the legs of the cyclops was pretty interesting. Will there be a variety of attack types and a combat economy revolving around stamina and stuff of that sort?
Lastly- I hit a crash shortly after running defeating the cyclops. I'm not sure what the cause was, but it happened when making a few moves after probing the full functionality of the current GUI.
Love the work put into it man- good job.
Firstly, thanks a lot for the positive feedback and comments! Specifics:
Skills are going to be changing significantly for 0.2.0, into a skill tree, effectively, and not all will be explicit or visible or similar from the start. It will make the origin of skills, damage etc much more explicit, and will also be more interesting, and have lots of if/or choices.
Yeah, creatures blending in and being hidden is a problem I need to think about a solution to. I'm considering simply inverting creatures and items, so they show up as a colored background and black foreground. Trying it out at the moment and seeing how it looks.
Ah, no, you're not invincible - use 'l' to Look, and then examine yourself. However, body parts and so on are going to change along with combat and skills for 0.2.0, so that's still in flux.
Do you have the log for the crash? :)
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Depends on where the log dumps to-- there is a data file for the character I was playing (it's filled with gobbledygook), but otherwise I don't see a log file.
EDIT:
I ran it again and got another crash. No log file but I did get a runtime error.
src/console_c.c
Line 220
dat != ((void *)0) && (unsigned)(x) < (unsigned)dat-> w && (unsigned)(y) < (unsigned) dat->h
Occurred the first couple moves after walking in a newly loaded area. It occurs regularly.
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Depends on where the log dumps to-- there is a data file for the character I was playing (it's filled with gobbledygook), but otherwise I don't see a log file.
EDIT:
I ran it again and got another crash. No log file but I did get a runtime error.
src/console_c.c
Line 220
dat != ((void *)0) && (unsigned)(x) < (unsigned)dat-> w && (unsigned)(y) < (unsigned) dat->h
Occurred the first couple moves after walking in a newly loaded area. It occurs regularly.
Yep, I know about this one, and it'll be fixed for 0.1.3 on Monday :)
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Just posted a big entry on ideas and theory and concepts for the development of URR. Lots of ideas. I want to know your ideas about my ideas!
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/08/06/brainstorming/
ALSO, A TEASER IMAGE.
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All 5 options seems to have a solid enough foundation to tinker with----definitely stay away from the Slider hell/Spreadsheet syndrome that the 4X games can do without, perhaps look more into Grand Strategy games both western and eastern in origin?
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All 5 options seems to have a solid enough foundation to tinker with----definitely stay away from the Slider hell/Spreadsheet syndrome that the 4X games can do without, perhaps look more into Grand Strategy games both western and eastern in origin?
Interesting; what kind of games do you have in mind?
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I once had a site that tried to roughly catalog these as such....essentially SRPGS with various deeper trappings.....but for the life of me I can't find it in my bookmarks anymore.
Off the top, there HAS to be good general ides to lift from Romance of the 3 Kingdoms series, the Generation of Chaos series on the whole, or at least Spectral Souls: Resurrection of the Ethereal Empire also listed on the page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_of_Chaos In a sense it is only fitting that a "grandly" scoped game would seek out nifty bits the world of games and such over, as opposed to a singular sphere as it usually the case.
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Interesting - I'll give them a look. I'm definitely interested in including little interesting things that aren't necessarily mainstream roguelike (like all the civilization/policy choices) but that would fit nicely into the game. Similarly, I'm going to find some kind of middle ground between total open-world and specific generated areas, but I'm not quite sure about the balance yet...
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Well, of course there's Dominions III and Conquest of Elysium II, though with the former I'd imagine that's where you got the "Ages" mechanic from as that was one of the core things they did.
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Well, of course there's Dominions III and Conquest of Elysium II, though with the former I'd imagine that's where you got the "Ages" mechanic from as that was one of the core things they did.
To my embarrassment, I've never played either! How did they do Ages? Wasn't where I got it from, anyway - I just felt there were mechanics that would be fun to explore that didn't all fit in the same era, and thus the solution was multiple eras.
In the mean time: skill trees!
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/08/20/skill-trees-part-i/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/08/SwordTree.png)
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Ages in Dominions III is complicated and all-encompassing---really you'll just have to dig into some wikis and/or get the game to fully see how it goes. Types of Magic, Pantheon at play, Civilization styles, Nations, Conventions of Warfare, etc---it is a hallmark of the game. Also, my memory sucks, it was Elysium III, the new one.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/DOM3/DOM3_page.html
On topic: Nifty doings on the skill trees----versatility is key on those as opposed to railroading. Most games force a start at a certain place as opposed to letting you get to it in whatever increasing order you choose and it just sucks a lot of the variety out.
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Ages in Dominions III is complicated and all-encompassing---really you'll just have to dig into some wikis and/or get the game to fully see how it goes. Types of Magic, Pantheon at play, Civilization styles, Nations, Conventions of Warfare, etc---it is a hallmark of the game. Also, my memory sucks, it was Elysium III, the new one.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/DOM3/DOM3_page.html
On topic: Nifty doings on the skill trees----versatility is key on those as opposed to railroading. Most games force a start at a certain place as opposed to letting you get to it in whatever increasing order you choose and it just sucks a lot of the variety out.
I am entirely rushed off my feet at the moment, but once I get a spare day I'm going to do some serious research into these games, as well as a far others other people have suggested; it all sounds very interesting. On skill trees, I totally agree; in URR you have to start at the centre of each skill tree, but nothing else is determined apart from that. Similarly, the cost of skills only goes up per tree, not as a whole, so at any point you can start a new skill tree and get moving on it - I wanted to avoid games where gaining skills really slows down towards the end, and your ability to change your style of play lessens. There WILL be a limit on how many trees can be active at a given time, though, but I think I will allow you to disable/enable trees and thereby switch around which ones you have active, as that strikes me as an interesting mechanics that wouldn't limit the player's style changing through-out a game. There are 12 trees per era; at a rough guess, you might be able to have six active at any one time, with a turn-timer delay from the last time you changed them (say, you can switch one tree to another every 500 turns, or whatever).
MEANWHILE, a new blog entry! With lots of words, and no pictures. The next entry, however, will have lots of pictures and few words. Such is life. http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/04/pretentious-gaming-talk-i/
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Four skill trees! There have been some changes to some of the trees - I think each of the four directions now offer interesting decisions in themselves, though I am still undecided about how special attack requirements work out. I'm really happy with how they now look, and feedback would be awesome:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/09/MSkills-I2.png)
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/18/medieval-skill-trees-13/
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Hmm, seems solid, though somehow I was half expecting something, er, Gource-ish perhaps in terms of literally shaping a personal tree of sorts:
http://code.google.com/p/gource/
Diagonals/cross supplemental doings might well also make sense, but I guess the whole of it will gel moreso once all the given skills for an age can be viewed on the whole from a step back.
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Hmm, seems solid, though somehow I was half expecting something, er, Gource-ish perhaps in terms of literally shaping a personal tree of sorts:
http://code.google.com/p/gource/
Diagonals/cross supplemental doings might well also make sense, but I guess the whole of it will gel moreso once all the given skills for an age can be viewed on the whole from a step back.
It's interesting that you link to something like that. The Sphere Grids from final fantasy - e.g. http://uk.faqs.ign.com/articles/387/387769p1.html - were an inspiration, and what you linked to looks very similar. The thing is, whilst I want an interesting skill system I don't want it to be the focus, and since there's no magic, AND since all the skills are 'realistic' ones - by which I mean, you can improve the quality of your armor, but there are no Skyrim-esque skills to make your armor somehow lighter - I decided against something of quite that size. I mean, the trees I've got now have a huge number of skills in them - I've just uploaded this week's blog entry with another 4 at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/24/medieval-skill-trees-23/ - and I think the combination is easily starting to reach that size. Especially as there are three eras, too! I think you're totally right though, they'll need to be viewed as a group, something which should be doable next week.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/09/MSkills-II.png)
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Good stuff.
Hmm, given the setting, perhaps the "ultimate orientation" could be fashioned not so much in the spirit of a "tree" or web but rather as something of a coat of arms/crest? Doubly so if there ends up being any descendents or continuity running through the ages per se.
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Good stuff.
Hmm, given the setting, perhaps the "ultimate orientation" could be fashioned not so much in the spirit of a "tree" or web but rather as something of a coat of arms/crest? Doubly so if there ends up being any descendents or continuity running through the ages per se.
That... is a neat idea. I had actually been intending to have the game generate crests/coats of arms/similar, but I hadn't concerned 'family continuity' as it were. Hmm. I shall have to ponder that one...
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Thinking further on the ages: Will you eventually aspire to eschew the traditional flat implementation of such by also allowing for the pivotal timeframes "between" eras where the rise and fall can actually be experience and influenced as opposed to just being a postscript taken for granted as a matter of due course?
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Thinking further on the ages: Will you eventually aspire to eschew the traditional flat implementation of such by also allowing for the pivotal timeframes "between" eras where the rise and fall can actually be experience and influenced as opposed to just being a postscript taken for granted as a matter of due course?
Actually (and I recognize this is only a few days after the past post) I'm not sure how long the eras concept is going to survive for - I'm really rethinking it in favour of one era between what was planned to be era I and era II. The reasons for this yet-another-change will be in the blog entry in a week or so, but it's looking pretty definite I'm going to change to a single era. There's a whole bunch of reasons, both pragmatic and gameplay-related, but the three eras are long gone. However, the era we have will now just have EVERY feature I've dreamed up, rather than merely a third. Success! The era is broadly medieval, but just a little bit later. Again, details to come. All the existing skill trees and stuff will say the same, but with a couple of small extras...
Although ( to answer your question) I might let you influence historical events in worldgen one day, but I don't think it's likely. I want the player to be surprised by the variety in the generations.
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Heh, whatever works----with each release for a good while to come I reckon there will be various things that don't stick or gel and get dusted off for the better ideas to have a spot. ;)
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Heh, whatever works----with each release for a good while to come I reckon there will be various things that don't stick or gel and get dusted off for the better ideas to have a spot. ;)
I would be lying if I didn't think that was incredibly likely!
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The above, in rather more detail:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/08/game-settings-and-reflexivity/
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A good surface setting---still allows for the unusual and extraordinary to be present, but in a more "realistic" context a ways down the line. Not to say a magic system and the like as you've ruled that out at this junction and so on, but moreso the unexpected and the unexplained that could spiral out of control into questionable territory---or resolve logically to be mundane.
Things like, in a Roguelike world context, in but one example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island
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Spooky that you mention Oak Island; I was looking at it only a few weeks ago. I'd really like to have 'mysteries' like that generated, and I think it's an era that, as you say, would lend itself really well to it! Some of the mysteries would indeed contain treasure or interesting things, some would contain nothing, and some might be left partly unexplained...
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Yep, similarly I'd recommend esoteric minorities/cultures within the mix to add to it comparably on the social and governance side as opposed to just geographic things.
One good example that even I only semi-recently even came to lightly hear about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze
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Yep, similarly I'd recommend esoteric minorities/cultures within the mix to add to it comparably on the social and governance side as opposed to just geographic things.
One good example that even I only semi-recently even came to lightly hear about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze
Agreed (and interesting example) - I'd definitely like to have cultures that are nomadic, or move around often, or are found in a huge diaspora across the globe, or similar. This ties into something else, I think - I had actually been struggling for a while with the question of generating a world map the player can see before they choose a civ, but that then means they can see the whole world, and will know every civ there is! Whilst obviously history generation hasn't started yet, when it does, I intend to change things a little so that parts of the world are "unknown" and have "unknown" civilizations in them (e.g. Aztecs/Mayans/Inca from the perspective of Europe). You can only see the "known" parts of the world when the game starts, thereby giving lots of gameplay for those who want to explore etc.
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Solid plan.
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Excellent :).
Meanwhile, more skills, and - I think - a much needed "key" system to give you a bit of info about the skill you're looking at:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/15/medieval-skill-trees-3/
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How are you going to balance combat and non combat abilities? I noticed you have climbing as an available skill, does climbing improve your chances to succeed or improve your rate of success? What are the penalties for failing a climb-check?
I like the idea of a fast-climber being able to skirmish enemies in an effective manner, but for that to work a lot of care has to be put into how every skill interacts with each other. Otherwise you end up with a lot of junk skills that it takes the player a LOT of playing to evaluate their usefulness.
I suspect you're opposed to players having bad character development choices (though in any skill-tree system they will emerge in unexpected ways)- what sort of thoughts do you have to making such a large variety of skills useful?
Great stuff so far.
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How are you going to balance combat and non combat abilities? I noticed you have climbing as an available skill, does climbing improve your chances to succeed or improve your rate of success? What are the penalties for failing a climb-check?
I like the idea of a fast-climber being able to skirmish enemies in an effective manner, but for that to work a lot of care has to be put into how every skill interacts with each other. Otherwise you end up with a lot of junk skills that it takes the player a LOT of playing to evaluate their usefulness.
I suspect you're opposed to players having bad character development choices (though in any skill-tree system they will emerge in unexpected ways)- what sort of thoughts do you have to making such a large variety of skills useful?
Great stuff so far.
Balancing will come about as I implement both the specifics of combat, and the specifics of everything else. Non-combat abilities will gain you exp from trades, deals, "achievements" (like mastering a language), diplomacy, discoveries, and other things (for instance, you might gain experience for each floor of an ancient ruin explored). These will be balanced against combat in terms of how easily the player can level up as that class, though naturally each class' specialty will make it much more suited to leveling in a particular way.
Currently, each step you climb has a chance of failure; the climbing skill reduces that. The longer you climb for without a break also increases your chance of failure each time, but only very slightly. If you fail, you fall! I may add a little meter which gives you the chance of success with each subsequent step, AND - in the future - I'd like to expand that you having different kinds of terrain having different success/fail chances, as well as different moves (so maybe climbing up is easier/harder than down?) and making it a more informed choice..
Agreed re: useless skills; that's actually a slight concern about the armor tree. I might end up replacing it with something else more interesting. It's proving difficult to come up with *interesting* skills for it. Anyway, I am content to ruthlessly prune any useless skills in the future.
I suppose - though it is hard to know how to quantify and implement this - that I would like a lot of the skills to not function on their own, but to potentially function in tandem with a large number of potential other skills. For example, a Navigation skill boosts ship-to-ship combat (i.e. in person, not via guns) and a Leadership skill boosts hand-to-hand combat (and a Leadership Trait boosts sword damage), so if you took those and then equipped the crew of your ship with swords, they'd be especially effective!
Lastly, thanks a lot :). It's great to know people think so.