NOMAD FLEET 2
Contents
- Intro
- Overview
- Unique Selling Points
- Feature Summary
- Unique Feature Details
- Procedurally Generated Worlds
- Alien Species
- Fleet Constructor
- Ships and People
- Circle plot
- Moddability
- SWOT Analysis
- Monetization
- Price
- DLC's
- Similar Games
- Publishing Deal
- Development Plan
- Team/Staffing Plan
Intro
"Nomad Fleet" was created by Jorge "One Man Indie Army" Pacheco a.k.a. Autarca.
It had an interesting idea of combining Homeworld & FTL, but as it was Autarca's one of the first games, his solitude and inexperience has created the somewhat finished game but with flaws, especially, compared to the small list of already created more mature games.
It was interesting for me to think about what could be done on a base of original game concept that has a great potential and to think out the continuation or something new.
Overview
Nomad Fleet 2 - is a mid-core single-player 3D-space-RTS, in which the player will save his species members and search a new home for them in a galaxy. On a way home player will have to fight, negotiate, retreat, gather, research and search for the answers what has happened to his home system and is it possible to undone it…
Unique Selling Points
For unknown reasons, your species are on an edge of extinction. By the will of fate, the ship under your command can save and unite the survivors.
Among the vast, procedurally generated space your fleet will gather resources, build up and upgrade, because the space is a beautiful but dangerous place. There you can find enemies, who would not care for your sorrow, but, as well, friends, who will help you, sometimes not for free.
In the end, you might find the reasons of the disaster, and even to prevent it?..
Your success would be of only your merit.
Feature Summary
- Procedurally generated worlds;
- High replayability;
- Resource gathering, construction and research;
- Alien species contact: fight, retreat, trade and negotiate;
- Different research set depending on what you’ve conquered or traded;
- Fleet constructor, to create that best of your available technologies;
- Fleet management: ships and people;
- Pilot experience;
- The full-scale variable plot with random quests;
- Random events;
- Several endings;
- Achievements;
- Moddability;
Unique Feature Details
Procedurally Generated Worlds
The Cosmos should be beautiful and endlessly variable.
All this beauty the game would show with the help of the procedural world generation: both from the scale of the initial galaxy map and the specific location of the player meeting with some events, be it the random encounter, found resources or a quest invitation.
The background should change depending on the player position, whether he is in the centre of the galaxy or on the outer rim of it: the star sky should be changing accordingly.
Alien Species
The Cosmos is a quite empty space, and some aliens would brighten up the player’s leisure time. There will be the possibility to fight, trade, make friends, get a quest or simply go away from them.
Aliens will have their own life simulation, where they are contacting other aliens, having dynamic relationships, depending on species configuration, and it will affect player as well - with whom to fight, with whom to friend.
Each species will have their own technology pool, getting access to which player will get new possibilities, including the hybridisation of tech trees.
Fleet Constructor
New technologies will open access to the upgrades of engines, weapons, armor, chassis and other more specialized systems.
So that a new design for a new technology is not created every time, and to have more flexibility creating hybrids from initially unnative tech, the player will have a fleet constructor, similar to something we can find in 4X-strategies.
There will be possibility not only to improve models, but as well to create new formations, in case of player would like to build ships not one-by-one, but to order expensive but effective hip.
Ships and People
The player controls the survivor’s fleet, and he cannot lose people. Number of pilots are limited and new ones are taught slowly.
But crews can gain experience, improving effectiveness and survivability of ships, thus forcing the player to act carefully without losses not to lose precious personnel.
Every pilot will have his own generated name and something of a biography, where his achievements will marked along the battles he has participated, so that the player is emotionally connected to the subordinates.
But no always the death of the ship is the death of the crew: if the rescue capsules are not destroyed and captured, then the veterans will participate the battles further. And the mark about the salvage will be left in the biography.
For different ships there will be need of pilots, engineers and scientists. More complicated ship, more specialists of different profile are required. It will naturally stimulate fleet diversity.
Circle plot
Even with a lot of generated in-game content, including most simple quests, there will be a plot, that will be reveiled completely only through several play-throughs. There will be several ending in the game, including pseudo-endings.
Similarly to Reigns, after some time of playing the player should start noticing patterns, so to come out to the metagame with their long-term tasks. Like in Final Station, characters will tell only their part of the common history, collected as a puzzle.
By design, the player after finding the appropriate planet or spacebase should find the quest of researching the time machine. If it will be done, then the timejump will create conditions for the disaster, making the timeloop. And the player will need to find out how to prevent the disaster and if it’s worth to do something…
Moddability
Nowadays this parameter is forgotten, due to various reasons. For example, it might be a bad application architecture, leading to no modding possibilities, and after writing these lines I become somewhat nervous about BBI's Homeworld3 fate as Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was totally unmoddable, even additional race were something of reskins… But of course, usually, the second installment of a series is more advanced in this matter, as the team is more experienced, and the homework is done - like it was in case of Homeworld1 and Homeworld2, L4D1 and L4D2 and so on. The other case is when the studios make games closed, for balance and multiple paid DLCs/lootbox reason. My gamer's age has begun in end of 90s, when Id Software engines ruled the world, and in many ways it happened because of moddability. And I've seen that there were great games that died fast because they were forgotten in their rigidness, and there were games that lived for decades being remembered by modding community. That's why I insist that games should allow to modify themselves, and the Nomad Flee 2 should be moddable as well.
SWOT Analysis
- Strength
- Love to Sci-Fi
- Game experience with 3DS-RTS
- Great idea - Weaknesses
- Inexperience
- Necessity to earn money for a family living
- Part-time availability - Opportunities
- Unity asset store with models
- Outsource
- Modding community
- Early Access - Threats
- Team will not cooperate
- Feature will be too expensive
- Several products of the similar genre are in progress
Monetization
Price
- 19.99€ - with a vision that on sales it would cost 4.99€
- Distribution services - Steam, GOG, Epic Store etc
DLC’s
- New Playable Race
- New NPC Race/Tech/Ships/Modules
- New Events/Quests
- New Cosmetics for ships/world
- Multiplayer
- Linear Story Campaigns
Similar Games
- Most known 3DS-RTS, already released:
- Homeworld 1/Cataclysm/2/RM
- O.R.B.
- Haegemonia
- Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
- Star Wolves - Currently 3DS-RTS in development:
- Age of Space
- Stellar Warfare
- Shallow Space
- Homeworld Mobile
- Homeworld 3
- A longer list can be found here.
Publishing Deal
Development Plan
“Everything as DLC” approach, MVP creation ASAP and Early Access
- Pre-development:
Game designer - Dev Early Stage:
Game designer, Unity Developer, Storywriter, Astro-Consultant - Dev Middle Stage:
Game designer, Unity Developer, QA Engineer, 3D Artist, 2D Artist, Storywriter, Astro-Consultant - Pre-release:
Game designer, Unity Developer, QA Engineer, 3D Artist, 2D Artist, Storywriter - Post-production:
Game designer, Unity Developer, QA Engineer
Team/Staffing Plan
- Game designer: Person responsible for the game to be playable very much
- Unity developer: Person responsible for Unity engine adaptation for our project needs
- 3D-artist: Person responsible for 3D models quality
- 2D-artist: Person responsible for UI, portraits and other 2D images
- QA engineer: Person responsible for bug minimization. Listen to him.
- Storywriter: Person responsible for the plot details, world description and integrity, and side quests.
- Astronomy consultant: Person responsible for the game to be scientifically accurate as possible & for finding marvels among stars.
This is something I was doing for the gamedesign courses. Russian version of the pitch can be found here.
