Player's Personal Galaxy (Player's Character)
Player's personal galaxy is basically their home, and ships are the currency (think "gold"). It's the game's take on having a personal character (galaxy) and levels (# of stars controlled).
- Starts with 1 star and a few ships to control.
- Can send an explorer ship (costs 1 ship).
- Can send ships to nearby stars to capture them (the more ships the faster it occurs).
- Capturing stars here takes a while -- hours to days.
- Tap on the star to determine how much time is remaining.
- Ships sent to capture neutral stars disappear (decrementing the capture time first).
- Owned stars create new ships per X time.
- New ships are also gained by playing games or IAP.
- Some stars have technologies that can be researched: offensive and defensive.
- Tech research unlocks "cards".
- Unlocked "cards" can then be chosen for games.
- The card inventory is determined by the player's galaxy size.
- 32 stars, 16 of them can have technologies to research (one per card).
- Each tech research unlocks a new card either in defensive or offensive trees.
- The higher the level of the card, the more time it takes to research.
- Speed up research time by assigning more ships.
- Cards have size, and so does the player's inventory limit. Inventory limit goes up as the player controls more stars.
- 16 cards, 12 inventory size, 32 stars, smallest card is size 2. Start inventory with 2, leaves a need for 10 more points.
- Point gain at levels 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 (number of stars controlled).
- In-app purchase: +1 inventory size (up to 3 times), for a total of a 15 point cap, making it possible to choose at most 5 cards at the same time (2+2+3+3+4=14).
Galactic Coordinates (Account ID)
- Account ID is assigned when the game is launched for the first time by connecting with a server and requesting one.
- This step is mandatory, as it will also make it possible to easily determine the number of installs.
- Account ID-associated save file contains the player's personal galaxy.
- Saved on the server, making it possible for friends to visit it and see your progress.
Diplomacy
Player's friends list as well as the list of recent opponents should all be saved locally (as Account IDs + player nickname pairs). This makes it possible to visit their galaxy to check up on their progress. Possible future uses: donate ships, trade... but this cuts into monetization, so I won't do it until I can figure it out.
Leaderboards
This one is a must for any competitive-based game, and this game does have a competitive component (multiplayer). It would probably be best to so a daily DB query for this, and would account for the past 24 hours.
- Number of games won
- Highest scored game
- Best victory : defeat ratio
- ...not sure what else.
