Star Panzer Proposed by: Eric Nelson

Story Introduction The year is The peoples of earth have taken to the stars and explored the near reaches of the galaxy. With its strength united, the earth has established many colonies. Two days ago, unknown ships were sighted near the newly formed colony of New Brazil, on Oberion II.

Story Introduction The United Earth Space Navy has an orbital base at Persius, the third moon of Oberion IV. You are an Admiral stationed here. Command has selected you to investigate the occurrence. You are to select your force and make best speed to the planet within the hour.

Mission 1 The player shows up at the colony with their fleet. A small enemy force is bombarding the planet. They immediately break off and attack the player. When the battle is concluded, the survivors abandon the colony and return with the player to the Persius orbital base.

Mission 2 The player is briefed that they will be scouting some of the nearby systems in force. As their squadron is launching, a medium sized enemy heavy strike force jumps in. The player engages the enemy, only controlling their fleet. A friendly force that just left on a mission returns a few minutes into the fight to aid the Earth forces. The player must defend the base while it launches the warships that are still docked.

Mission 3 Reinforcements from Earth arrive. The player gets orders to go with them to attack an enemy installation. The combined fleet gets pulled out of hyperspace en route to the target and is ambushed. After this battle, the player’s force continues to the supply depot. After a small skirmish with enemy defenders, the player strips and destroys the supply depot.

Resolution ( The End ) With this task completed, the sector is secure from further attacks. The player is recalled to Central Command on the Lunar Base to give a briefing on the enemy.

Appearance A The ship graphics will be sleek and streamlined, as opposed to the clunky view of spaceship design with function taking priority over looks. Ships will have full freedom to move in any direction on the x, y, z axes.

Appearance B A heads up display will show the hull damage for each compartment of the player’s ship. This display will also show the status of each weapon on the ship. Another display will show which attack method is set for orders given to the other ships.

Appearance C In between missions, the player can navigate displays to upgrade their ship and add additional ships to their fleet. The quality and amount of these will increase with the completion of each mission.

Player Roles The primary roll of the player is to exert total command over their ship, and give orders to the rest of the ships in their fleet. A ship given orders will carry them out based on AI coding.

Orders The player may order one or more ships to attack, defend, move to, or form up on another ship. Ships told to attack will do so in one of three methods, based on the option selected in the Attack Method Display. The options are standoff, charge, or flank the enemy.

Flagship Destruction Should the player’s personal flagship be destroyed, a command class escape pod will be launched. The player may then select to dock with the nearest ship, or the strongest ship left in the fleet. Traveling will take a small amount of time, but going a shorter distance will be significantly quicker.

Influence Points The player may spend influence points earned during each mission on personal ship upgrades and on adding additional ships to their fleet. Possible ship upgrades will include thicker armor plating, engine upgrades, and adding a selection of additional weapons.

Strategy A series of levels with increasing difficulty will take the player through the storyline. The story will be linear, but the player can choose which ships are added to their fleet at the start of each level.

Ship Selection Ship selection is the primary strategy component, as the player may choose to deploy a weak but agile fleet, or a smaller fleet of juggernauts that will have to cope with being outmaneuvered.

Specifications Hardware: Standard Computer Workstations Software: C++ compiler, graphics program, writing application Algorithms: Focused on implementing artificial intelligence aspects.