CRPG Concept

This is a general concept for a videogame set in the Foross Cluster, that I am considering to make in Godot with the COGITO template.

The overall idea is a 3D first person game with gameplay and environmental interactions comparable to Deus Ex and the ability to roam freely through the game world more like in Morrowind rather than a fixed series of levels following a set storyline. The visual style is intended to be similar to these games in the amount of detail on character and object models, and the game textures, but with a modern real-time lighting system.

The goal is to make it a highly systemic game where NPCs move through the game world autonomously as well as reacting to the player's actions. As in Stalker, all NPCs belong to one of several factions, and will react to encountering NPCs or the player character based on the current faction relationship ratings. The goal of the factions is to bring all the areas of the game world under their control or that of allied factions. Control of each area will change between factions somewhat randomly, but players have the option to greatly increase or decrease the strength and standing of any faction through their own actions. This is somewhat similar to Jagged Alliance 2, but players control only a single character, and it is only necessary to weaken a faction enough that another faction can take control of an area, rather than having to eliminate all hostile NPCs in the entire area.

The Setup

• Wealthy planetary governments established colonies in the Foross Cluster to extract rare and highly valuable metals found in unusually highly concentrated and easily accessible deposists on several planets in the star cluster, and provide the food and other basic supplies for the miners.
• After 150 years, the most easily accessible resources had been large depleted and profitability of the mines greatly reduced, and the government-owned companies moved their operations to new worlds. Large parts of the population took up offers to take jobs at the new sites, and most of the worn out and outdated equipment was auctioned off for cheap to local business people. The buyers ended up to be mostly criminals, as the miners, factory, and agricultural workers usually had very little money.
• The new owners of the mines, factories, and civil infrastrucutre soon became a new oligarch class ruling over the Foross Cluster. While there were still large amounts of valuable resources available, these required much more labor and energy to extract and refine, greatly reducing profitability for the new owners, and resulting in a steep drop in wages and work conditions for the workers. Many of which instead decided to prospect for their own small mines in groups of a few dozen or hundred people, or go directly into subsistence farming.
• The economy of the oligarchy revolves around mining metals primarily on Sarhat and selling it to the Kopani Company, whose giant superfreighters dock once per month at Palan and are the only link between the resource extration economy of the Foross Cluster and the advanced industrial economy of the Core Systems. The large farmlands on Kion continue to produce a large share of the food for Sarhat and Palan and the Kion oligarchs receive a share of the imported goods from the Core System in return.
• 50 years later, the output of the large old mines has dropped again by a lot, threatening the continued wealth and economic power of the oligarchs. At the same time, a few of the small new mines had great luck in striking rich sources of valuable minerals, and many of the early subsistence farms have grown into quite prosperous farming communuties. Currently they are selling their metals and food to the oligarchs well below value, which helps proping up the oligarchs' businesses. If they would gain the ability to take their goods to the main spaceport at Palan themselves and trade directly with the Kopani Corporation, the businesses of the oligarchs would be significantly impacted further.
• The long term goal of the oligarchs is to maintain the current balanace of economic power for as long as possible and retain their personal wealth and political power. Their immediate objectives are to gain control over the new prospering small settlements through economic pressure and intimidation, as well as to prevent them from organizing to the point where they can purchase and operate their own cargo ships. In turn, the goal of the settlements is to maintain their independence and free themselves from the need to do all their business through the oligarchs. While the oligarchs in theory share the common goal of keeping the new potential competitors weak, all of them are always also looking for every opportunity to gain an advantage over their rival oligarchs and do very little to actually come to each other's help against their shared enemies.

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