Star Wars

Supremacy

A real time strategy game development by

Coolhand Interactive

Proposal for : LucasArts LLC

Date of issue: 1st November 1998

Commercial-
Commercial-in-
in-confidence. All rights reserved.

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Executive Summary
Star Wars Supremacy – a sweeping strategy game following the action after the
destruction of the first Death Star by the Rebel Alliance at Yavin.

With the galaxy thrown into chaos, the player chooses whether to fight on the side of
the Rebel Alliance or Galactic Empire. As the Rebel Alliance, you have to flee the
world of Yavin, and establish your secret base elsewhere in one of the galaxies Rim
sectors. The core sectors, some of which have declared open support for the rebels
will furnish you with much needed resources and facilities – but are likely to be
attacked and subjugated by the Empire unless they can be reinforced and defended
by both ground troops, star fighters, capital ships and planetary shields and cannons.
Recruitment of key characters from the Star Wars universe such as Admiral Ackbar
allow you better control of ships in the fully 3d tactical battle section, and open up
options for research into advances in technology and construction.

Meanwhile, for those players opting to control the Galactic Empire, it’s time to send
your fleet of enormous Star Destroyers loaded with squadrons of Tie Fighters and
AT-ATs to reclaim those foolish planets that have broken ranks, while building up
scout forces to explore the hundreds of unknown Rim worlds and locate the elusive
rebel base. Recruitment for the empire concentrates more on ship captains and
insidious spies rather than diplomats, leading to a differing play style between the two
sides…. The rebels favour smaller, faster ships and have better star fighters, while the
Empire has their massive star destroyers that have no rebel equal until much later in
the game, but with inferior fighter craft.

The game runs in real time, at a speed controlled by the player, with ships taking a
strategic amount of time to move from one planet or sector to the next. A pair of
“droid” helpers on screen help present and manage information flow and guide the
players actions, and a clear and simple click and drag interface allows easy galactic
management.

When fleets meet, the game shifts to its 3d game engine, where the player can set
objectives and tactics for their fleet, and watch the rendered models of their craft do
battle. Bombers make torpedo attack runs, capital ships lock on to each other with
mighty tractor beams and let loose with full barrages of turbolasers, ion blasts fly
between the models, giving good tactical options and a canny player a chance to
defeat a superior foe – or perhaps to strike at tactical objectives such as carrier craft
before retreating.

The hero characters available to each side portray many of the noted characters from
the Star Wars universe such as Luke, Vader, Han, Leia, Wedge and many others.
Some of these can be trained in The Force, becoming more powerful as the game
progresses, and taking part in missions of diplomacy, incitement, sabotage, scouting
and research.

Players can also link up in multiplayer games, either locally or via the Internet, taking
on their favoured side in the galactic war against a live player rather than the AI.

Overall, this game provides a very strong tie in with the licensed material and will give
a strategy player a lasting and durable game play experience with a wealth of options
and replay potential.

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Assets
Mock up of the main interface screen,
showing a player on the “Empire” side,
along with the two helper droids that
provide information to the player. Shown
along the top are the strategic resource
levels. The day and speed of time will
show at the top right, and the icons
along the bottom allow access to
planets, fleets, troops, characters,
encyclopedia and options (from left to
right). The bars on the left allow players
to drag “key systems” of their choosing
to them to act as a hotbar for easy
access.

This sample shows a system (Fakir)

with its 10 planets. Some are
controlled by the Rebels (global theme
colour of Red), some by the Empire
(global theme colour green) and some
neutral (blue). Clicking on the
spaceship icon opens up the fleet
display, allowing you to see what ships
are in a fleet and control their orders.

Each window can be moved around

independently, just like any window
could in the Windows 95/NT desktop,
allowing quick and easy access to any
computer user.

This screen shows the flexibility of the

hero characters, and some of the depth
that could be possible in terms of
character development and strategy.
Here one of the major characters has
found a minor empire character to be
capable of “using the force” – at which
point they can, with training, become
more powerful and a greater asset to
their side.

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X Factor
One of the key mechanisms in this strategy game will be the Fleet Battles subgame.
When rival fleets meet, they shift from the standard strategic map to the special 3d
game engine, where the player actually controls the tactics of the battle and helps
their side to victory!

The 3d engine allows the player to see the familiar craft such as Star Destroyers and
X-Wings actually attacking each other, responding to player orders and fighting vast
space battles.

Main body
Overview
The game has a selectable galaxy size tied in with the difficulty level. At lower levels,
the number of planets and sectors is scaled back to give easier and faster gameplay.

At the most complex level, there are 20 “sectors” present on the main map. 10 of
these are “core” sectors and start fully populated, and 10 are “rim” sectors and start
mostly uninhabited and unexplored. Each sector has 10 planets contained within.

A planet has a resource and an energy rating. The resource rating shows the
maximum number of mines that may work the planet, while the energy score shows
the maximum number of buildings that can be supported.

Icons around each planet show if there are any “facilities”, “ground troops” or
“spaceships” present – where present, these icons take you to the appropriate screen.

The rebel alliance base starts on one of the rim planets, chosen at random. The
empire always starts with their main forces around “Corruscant”, the established
capital planet in the Star Wars Universe.

Both sides start with a roughly equal amount of mined raw materials and refined
building materials.

Both sides start with a few star ships, squadrons and fighters and troops – these are
randomly allocated in the main – although the Empire always has some troops and

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ships at Corruscant, and the Rebels have forces at their hidden base. Both start with
the core group of heroes (Luke, Leia, Han etc for the rebels, and Vader, the Emperor
etc for the empire)

Resources
Resources in the game come from a pair of linked buildings

A mine uses up a mine resource on the planet and produces a notional amount X of
raw materials per time unit.

A refinery converts raw materials into building materials, at the same rate of X

Therefore, in an ideal world, the number of refineries match the number of mines,
giving the player the optimum flow of resources.

Any product built requires two resources. One is the “building materials”, which are
consumed by construction. The other is “support cost” which is an ongoing
requirement.

A mine and refinery pair produces 50 support cost points each, which maintain the
players forces.

This gives a maximum size of the players forces, to split between ships, fighters,
ground troops and defences. As a result no player should be able to amass a totally
unstoppable force unless the opposing player has been economically destroyed.

This support cost also opens up the prospect of economic warfare – strategically
blockading planets to cut off their support, and forcing the other play to scrap units –
even though they may have an abundance of building materials.

Building
The primary building facility is the construction yard. Players start with at least one
yard, which like any building requires one energy unit from it’s planet to function.

Players can build more construction yards from the first, or other buildings as
required. Each requires building materials to complete.

Other facilities are troop training barracks and shipyards, mines and refineries, and
planetary defences such as shields and cannons.

Multiple facilities will share the production orders of a planet amongst themselves,
lowering time required – but a planet can only product one product per type of facility
at any one time.

Buildings can be sent to far away planets, taking not only the construction time, but
also transit time to reach the destination. Players must prevent the enemy from
blockading the target planet or lose the facilities.

Buildings require a free “energy resource” on the planet they are located, giving a
maximum number of facilities possible on each world.

Research later in the game can lead to advanced versions of some facilities with
boosted production, offence or defence ratings.

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Heroes
Each side starts with several heroes, which can be used for special missions such as

Recruitment: each of the “major” characters can recruit new minor characters, until
the possible recruitment pool is empty.

Sabotage: travel to a destination and try to destroy a facility, troop or ship

Espionage: reveal the defences and orders of a target planet

Other orders include activities such as Diplomacy, Incitement, Subdue uprising,

become a Fighter Commander, Troop General or Fleet Admiral, research
Construction, Troop Training or Ship Design or even Capture or Assassinate.

Heroes have different attributes and specialities. Not all heroes can perform all
missions, or are any good at them.

Some heroes have the potential to become “force users” gaining extra bonuses to
their attributes after training.

Part of the tie in to the licensed material will be the following of the major elements of
films 5 and 6. At a certain point, Luke will go to Dagobah to train with Yoda, when he
returns he will be stronger from his training. If Vader and Luke meet, Luke can
discover his heritage, which may then affect Leia etc. Han can be captured or fight
and outwit bounty hunters. These will use cut-cards showing relevant scenes from
the films to help with atmosphere.

Troops
Planets can be garrisoned by troops both to repel invasion by the opposing side, and
to prevent uprisings if the population does not support your side in the conflict.

Players start with a few basic troop types and can research advanced troops with
stronger attributes.

As with buildings, troops can be deployed to other planets, but need to be transported
by ships if attacking enemy worlds.

Ships
Players start able to make a limited number of basic ships, each with differing
strengths, weaknesses and costs.

Players can research more advanced types to take on stronger foes or reduce losses.
More advanced types can also give further strategic benefits such as preventing
enemy fleets from retreating.

Ships can be combined into fleets and sent to attack, defend, explore or interdict
different worlds.

Ships can become damaged and suffer from reduced attributes, or even crippling
damage that prevents them from moving on the tactical or strategic map. Ships can
slowly repair from their own facilities, or make use of a shipyard on a planet they
orbit. Sometimes a player may have to make strategic decisions to abandon a badly
damaged ship to save the rest of his fleet, as it may be slowing the rest down.

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Winning and losing
There are two sets of objectives that can be chosen at game creation

Simple game – capture either Corruscant or the Rebel base. As soon as one of these
conditions is met, the game is over.

Complex game – capture the HQ planet as above, and also the two main characters
of the other side – either Luke and Mon Mothma, or the Emperor and Darth Vader.
This leads to a much longer and more complex game experience.Work through the
game flow here, showing how the game is actually played from the customers POV.

Control mechanism
The game is controlled almost entirely with the mouse – units are clicked, dragged
and dropped in a very “Windows” like manner, giving users a very easy to understand
control set. The keyboard is used primarily for modifier keys (shift/alt) to extend
selections – again, just like the core OS useage, and for shortcuts for experiences
players.

Tie in materials
It is expected that along with the use of the main licensed material such as characters
and artwork, that the full score of the game would be based on the music of John
Williams, adding depth and familiarity. In addition, use of the sampled FX from the
films for items such as fleet engine noises, blaster fire, driod beeps and construction
will add to the immersive elements of the game. This use of material extends right
down to icons, colour use and fonts where available to brand the product as strongly
as possible.

5 minute walkthrough
• Start a new game, on a small galaxy and choose to play as the Empire.
• Click on the planet Corruscant to open up the facilities screen
• Click on the construction yard, and choose to make a shipyard
• Close the construction screen, and click on the fleet icon
• Check the number of fighters and troops loaded onto your Star Destroyer
• Click on the defence icon for Corruscant – it should open onto the other half of
your display.
• Drag over enough tie fighters and storm troopers to fill the fleet to capacity
• Check which heroes are on the ships – if you can, assign a fleet admiral, troop
general and fighter commander. You may need to drag additional heroes from
the planet to the fleet.
• Now close both screens
• Drag the fleet icon over to the nearest rebel held planet – ideally the one with
the diplomacy bar showing the most green (empire) support and as little red
(rebel) support as possible.
• The fleet will enter hyperspace and will take several days to reach the planet.
• Now go back to Corruscant and use any troop or shipyards there to begin new
construction to replace the units you loaded onto your fleet.
• Change the game speed to medium or fast, and wait for your fleet to arrive at
the enemy planet.

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 • When you fleet arrives, if there are enemy forces, you will go to the combat
map
• For your first combat, click each taskforce in the fleet, and set its orders to
“attack capital ships” if a large ship and “attack fighters” if a small ship. Don’t
worry about finesse at this stage of things – just unpause the game and watch
your ships attack and defeat the rebels. Once any fleet is destroyed, you can
proceed onto stage two
• Now that you control the planets orbitals, it is blockaded. The rebels will not
have access to any material the mines and refinery makes, and they lose the
support from those structures.
• Check out the planet by clicking on the defence icon. If there are lots of troops
here, you will need to bombard the planet first.
• Choose a “military bombardment” – this targets troops, shields and cannons.
You may catch some civilian facilities in your bombardment, which has a
negative effect on your popularity – having a good fleet admiral will reduce the
chance of this happening.
• Now right click on the fleet and choose “planetary assault” – your troops will
attack any remaining enemy troops, and depending on the combat strengths of
the units involved will either capture the planet or be driven off. However, the
empires Stormtroopers are better than most rebel units, so you should win
handily.
Congratulations! You’ve just captured your first rebel held planet. Now you need to
send defence troops to garrison it and build up its infrastructure so that it contributes
to your war machine.

Demographics
Our key demographics, following research by Stratographics Reasearch Ltd are as
follows

PC marketplace, Strategy genre: total market size 1.5 million

Star Wars brand loyalists: total market size 5 million (of which an estimated 3.1
million are PC owners)

Estimated unit sales based on standard marketing to both market sectors assuming a
standard 5% take-up is 230,000 units.

Brief competitive analysis shows that there in no current market entry for a Star Wars
branded RTS, and the main competition comes from other RTS games such as
Command and Conquer clones including the Warcraft Franchise. It is estimated that
the licensed material tie in will provide a significant incentive to purchase of this
product.

Production brief
Current status – a technology demo is available, but coding on AI and the subgame
engine has yet to be started.

Estimated milestones

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 • Week 1 : Selection of artwork for cards / models approved and locked
• Week 2: Main window / selection subsystem complete
• Week 5: Strategic AI completion
• Week 9: 3d Subgame complete
• Week 12: Sound and visual themes complete
• Week 14: QA testing complete
• Week 16: Final signoff and acceptance
Budget consists of

• Licensing costs: £500,000

• Staff costs: £250,000
• Fixed assets: £100,000
• Buildings: £100,000
• Misc: £50,000
• Total: £1,000,000

Our lead designer has worked on 3 successful licensed products in the last 5 years,
while our art team worked together as a unit on the highly successful “Pro Celebrity
Kit flying” simulation released early this year, which was lauded by many industry
reviewers for its clean graphical style and integration..

Conclusion
Star Wars: Supremacy taps into a previously unentered market for the Star Wars
Franchise, and does so with a strong product with a key USP – the 3d action
subgame where fleet combat is resolved. Appealing to Star Wars and strategy fans
alike, this game will fill a hole in the current product line up and further extend and
promote the Star Wars franchise.

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