The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I've already posted this on the PNF boards, but I thought there might be some programmers here that could give me their opinions on my project.  You should probably check out the readme first...

http://www.umich.edu/~rkingsle/

(http://www.umich.edu/~rkingsle/Aftermath1.jpg)

It worked the first time I opened it. Every other time it doesnt work. It automatically minimizes when I open it.
I tried redownloading but it still doesnt work.

That's...odd.  It doesn't save any config data, so nothing should have changed.  Maybe try rebooting your computer.  Did you change any of the config files?  What kind of computer are you running, operating system, graphics card, etc...

Rebooting does the trick. I use windows xp, and I would be happy to tell you my graphics card if you could tell me how I could find out. I skimmed quickly through my control pannels but didnt find anything.

i think i remember seeing this before, but it was baisc only had stuff like the yehat and mycon... and your ship, no bases or anything... it was a nice start, lets see how much better this version is ^_^

how do i unload cargo at a base?
how do i build mines?
can i build other ships? if so where should i try to go?

a few basic questions i need the first 2 answered, i have 60 cargo, but cant get RID OF IT!! aieeeeee!

    When you say cargo are you talking about resources that you mined?  Resources are automatically sold when you land at your starbase.  You don't have to do anything.  Just come to a stop over the landing pad at the starbase (the white cross thing).  You can buy mine constructors at the starbase Market.  They are pretty expensive so don't get blown up.  Oh, and they are fairly heavy...a loaded down ship isn't very effective in combat.
   You can buy ships and equip new weapons at the starbase.  Some weapons and ships have mine requirements that must be met...for instance, in order to build the Heavy Cruiser you have to have 1 titanium, 1 hydrogen, and 1 crystal mine.  After you have those you can buy heavy cruisers.  You should read the readme.txt if you haven't.

i know i can get the heavy crusiers, but how do i know what rocks do what? how do i set up mines and such?

nice game so far though!

oh and how do i save... it wont let me :(

THe minable asteroids show up as orange on your radar rather than blue.  They have yellow glowing veins on them.  In order to set up a mine:
a) Purchase a mine at the Market in the starbase
b) Target the planet you want to mine with the P key.
c) Press the B key to scan the planet, and bring up the action menu.
d) If the scan results show that the planet has something you want to mine, select "Construct Mine" from the menu.  Bam, you've got your mine.

As a side note you can capture enemy cargo vessels with the B key as well.  When a cargo vessel is damaged enough the targeting cusor (if the vessel is targeted) will flash.  Press B and select capture ship.  The ship is now yours.  Just get it back to your base in one peice, and you will get a ton of credits for the resources in it's hold.

Lastly, you can't save the game in this version...not till next time. :(

i like it im already addicted  :) :)

awaiting next version because the lack of a save game is aggravating, plus i cant find hydrogen anywhere....

hijacking ur-quan shipments is fun... but can be dangerous... i got killed by a scout comming back home with 2 full transports :(

more upgrades would be awsome too...

how do i expand my bases? and what does the population on planets do for me?

also faster hyperspace travel is a must... at least alittle faster...

Oh man, you've got to get the hydrogen mine!  You're missing the best part!  Check out the Alusre system...it's a hostile system, but one of the planets has hydrogen.  I usually like to run out there at the very beginning and plant a mine.  Then I get a hydrogen and crystal, capture a cargo fleet.  Then I pick up a couple of heavy cruisers and attack an enemy base.  The heavy cruisers should look...familiar.   ;)

Also, I forgot to mention that you can't build mines outside the white circle centered on your starbase (on the starmap).

well... i had 4 crusiers all ready to go get that hydrogen... went to drop off my resources.....

all 3 computers overflew the planet, and... into the sun....

THAT needs to be fixed, just make computers undamageable to the sun... at least the players ships....

that makes me so MAD!!!  :'( >:( >:(


i will try to get it tommrow  ::)

i did that too... damn that gravity. always pulling at something. heh.

~DEFIANT

Yeah, the gravity on the sun is a bit extreme at times, in fact, it's downright annoying.

I'd suggest toning it down or removing it entirely. I've already had to restart five times just because of that damn gravity/sun mixture destroying me as I try in vain to fly away from the damn landing pad.

dont load up on more than 3 mine constructors....

but hte computers MUST be fixed, no more flying into sun for my FLEET....

Oh believe me, I feel your pain.  I've been mulling over what to do about the sun.  I think I'm going to just remove the gravity/damage thing.  Instead I will add a new weapon...like gravity mines that only affect the enemy.

Is there a Linux or MacOS X version of this game available?

This game is awsome. Did you make it all by yourself?

There is a lot info for troubleshooting at the other forum (Classic gaming) I think that contains the info.

I haven't opened it up, but I like the triangular targeting reticule (I assume it acts as an indication of the enemy's facing or angular component of velocity).  I also see some lighting on the Mycon there; is this a 3D/openGL game, or is that some 2D lighting effect?

I just tried it - It says, "error - can't build device list" - What am I doing wrong?

Chrispy: Yup, and it has taken quite awhile too!  :)  It's been a bit of a learning process along the way, especially in the beginning.  The only things(that comes to mind) that I didn't make were some of the sounds.  I pulled some of them straight from star control 2 (UQM) or the web (star trek beaming sound.)

Culture20: Actually the green circle is the current target (color coded for health).  The blue triangle shows your current ship.  When you are locked onto a target, and the camera zooms out the triangle fades in to show where your ship is and which way it is pointing.  It helps a ton when there are lots of ships on the screen.  The specular lighting on the Mycon is real 3D lighting.  This is a full 3d (directX) game and uses vertex colored lighting.  Some people think vertex lighting is no good, but that's not true!  As long as you have a detailed enough model (lots of vertices) then the lighting is smooth, realistic, and better (if somewhat slower) than lightmaps.  Lightmaps are good for indoor stuff and static lighting.

FalconMWC: Gosh dangit Falcon, why did you have to say that!   :P  A couple of weeks ago I rewrote all of the d3d init code to make sure there wouldn't be any init problems anymore.  I followed the microsoft instructions and examples exactly.  Hmph...well, let's see.  I'm looking at the code...so we found at least one valid video card...and the card has at least one valid video mode, but aparently there are no devices that support windowed mode.  Are you, perhaps, using an old Voodoo card? (crosses fingers)...

Sorry Madgap, I don't think so, but here is some more info about the Graphics card in case it would be a help.

Intel(R) 82810E Graphics Card.

Boy, I have had nothing but problems with this game!  :'(

Glad it works for everyone else though...  ;)

Is there a Linux or MacOS X version of this game available?

Intel(R) 82810E?  Oh man, what is that?  That's not fair...that's a pretty basic card.  I'm afraid I'm going to have to issue an official notice: "Aftermath does not support the Intel(R) 82810E graphics card."    :-X

If you really want to play I bet you could pick up an old Geforce2 for like $20.  The only thing I can suggest is that you update your drivers, both video and directX.  Sorry buddy...   :(

Death_999 and 0xDEC0DE: Oops, sorry, I missed that question.  Unfortunately no OS X or Linux version is available.  The program uses DirectX.  I'd have to convert everything to OpenGL...which I would be glad to do! (For the low, low cost of 499.99 a week for the next two weeks.)

*cries*

OK  -  Thanks for the info, I MIGHT be able to use a different computer. I will try it there.

Whoa, I just HAD to register to tell you I love your game, Madgap  8)

ChainiaC: Thanks, I'm glad you like it! :)

New version up with:
- Save/Load implemented (F4/F5 keys)
- Commented Keys.ini
- Can build starbases on terrestrial planets with starbase constructor (you can finally expand!)

Now it is possible to destroy all of the Ur-Quan outposts.

http://www.umich.edu/~rkingsle/

Send comments and bug reports to madgap@comcast.net

gj

just one problem: please update the first download link for "new" readers who didn't have a chance to see the second link.

Oh another thing, what is that shooting things in one of the systems near sol? You can't get near without getting killed...

Overall it seems like a good game but the travels in space...

That's probably an enemy starbase.  You will need to upgrade your forces before you take one on.

I updated the old like like you suggested.

I think its cool that the ur-quan and alliance forces are actually fighting right now, it really feels like you're in a warzone and you can participate in some massive scale battles :)

Yeah, I think it's about time we added some new players...maybe the Yehat, Mycon (since I've got some of their stuff already done), VUX, and the Empire from Star Wars? Muhahaha!   TIE fighters vs. Earthling cruiser?  Hmmm...

hmm theres this massive battle (has to be like... 100+ ships) and it never ends, i go into it, takes awhile to load, then is like a billion earth crusiers against a ur-quan scout.... it dies... in 0.00000000000000001 seconds.... then they all go in different directions, if i leave, the battle is still there... hmm

Interesting...yeah, there's bound to be some bugs in the fleet combat system.  I kinda just threw it together.  Can you email me your saved game file?  madgap@comcast.net

Are the dreadnaughts going to 'LAUNCH LAUNCH LAUNCH FIGHTERS' in future versions? :)

Er, it doesn't work for me. At all. I didn't notice any instructions for making it work so I just extracted it into its own folder and tried to run the .exe. It said, "THIS PROGRAM HAS PERFORMED AN ILLEGAL OPPERATION AND WILL BE SHUT DOWN." The usual "it doesn't work" error. Help?

"Yeah, I think it's about time we added some new players...maybe the Yehat, Mycon (since I've got some of their stuff already done), VUX, and the Empire from Star Wars? Muhahaha!   TIE fighters vs. Earthling cruiser?  Hmmm..."

Isn't that a little bit tacky to mix Star Wars with Star Control? You could have Yehat and little Shofixti ships working in tandem as one faction, though. That'd be pretty cool.

Did you extract keeping subdirectories intact?  There should be a few subdirectories like Textures, Sounds, Systems. What os are you using?

Win 98. No, I didn't do that. Let me try again.

EDIT: Wow, pretty graphics dude. Haven't played much of it yet, but I think people were right in saying you're superior to the entire TimeWarp team put together. These controls aren't friendly at all to me, though, I gotta mess with 'em.

Too bad I don't have a clue how to build a mine colonie. Besides it, the game is fine.

You should read the readme.  Buy a mine constructor at the starbase, target the planet you want to mine with P.  Bring of the action menu with B...and select construct mine.  It has to be a planet with a mineable resource...usually type Barren or Volcanic.  When you select a planet and press B a scan window will come up telling you what resource the planet has (if any).

You should really do a tuturial, because after I built it I have no clue how to get credit for the resource(god knows how what I tried...). So I decided to jump in battles vs the ur-quan ;D easy battle because after 1 missle hit they are slower than the crusier and you kind of own them.

That's one valid point, is the resource collecting mentioned anywhere? I had to try a lot of things before i realised that the secondary laser harvests minerals...

But the other stuff is all mentioned in the readme, and clearlyu written as well. It's not too complicated DJ, I'm sure you can do it without a tutorial ;)

I have a few comments about it so far:  great job with the graphics...but I'm havin problems with the heavy cruiser...mainly the AI + Heavy nuke.   The AI doesn't seem to realize not to fire it at a ship near it's allies...I can't count the amount of times my own ships have wiped out half my fleet...including several transports I tried to capture.  Theres gotta be a solution to this..I mean I can't just remove the nuke, then I can't attack star bases.  Almost every single time I go into combat with heavy cruisers they end up destroying their allies more then the enemy. Am I doing something wrong?  Besides that, are there any allies at the moment? or can you just get the regular/heavy cruiser and cargo ships?  Great job so far though...just the Heavy cruiser is just a LITTLE bit aggravating. If i'm doing something wrong just tell me.

I've noticed when you mine some of a system and leave, all of the mineral rich asteroids disappear upon return. That definitely throws a wrench in mining operations. Capturing freighters doesn't go well either most of the time since my allies shoot at them. As far as I can tell, those are the only two ways to get RU's. Fixing the problems behind them would help. Making trade functional would help as well.

After starting over and trying to play it again, I mined the whole starting system and put a mine on both mineral worlds. Right before I could leave the system and save it, I bumped Esc instead. Seriously, not cool. The exit button shouldn't just kill the whole game instantly.

About the heavy cruiser, I always remove all heavy nukes from them and give them regular nukes instead. When I have to attack a starbase I pilot the only heavy cruiser equipped qith heavy nuke and take out the starbase while the rest of the fleet provides diversion for the flak cannons and deals with the mycon

Thanks for the comments guys, this is valuable feedback for me.

Lukipela: You're right...I need to update the instructions with better information on resource collection.

Miltazar: You're not doing anything wrong...the AI is still a little stupid.  The problem is I can't make a different AI for each ship, because the ships can be customized.  The AI has to analyze it's ship and decide what to do.  I'll probably add something like: heavy nuke can only be fired at stationary targets...maybe even have explosions only do damage to enemy targets as well.

Shiver: Yeah, I noticed that bug too, but don't worry it's been fixed.  That's a good point about wingmen attacking cargo ships...what I think I will do is have them attack only to a certain damage level...maybe 50%.  As for the escape key, I'll throw in a confirmation window.

Part of the problem is that there is soooooo much stuff to add.  The current version I'm playing has newly added hyperspace radars...you can only see what's in radar range of your starbases, fleets, and radar outposts.  You will also be able to build refueling outposts around gas giants.  However, enemy starbases send out occasional scout fleets.  If a fleet finds an outpost then the base will launch an attack to destroy it.

I'm also in the process of changing the way I handle player death.  When you first start you will pick a name.  When you completely lose a fleet, instead of going back to the main menu like you do now you will be given a chance to make a new captain and continue playing.  The old captain's name will go up on a killboard along with total kills, time and circumstances of death, etc...  Kinda silly to have to reload all of the time.  And sometimes your fleet gets in a situation where you can't make it back in one piece...maybe you run out of fuel.

Captain Madgap: Lost in Space. Feb 26, 2216

I've got a couple of comments, mostly reiterating what was said before::

• Load/Save does not seem to work for me in the 0.60 release.  I'm guessing I'm alone in this?  Are the keys for it configurable in keys.ini?
  
  
• The AI is really, really dumb.  I can't count the number of times my fleet of heavy cruisers popped into TrueSpace "right on top" of the enemy fleet, and some genius decides to launch a heavy nuke.  Boom!  Both fleets gone!  Game over!  And due to the above, I can't get around this by saving often.  :(  As a simple workaround, and for a touch of realism, might I suggest putting "fuses" on nukes and heavy nukes?  e.g., fire a nuke, and if it impacts an object before a designated sleep time, it harmlessly plinks off the surface and doesn't detonate.  This would have the side effect of forcing players to re-equip their ships with short-range weapons like blasters, etc. for close-quarters combat, which I think is a Good Thing^TM
  
  
• When you construct a mining colony, and leave that star system, all of the minerals magically disappear.  I figured it was because the mining colony harvested them all, but the results don't show up in your credit total.  Are mines supposed to be a mechanism for introducing a "recurring revenue stream", or is this a more straightforward bug?

My current strategy is to buy three cruisers, establish the mines/resources necessary to build a heavy cruiser, then outfit the heavy cruiser with a nuke+heavy nuke+warp drive.  Then I go convoy-raiding and starbase-killing with my single, arguably-overpowered ship.  Pretty fun, but one mistake and I have to start all over again (because of the lack of load/save)

Do you have any plans to release the game as open-source, or otherwise enlist the help of others?  Free is good, but open is better. ;)

I can save just fine. The keys can be edited and the file sort of tells you how. Save is F4, Load is F5. Only works in hyperspace.

I've got a lot of other suggestions but I don't want Madgap's head to burst like a baloon from all of them considering he's already in over his head on this thing.

I like this game.

Madgap, would you please add a scroll option to the ship list, so it'll be able to manage more then 12 ships.
Right now it's possible to buy as many as I'd like, but I can scroll down and equip the 13th+ ships.

Ah.  It helps to RTFM.  My bad.  I hereby retract the relevant comment.

A note to everyone:  if you sell off the pieces of your ships before sellings the ships themselves, you can make more money on them (e.g.,  downgrade captured cargo ships to Plasma Torch engines, replace weapon systems on ships with Mining Lasers, etc.)  This will probably get shaken out with the rest of the bugs, but for now, it's pretty fun.

Dunno why but I don't understand this game  :-/

After I finish off mining the rich-astroids, from where can I get CREDITS(not minireals) besides combat(since I get 100 max)?

Well, if your cargo is full of raw materials you dock with your starbase and your cargo should all be turned into credits.

And where do I get them?

You get them from mining the rich asteroids with the mining laser. You see the white cargo bar on the right filling up.

Yea I finished them off at the starting system. It seems they don't appear elsewhere.

i think you should be able to build mining bases that get you credits....

just a thought....

There are other asteroid belts with minerals in them as far as I know, just not in every system.

Mining bases are for minireals like Titanium, not credits.

I'm uploading a new version as I type.  No major new additions, but tons of smaller ones.

- Two new types of outposts (experimental): Sensor, and Refuel
- Strategic level hyperspace radar...can't see any enemy fleets/starbases out of radar range.
- Selling ships gives you the correct price, including any fuel lost.
- Buy/Selling market resources works correctly.  Once you build another starbase you can trade between them for a profit. (Very simple at the moment.)
- Some other little touches...(like scroll arrows on the item lists).

Bug fixes (lots!  Here are the main ones):
- Resources don't dissapear when you leave a sector and then come back.
- Ship AI improved.  Your wingman wont attack a damage cargo vessel...gives you time to capture it.  Ships armed with the Heavy Nuke (or any starbase destroying weapon) will behave more intelligently.  They will seek out starbases first, if there are none on radar they will go after other ships, but only with anti-ship weapons.
- Jumping to hyperspace as your ship is blowing up causing a crash has been fixed.

I put some comments in the keys.ini on the codes you can use for special keys...control, shift, numpad stuff.

I just thought of something, but I'll have to fix it later: Numpad plus and minus are hardcoded at the moment to radar zoom...so you might not want to assign those to anything yet...

http://www.umich.edu/~rkingsle/Aftermath_v61.zip

Thanks a lot! :) Keep em coming!

haha, I was reading Madcap's post and was like 'WTF?' and almost posted some shit in IRC being in so much extacy, untill I realised that it was about Aftermath, not UQM.

Just thought I'd tell you how great a job you're doing with this.  I can't wait for the other races to be added in, and I'm hoping you have a melee thingy you plan on implenmenting like the super melee in UQM.

EliasDavid

Semi-rant:

I personally don't like how the Ur-Quan are the front line of all combat and the Mycon are the ones that guard the starbases. I would replace the patrol fleets with Mycon and VUX ships but have a couple uber-Dreadnoughts pop out of the Starbases.

If you use VUX, you're gonna need to give them some means of closing in fast because even a few Earthling Cruisers would completely dominate hordes of slow moving Intruders what with the way the game's engine works.

Madgap solution to the rich-rocks problem: After you re-enter the system, all rich-rocks returns! That means also the rich-rocks that you already mined....



Well, in AfterMath the earthling is kind of the best ship... I have never lost a combat even when I was outnumbered and against the super-urquans (don't remember the name). It seems that the dreadnaughts don't have more "crew" than the crusiers have.

Perhaps this has been brought up or I'm forgetting something, anyway...

I go and mine an asteroid, I then switch ships and mine some more, I then switch ships and mine even more.

So, three ships full of ore.

Now, and I ask this for I feel it to be important, why is it that I only get credits for one cargo load of ore and why are all the cruisers emptied out?

Hmm... I never noticed that. I usually get 3 or 4 cruisers and clean out the homesystem and simply drop off the cargo... I never actually checked if I got the right price for it. It seems I'm as careless with my game finance as I am IRL  ;)

If you didn't notice there isn't just 1 time of ore. Last time that I played I mined only with 1 ship and got back and I got 10000 credit(!!!). And 1 time I came with 1 ship too and good only 2000.

Ok, I've triple checked both asteroid spawning thing and the resource selling code...both by looking at the code and experimentation.  I don't have any problems with them.  The one thing I did not do was save and then load the data...so if there is a problem it might be there.

Just to clarify: the asteroid positions, sizes, and resource amounts are random everytime you enter a sector.  The game only keeps track of the total amount of resources in an asteroid belt.  So if you leave a sector and there is only one 80 resource asteroid left, the next time you enter there may be 4 20 resource asteroids scattered around the belt.  I have checked the code and that is working as it should.  (Unless it's a save load problem.)

As for selling resources at starbase: a fully loaded earthling cruiser holds 160 resource units (they each weight half a ton).  That's 1600 credits for a full load.  The cargo ship holds 600 units (6000 credits worth).  Cargo ships in the cargo fleets are always fully loaded so it's a pretty good payoff to snag one of those.  You can also sell the ship and get some cash that way too (plus whatever additional fuel it was carrying.)

I'll keep checking, but as far as I can tell these things are working as they should.

Now, some of you seem to be a bit better at fighting than I am...the Ur-Quan should definately not be pushovers...the VUX are another story. :)  Next version the Ur-Quan are going to kick butt.  You've been warned.

No I prefer to blow em up.

The Ur-Quan launch their fighters now, that's really awsome :)

edit: argh... a point defense laser would be nice  :-/

Yeah, no kidding. When the fighters flood in, all my cruisers break formation and start chucking away at fighters to little effect. I had to put Ion Blasters in all the secondary slots so they wouldn't throw away nukes against the little devils at close range. I almost don't want a point defense system - the fighters won't matter much when those are implemented.

Don't like the way the Mycons or the fighters look right now. Podships are supposed to be fleshy and the fighters were a mild brown color that shot yellow beams. The miniature Ur-Quan ships are an odd sight for sure. These complaints are justified since this is a really nice looking game on the whole.

hmm, i need to check this new version, but an idea...

why not do the old star control stuff, take out the little damage dude in the bottom right, and put crew and energy just like the origional star control (or mabye an option in an options menu)

also, as it was said, point defense lasers are a must....

now that dreadnoughts launch fighters, it would be nice to slim down the amount of them and increase their armor, like a real dreadnought, they should be devistating... ALONE

um i think you should make umgah replace ur-quan scouts, and replace the regular ur-quan dreadnought with like... vux and mycon, and replace the stupid uber-quan with the regular ur-quan....



WE NEED SHOFIXTI!! MAKE EM CHEAP AND hehe... fast with lots of explosive power.... like a nuke... rush em into an enemy base hahaha!

also i think you should be able to decide if you want some of your ships to hold their position, so u can rush with stuff like the shofixti... if hes planned....

I agree with must stuff here, but I have few things to say:

It is his game, he will decide if he wants to put crew/energy or the correct system. Personally I prefer the correct system, more realistic.

True, they should be devistating. But correctly all you have is the crusiers and I don't think they are a match for them, especially when it isn't one on one battlles!

About the AI, in time I am sure that he will do that too. For now what there is is fine.

I wish I could help you :(

Thanks for the feedback guys. :)  The current damage readout will be upgraded over time, but I can't use the 'old style'.  There's too much new stuff that I need to display: separate damage to engine, hull, and weapon systems, and each weapon has it's own internal battery and recharge rate.  

Play balance is more difficult with many vs. many ship battles.  I can't program the computer to analyze your fleet setup and compose the perfect counter force, so I have to make the ships a bit more well rounded (no achilles heels and no super ships).

For instance, there will be a point defense laser, but it will probably be an auto-targeting laser that fires at the closest enemy target.  The real earthling cruiser pdl is way too powerful for fleet combat, in my opinion.

I also want to keep the races separate...mostly.  No more Ur-Quan hierarchy as Aftermath takes place almost 100 years after the end of sc2.  Something very bad happened, and the galaxy is not what it used to be.

Few thoughts and WH questions:

- What are your plans for Aftermath?

- Will it include an online multiplayer session?

- Will it have a super-melee mode( now with fleets!! ;D )?

- Storyline?

- I don't really understand how you can be the "hero" of the game right now if you are a minor captian ( and even you yourself said that if you die you are replaced).

- Strange that one nuke don't destroy a starbase  >:(

- I hope the AI would be improved soon because I can't attack starbases because they are so stupid. No matter how I try it, I always lose 3 ships from FF at least!

- Why the podship doesn't heal itself, and if I am wrong about it why it heals itself so slowly?

And if you need any inspiration for the story, feel free to listen to my mad ravings ;)

Otherwise, I think it's quite brillinat. Sure, there are some kinkis to iron out, but it's a work in progress, and progressing eerily quickly as well. It's not all that long ago this was Star5 or whatnot.

DJ, one  regular nuke doesn't destroy a Dreadnought, so why would it destroy a space station?

Because it says so in the briefing.

Dont you mean heavy nuke then?

An Ur-Quan dreadnaught, quite possibly the fourth strongest ship in the known universe (Sa-Matra,  Mark II, Chmmr Avatar, Ur-Quan Dreagnaught) is very probably heavily armoured against primitive nuclear fission attacks.

A starbase on the other hand, is not an offensive platform and usually relies on perimiter defenses to keep it safe.

</conjecture>

Unless it's a heavily armoured Ur-Quan starbase, built taking wars and enemy assaults into consideration? Our current starbases can't stand up to nukes, no, but we don't build them to hold either, since they don't need to really... On the toher hand, it's very easy to blow up a car, but a tad harder to destroy a tank. One is built for war, the other is not.

A race that's been fighting for an eternity already has probably seen a few previous attacks on their bases, and decided to up the armor a bit.

Why waste resources building bulky bases when you can defend them with more mobile Dreadnaughts ?

America knows its foreign embassy's are under increased risk of attack because of its current activities.
Does that mean it will outfit them with ICBM's and plate armour ?

Difference: Embassies are not military targets, Starbases are.

If they didnt armor their starbases, they leave it open to a lucky enemy suicide attack. Example, if a shofixti death squadron were to attack an Ur-Quan base, the main group would take on the dreads and keep them occupied, while several would go straight for the base. Result, total losses for the 'fixti, but a relative victory since the 'Quan have lost an expensive and strategic focal point.

Hence, a Starbase would have armor so that it could take a pounding and some kind of basic defense, but nothing that would hold out to a prolonged or overwhelming assualt without backup.

By saying that ICBM's can take out a starbase with a few shots, you are saying that in 20-30 seconds, a earthling can take it out.

The Starbase's strength was increased due to user complaints -- of which I was one.  In early revisions, the "core" starbase module could be destroyed by a single heavy nuke, which meant that you could play "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead", target the core module, and blow up the whole thing on one shot (with the resulting explosion usually taking out the Mycon defense forces as well).  Not fair, and certainly not fun.

I complained about this overt weakness to Madgap via email, and he made me eat my words in the very next revision.  That'll teach me to report bugs.  ;)

Oh lord, not the nuclear weapon discussion again!  :)  I've got a question about multiplayer.  I'm pretty sure everyone here would love a little multiplayer action.  What you may be surprised to learn is that Star5 already had some basic multiplayer functionality, a client/server set up, but was disabled for your safety.  The server is dedicated (you run it seperate from the main program).  I only tested it on my computer, and it was a pain to add to both the client and the server code at the same time.  So I stopped working on the server.
Anyway, I'd like to get a server running so we can get some group melee battles going.  The problem is I can't host a server on my computer.  A) I'm behind a router/firewall and it won't let me serve and B) I think it's against the Comcast regulations.  Does anyone have a place where the server can live?  It wouldn't need to run all the time, of course...maybe we can set up a couple of two hour periods a week or something.  The server uses directplay so no Linux I'm afraid.  This is not set in stone, however.  Probably wouldn't compile if I wrote in stone anyway....  Anyone have any ideas?

What kind of bandwith does the server require?

About 720 bytes per second per moving object per connection, but I haven't even begun to optimize it.  For instance, non-tracking projectiles don't need updates other than the initial one.  The ships and tracking projectiles get updated 10 times a second with an update message:



Just looking at this I see I can probably replace message type with a char instead of an int.  (1 byte, not 4).  And the z-value for some of these vectors is always 0, so I can drop a few integers there.  I may be able to drop it down to 320 bytes per second per etc...

I'd be willing to host a server but I give no garuntees on being able to host it (Firewall, downtime, etc etc).

If you give me a download link, I'll leave it running in the background for a full week (never turning the compy off) though there may be downtime here and there and I cannot promise excellent pings. I've got a cable connection and I'm in Australia so that may mess with you yanks :P

I'm game :)

I've got cable with 32kb upload (upgraded to 64 next month) and I'm in Europe. However I can either use my PC as server during the night when I'm not using it or I'd have to ask some nerdy friends of mine to help me set up my crappy old secondary PC as a fulltime server :)
All and all I think Cronos is more reliable then me at the moment ;)

Well, I've got some work to do on the server anyway.  It will take me a couple of days to get the initial version finished.  I'll post it somewhere public so anyone can set up a server...just let us know the IP and when we can log on.  Expect the initial version of the server to be very basic!

Progress Report?

(And Clandestine Bump :D)

here here!  ;D

awww, don't leave us hanging please...

I'm super pumped to play some multi-melee with you guys and check out different strats for everyone!!

Well, it's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.  The lag and synchronization issues require a lot of tweaking, and that's slowing me down.  I've got to do 3 more things before I release something:
1) A bug needs fixin'
2) I need to set up some way for you to select what ship you want to use.
3) I also want to add in more ships.

I'll work on it today as I have a lot more free time.  Gameplay will be different as you are going to have to counter for lag.  I imagine seeking weapons will be prefered.

Multiplayer would be great, but I don't think you should sacrafice the great work you have done so far just to please the masses with it.

I fear if you begin to concentrate on multiplayer you will be opening a can of worms that is bottomless, and hence the SP gameplay will suffer..


Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I am just commenting that the SP is great and I would love it to get greater :)

I have a couple of suggestions.
1) What about little icon overlays on each ship in your armada denoting which "number" in the group it is.
This could be in the form of little green bars, or something. Or perhaps roman numerals.
The reason for this is to make it easier to tell mulitple ships apart, as you might have one which is holding certain cargo, or has certain upgrades.

2) How about battle experaince for long surviving ships in your fleet, perhaps a system similar to Red Alert 2 where you have 3 levels of experiance ?

    I was thinking about letting the player name each ship.  The ship name would then be shown in the status window.  Also, I could make a little icon for each weapon so you would know which weapons were installed in the ship.
   As for experience, it's a good idea but might be a little cumbersome to code.  I guess I could keep track of kills per ship, and maybe give a slight boost to speed or something.  Or maybe something more drastic, like a slow auto-repair at 30 kills.  I'll think about it.

I'm not really going to focus on multiplayer only...I'm kinda just messing around with it.  A complete single player game is still my prime goal.

Madcap... this is AMAZING stuff. It looks good, it plays good, it sounds good.

If you WOULD consider not only making a starcontrol-spinoff (and by all means i encourage you to finish this) but use the experiences gained here to come up with your own game (maybe you have, this looks very proffesional to me) - you are only a little step away from that. It should not be to hard to get a publisher for this, once you got every thing right and the game fully working and of course a majority of the bugs squashed.

Here are some suggestions for you, and remember that are only suggestions.

It appears to me that you try to recreate the feeling of starcontrol1 strategy mode in a very polished manner. Therfore multiplayermode sounds like a sure winner - the more players can participiate the better.

Further this key-targeting is sufficent but i would let the laser auto-lock on the nearest enemy object if in range. About long range missiles - auto target the next hostile if in range. Its not as elegant but it keeps the controls more easy.

About not writing special AI for the various ships - i think they really deserve that. Surely the players ship is customizable (and that is cool but perhaps you should make ships non-customizable but come up with various ship types and not one jack of all trades ultimately) but you surely have some fixed designs for the non-player ships.

In my opinion the 'fleet' thing is a nice touch but i would limit the 'wingmen' to a certain ammount and not allow to switch ships. You could even make it possible to buy different 'AI' sets represented by pilots.

Also if you decide to come up with own ships you i would make the  feeling less arcade-like and more sim-like (limited ammo). If you dont know 'Hellfighter' (freeware, in development) you should check it out, perhaps it gives you some new solution ideas.

I personally would recommend a number of capital ships, but seeing you are about to do urquan-cruisers you would have done that in any case.

Further to insure replayability i would recomend a randomizing universe which would especially good for multiplayer games.

The star bases really are nice but the turrets are a bit odd. Make patrol ships, integrated gun turrets but not just some external turrets, same goes for the docking bay.

Well that are my thoughts, i hope something useful is present. Good luck in any case.

This is sweet; you have done a great job on this so far. I applaud you.  I started writing a game, 2 months ago, that is very similar. But this game matches allot of what I envisioned.

I looked through the forum and didn’t find the answer to a few questions.
Will you release the source code?
What language is this written in?
What kind of license is this under, if any?

I would love too help you make this game. It would probably take me a week or 2 too digest the source code then I could help if you would be willing.

Right know I have a few humble suggestions.

One possible solution to problems with pull of gravity by the sun is making it closer to scale then allow the user control the passage of time. So the time between planets will be more realistic but seem like a few seconds.

I noticed you already have a very good way you represent the current velocity of the ship, my humble opinion is you also need a just as subtle way to show the current acceleration working on the ship.

Also have AI assists that the user can turn on to do a number of things.
1.      cruise control
2.      Keep the ship stationary.  
3.      Go into orbit, if planets had gravity.
4.      Zero velocity intercept of a target.
I would have a start bar like panel on the side of the screen where the user can access these functions.

Swage: Those are some good suggestions.  A problem I've had is writing a story like starcon2 would be, for me, impossible.  The conversations and story were excellent in the original game and I don't think I should try to match them.  However, a randomized universe, a large number of interesting random encounters, and better strategic play is a possibility.  It would also make it easier to convert to multiplayer.

Ship design will be improved.  Ammo limits are possible but I didn't want to over burden new players.  Just change Ammo: -1 to something else in the .weapon files.  I haven't activated the weight requirements for the same reason, but in later versions ships will be limited in which systems they can install.  A small scout wont be able to install the Plasma Cannon for instance.  Still needs a lot of playtesting.

BioSlayer: To answer your questions:
>Will you release the source code?
I might one day when it's finished, but for now I'm going to keep it closed.  

>What language is this written in?
C++ (and using directX)

>What kind of license is this under, if any?
Umm, no license.  It's just a fan project so no one's going to be making money off of it anyway, unless I change the content (including the way hyperspace looks because lets face it, that's a direct ripoff).

Speaking of hyperspace, it's pretty bland right now...not much visual interest.  Any warhammer 40k fans?  I was thinking of making it more like the warp from that game, very chaotic with storms and such.

Egad, I sure hope your ships come equipped with a lazarus field if that would be the case.  :o
Those warp demons are nasty...
Your ships could end up like... like that movie, Event Horizon :)

Hmmm...that's not a bad idea for a random encounter...

Just curious Madgap, how many hours have you spent on this game?

Hours?  Sheesh...I have no idea.  I think I started Star5 a couple of years ago and have worked on it on and off since then.  I took a 7 month break during my last couple of terms at school.  Now I try to spend an hour or two a day messing around with it.  Total hours?  I don't know...a few thousand?

Maybe this sounds ankward but i belive to come up with a story is the easy part. If you don't belive you can do it, well there are lots of people developing very good storys but lacking the skills to come up with a game. I really suggest you come up with something self-made after this. Maybe you should put together a team ^^

As an addition i thought about that sun-problem. Suns should really have some heavy gravity and be deadly. To avoit from running ships into it you need more room from the planets to the system core. Hyperspace could warp you in the outer layes of the system, and you could recode the AI to avoid the sun in most cases (mycon sound like they would love sun-vicinity). There is nothing wrong with the orginal suns, they are simply too close.

Aside of that since you develope multiple classes of ships for the races multiplayer could go as far as letting you choose your race, limiting the aquisition of other ships to capture maybe (further enhancing replay value).

Are you planning to make a planet-lander-subsequence ?

I must say, I almost crapped my drawers once I saw this game!  Absolutely beautiful graphics, and much more depth than many of the other starcon fanboy spinoffs I have seen.

I hate to suggest improvements on an already awesome game, but I suppose you could use all the help you can get since you are doing this all by yourself.  But first I have several questions.

1.  What is with the friendly ships that just run around aimlessly and get shot at, and can I recruit them for an assault on an enemy base?

2.  What is the purpose of the sensor outpost in the new release?

3.  What does the technology level of the people on the planets have to do with anything?

4.  The prices of the goods at all of the starbases are the same everywhere.  So if the purpose is to create trade routes, it is relatively pointless.  ( This was more of a statement than a question, and I am sure you have already noticed this.  Nonetheless, it is a good idea to have trade routes, a concept only mastered in a few rare games {eg. Escape Velocity}).

Well, this post is already too long (I don't know if they'll even let me post it), so I suppose I should shut up.  Anyway, great game, and I will keep an eye out for future versions.

>> Are you planning to make a planet-lander-subsequence?

No, but I am planning on making resource gathering more interesting by including a variety of...err...'sector anomalies'.

>>1.  What is with the friendly ships that just run around aimlessly and get shot at, and can I recruit them for an assault on an enemy base?

Eh?  Perhaps they are unarmed, which flee from a sector when hostiles are present.

>> 2.  What is the purpose of the sensor outpost in the new release?

Expands the range of your hyperspace sensors on the starmap.  The light circles are your sensor ranges.  You can see anything in range.  Not much point to it now as the 'strategy' portion of the game needs a lot of work.

>> 3.  What does the technology level of the people on the planets have to do with anything?

Nothing yet, but eventually things available for purchase at a starbase will have a min tech lvl requirement satisfied by the tech level of the planet the starbase is orbiting.


>> 4.  The prices of the goods at all of the starbases are the same everywhere.

Trading isn't really implemented yet.  I haven't decided if I want to make prices dynamic, static, or completely random.  However, prices should vary for some of the planet types.  For instance, a starbase orbiting an agricultural world will have cheaper food and textiles for sale.

Thanx Madgap, that cleared a lot up.

On the random ships, they are not unarmed and often help a lot in combat.  They seem to just wander between systems and keep the Ur-Quan ships occupied.

As for the trading, I have found that if I build more than two starbases, the prices start to vary.

Keep up the good work!

It sounds like you are tring to cross it with Privateer, Interesting idea, Was this your intention or is merely to give the game more depth? (On second thought it's more like Pirates!)

I like the idea of operating as a rogue human in a future timeline post-war, when, due the lack of war to motivate and unify it, the alliance has descended into petty bickering and corruption.

You would have to make odd friends to survive in that universe, while you could still be a "good guy" standing up for whats right rather than what the alliance tells you is right.

Very good idea, I'm reposting this so Madgap can read it again just in case he didn't quite appreciate it the first time.

Howdy thought Id register finally to tell you awesome job on this game and I look forward to its future. Cheers.

Hey Madgap, got a few more questions.

First of all, does  the fuel depot server any purpose other than to establish your presence on gas giants?  I tried to fuel up my ship, but when I went to the starbase, it still cost the same to fuel up.

Part two of first question.  Will it cost anything to fill up at the fuel depots in the future when they are operational?

Bug report.  It seems when you go to a starbase and sell a ship, you have to exit and re-dock b4 it will let you buy another one.  The buy button simply does not work.  This is not serious, just a bit annoying.

Progress report.  I just nuked my first starbase!!!  It was kewl.  Massive explosion and I lost half of my fleet (10 HCs!).

Note.  I figured out what the ships wandering aimlessly are doing.  They seem to be escorting cargo convoys.  You more than likely already know this, but I'm just lettin the other folks know.  They are quite usefull as they attract those annoying two-ship Ur-Quan interceptor fleets that are really good at pulling me into real space at an inopportune time.

Keep up the good work!

thetallman13

That brings something up. Either the fuel stations cost far too much or the starbases are too cheap, but the slight difference in price means that there's really no reason to ever make a fuel station. Fix plz

The whole fuel station thing was something I just threw in there.  I strategy portion is going through a re-design (in my head).  I want it to be fun without being too complicated.  Ship costs, loadouts, starbase and outposts will need to be redone.

Thanks for the bug report, thetallman13, I'll look into that.

-Madgap

Random suggestions for changing the economics model:

I would chage the game so that all the economics happen behind the sceens, but you are helped by building, pillaging, and killing.

A possible model:

1) player has a rank based on the number of kills, bases built, etc.  Rank controls how much revenue player gets from bases and mines.  For example, a player may get 1% of the revenue of a new starbase if they are the lowest rank, but 10% if they are the highest.

2) Starbases, mines, etc generate materials at a fixed rate.  Starbases and mines have two accounts for all ores... the general account, and the players account.  Player can sell ore from their account to the general account.  Player can only buy if the ore is available.

3) ships & enhancements require a fixed amount of ore (say 100 units per mine you have now.)  If you don't have all the units of ore you need at the starbase you are at, you can't buy the enhancement.

4) starbases will buy ships on it's own with the materials and credits it has.  Freighters will automaticly travel to nearby mines to move materials back.  Warships will defend freighters, and engage enemies inside the range of the starbase.

5) if a computer's freighter reaches a mine and the mine does not have enough ore to fill the freighter from the general account, the freighter will take back some from the player's account.  If the freighter makes it back, the player gets 50% of the ore at that station.

6) make the defesnive posts of a starbase a little easier to kill, and make it so a starbase will purchase more of them if it has enough materials.  Also, get rid of the uber nuclear missile.  Starbases should be difficult to kill head on, but easy to kill if you can blocade the system.

I think, with a little tinkering this will make for an interesting game:

if you build, raid, and kill, eventually you can build up a large fleet.

if you arn't careful and engage the enemies economic production, you are in trouble.

Just a suggestion

I just finished a large project I was working on and sent it off to the publisher, so now I've got a some time to look for a job and work on Aftermath.  I just uploaded the beginnings of a webpage for Aftermath.  I'm going to post my resume there as well...hopefully they will catch someone's eye.  8)

I will still be checking the forum here, butI will be posting all new information on the website so as not to clog up the UQM message board.

After I finish the initial version of the client/server (couple of days?) I will begin upgrading the strategic portion of the single player game.  I want to see how well the multiplayer code performs lag-wise before I put anymore work into it.

Website is at: http://www.umich.edu/~rkingsle

-Madgap

Ack! Your website has dissapeared! I'd been checking it for updates and then it was just gone... What's going on? Please give us an update, your game is the first SC2ish game that I've ever been interested in so I've been keeping track of where it's at (By lurking....)

so

umm

yeah. If you got a moment let us in on where you're at and what you're up to.  :P

That is strange.  I got the same message.  Maybe he is just updating.

Bah, when I finally get around to trying to download the game, it goes down. I can't wait til it gets up again.

I still happen to have the original zip file, so if you like, I could email you the game. (PM your email if so). It is about 6MB though so you've got to have a email service that'll let you get something that large.

On the other hand, you could always just wait....  :-/

Sorry, guys...my site went down because my university of michigan account was deactivated.  They only let us keep em for one term after graduation.  However, I contacted them, paid my 10 bucks, and it should be up again very soon.  It's a shame too, because the site went down right when I was about to upload the client/server combo.

The client/server deal is VERY crude.  I haven't been able to test it under real internet conditions so...we'll see.  It will give a rough idea of how smooth internet combat would be.

I really want to get back to the single player game, which is why I'm releasing such an unpolished multiplayer test.  I've got some cool ideas for single player that I want to implement...should make gameplay more interesting.  I'll post a message here when the website is back up.  Also, you'll know it's back up because my cat avatar will reappear.

-Madgap

If I may add:

GO BLUE!

:)

Webpage is back up, along with the client/server.  We'll need to set up some kind of 'server party' to really test out the code.  I have only tested this out locally on my own computer...as for how it runs over a real internet connection...who knows.  Any for those too lazy to check out the readme.txt you can set your name in the lobby with:
/setname YourName

Well, I'm up for hosting a server, although I'll need to know everyone else is ready for it. (My ISP only provides me with a dynamic IP)
Post a message here if you're game....

Server up and running.

Current IP is: 203:45:28:214 (replace colons with dots)

I've tested it on my own machine and it tends to work okay but I need an acid test by players not in my own home.

Connect at your own risk, I'll, be leaving it up for the next 6 or 7 hours and I'll post uptime/downtime as necessary.

Well, I tried to connect to your server, but I think it's down already, (couldn't ping it). In the mean time, I'll put one up on :

63.249.65.200

and leave for work  >:(
BTW if you see this, jump on it because my IP is dynamic, so who knows how long the lease will last...

Well, I could ping your computer, but I couldn't connect to the server.  So either the server is down or something isn't working correctly.  If no one successfully connects then I think I'm going to end up abandoning the multiplayer project until I move and can set up a permanent server of my own.

It's next to impossible for me to test anything like this. :(

Howdy - i just connected to your server (203:45:28:214) - and teh game looks really fun.  I just hopped on to see if i could connect, so i've not done any exploring, but i'm headed back in now.  Keep up the good work:)

Hmmm, thats odd. I know my copy of the server is up. (Called home and asked room mate. ) I can also ping it from here at work so I don't know.
On the other hand, what kind of performance should I expect connecting to my own machine? Because even on my own machine movement was VERY choppy. Should it be even close to the movement in the regular game?
Yet another side note. When I tried connecting to the 203:45:28:214 it kicked me into what looked like the normal single player game, so I have a feeling that that is what Quizzling actually played.
Quizzling, did you see a load/new game option? That would tell us if you actually connected to the server. .

Uh... Oh.  Yeah, i guess it just did kick me into the normal single player.  I'd never played the game before, so i assumed that what i was playing was on the server. Now i see the error of my ways.  In any case, i'm enjoying myself.  Thanks for the work on this.

Also, i just tried running on my local server (e.g. starting the server, then running off 127.0.0.1), and the speed was just fine - no difference between that and single player.  I'm running a laptop with Pentium-M 1.3GHz and 512MB Ram, standard, built in graphics card, if that helps.

Then something is jacked up with either my computer or the server. Oh well....

Server up as of 10 AM today and will be until 10 PM/9:30PM (hey, I need to go to work at 4:30 AM you know D: )

Uptime for today: 12 Hours

{Edit}

Madgap, there was a very good reason for that. Your post came 12 hours after mine, and I was in bed snoring at the time (or getting up for work =\) so naturally the compy was off at the time.

I may be able to piece together a computer to work as a permanent server (on 24/7 in other words).

{Double Edit}

Current time as of this edit is 10:16 AM, time at Post was 10:12 AM, so it should be up for some time.

I was just able to connect to you server, Cronos.  Unfortunately it was a really bad connection.  Nothing was responding very well.  However, at least it connected, so we know that it's at least possible.  I think it's pretty clear that I'm going to have to set up some permanent test server of my own.  I can't do that until I move, and I can't do that until I get a job.  Soooo...until then I'll just focus on single player.

Arr where do I get the multi thingy?

It's probably because I'm downloading a few large things from my ISP at the moment, that and the locale (Australia is relatively isolated 'netwise).

Try setting up a server with a friend closer to home, other then that though, good effort :)

I tried to run the server progam on a extra windows 2000 server I have laying around, but it complained about

and then closes

would this be a issue with windows 2000 server? or something stupid I am doing?

If this could be solved i can provide you a test server that is on a Dedicated T1 with next too no other traffic, other then my obsesive Anime Downloading. it is usaly a empty pipe.

The CoCreateInstance call is failing right in the beginning.  My best guess is that you need to install the newest version of DirectX.

Well that managed too fix it.

The computer its being hosted on, is only a 500Mhz so that may have intersting effects. It did seem to be somewhat laggy when i connected to it.

The IP: 63.162.240.36

have fun trying it out.

I went into the above server. It's bugged and no one was home, I dunno what else to say.

At work at the moment, but I'll try that server when I get home, (About 4:30 Pacific time) Someone else should sign on at that time and we could see what goes on.

ok the 500 Mhz doesnt cut it.

I put it on a 2Ghz windows 2003 server and that runs better.

the new IP is : 63.162.240.34

I cant promise this one will stay up more then a few days.
As soon as my boss returns he most likely will stop it. :(
but that wont happen till tommarrow.
the old IP will stay up though, untill a virus kills it or it gets hacked.

Thanks for putting up a good server Bio! I'll Try in a half hour...

ok ive got a bug to report:

I was bored so i logged onto my own server and started killed the urquanand then restarting the game. i did this 12 time. by the 12th time the urquan was invisable for 30 to 50 seconds where i could not target or see him but plasma bolts started coming out of nowhere.
Also alot of times the ship you pilot is invisible till you move.

Success!  I was able to log onto the 63.162.240.34 server and kill an UR-Quan! Now if someone else would just log on so we can try PvP....

Note for MadGap:
For an unpolished piece of code it ran relatively smoothly. there was a little lag but it wasn't too bad, (ie ships and shots changed position instantly, but not too far, typical lag issue)

I just tried to reproduce the error BioSlayer got and was unable to do so. (Killed Ur-Quan about 20 times)

Now it is behaving odd. It seems like there's about 5 other ships trying to kill me, only one is visible and the rest are invisible.....
I can't tell if it's other people, (there's no one in the lobby, maybe it's because no one bothered to change their name. All named Noob Maybe?)

I just tried again, and I saw BioSlayer in the lobby, but when I clicked on play, I get a flash of the game and then just black, with my HUD up  saying I'm at position 0, 0. An I can hear people shooting at me. Oh well...

adding to what the above guy said it also seems that when we joined into the game together we were not anywhere near each other. one time i did see a green dot on the radar. but the game was unplayable since only the HUB was rendered.

i exited and reentered many times to get it to render properly these are the results:
1/12 everything ran the way it should have.
2/12 times the whole screen rendered but not the enemy ships
5/12 the HUD rendered and i could see objects on the radar.(red, yellow dots)
4/12 the HUD rendered but the radar was blank and controls did not respond.

I even tried to restart the server side program.

Server sync problem.  Not all of the data is being sent at the start...that's why you get the invisible ships problem.  They exist on the server but not on the client.  The blank screen, (0,0) problem has to do with your ship spawning right on top of an existing ship (has to be the exact same coordinates.)  It's a collision reaction math error.

The sorta good news is I already knew about these.  I can detect them and debug them locally on my machine.  I'm glad people were able to connect and the lag wasn't too bad.  I probably won't work anymore on the multiplayer until I get a job, as I want to focus on the single player stuff for awhile.

MadGap-
I've been playing around with various files, and I think there's an easy addition you could make to vastly increase the possibilities for ships in Aftermath. Give the .weapon files one additional attribute: Recoil. If you had that, ships like the Druuge or the Thraddash becaome very easy to create. It seems like an easy addition and would make the gameplay more interesting as far as choosing between energy weapons or physical weapons. Waddaya think?

-TSG

Oh, and I'm glad to know that your server/client release provided you with some useful info. I know that you're focusing on the single player at the moment, but the idea of team based multiplayer makes me drool. A lot.

Good idea, TSG!  Actaully, I put recoil in awhile ago, but none of the weapons currently use it. :P  I'll need to look up the setting again.  Thanks for bringing it up...I had completely forgotten about it.  I'll make sure that in the next release some of the larger projectile weapons have recoil.  Ammo will be a consideration as well.

Expect the next release to be more...simulation like as far as ship customization and systems go.

Still working on the strategy portion though...trying to make it deep and yet not overly complex.  Also, programming an in game tutorial is a pain in the butt.  Lack of a scripting system rumored to be main culprit.

Excellent! Now I've got all kinds of nasty ideas...>:)



Cool, it is a little ridiculous right now with being able to put any weapon on any ship. Creating limits on what you can put where will make having one ship or another much more interesting and fun.



Does that mean you're going to put in a scripting system or are you just going to hard code in the tutorial? Which is easier and which is the right way?

-TSG

Has everybody checked the website?  The about section has been updated.  It seems our friend madgap is as good a comedian as he is a programmer.  

Why quantum mechanics?

I've been lurking here for a while now, happily playing UQM and browsing the posts.  Having finished UQM a few times in a row, I finally got bored enough to download Aftermath last night.  I don't think I'm going to be bored for a while.

This is a beautiful game!  I wish my store-bought games were half as pretty as this one.  I spent the first half-hour just tooling about the first solar system, loving the background, the planets, the asteroids, and the way my ship moved.  Giving nukes a vapor trail may not be scientifically accurate, but it's a great visual touch that adds a lot to combat.  I love the way the mining laser lights up whatever it hits.  The sounds are excellent.  The best thing is that it runs wonderfully on my antiquated machine; everything's smooth as glass, even with ten-plus ships in combat.

Now that the gushing's out of the way, I do have some observations and suggestions.  First, you might think about adding some kind of anti-collision logic to the AI.  With five or more ships in my fleet, it tended to look like I was being chased by the Keystone Kops every time I slowed down.  It was mildly annoying because just as I'd managed to slow to a crawl in order to mine an asteroid, they'd plow into me and send me flying all over again.  Collisions didn't seem to cause any damage, but it did occasionally lead to me nailing an ally big time with my mining laser.

Second, the triangle-over-trapezoid display for ship status is a little confusing.  One of my ships didn't have it (perhaps a bug?).  For the rest, it was pretty obvious after a while that the triangle changed color as a ship was damaged, but the trapezoid never seemed to do anything.  I did miss having the crew display because it's an explicit measure of damage, as opposed to the implicit fading to red.  I was never really sure of just how much punishment one of my ships could take.

Third, I found myself wishing for a little more information from the primary display.  A green circle or other indicator around the active ship would help, though it's not a big deal.  I had to wiggle my ship in order to figure out which one I was piloting after switching.  Along the same lines, some way of differentiating between ships (e.g. blaster ships v. nuke launchers) and, more importantly, discerning which ones are particularly damaged would be nice.  Jumping from ship to ship after each fight to take stock of the fleet was a bit annoying.

Fourth, I couldn't tell which of my ships was carrying my mine constructors after the fleet had done a little asteroid mining.  Some kind of cargo manifest would be helpful, and there's plenty of room on the screen for one.

Fifth, my mouse seemed quite slow during play.  Is that something you can control?

Sixth, the starbase interface involved a lot of selections made in the upper left corner of the screen, followed by clicking on buttons (buy, sell, etc.) in the lower right corner.  Combined with the slow mouse, this was the low point of the game for me.

Seventh, does being overloaded mean anything?  Whenever I put a warp engine in a ship, a message appeared warning me that my ship was overloaded--with an exclamation point, no less.  However, this didn't seem to do anything.  Is this just something that's only partially implemented?

Eighth, back to the gushing.  This is already a very nice game.  The foundation you've created is smooth, solid, reasonably intuitive, and absolutely gorgeous.  I'm already blown away and looking forward to seeing what this turns into down the road.  Very cool stuff, Madgap.

Easier said than done I'm afraid...especially if I don't 'cheat'.  I'm always tinkering with the ship AI, so you will probably see some improvement over time.


I think I'll be switching to damage bars next version.  Still messing around with the status display.


The status display in the next version will have a unique icon for each weapon so you will know what's installed on the current ship.  I'll look into adding some kind of onscreen damage report for other ships in your fleet.



The new version uses a unified cargo bay for the entire fleet.  You won't have to select a particular ship.


Yeah, I'll add an options menu next version.


Answer to both: Next version... :)

i have wound a nasty looking bug if i may say looking, in hyper-space there is computer controlled battles of ur-quan and earthlings over time more or less, but i find out that some of them ever stops! ower time there will even more ships joining to battle and in few hour, there will be hundreds of ships and if you are luckily enought, there all ur-quan!  :( i've seen also battle like this whitch is controlled by dozens earthlings ships and by one badly damaged ur-quan ship what cannot be destroyed, even by using heavy nuke it just get extra-speed... i have these kind of battles in hyperspace for now about 7.

That's not a bug, it's the epic battle 'feature'.   ;D  This won't be a problem in the next version.

Work is moving along...I'm coding some galaxy generation stuff at the moment.  After that's finished I'll work on adding/balancing the content and random encounters.  Then I'll release another version.   :)

Its good to see that some people still have the spitrit to write the damm best game possible. Thats something very, very special these days sadly. Hat off Madcap, in this dark, twisted corporate world of cloned games that are tailored for simplicity you give me hope.

Keep up the good work.

I've done some programming in the same vein myself, so I do appreciate that this is one of the hardest things to get right.  Far more important than ships not bouncing off each other is making the AI fight relatively intelligently.

I've tried assaulting a starbase a few times.  Every time, I've watched my heavy cruisers (love the little Enterprises) fire their heavy nukes at the closest turret and charge to short range faster than the heavy nukes can fly, resulting in them being wasted by the nuke volley they just fired.  I wind up left with just the ship I'm piloting every time, having wasted the rest of my fleet killing a single turret.

I'm going to try loading a pile of normal cruisers with heavy nukes and nothing else to see if they'll stand back and do what they ought to do if they don't have any shorter range weapons.  Of course, that means that they'll probably be eaten alive by the Mycon and Ur-Quan flying about the base.  



Excellent.



Making asteroid mining, etc. a little less tedious is a good thing.  I hope you'll be keeping special equipment like mining colony constructors tied to specific ships, though, so that players still have to worry about protecting given ships.

And, just in case the grousing's making this conversation seem a bit negative, I still love this game.

Hey there

I just wanted to say again (as I've written yet in another  thread at a different time) that -- whatever you do, remember to have backups, perferably on CDs or your email-box.. I remember this story about this poor guy who worked really hard on making Doom with a 3D openGL engine he wrote, and after a few months (there were beta versions already and people were all excited about it) his computer crashed and he lost all the sources..

and since we're all familiar with Murphy's Law in this case, you'd better start backuping up as soon as you finish reading these words ;)


Good luck.

Good thinking Censored.  I made a backup up the source.

I've got a question for you guys.  The battles on my current build are getting pretty big.  I was wondering if you had a preference as far as on screen info went.  What kind of on screen indicators do you want/don't want?  Would people prefer almost no indicators like it is now, or more stuff showing health/team for all units on the screen?  Any ideas?  I think I need more information than I currently have, but I'm afraid of adding too many things.

I would like to know how to connect a server and some ips  :'(

In reply to madgap:

I think a good idea for indicators, for ships off the screen,  is a box, that has a arrow pointing towards the direction of the other ship, with an icon of the ship type then bars to show the the status of the ship. red box for a enemy, green for an ally.
you can also have the box shrink as a ship gets farther away and get larger as it approuches.
for on screen have RTS like health display for each unit.
thats what i think should be good enough.
oh course you could have a option to turn them off for "a more challanging game play"


In reply to Deep-Jiffa

just run the client side program and type in the following IP.
The IP: 63.162.240.36
that one is still up if not inform me.

The server is still up..

Question: why don't the texts don't load up when i have these settings:
800 600 32 0 ?
Which ones DO work (i prefer not having 1024x768 because of slowness... Anything to fix that?)

Maybe it's already been brought up, but i'm searching as-we-speak. It would be nice if someone can explain it to me, which saves me some time.. ;)

What do you mean the texts don't load up?  You can't see any text/font?  You should be able to see the text at any resolution.  What kind of graphics card are you using, and have you tried updating your drivers?

Well.. I can't see any text. Text on buttons, text when you want to buy ships, "loading" text at the beginning, briefing text when you click "new game"....

The only text I am able to see at other resolutions than 1024x768 are the texts you can see in the main game itself (such as cargo, minerals list, and such.)

I recently updated my video cards drivers.. I'm running a (old i know) s3 Savage4 card.

MadGap,

As far as status indicators go, here's what I thought of. When I'm in a battle right now when there's a lot of ships, targeting one is the last things I want to do because then if I get close to the targeted ship, I often get nailed from outside the screen by another ship I can't see. Since we do have two hands, what about putting in  zoom in/zoom out keys? By default set it up as the arrow keys with 'up' being zoom in and 'down' being zoom out. Limit the zooming so that it can't get bigger than your radar and can't get smaller than having your ship and your current target, (which is the default view you have now). That would take care of being able to see everything, but I'd recommend having an option to set the zooming so that it's the way it is now, (it works well and is simple). Lastly, as far as the status of ships, have say the right arrow key cause the game to display bars to the right of each ship kind of like this, (excuse crude ascii art). Only while you hold the key down though.

 | |  ||
 | |  ||
--------
 | |  ||
 | |  ||

So you'd have forward and aft hull , (left top and bottom bars), and forward and aft shield, (right top and bottom). Color the hull indicator bars for whichever team the ship is on, (red for enemy, green for ally, blue for nuetral maybe?), and the shield bars could always just be cyan. This would enable you to get instant status on all ships visually, yet the default view would be uncluttered.
The only disadvantage of this is that then you wouldn't be able to use the mouse for combat, (don't know if you have anything planned in that vein). I have to admit that being able to aim weapons with the mouse would be cool.  ;D

Well, now I'm 2 cents poorer.

-TSG

I just finished integrating Ogg Vorbis with with my DirectMusic based sound system.  Do you think it would be alright if I used some of the 3DO music from UQM?  Is there someone I need to contact first for permission?  

dont take my word on this but,
I believe it woulb be alright, since, they are released under the licences they are under. also since you are not releasing yours as a retail and do not plan to, I dont think they would have problem with you using thier music.

they most likely will say "as long as you give us credit for it, its alright with us."

I just thought of the most interesting of ideas.

mix your game engine  with diablo. not it terms of  going down to the depth of hell to fight satan, but in terms of special skills like chained lighting, or summon minions to fight at your side.  having special items bosses drop that are unique.  If done right it could be very interesting, and potentialy fun.

though the amount of effort to make such a game would be beyond me at the moment.

I think what I'm going to do is let people pick their own music files.  Something like: a file in the Music directory called Hyperspace.ogg will be played when the player is in hyperspace, Battle.ogg when fighting, etc...  Keeps the file size down and lets people hear what they want.

In other news: I'm adding mouse support during truespace mode.  You can use the mouse to select ships, issue commands to ships in your fleet, manipulate objects, etc...  It's pretty cool and works better than I thought it would.  So now you will be able to order some of your ships to hang back, while having others attack specific targets.

It's not perfect, but it's a start.

Reinstalled directX, reinstalled my graphics card, but it still isn't fixed (the weird non-displaying texts bug)

also: is this normal?

(http://home.deds.nl/~megagun/temp/weird.jpg)

It seems to be related to light-reflections. When I turn my ship, those squares change from visibility to invisibility.

Maybe an idea: lower gfx quality options (such as: no lighting, low texture mode, low nebula texturing, and such..)

Ok, that's definately a problem with your card, not the program...maybe a texture memory problem.  I did some searching online for that card:
"Compounding the Savage3D's teething problems were drivers that needed constant updates, over 30 and counting as of the writing of this article, and no less than three BIOS flashes for the cards that were based on the early Savage3D chips at that time.

The final nail in the Savage3D's coffin came in the form of its very limited on board frame buffer support. 2, 4, or a maximum of 8 total megabytes of on card ram were all the Savage3D could handle, which made cards based on the S3 chip look pale to buyers when compared to the many 16MB offerings from the competition. "

I'm afraid I'm going to have to issue my second one of these:
- Aftermath does not support the S3 Savage4 video card.

Sorry buddy. :(

I'm stoked on the mouse support. I can't wait till you get it out. Related to the whole zooming thing, I think you should set the mouse wheel forward and back for zooming instead of a key on the keyboard. I would also still like a key, (or mouse button), that brings up status indicators next to every ship like I mentioned in my previous post.

Actually, I just had a second thought about the zooming. If you're going to be issuing commands to many ships in your fleet, perhaps you should set the camera so that it points at the average middle of all enemy and alliance ships.
I really like the idea of a high speed strategy with this, via mouse controlled fleet combat. It has the potential to be very fun and I believe you can implement it very well.

Cheers

-TSG

Why not improve the strategic portion of the game? I'd like to see mining drones buzzing around systems after you build them, as well as the ability to set patrols and such.  Multiple fleets would be fantastic. What if both sides had to work? I'd like to do something like launching a fleet (tying up their resources) at System X and then launching a second attack against their starbase at System Y.

I've hacked the Earth ships a bit. I've found that convoys are normally way too powerful compared to anything you might get, making convoy raids far too unprofitable, as well as making the game pointlessly difficult given that you can't run away from encounters very well.
The regular nukes now have these properties:

EnergyUsage: 4
RechargeRate: 24

Previously, a group of, say, 11 ships might have one hell of a battle against only 2 uber-dreadnaughts with standard escort. Either the fleet is destroyed or only a few are left, making space incredibly dangerous and convoy raiding pointless until you have a massive fleet. But why shouldn't 20,000 credits (10 ships + yours) be enough to profitably raid transports? This modification allows you to shoot 3 round bursts.

In normal circumstances, at the start of the battle, the ships will all concentrate on one or two targets and destroy them pretty easily. Standard Ur-Quan vessels are now roughly equivilant to human ships - the winner of any one conflict between the two depends on who fires first. If the Ur-Quan gets off his shot first, the human will be destroyed. On the other hand, 3 nukes can take one out. I thought about making them a little more powerful, but I don't want to increase their armor rating too much. I left it as it is.

I also reduced the armor rating on AutoFighters from 10 to 2, making sure they're fragile as they should be. Pretty much any explosion will take these guys out now. This gives human ships an actual chance against them, because currently fighting the damn things is difficult as hell.

Finally, is there a way to add ships and weapons? As an experiment, I changed galaxy.dat and added new entries so I could purchase Ur-Quan ships, but that didn't work. Specifically, I copied and pasted the Ur-Quan entry and changed "Team: Ur-Quan" to "Team: Federation."  The only way I managed to get Ur-Quan ships purchasable was to replace the Light Cruiser and its weapons with the Ur-Quan equivilant. There must be a better way?

Here is an idea:

It is really annoying that I have to start over after every new version comes out, so is it possible that you won't have to start over?

The price of playing a beta I'm afraid.  There have been massive changes to the save file format since the last version.  The old save files don't have nearly enough information.  However, maybe to make it easier I'll let you start the game with a very large amount of money, so you won't have to do as much mining.

Yea mining is fun but kicking the ur-quan is more fun ;D

P.S
Does 0.61v is the latest version?

That's the latest public version.  The next release will be .70, but still needs some work.

Actually, it is very easy to add ships and weapons. I've made a bunch of custom ships with custom weapons. I haven't released them because I've been giving them to MadGap for additional content for the next version and I didn't want to spoil it for when it came out.

As far as making the UrQuan purchasable, you need to change the team and requirements for the AutoFighter weapon and hull entries in the Galaxy.dat file as well. Aftermath checks to see if you can purchase each weapon that comes by default with the ship. Capitalization and spacing matters!

If there's a lot of interest I may post one or two ships, but I really want to wait for the next version.

I'm at work now, but when I get home I'll post the files you need so that you can just drop them into their respective directories.

-TSG

EDIT: Ok, now I'm at home and I could take a look at the Galaxy.dat file. You want to change the team for the UrQuan ship that you're trying to purchase after the
**************Ship_Definitions***************
line. It looks like this for the Devestator hull.

Begin ShipDef
 Name: UrQuan2
 Hull: Devastator Hull
 Sensor: Basic Sensor
 Weapon1: Plasma Cannon
 Weapon2: Auto Fighters
 Drive: Warp Drive
 Team: Federation
End

Other things to keep in mind:
 -The Warp Drive has a requirement for mines, (1 crystal and 2 titanium I think), so you won't be able to purchase it until you have them. (Or change the requirements in the Galaxy.dat file)

 -All names or Case Sensitive. This means you must type everything EXACTLY as it is named elsewhere. (In other words, if you type 'federation' for the team it won't work, but typing 'Federation' will.)

 -Don't spend too much time learning all the ins and outs of the Galaxy.dat file. The next version will probably have a very different way of storing the galaxy info.  ;D

I was looking through source forge in hopes of stealing code and claiming it my own when I stumbled onto this (http://sourceforge.net/projects/aftermath/)
It seems the name aftermath is already taken. Check this (http://sourceforge.net/projects/aftermath/) out at source forge.


BTW: stealing code is a bad thing you should never  never never never NEVER do.

Burn the witch?

>Project UNIX name: aftermath
>Registered: 2004-06-29 13:45

Looks like they just registered it.  I called it first!   :P

Anyway, I'm sure just about every word in the dictionary has been claimed by someone...so we just tack something onto the 'official' title like:
Aftermath: The Frungy Conspiracy

:D

Possible new name suggestions:

Project: Aftermath

The Aftermath Chronicles

Codename: Aftermath

AfterCalculus   ::)

Or you could make up some lame name and then translate it to another language using  this (http://www.worldlingo.com/wl/translate), to make it sound cool.

This is aftermath translated into the indicated languages:
Nachmahd (german)
Consecuencias (spanish)
Guaime (Italian)

i am in awe.  i can't even imagine how much effort has gone into this game, and to think that it's been done by one person is amazing.  i was excited to find there was a re release of sc2, and jubilant to find something new.  that's all i have to say for the moment, everyone has posted everything i could think of to improve.  keep up the good work  ;D

I thought of something that would be cool to improve, but not really a huge improvement...If, when an item was selected in the equip section, or when a ship was selected, there was a description of it (like damage, range, etc) it would be helpful.  This is more in the market section of the starbase since those items have no description, however the damage/range/etc would be nice to have in addition to the description in the equip section.  Also, perhaps someone that is in this forum would be willing to do images of each item, like the nuke, big nuke, things like that?  that way, you wouldn't have to give out your code but you could still be helped.  just a suggestion :-)

Just incase you wondered whether or not it was hard to make ships for this excellent game, see a sampling of what can be done:

(http://www.thatsteveguy.net/images/screenshot.jpg)

Yes, MadGap you do have a few more coming to you ;)

-TSG

Only the Terminator and the Avenger look nice to me.  :'(

Deep Jiffa-
Don't you think it's time to move beyond and expand upon what Star Control 2 was? Without a doubt it was, (and UQM is), one of the best games ever produced. It seems to me though that every game that is started that has some of the elements of SC2 gets bogged down in trying to be exactly like it. No game will ever be SC2 again. Ever.
So let's move beyond making games with the exact same set of ships every time. What's the point? It's been done, (TimeWarp, UQM, etc). It's not only re-inventing the wheel, but re-inventing the EXACT SAME wheel over again.  
I suppose my point is this: The only ships on that screen shot you like are the ones that are exactly like SC2 ships. At least I got that right. However, to just decide that the rest suck only because they are not pulled directly out of SC2 seems... premature. On top of that, why don't you tell me why you don't like them? The worst critique you can give is "I don't like it". Without telling me, (or anyone for that matter), why you don't like something makes it impossible to pull anything of use out of what you say.
Finally, the real reason I put together the screen shot was to show that it is easy to make ships! I put these together with Wings3d and GIMP which are open source and free. Oh and notepad. ;)  That is what is exciting.

-TSG

Actually, I have no problem with new races and ships. I just told you what I liked.

Hey, thatsteveguy, if you're using wings, how'd you like to convert your Ilwrath into xmesh format for this little side project of mine?
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2365
There's a VS xmesh plugin for wings supposedly.  If that doesn't work, exporting to .3ds and using VS's 3ds2xml perl script does the trick.

The reason I ask:  I don't have any ilwrath models, and I'm trying to make the initial Sol system from SC2 in VS as a proof-of-concept for a full SC2/VS mod.

You're in luck. Aftermath already uses the .x file format, so I've already converted it. It also uses .dds for the textures. What kind of texture format do you need? Will .dds work or do you need .tga, tif, .bmp? I may need to also swap the x, y and z axes depending on the orientation in VS. I'm doing more models for Aftermath so if you're interested I could give you a few others.
Let me know and I'll convert it to whatever you need, (I can pretty much give you  whatever format you need for anything).

-TSG

Edit: I just took a look at the VS forums and I'm not sure this model will have enough polys, (1,928 polys). It's also probably scaled wrong. If you give me a .3ds model from VS I can make sure it's scaled and aimed correctly. Also it appears that the .xmesh format you're talking about WAS different than what I was thinking. So I would have to install the plugin. I don't know anything about the tags for mount points and whatnot, you know how to do that?

Let's continue the xmesh etc. modeling discussion on vegastrike's forums (specifically the forum that I listed two posts above).  I'll post a URL for the .3ds I used to create the xmesh stuff (it did have to be oriented in a special way).

Do I see a space shuttle in there? Anyway on a whole it looks nice. I especially like how the BSS Eluder was done.

Where can I get the newest version? :)

Madgaps website:

www.umich.edu/~rkingsle

Has the latest and earlier versions along with other tidbits.

A few thoughts for improvement:

Modular Campaigns

Allow the player to select any one of a variety of campaigns sorted by difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard).

The current campaign is all well and good but this also allows for expanding the universe, playing the side of the Ur-Quan and allowing others to make their own custom campaigns as well.

One easy scenario could be a fresh recruit helping the ZoqFotPik re-establish their colonies and running into a Kohr-Ah half way through to the objective (setting up so many colonies). This is of course just an idea.

Melee Mode

Melee mode would important for practicing in the game. Like it or not combat in aftermath is much different from combat in UQM and I still havent gotten used to it. Melee mode would also allow for an easier testing bed for new ships (Yehat Terminators anyone? :))

Gameplay options

Essentially, options for the player. Want a harder game? Go hardcore. Ships are much more expensive, enemies more tenacious etc. Having a hard time? Go for Big Softy mode. Just wanna jump in and blow stuff up? Go for freeform, ships are either free or relatively cheap and you respawn when you die (at a cost of credits of course :))

Score

Final suggestion, I promise. My final idea is that of score. Score is calculated by how many enemy ships you've destroyed, how many starbases blown to smithereens and how many ships you've lost/built.

So, Destroying a Mycon ship would give, say, 50 points, dreadnought would give 150 etc. Destroying a starbase would give 500 Points, losing a vessel of your fleet would incur a 10 point penalty, losing a starbase would incur a 500 point penalty etc. Destroying a friendly vessel also incurs negative points etc.

When you die you get to put your name in the hall of fame, and then come and brag about it on the message boards and realise your score of 70000 or so was totally blown away by someone with about 6000000 or something.

Well, thats enough rambling from me.

Hello out there.... MadGap are you still around? It's been a while since we heard from you. Maybe you got a job! Let us know. We'll celebrate your new improved status in life!
Of course I'm pretty sure based on the evidence that you've been abducted by our *friends* for *seeing* too much. When you get back maybe you can tell us what happened to the Androsynth! It'd be nice to finally know...  

Well I got bored, so I put together this mod of aftermath. This version has many more ships such as:
Shofixti Scout
Yehat Terminator
Arilou Skiff
Various cargo ships
Ilwrath Avenger
And some additional ships I pulled outta my arse.
Now Aftermath doesn't support things like, cloaking, shields (not sure about this yet), and teleporting so your kinda outta luck in that sense. However, I did give the Cruiser a PDL and you should know that you HAVE to target a ship before it'll work. Additionally, there are requirements for the various ship types so start getting as many mines out there as possible. You'll find that your ship choices will increase drastically. ;) So without further ado here's the link.

http://www.thatsteveguy.net/aftermath61modded.zip

Don't forget to thank Madgap for this!

-TSG

EDIT: If you D/L this don't install it over your old installation of Aftermath it will seriously mess with your savegame. Create a new folder on your hard drive and unzip the package there.

SWEET STEVEGUY - i'll play it when i get home from work  ;D ;D ;D

i just noticed the timestamp on these, it says 8:36 - it's 1:36 here, where on earth is it located!

putrio-
Let me know how it goes. It works for me in it's current configuration, but it did crash once to the desktop. I haven't been able to get it to do it again though. I'm just curious how it will work on another machine. ???

-TSG

Does madgap care that you did this btw?  Just curious, wouldn't want him to become upset

Yeah, I did ask him. He said it was fine. In fact he made it the way he did specifically so that it would be easy for others to add content. I think I'm just the first one.  ::) I've also given him almost all of the models I've done so far to use however he wants, so you should see some of these models in the next release he does. (Which I personally can't wait for!)

-TSG

i can't wait either!  I wasn't accusing you, just so you know, i was just curious.  Hopefully it wasn't taken that way.  I get off of work in half an hour, and will be able to download and install it within half an hour after that, and then i'll let you know what i think :-)  

Oh, I did just think of one thing. DON'T install this over your old installation of aftermath. It will ROYALLY screw your savegame. (I learned this the hard way.) Just create a new folder on your hard drive and unzip it there.
Cheers-
-TSG

Very cool.  I don't understand some of it, like what some of the ships are (the shuttle looking one, and the little black one that can't shoot), but overall I like it.  I think it would be cool if the arilou one would stop when thrust stopped, and if the spathi one had butt missiles :-)  and a few other things, but what you have done is great, i'm quite impressed.  Great job :-)

Black one that can't shoot.... Does it move slow or fast? If it's slow, then it's the default cargo ship that came by default with Aftermath and it shouldn't have a weapon. The Spathi is actually a BSS Spathi. It's got TWO butt style guns, but aimed left and right, pushing weapon one activates the right one, and pushing weapon two activates the left one. I'm putting together an Eluder that will be faithful to the original as well so don't worry. ;)  The main problem is that Aftermath doesn't support all the specials that various ship have, so you're stuck with things like a non-teleporting Arilou that doesn't stop when you let up on the gas.  Oh well. (Waits anxiously for next release...)

-TSG

Hi.  I have found myself unable to use the mining laser for the default ship.  I don't know why, and have checked to see if one is equipped, and it is.  Other secondary weapons work correctly, but since the ships are new, and some don't have secondary fires (that i can use), I don't know if they are all working correctly on my computer.  Just thought you'd want to know, I can't really play cause i can't get money :-)

If you have the AutoLaser equipped on the Cruiser, you won't be able to mine. Go to the starbase and click on Equip. Select one of your weapons and then select the mining laser. Click buy. Hope it helps.

-TSG

Hey,

MadGap seems to be gone so this question is to those of you who really spent time playing this...

How many enemy starbases are there? I spent a lot of time mining, robbing enemy cargo ships, building new starbases and expanding all over the place - I found about 7 or 8 enemy starbases and destroyed them all. thing is, the game seems to continue as normal, there's no "YOU WIN!" or anything like that... and I can't find any more enemy bases around. odd!

Hey guys, I'm sorry for being out of touch, but the old job hunting thing has been taking up most of my time.  I haven't gotten much programming time in over the past month, so I'm not nearly as far along as I would like to be.

In order to get another version out I'm going to have to save some things until later, like improved AI.  I've updated the website with what I'm currently working on.  I hope to be done very soon.

Cronos: Those are some good ideas, and I really like the modular campaign thing.  I'll try to have a basic version of that in the next release.

VileRancour: There's no real end to the game yet...it's still incomplete.  In fact, I've been thinking a lot about the strategic level of the game.  That's where the game will be 'won', like maybe when all of the enemy bases have been destroyed.

I know some people have mentioned setting up trade routes, and directing other fleets from the starmap.  I thought about giving the player more control, but I fear that the game would become something like Master of Orion with realtime combat.  I think that would introduce too much complexity at the strategic level, and the high level AI would need to be really good.

The next version will emphasize that you are not fighting on equal footing with your enemies.  You represent a rebel group with a few small, secret bases, whereas your enemies are massive empires with enormous resources at their disposal.

-Madgap

Welcome back Madgap! Good to know you're alive... ;)

-TSG

Yea that... I another bug:

After I destroyed like 20 bases all ur-quan bases disappeared... Bug or not?

-DJ

I only put a few bases in the last version...I don't remember exactly, but I think in that version I placed them manually.  20 sounds about right.

I've finalized the code for the next version.  There are a number of incomplete features that just haven't had time to finish.  AI has not been modified at all...  However, some of the new user interface stuff is in place, some new strategic level changes, and lots of new ships and weapons.  Thanks to thatsteveguy for the new models!  :)

I've got to finish painting the system icons (pain in the butt), and balance the system weights and prices.  Pardon the crude system icons (you will see what I mean.)  A question mark just means I haven't created an icon for that system yet.  I have temporarily taken out the ogg music because it was eating up a ton of memory.  This release will have music in wav format...I converted it to mono, 8 bit so it doesn't take up much HD space.

I'll post the new version on the website in a couple of hours.  I'll update this post as well when it's up.  There won't be any new documentation at first...I'll get to that later.  :(

-Madgap

Status: Ready!

Excellent work, just a couple of things.

1. There is no way to skip the resource offloading. It may be interesting the first time round but quickly becomes boring. When I hit the escape key, I went back into the system. When I went back to the starbase, I had only a fraction of the resources I should have had. Might want to look into that.

2. Cargo usage and credits appear to overlap eachother, making them difficult to read.

3. Some of the icons you've chosen arent easily intelligible.

4. The exotic asteroids look a bit... Psychedelic... perhaps replacing them with a crystal substance would be better, though it may require a new model. An interesting twist would be to make these crystal asteroids somewhat see through but I'm not sure if thats possible on D3D since I'm not sure of the exact specifications etc.

Thats all the problems I can see, now onto the suggestions!

1. A way to skip resource offloading without losing the resources you have gathered!

2. Fixing the overlapping/bugged writing

3. Small names underneath the icons (Primary weapon slot, Secondary Weapon Slot, Thruster Component, Sensor Grid, etc)

4. If possible, rework the exotic asteroids, but dont spend too much time for a cosmetic change. If anything, get someone thats able to do 3d modelling to do it in his spare time and reserve yours for the coding.

5. Enemies should leave some resources left over to be scavenged, such as broken hulls etc. that can be gathered via the mining laser or by simply flying over it. The bigger the bad guy, the bigger the bounty

6. The ability to create colony worlds that bring a slow, but steady, rate of credits. Should cost 2 to 3 times that of a starbase, but brings in about 500 Credits per day in "Taxes".

7. If your fleet runs out of fuel and your within the 50% scanner range of your starbase, the starbase will send an emergency refuelling ship to your fleet with enough fuel to cover the journey, while taking a modest hit to your credits (pilots dont like coming out to save your keester all the time you know). If you beyond the 50% range, you can cannibalise another vessel from your fleet for roughly 10% of it's cost to be turned into fuel.

So, if you have a ship worth 2000 creds and you run out, you can cannibalise that vessel to get 200 creds worth of fuel for your fleet.

If you've cannibalised your fleet, and exhausted your fuel and are STILL outside the refuel zone, your SOL.

Also, if you have only a few hundred credits you go into a deficit. If you stay in the deficit for too long, some of your ships begin to be repossessed and in the worst case scenario certain starbases may be abandoned at a 40% return.

8. A wussy mode with a respawn ability at your starbase for newbies. Respawning costs credits and you have to rebuild your fleet. To compensate, perhaps make certain aspects of wussy mode a bit harder (Starbases tougher to crack?).

{Edit}

Upon further reflection, respawning should hit the player hard if they rely on it too much. So, after say, 3 respawns, ship costs are doubled, after 6, RU gain is halved, after 12, fuel costs are doubled, after 24, enemy strength (weapon and hull) are doubled, after 48 respawns, your hull and weapon strength are halved, and by 96 respawns, the Ur-Quan will recognise you for the annoying gnat you are and move a fairly large task force to deal with you once and for all regardless of how many starbases they may have left. Might actually make for a very interesting thing, although it is a wussy mode (ability to respawn) it becomes decidedly harder the more you die.

Thats all for now.

I just fixed the text overlap thing, and Esc now speeds up the mineral dump process.  I updated the zip file with the new exe, but for those who already downloaded the big file here's a link to just the executable: http://www.umich.edu/~rkingsle/Aftermath_v652.exe

I also noticed another bug: don't sell all of the ships in your fleet, you won't be able to buy any new ones for some reason.  :(

Yeah, the icons kinda' suck, but I was really tired at the time.  :P  Feel free to make icons of your own...use the SysIcon_Empty.tga as a template.  Each system file (like Nuke.weapon) has an entry which specifies the name of the icon...something like Icon: SysIcon_Nuke.tga

I don't really like the idea of auto-resource collection.  All the player would have to do is sit around in hyperspace for awhile earning money.  Still, it's a possibility.

-Madgap

Madgap-
The new improvements are good! I haven't had time to get into this new incarnation much yet, just about a half hour, but what I was able to see looked cool. (I was working on a website for a client of mine and I had to get certain bits done this morning... sigh, work always interupting what's REALLY important).

I agree with you on the auto-collection of resources, Madgap. In my mind, (which is a very *special* place granted...), when you go out to collect resources you're collecting them for their VALUE. Whereas the mines supply the QUANTITY of raw materials to produce things like, ships, mine contructors, weapons and whatnot. (On a side note you could make building ships take some amount of time which is based on how many mines you have.) Now, on the other hand, once you've got a fleet together it would be cool to be able to jump into a system and issue a command to your fleet, "MINE!", and all the ships that are capable go out and mine what they can see in their radar. That would relieve some of the tedium of mining but at the same time make the player do SOMETHING other than just wait around for the credits to roll in. I of course, will continue to just raid cargo ships... ;)

Good work! I also have a bunch more ships for you. I just haven't mailed 'em yet.

-TSG

Edit:
Don't spend too much time on those icons, when I get a little time I'll put together a bunch and get them to you.

Hi.  I have a suggestion!  Perhaps, if it wouldn't be to difficult, if you mine with a ship, and fill it, and then select another ship, the ship you filled will automatically go to your starbase (if in the system).  That would make things quite a bit more efficient, and you would still have to mine, just not constantly return to the base.  Just a thought.

Ian

That's a good idea...I think some kind of auto-mining operation should be included.  

Something that has changed in this version which makes it a lot easier is you don't fill each ship seperately.  They all share a single fleet cargo hold.  What I usually do is buy lots of cargo ships and a single shofixti scout equiped with a mining laser.  Use the scout to do the mining...the cargo ships hold all the goods.  :)

For some reason I removed the cargo hold bar, so it's impossible to tell how much storage you have left!  Ach!  I'll add it back in somewhere...the question is where.

Wow, I didn't even get to try that yet. That's actually a very cool way to handle that. Once I get back home I'll get into this game proper before I speak.

-TSG

I like the idea of the fleet wide storage capacity, it would simplify things a lot.  It would also work well with my previous suggestion i think, IF (internally flawless, guess what other message board i'm a member of) the cargo bar can be dynamically altered (i'm sure it can, since the health and energy bar can).

*edit*
i love surfing at work when there's nothing to do  ::)

Uhhh, for some reason the planet interaction button does not work. ???  I tried changing it to something besides B, and it still does not work.  Is this a bug or is my comp flicking me crap.

Anyway, good work so far Madgap.  Other than that, I have had no problems.  I see you got the mining laser to damage friendlies (found that one out the hard way) and the new resource asteroids are trippy.

Suggestion: Try toning down the in-system traffic.  It is hard to mine anything with all those skiffs bouncing off you.

Question:  Is there any difference between the different cargo ships (I am too lazy to check myself) or are they just there to try out different models.  Either way, they all look cool.

Keep up the good work!  ;D

Sorry, I've removed the B button for the action menu.  Right click on an object to bring up the new icon based action menu.  Context sensitive.  Use it for building outspots, scanning objects, etc...

There's currently not much difference between the three cargo ships.  In the future they will be very different...I'm thinking:
a) Fast, small capacity
b) Medium, medium
c) Heavy, slow (maybe the earthling ship).

Also, I'm going to add a new ship type, the fuel carrier.  Right now cargo ships also carry tons of fuel...I'm going to reduce their fuel capacity and create a specialized ship just for that purpose...basically a flying fuel tank.

It's really easy to modify the data files...everything is text based.  Mess around with them if you wish, but if you add new ships it will mess up any game saved pre-modification.

EDIT: Added a newer executable, version 0.652, on the downloads page.  Has a fleet cargo capacity display, and a bug fix.

Another Bug: Whenever I pick up the "Crates" left over from enemy ships, they become "Raw Minerals" in my cargo hold which do absolutely nothing but take up space. I cant sell them and even selling all but one of my ships does not get rid of them (giving me negative cargo volume).

Perhaps the raw minerals should be able to be sold instead of the colony idea. Anything a bit less tedious then mining :)

Oops, that was what I originally intended (awarding credits for kills.)  That should have been "Minerals, Rare", not "Raw minerals".  I've already made the change...I'll upload the next executable (0.653) tonight.  I want to wait a bit to see if there are any more bugs found today.

-Madgap

Is it intentional that we cannot upgrade alien ships?

Finally got a chance to play for a good bit. Many things are so much better. I like the camera switching between ships, it's much smoother. The cargo pods are a great addition, (minus the bug of course). The icon based UI is a huge step in the right direction, though it still needs to be tweaked, (I also noticed you changed how the mouse responds, thank you!) Also the ships that warp in and attack you makes just mining a whole lot more interesting. As you mentioned, adding ships, weapons and devices is A LOT easier too. Bravo!

I ran across a bug that's probably simple enough to repair for .653. If you buy an upgrade to your engine, or even change it as far as I can tell, the bar (System space I assume) will go red. Even if I go back to the engine I had before, it remains red and I have to sell the ship before I am able to launch. I tried it with the weapons and it seems to work with them. Just not engines.
Along the same lines, there really needs to be an option to have nothing in a weapon, scanner or shield slot. I could almost fake it by creating a weapon, scanner and shield named Empty with all the stats zeroed out. It doesn't work with the weapon though because it still produces sounds, (Even if one isn't defined).I haven't tried it with the scanner and shield yet though I suspect similar problems will show up.  

Finally, some suggestions:
Put a credit display on the market screen. It's hard to tell what you can buy without one.
The credit display when you're in explore mode isn't needed as the game stands now. All it's doing is taking up screen real estate that could be used for something else.
I really like the spread option for weapons, but I'd like to be able to set NumberOfShots to greater than 6. (I'm thinking of the Kohr-Ah's F.R.I.E.D. weapon, I already have done the model)

Well that's probably enough from me,  heh.  ;D

-TSG


Edit: I guess it's not enough for me... I thought of one other thing. While I was playing this game, I noticed what's refered to as "screen tear". I've seen it in other games and the thing that always fixed it was setting Vsync on in the game. I have a suspicion that it's not an easy thing to add for you, but I thought you might like to know.

thetallman13:  That a side effect of my not having balanced all the systems yet.  If you want to make a manual adjustment look in the Systems directory for the .Hull file corresponding to the ship you want to upgrade.  Open that file in a text editor and increase the number after SystemSpace:

thatsteveguy:  Interesting problem...I'll look into it.  As for the tearing that's actually really easy to fix.  Usually people like to leave vsync off because it can give you a slight boost in framerate.  When I add an options screen I'll put in a vsync checkbox or something so you can turn it off.


EDIT: I've changed the code to allow for an unlimited number of shots (instead of 6 max).  I don't remember why I put that 6 max limitation in...hmm...

I also found the engine load problem...it's not in the code, it's a device definition file problem.  The two small ships use a special engine (the Micro engine).  But it is listed as Team: Ur-Quan so it isn't available for purchase.

In Capaign/Devices/MainDevices.dat change:

Begin Item
 Name: Micro
 Type: Drive
 .
 .
 .
 Team: Ur-Quan
End

to

Begin Item
 Name: Micro
 Type: Drive
 .
 .
 .
 Team: Federation
End



-Madgap

Well an obvious reason would be performance. Even with just 6 while I was experimenting with mixing rapid fire, particles with high emission rate and the new Spread ability, I was able to bring framerates to a crawl. So maybe you just need to post a warning in readme.txt, "Be resposible, keep your projectile counts low." ;) Bah. You probably had a better reason. Thanks for the tweak, Kohr-Ah here I come. And also Pkunk. And improved BSS. Whee!



Ah, that makes perfect sense. I couldn't tell that they were using a different drive because the UI doesn't give you the details on the devices currently loaded any given ship. Perhaps an idea to keep in mind in the future is a pop up for each icon when you hover the mouse over any given slot. The pop up could just be text giving the name and stats for each device.

-TSG

Nice, I didn't even think about FRIED.

Ok, guys, here's the plan:  we need to balance all of these systems out (price, mass, damage, health, etc...).  I need feedback from you guys in order to get the balance just right.  Here are some of my thoughts:

-  More enemies per encounter, but make them weaker.
-  Prices for systems remain fairly constant (low tech vs. high tech), but the strategic resource requirements go up.
-  Smaller ships are faster, but don't have the space for larger systems.
-  Limit player's fleet size to around 10-15 ships max.

Any weapon or system requests?  Any comments about the fun factor during combat?  What do you like most, and what do you like least?

EDIT: Oh, and I put the new executable up.

-Madgap

Combat is awesome; I love the feel of being able to sit off in the distance and lob nukes at the enemy.

One thing in particular, maybe you could tone down the turning rate of the shofixti ship.  I seem to tap one of the turn keys and I go into a series of uncontrolled donuts.  Makes it impossible to mine.

Other than that, ship handling, fire, and damage is all handled well and is less fast-paced then in the last release.  I actually have time to get a shot off before my escorts get blown to dust.

My plan was to go through and balance the whole thing and then post it here.... I realized I bit off more than I could chew in a day though. The problem I ran into was there wasn't anyplace to start from. So here's what I came up with after some thinking. No ship is a ship without a drive. So start with the drive. I put together 9 drives: 3 for small ships 3 for medium ships and 3 for large ships.

-Drive-	-fuel use-	-weight-	-cost-	-total thrust-	-turning thrust-	-batt regen-	-batt storage-	-mine requirements-
Micro Plasma	0.3	4	300	15000	1500	2	10
Micro Impulse	0.2	5	600	17500	1750	3.5	15	1A 1T
Micro AM	0.15	6	900	20000	2000	5	20	1A 1C
Plasma Thrower	0.3	10	600	21000	2100	2	15	1H
Ion Engine	0.2	15	900	23500	2350	4	25	1H 2T
AntiMatter Engine	0.15	20	1200	26000	2600	6	35	C2 H T2
Plasma Impeller	0.4	30	1000	30000	3000	4	30	1A 1C 1H 1T
Fusion Drive	0.3	40	1500	35000	3500	7	45	2A 2C 2H 1T
AM Collider	0.2	50	2000	40000	4000	10	60	2A 2C 3H 2T

I already put the files together so if anyone wants to experiment with them you can get them here: http://www.thatsteveguy.net/drives.zip
I haven't put in the requirements yet for them so they can be got at without setting up mines.


-TSG

Edit: Madgap, I tried the NO_INERTIA tag with the Arilou but it didn't work, have you not finished that yet? Or am I missing something? (I put it in the Skiff.hull file like: Special: NO_INERTIA)

You know, I realized that I didn't respond to your post directly in any way at all... heh. So without futher ado.


-At this point I think that the number of enemies per encounter is about right. They just need to be made more difficult. The Ur-Quan are just a little too easy now.

-Prices should go up for higher technology and they should have resource requirements. My reasoning? Once you move up the tech tree it gets easier and easier to kill cargo ships. So you have more money. What are you going to do with it?

-I fully agree with you on ship size, speed and system space.

-15 ships I think would be a fine point to limit the players fleet at.

-system requests? Teleport, (for skiff), cloak (for ilwrath), change ship, (for x-form and guardian), recoil, (for druuge and thraddash). I know it's a hard list for you to implement, but I figure if you don't like it you can always just ignore me.  ::)

I'm redoing the drives I did earlier too. The thrust for all the drives is WAY too high. I'm experimenting to find the right balance.

-TSG

Something thats been annoying me extremely, the arrow keys seem to be tied into zoom, so when I acellarate it zooms way out and I have to press the down arrow key to zoom back in.

Is there any way to untie arrow keys to zooming? Please?

I've unbound the arrow keys from the screen zoom, fixed the strange slowdown in Asar, added some new hull attributes (include NO_INERTIA but it isn't working perfectly yet), and changed a few other things.  Oh, and I did a full recompile and ran it overnight on automatic.  However, old savegames won't work since I added a couple of new things.  For those that don't want to start completely over again just open Campaign/Scenario1.dat in a text editor and increase your wealth.  However, if you get too greedy the space police will bust you!

-Madgap

I've come across something that reoccurs but I don't know what it is exactly that is causing. Every once in a while right while I'm in the middle of playing aftermath freezes and I'm unable to do anything though the music continues. Alt-Tab won't get me back to the desktop or any application, so I have to shut aftermath down using the task manager. The last time it happened an error alert box popped up saying "Failed to initialize 3d environment." This has happened 2-3 times now, but I can't tell what exactly causes it. Now, I have been playing around with the ship and device files a bit so there may be something I've done that is causing it so I'll play with a clean install and see if it happens there. Specs for my system if you're interested:

1.4Ghz Pentium 4
GeForce 4 4200Ti
256MB ram

If you want anymore let me know.

-TSG


Edit: It did occur with the default files. (Though I didn't get the error alert box). Just a total freeze with the music still running. When I pulled up task manager with ctrl-alt-del, it did say that aftermath was not responding. I've got the most recent video drivers for my video card, (upgraded a week ago), and DirectX 9.x (I think it's 9.1 but I'm not totally sure.) This was with the most current version of the executable 0.654. Hope it helps.

I just fixed that one tonight in version 0.655.  It was the new pirate spawn code...it was possible to get in an infinite loop.  I've also squashed yet another cargo bay problem, but I'll save that one for 0.656.

-Madgap

Ran into a small issue. The CARGO_SHIP tag can be defeated if you buy a cargo ship, make sure it's in the first slot, (by selling any ships above it), leaving and then returning to the base. You can then upgrade any part of that cargo ship that you want.
I also noticed that the CARGO_SHIP tag prevents you from upgrading anything at all. Splitting it up into NO_WEAPONS NO_SHIELD and ONE_WEAPON, (as in one weapon only), would give a lot more options for unique hulls.

Just late night thoughts,
-TSG

Note to people mucking about with ship/race files in the future: Do _NOT_ set the pirate ships to cargo vessels. The resultant crate spamming can be deadly to the system.

Also, as a result of said crate spam, I noticed something. The FPS indicator doesn't go below 20, just a heads up.

Also, you may wish to do one of two things. Either make a kind of scavenger craft that goes about picking up crates and drops it into the players cargo pool, make all allied ships able to pick up crates and put it in the cargo pool, or, make the crates dissapear after a time.

Also, as a stop gap solution to the arilou, could you perhaps add some special code that evaluates when the thrust button has ceased being pressed and applies a negative accelaration over a second to neutralise the speed thus simulating an inertialess drive?

So, for example.

Thrust key stops being pressed.

Player craft at Velocity Z Vector {X,Y}
Apply acceleration -Z Vector {-X,-Y}
Acceleration Duration: 0.1 seconds

After that you may only need to add a tag that allows arilou craft to be immune to gravity and you've essentially simulated an inertialess drive.

Also, I've said Also a lot, just thought I'd point that out in case anyone didn't notice.

Not needed. In the skiff.hull file add a line like this:

Special: NO_INERTIA

And remember, capitalization is the difference between you helping your Uncle Jack off the horse and helping your uncle jack off the horse. ;) Or in this case Aftermath understanding you or not. It's not quite right yet though. The AI doesn't know what to do with a ship that stops on a dime.

-TSG

Apologies but considering I've been awake since 4 AM I think the odd slip up here and there is excusable. :)

I've noticed a bug.  After a raid into the system by pirates/enemies/whatever, my cargo ships disperse.  This is cool, but then they don't form up again and I have to go into hyperspace and come back in system to get them on my tail again.

It's actually not a bug.  They are fleeing to hyperspace by leaving the 'board', about 9500 units away from the center.  That can always be changed in the future...but at least it keeps them safe.

Great job MadGap, I must say I am truly amazed by this piece of work!

Just a quickie suggestion...
How's about a link to your Aftermath site, I had to flip through quite a few pages just to find a link to your site. I was thinking if you put it in your sig or something, it'd be quick and easy for some of the new people to find!

No way in hell this is dropping to the bottom, Madgap, what do the Research Stations do where precursor artifacts are found?

//Semi Clandestine Bump-O-Matic

You beat me to it cronos, I was just about to do that. :D

Research stations 'mine' planets with precursor artifacts on them...I think only ice planets have precursor artifacts.  They represent another type of strategic resource, like titanium.  However, right now no system requires any precursor artifacts so don't bother with the research stations.

The next version will have an ultimate goal that will need to be met, and some kind of score so you can compare your abilities.  I'll also add in a save/load menu since that's pretty easy.  Lastly, I'm working on a new type of strategic level enemy...something that 'spreads'.  That's all I can say. ;)

I seem to be having a problem:

I got 5 earth fighters and 1 shofixti transport, 3 mine bases inside the transport...

I cannot build mines, I select the planet (P) but when I hit B nothing happens....

Tryed both flying the fighters and the transport... nothing

I replaced B with a right context sensitive right click.  Mouse cursor only appears when you move the mouse.  You can select any target with a left click, or bring up the new drop down menu with a right click.

-Madgap

I'm thinking that the research posts should give advantages like SC1 did.

For example, you find a planet with an artifact on it. Build a research station and you can access a particular ship upgrade.

So Dynamos, turning jets, thrusters and crew pods would all add to the effectiveness of a ship. Think of them as sub modules for the module slots.

Certain precursor artifacts should also unlock certain systems, like advanced sensors that double your targeting range, Advanced shielding that offers more reliable protection then ordinary shielding, or ablative armor that costs less then shielding while offering the same protection and being unable to regenerate.

Damage amplifiers should also make a debut with precursor artifact help.

Also, where are the Pkunk? :)

If my ideas arent too clear or they dont make much sense it's because I needs my sleep.

Is there some way i could change the amount of Ru's in a system through some small editing....Need more money and dont Have Patince enugh ^^ Could you add something like a Fuel count number and in hyperspace autopilot implement a req fuel to got to X from X hope you understand what i mean

Hmmm... I bought 2 mine constructors and saved my game. When I loaded it again, the mine constructors where gone but the cargo space was still taken. Wich basically means start over.  :-/

I, as well, would like to applaud you madgap for a job very well done. The game runs pretty smoothly already and is a marvel to look at. Also, congratulations on your new job. I know its really hard to get into the industry, though you probably won't have any time to work on aftermath, especially when crunch-time rears its ugly head,  And coincidentally it's just around the corner.

Anyway, while I'm not have programmer in any shape, form or way, I we try to use my meager artistry skills to supply you and thatsteveguy with some concept art, once I get my scanner working. so I'll at least do something.

And finally, a few suggestions:
1) also mining and anticollision

I, as well, would like to applaud you madgap for a job very well done. The game runs pretty smoothly already and is a marvel to look at. Also, congratulations on your new job. I know its really hard to get into the industry, though you probably won't have any time to work on aftermath, especially when crunch-time rears its ugly head,  And coincidentally it's just around the corner.

Anyway, while I'm not have programmer in any shape, form or way, I we try to use my meager artistry skills to supply you and thatsteveguy with some concept art, once I get my scanner working. so I'll at least do something.

And finally, a few suggestions:
1)Auto-mining and anti-collision AI have already been mentioned, and I know AI is the hardest part of the game. That being said, it would also be great if you could assign different AI's various ships. Such as miner, forward assaults, defensive etc.
2)      

Grrr....
The rest of my post:
      2) Naming your ships would be very nice. Also when you buy ships you should be able to see what they have on them, it's a bit problematic now. Best thing would be if when your mouse goes over the icon the name of the part pops up.
      3) You should be able to see your credit rate whenever you want to, so I suggest when you press escape when your out of a base menus would pop up dealing with all kinds of stuff about your fleet.  How much credit you have, which ships is equipped with what, that sort of thing.

That's it for now, so good luck.
 Yours,
Eran.

PS
If the mod would be kind enough to glue my two posts I'd be greatly obliged. Thank you.

Ack! Today's one of the last days I've got access to a computer for the next couple of weeks. I can already feel the withdrawal. Anyway, once I get back online I'll get more models and whatnot made. In the meantime though here is one request for a feature that Aftermath NEEDS to have:

*MELEE*

Even if it's just against the computer it will help people new to Aftermath get used to the interface, help work out a balance for weapons and hulls and as a bonus help me do models for this game. I don't think it would be a hard thing to do, though of course not being a coder could make me very, very wrong. :)

So Madgap, could you please, please, please do a basic melee. It would be like christmas all over again.

-TSG

Ok, I promise there will be a basic melee in the next version... :)  I'm finishing up the scripting/communications system, and I was wondering:  do you guys care if there is no image of the alien during communications?  I could try to create some small images myself, but it would greatly delay the next release.

I've redone the communications file format to be more of a very simple scripting language.  It will allow me to do things behind the scenes during a conversation (add/subtract money, set global variables, etc...).  I also modified the way I set up sound files so that weapon firing and impact sound file names are specified in the system files (rather than a preprogrammed variable like PLASMA1).  I'm in the process of copying/enhancing some of the weapon sounds from UQM over to the appropriate weapon in Aftermath.

Now that I've got the comm system going, the next version will have more adventure content.  I have been working out the details of the storyline as well.

  For many years after the conclusion of the Doctrinal War the alliance was able to enjoy a period of relative peace.  During this time those foolish hunams discovered a massive Precursor device.  Some aliens cautioned against activating the device, but the humans, blinded by thier ambition, didn't listen.  The device caused a massive inter-dimensional flux, shifting and even eliminating many systems' connections to hyperspace. Systems that were once neighbors in hyperspace were now seperated by months of travel.  Empires billions of entities strong were ripped apart in a single moment, and to the dismay of humanity the Sol system could no longer be found...  

Many decades after this catastrophe humanity is barely hanging on at the edge of Shofixti space.  You are a member of a deep space mining group, a dangerous profession in these times, and humanity's last link to space.  

-Madgap

Sounds cool.  Maybe you can have comm images in a later release?  Get the basics done then flesh out the details in releases to come.


Hmm...  Could it be possible to add Sol in through a time-based thing?  Finding Earth would be awesome.  :)

Yeah, finding earth and reversing the effects of the artifact could be the main objective of the game.  And of course, since the universe has been re-arranged, that would leave you some freedom to create more alien races from other parts of the galaxy.  Very cool indeed  8)!

It doesn't bug me although it can't hurt, if you don't what to at least place text in it's place to remind us who we are speaking to. In all honesty if UQM didn't have these screens and unique musics I don't think it would be as memorable. You have spoiled us, don't allow us rush you.

Perhaps....perhaps not...   ::)

Geez, just leave us hangin' why don't ya  ;D

Hmm...  Hopefully you eventually add in some planetary siege mode.  Especially if you add in Earth...  Wouldn't it be fun to fire on sections of our homeworld? :P

Oh, and Madgap, I've shown this game to a few people and they refuse to believe me that it's not being done by a gaming company.  lol

Frankly gaming companies have released worse and often.  The only thing realy missing for me at this point is joystick support (my keyboard sucks).

btw, anyone got a tip for a new player on how to avoid ambushes while mining a system (asteroids)?

Woohoo! I'm Back! All he way in new orleans without a desk to even put my computer on. Or a chair to sit on. Or a garbage can. Or... You get the idea. I did however get braodband cable.

Anyway, once I get my worksapce set up I'll get back to work on this. Madgap, thank you for deciding to do melee! I would have danced for joy, but I'm typing this from the floor so I think it's too far to go. Maybe I'm just delirious... driving for eighteen hours a day and having you car blow up on you halfway across the country will do that to I suppose. Heh.

As far as the scripting system goes. DEFINITELY put in a way to do pictures, animations for the aliens. That doesn't mean to do the content, it just means to put in the system for it. The dialogs for SC2 are one of those things that made it outstanding. Having the ability to do that here will give Aftermath the ability to be truly great.... later. It is a lot of content, but I'm willing to put the time in  for some if not most of it. (Though that does mean I will have to learn Blenders interface as I do not have a decent animation program... ah well)

Cheers,
-TSG

It's allready close enough to Master Of Orion I really don't think he wants any doubts.

Only played MoO3 and that...  Sucked, to say the least.

Though laying siege to worlds would be a good thing.  Can take them from the Ur-Quan that way.

laying seige would be a good way to take over enemy mining worlds however that would also mean the enemy could take over your mining worlds and would probobly do so unless you set a starbase (or some other protective base) near the worlds, and that would be insanely expensive unless there was some other source for minteral income besides mining asteroids...

Maybe this can become what SC3 really should have been?  Able to leave ships behind to guard worlds/systems?  Maybe deployable weapons platforms?

Well, I've justed started work at Pandemic, and it's awesome! :)  However, my own computer is still tucked away in my car along with the Aftermath code.  I can't move into my permanent place until Thursday, so it'll be a couple of weeks until I can get the new version out.

I like the siege idea!  Currently I have siege guns set up as a special hull attribute on the larger Ur-Quan ships (but they don't do anything yet).  My initial plan was to allow the player to use the guns against a planet to reduce its industry level, so that it wouldn't be able to make the more advanced ship designs.  Still messing around with that.

-Robert

Interesting...  Though actually being able to conquer or exterminate worlds would be a nice touch.  Add in troop ships or something later?  Be able to purchase soldiers who vary in level and effectiveness.  Planets could have a resistance level based on population size, tech level and types of troops garrisoned there?

Great job!!!!


Pandemic, where have I heard that name before?
(sorry, I'm a little sleepy)

Each revisit to this tread surpasses my expectations by far.

Congrats on getting a Job in the game industry Madgap. Show the monoculture-game designers what innovation is all about. Keep your spirit. I am looking forward to a new space opera game since i finished SC2, that was back in the eightys i belive ^^

In fact, we all do, we weren't here if we wouldn't. Good Luck in LA.

Well, I've been remarkably busy lately with the whole just-moved-and-I-don't-have-a-steady-job-yet however, that doesn't mean I'm not paying enough attention to make sure this thread doesn't drop to the second page.
Just in case anyone's interested I'm doing another starbase so that there will be some variety in the next release during the moments that I have free time... sigh. Oh well. Maybe I'll put up some screenies some time soon.

-TSG

Just wanted to chime in and add another "omg Aftermath's awesome!" to this thread. :)

Can't beleive you did almost all of it yourself, my hat's off to you, sir. I tried to learn programming at one point, but lacked the self-discipline to stick to it. My loss. I shall continue to view projects such as UQM and AM with envy. ;)

Very much looking forward to future releases! And please, get your own forum so we don't get on the UQM Staff's nerves, here. Hehe.

Since we're here, though, and i'd hardly be the first, i do have some (hopefully) constructive feedback to add. Admittedly, i did not read all 19 pages of this thread, so forgive me if some of this was covered already. Your own forum would go a long way to avoid this, though... *coughhintcough* :D

I figure you already are well aware of the fact that the weapons need to have much more price variance, and some need to be tweaked, and still more need to have mine required added. But i'll point out some glaring ones, to be Master Of The Obvious (tm).

Meteor is grossly overpowered. Disgustingly so. Needs to be removed or cost changed to something REALLY high like 20,000 with several mine requirements. Also needs to consume MUCH more energy, and maybe have its RoF (rate of fire) lowered and range reduced. Destroying starbases out of their firing range, and QUICKLY, is just... wrong. I figure you must know this already though, and it's likely in its current form for testing purposes only or just lack of time, which i can certainly understand. :D

Auto Laser: It would be nice if this weapon targeted hostiles automatically, so it could be used like the PDL on the Earthling in SC. It's so short range, that having to switch targets is annoying, as it's not really any good for offense, causeing you to lose your target AND possibly causing rapid shifts in screen focus.

Heavy Auto Laser: Extremely overpowered, i hate to say, as it's my favorite weapon. But it kinda precludes the use of anything else. Heavy Cruiser with two of these is IT. I have cleared entire Ur Quan systems, Starbase and all solo with these bad boys. This is, i feel, against the spirit of the game. The energy use should be about double what it is now, range shorted a little, and cost ramped WAY up, along with mine requirements.

Starbases: These need to be significantly more difficult. Their weapons' ranges should be about 50pct longer, and have alot more health. They're just so easy to destroy with a single Heavy Cruiser packing long range weaponry like Heavy Nuke. Or even NOT long range weaponry like HALaser. Starbases should require you to have a FLEET to destroy, since the whole purpose of AM seems to be around building up a strong fleet. Unfortunatly, there doesn't seem to be any purpose to having a big fleet other then completely destroying any challenge at all. Which is sad, considering how close this game is to being an EXTREMELY fun fleet version of SC. But it simply needs more challenge. You go against a Starbase you shouldn't even want to CONSIDER it without several ships, and even then you should have to EXPECT to lose a few of your ships before the base blows up.

Ships: Again, pricing/requirements should be looked at, here. No point in using most of them, that i can tell. I could very well be missing something, though. Heavy Cruiser seriously needs to be more expensive. It's cheaper then a Yehat... i know the Yehat comes with a shield, but so?

  A ship-related idea that JUST occured to me is, what about including some very expensive high-requirement ships, that are a more powerful then the rest, but you can only have one. This could be like your fleet's Flagship. Not overpowered, just slightly better then the rest. Like 20pct more armor/battery or something and a unique look. Maybe a 3rd weapon port, but then you'd have to add controls for that etc etc etc.. well whatever, just an idea. Most of them are bad. :)

I don't envy your position when it comes to cost balance factors... how do you make the game non-trivial and not kill the fun by making it so you spend 90pct of your time doing mindless mining? Tough call. At least you can raid enemy systems for cash. That's a huge plus in AM's favor.

Speaking of which, i can't seem to capture enemy cargo vessels. It worked before with the flashing indicator, but pressing B didn't get the menu to pop up as i've read? Now the purple indicator around enemy cargo vessels doesn't even flash. I must be missing something. :) "ActionMenu: B" is present in the Keys.ini.

Well sorry for the novel. Most of which i'm sure you're already well aware of. And trudging through long-winded posts is no fun. But look at the silver lining! People like your program so much they spent the time to WRITE these long-winded posts, rather then moving on to the next thing in 10 minutes. :)

I see real potential here for a very fun game, and looking forward to seeing where you take it! Good luck! And congrats on the new job!!

:)

PS, almost forgot. Please implement the ability to destroy incoming projectiles, and have the Autolaser target them automatically so you don't have to switch targets. It seems you've started down this road already, as ships and starbases will fire on incoming projectiles.. but currently most/all projectiles seem to be non-destructable, so it does them no good.

  Then you could perhpas remove (or drastically reduce) the Heavynuke's acceleration and give the projectile alot of health, so it could slowly make it to Starbases with a fairly decent (but NOT 100pct) success rate, and be even less useful in ship-to-ship combat, as right now it's actually quite powerful in that feild, against the AI, which is probably not a good thing for what's meant to be an anti-base weapon.

Also some minor bugs:

The Yehat can shoot ITSELF with an autolaser if the target is in its rear firing arc.

Autolasers have a hard time firing on Earthling Cruisers. I don't know if it's angle related or what, but often if i have an Earthling Cruiser targeted and in range, the heavy auto laser will only sporadically fire on it, and this is with more then enough energy to sustain fire for a short while.

Badday,

I fear that most of your crits are actually mostly due to things I've contributed. The meteor is supposed to be for a ship, (If I remember correctly I named it the Earthling destroyer) that was supposed to be ultra expensive yet top of the line, and able to destroy starbases which used to be far more difficult to destroy.
Madgap said that I shouldn't bother with balancing the ships and weapons (Like the auto heavylaser) I was producing because he was going to do it. I think I may have overloaded him though because I've given him 16+ ship models plus a starbase model and several weapons and I haven't heard from him since,(hehe) though he probably is quite busy with the move he just made and his new job.
I actually tried to create a fully balanced Aftermath once but gave up when I realized how much work it was and faced the fact that Madgap was almost certain to change things so that any balancing I did would be a waste of time.
Sigh. I suppose we just need to be patient and wait for him to get around to producing the next version.

-Madgap,
Hope the new job is going well. How's L.A.?

-TSG

Yea TSG, figured it was mostly obvious stuff anyway. No doubt it's a huge (but probably fun!) job to balance all that. :)

So that weap was designed for only one specialized ship, huh? Well that's pretty cool. Could be balanced by the ship, then. If the destroyer was pretty slow and had a very slow turn rate, it could serve it's purpose nicely without being crazy powerful against everything with that gun. It would of course rely on other members of the fleet for protection, as most anything could run circles around it (or "c"'s... nothing would wanna go in front :P).

Big slow cap ships with massive guns, what's not to like?

Add to that the making of starbases much more difficult, and restricting such weaponry only to such ships, and everything seems to fall into place, balance-wise. At least on the surface.

Ahh such fun stuff to conjecture about... wish i knew how to do any of this. :)

Keep up the great work, both of you, can't wait for future versions!

:)

Hey guys, LA is great (or at least Westwood Village near UCLA since I haven't really been anywhere else).  I'll respond to the above posts a little later, but I just wanted to get something down in writing as a way of motivating myself.  I will have a new version ready by Monday.  I'll spend this weekend adding the original ship sounds back in and balancing the gameplay a bit more.  Also, there are a number of cool new models that TSG created awhile ago but have not been released.

I was tweaking the gameplay before I moved, but as that was awhile ago I don't remember all that I changed.  I do know that starbases are (in my opinion) a lot more fun to attack.  They have many more turrets, and lots of different turret types, but the turrets are weaker.  The end result is there's a lot more stuff to blow up, and many more projectiles flying through space.  Some have huge knockback effects which are cool too.  More later!

-Madgap

Glad you're enjoying yourself! It's starting to cool off here in California, but stick around till next summer for some great weather and good times.

And back on topic- great work on Aftermath! The graphics are fantastic. I love how you've blended SC2-style navigation and combat with SC1-style planetary strategy and resource managment. I have only a couple of minor grievances:
- The Arilou ships have momentum.
- I'm not quite sure exactly what it is, but the controls seem a little bit awkward.
- It's in sore need of a savegame feature.
- There should be a way to disable friendly fire. I keep hitting my fleet when I'm mining.
- There should probably be some sort of threshold on asteroid size- after you've mined them down to a certain point they become little pebbles that are annoying to go track down.
Other than that, it's a really fantastic piece of work. Congrats on the new job, and enjoy your stay in sunny California!

New version!? Monday!!!??  :o Sweeeeet....

You know, I just realized something funny. You moved to LA CA and I moved NO LA at nearly the same time... Coincidence or giant government conspiracy... you decide.

Can't wait!

-TSG

Check the link below to see the new starbase I'm working on. It's almost done, I just need to tweak the uvmapping a bit and it's good to go.

http://www.thatsteveguy.net/screenshot1.jpg

C and C welcome.

-TSG

Not bad! From what I can see in the screenshot, I like the current design better. Still, I'll hold off my judgments until I see it in-game.

Well, the angle that aftermath shows it at the home system darkens it quite a bit. Here's a profile shot from wings.

http://www.thatsteveguy.net/wingshot.jpg

In other systems it will have better lighting.

-TSG

That's awesome, TSG.  I like it so much better than my old steeringwheel one.  ;D  I don't think anyone has seen your new asteroid base, so I'll be sure to include it in the release on Monday along with the new ships.

Asteroid Base?! :o

Wow, that looks really cool! Hopefully you can get it to display in-game at a different angle- In my opinion it looks ugly from the top but great from the sides.

Erm, it's Monday isn't it? I think I heard something about a new version of Aftermath... maybe I just hallucinated it.  ::)

-TSG

Haha, yeah, but it'll be Monday for another 8.5 hours.

I think that in england it's Tuesday already.....

Monday's over :P

I meant monday in Quasi-space.  Ok, ok, its up.  There are a number of new things, including a combo scripting/conversation system.  However, there aren't any conversations so you're going to have to wait until next release.  The only two things you are going to notice are: new ship models, and weapons (thanks to tsg), and some 'new' sounds.  You might want to wait until next release to download if you have a slow connection.  I've posted a few more details on the webpage.  

Hmmm, I tried sending you an email but apparently that address is no longer.

Anyway...

I like what you did with the texture for the new base Madgap. Did you figure out a way to convert from .x to 3ds so that you could do that? UV mapping has got to be so much better in Maya... Some day I will own it!!

I think I'll send you that starbase i'm doing now (Probably tomarrow), and maybe work on sounds for a while. Oh I also have a ZFP stinger and a Pkunk ship for you. Once again if there's anything particular you're looking for let me know and you got it.

Keep up the fantastic work!

-TSG

Sorry about the email thing...I'm not clear on what happened, but somehow my parents messed up my account.  Comcast said that it should be back up 'soon'.

After a lot of searching I found a free piece of software that does all sorts of file conversions.  I forget what the name is, but I can get that for you if you want it.

For the next few releases I'd like to focus on getting the conversation/scripting system working, updating the fleet combat so its more fun, and add some much requested features like melee and a save/load game screen.

The primary purposes of this most recent release was to get me working on the project again.  I was getting too used to spending my weekends watching Robotech.

-Madgap

TSG and Madgap.  Would it be possible to...  Tilt that new starbase a little bit?  So it's detail can be admired.

Aha! I am now the proud ower of a 64mb geforce X card! Only cost 15 bucks too. Wow, just starting out, but this game is awsome!

***starts playing......

Say.... Just stripped mined the first planet system - where are the enemy cargo ships? In hyperspace or in orbit in enemy sectors? All I found in hyperspace was just ships......

Great game!

I'm pretty sure I left the new cargo code in.  Here's how it works: each enemy starbase produces a certain amount of resources each turn that it can use to attack one of your starbases.  When you build a starbase within range of one of the enemy starbases, that enemy base begins to attack you.  All of the other starbases in the enemy empire notice this and begin sending supplies in cargo fleets.  They don't send them in a straight line, but rather to the nearest base on the way...so you end up with this tree like supply chain.

By attacking the enemy cargo fleets you will dramatically reduce the rate at which the enemy can attack your own base.  Again, your base has to be within range of their sensors for this to start up.

Also, there are some enemy cargo ships in hostile sectors, but I don't remember if they are carrying anything.

-Madgap

New version up.

Awsome - keep up the good work!

Sounds great! I'll post some feedback when I get the chance to play it. I'm a little worried about that glow though, 0.65 was skittish on my machine even without it. :-/

Sorry but I´m new here and I didn´t want to search throught 20 pages so I ask "Is there still nor MacOS X version of this game ?

Nope.  I'd have to convert the graphics and sound code to multi-platform in addition to the formats I use for the textures and models.


I'm thinking about changing combat a bit...right now battles with large amounts of ships are way too crazy...it's impossible to keep track of anything.  Also, fast ships have a big advantage because there space doesn't loop back on itself like in melee.  Anyone have any ideas?

Just make the large ships have stronger armor or something?  Possibly turrets?


...you should work with that guy doing the fanart ships in the other forum.

Hey, good job on this!  But I'm having a problem with the skiff and shofixti scout.  Even with the default loadout, it's still too heavy, so whenever I launch the ship, it blows up.  Is there a way to fix this?

Elias

Yes, but as I don't know where the problem is at the moment I can't give you specific instructions on how to fix it.  All of the data files for ships and weapons are just text files.  Here's the breakdown:

Ship definitions are stored in Campaign/Ships

Ship definitions reference devices defined in Capaign/Devices

Device definitions reference the more specific system files in /Systems

Since they are blowing up instantly it probably means it can't find either the hull or drive definition for those ships.

Needless to say that will be fixed for the next release.  I'm going to try to balance all of the systems for next release.

Two bugs I've noticed.

1. If travelling to the starbase landing with the map overlay activated, you go into the starbase menu as per normal.

However, on luanch, the starbases UI is overlayed onto the general player UI as well as the map. Pressing escape refreshes the map. The only fix for this is to go into hyperspace.

2. While on my way to another system last night, I had to minimise and deal with an error that cropped up in the backround (non-aftermath related). When I attempted to minimise Aftermath using alt-tab, or the windows key, I couldnt see my desktop. Aftermath was still there, and I could most certainly interact with my desktop, but because aftermath was frozen in place I had to restart my computer just to see the desktop.

Also, setting the initial wealth too high crashes the game :)

I seem to be having some problems with this version.
Normal space seems overly bright and the game slows almost to a crawl.
There's no music at all in any of the screens.

I have P3 766Mhz
with Riva TNT M64 (64Mb)

You need to set up a forum for this game on the game's site, since this forum belongs to a remake of the game's ancestor.
And you don't mix joy with happiness as an old saying goes.

When attempting to access the game page it returns a 'permission denied' error. What gives?

yeah me too :(

Working now. It seems the server went down for a while yesterday.

I wonder. I think many people would interested in porting this to OpenGL (I would like to take a stab at it at least). But I cannot find any source. How is it licensed currently?

It's not currently open source.  I would concider porting it to openGL, but only if there were enough people who wanted the switch.

Oh my god... the Thread is already down to page 2... must...bump...it...cant...resist...
nnnghhhhhhhhh



*bump*

Eh...might as well let it slip back a bit.  I haven't coded anymore since the last update as I've been mulling over a possible design change.  I'm going to take another step back towards the original game and separate the RPG and combat portions of the game.
In other words when you come into contact with an enemy fleet you will go into some kind of separate combat arena...possibly with wraparound borders like in the original melee mode.
There will probably be a limit on the number of ships you can take into battle at a time, but it will definately be more than 1v1.  Maybe 5v5 max?  You will be able to have more than five ships in your fleet, however, so you can call in reinforcements as ships are lost.  We shall see.
So basically I'm going to try and take the game back towards SC2.  Kinda like SC2++, with less story and more strategic gameplay.
I'll release another version around or after the new year.  Sorry about the delay but I'm pretty busy at work, and the last thing I want to do after programming all day is program some more at night. >:P

You can definately expect a new quest system in the next version...something based on text files.  My goal is for anybody to be able to write and post their quests online.

-Madgap

Sounds like a cool idea.  Though a more RP-based game would be awesome :P

I thing more RPG based gameplay would require 2D art skills that I don't have.   :-/

Find someone who is, maybe?  I'm sure there are one or two on these forums at least.

Love the game, but the newest version is all but unplayable because of those new blur/glow effects you added. They take up like half the screen with neon green.

Well i think its time to bump this up :)
Hey, Madgap, how far is the next beta?  ;D

Sorry to say I haven't gotten a lot done lately. :(  Usually I'm pretty tired of programming when I get home from work.  I added in a new collision detection/reaction system that takes rotational velocity into account.  What this means is that you spin a bit when hit from the side.  Also, we can now have long, skinny ships that collide correctly.

I'm still messing around with the ship balance.  Also, I'm going to make a big change to combat.  I'm going to separate exploration mode and combat, as in the original game.  Combat will be about 5 ships vs. 5 ships max, but more can jump in during combat to replace lost ships.  I've been playing it like this for awhile and I feel it gives a nice balance.  It keeps the fighting from become too crazy.

Probably another couple of weeks until I get a new version out...

-Madgap

Is it out yet?  =P

You know...  If you made a slightly larger SC2 map, added a few old Alliance ships...  You could most likely do a great remake of SC1.  But, you know, with a story. :P

*sigh*  :'(

Sorry, I'm stuck.  :(

Stuck? How?  :-/

I'm having difficulty working out decent, fast paced, realtime rules for the strategic portion of the game.  I just need to sit down and make something, then fix it later.

Well, I don't think that would be such a big problem.. I mean Aftermath is still a beta, which tells us that the game is far from perfect, balanced and complete ;)
So you could just release what you have and remember the players of the facts above... this way you could also get ideas from others of how to solve those problems...

Adding a steady source of income (mines) would go a long way towards speeding up gameplay. Otherwise, all those lovely starbase hunting missions get interrupted by lack of fuel, etc...

I agree with you.  Before I was afraid of repeating SCIII's oddball resource system where you had to sit around and wait for fuel to be mined, but now I agree that some automatic mining system is neccessary for such a large scale game.

I've actually already implemented the resource system, I've just got to balance it out a bit.

There are six types of bases, and a system can only have 1:
Starbase
Raw Material Mine
Resource #2 Mine (haven't named it yet.)
Refinery
Academy (crew resource...not sure about this one.)
Transport Base

Basically you form supply chains by laying out the bases.  Mines feed to refineries which feed into starbase along a chain of fairly cheap transport bases.  The actual chain is generated automatically...you don't have to connect the bases together or anything.

You also have to build the bases in range of one another...if something is out of range of your starbase, for instance, you need to link to it with transport bases.

I've messed around with setting up multiple transport chains so that if the computer takes out a single transport base, a new supply chain is formed instantly along another path.

Also, you will be able to have one fleet per starbase that you control.  You will be 'in' one of the fleets, but can give orders to the others through the starmap.  You can also take direct control of another fleet, but there will be a period of time where you lose all control while you transfer from one fleet to the other.

Fleets are no longer just a group of ships.  Each fleet will have a mothership of sorts (sound familiar?) that will be responsible for taking the smaller ships from one star to another.  If you lose the mothership in battle you lose the entire fleet + the time needed to get back to the nearest starbase.

Battles will take place in a separate arena...5 v 5 (not including mother ships) max at a time.  You can still have more than 5 ships in your fleet, just no more than 5 fighting at one time.  If you lose someone and new ship from your fleet will warp in to replace him.

That's what I'm finishing up at the moment.

-Madgap

Not surprisingly, I like where the tactical side of this game is going. Instead of just flying about and blowing everything to hell, you've got to strategize to conquer and win. Having 'Quan detachments attacking particular outposts and such will also add to the realism of fighting a war, not just a set of battles.

I'm playing an older version, so this may be fixed, but one complaint I have is the ship purchase/customization screen. When you click on the system (engine/shield/scanner/weapon) on the ship's schematics, it doesn't tell you what it is. Something describing what is in the specified area would be great. If that could be implemented, I'd wager getting stats on the weights of the particular systems you can purchase would also be useful, as well as a max tonnage for a particular hull. (The Scout and Skiff are overweighted before purchase :P)

Also, getting some way to replenish exhaustable ammunition instead of running back to a starbase to repurchase the weapon over and over and over...have a cargo ship able to carry extra munitions or something...Cruisers rock, but only for one, maybe two fights. Same with the Yehat Fighters. Nasty things, but exhaust too fast and can't be retrieved.

Something that might be handy to implement is some sort of chronometric system. That'll deal with the problem of setting up starbases/mines in X days. It will also give the player an idea of how long it'll take a fleet to reach a destination, not just how much fuel it'll consume.

Another idea for another base to be able to construct, although this would require having multiple bases in a single system, would be a Research Center. It allows the advanced technologies to be brought with to the new Starbase when created. Obviously, it'll cost an arm and a leg, but that's the point. Or is existing, advanced tech just going to be integrated with the Starbase upon construction?
*Adding to this multiple-bases-in-one-system idea, some sort of automated defenses for the refineries and such should be added too. A starbase obviously can defend itself (as they come with guns), but sensor stations, mines and the like don't, easy pickings for a 'Quan hit and run squad.

I would advise against trying to implement a crew system, unless you change the way damage is logged. I don't think it would work that well.

How about the other kind of mine be an exotic mineral mine. You could also have random specific resources, like radioactives, gold, gemstones, etc...

Just got my new comp a week ago ( a Dell Inspiron 8600 with the 128 mb Radeon 9600 vid card  ;D) so now I finaly got to try out the game! (My last comp was intel extreme gfx card.)

First off: I'd like to say the gfx are absolutely amazing! I was playing Doom 3 before I installed Aftermath and if the gfx look great after that then I think I can say they are near the best I have ever seen.

2nd: some bug reports. If I sellect Arilou in melee the screen jumps to a random spot in the playing field, hangs there for a seccond, and then shows a big ship explosion. It never shows the Arilou ship. The freighter does not suffer from this problem. Also at one point while in melee the hyperspace swirl appeared over the enemy ship for a while then it appeared on my ship and then they both exploded  ???.

You left the solar system. You're supposed to blow up then.

Hey madgap, I have never been able to get the full game to work with .67, it just freezes, doesn't show my ship or anything. Any suggestions?

Hey Robert, I downloaded Aftermath recently, Excellent Game!!! I can't believe you did all that on your own, in your free hours. It is really going to rock when the completed version comes out. If you don't mind my asking, are you going to release Aftermath and its sources under the GNU?

I hope the next build will come out soon!

P.S. The Kohr-Ah model is 100% evil.

Hrm...  Perhaps replace the Yehat fighters with small Shofixti Scout models?  It'd make sense due to the relationship between the Yehat and Shofixti (Yehat Carrier anyone?) as well as make sense with their general ship design.

Fossaman: I think you can get it to work by going directly to the main game.  If you go into melee first it gets screwed up.  I'll fix that in the next release.

Deus_Siddis: Thank thatsteveguy for the the Kohr-Ah model, and pretty much every model in the game.  He's around here somewhere. :)

To all: If a ship blows up right when you load that's almost always a data error of some kind.  Like a missing or miss named hull file.  Professionals (with fulltime testers) usually would throw an assert and stop the game or let it crash.  This way they can find and fix bugs quickly.

I, on the other hand, try to make sure that above all the game never crashes.  The up side is that the game will try to correct the situation on it's own so you can continue playing.  The down side is some bugs are harder to notice, and thus go unfixed.

I was gone all weeked so I didn't get any work done.  I'll try to get something out next tuesday since I have monday off.

-Madgap

It's always the shofixti and arilou ships that blow up. I think you need to up the hull capacity, because when you buy them in the starbase their load indicator is red.

Yeah, I'm still around... just been waiting for the new versions to come out before I bog Madgap down with more models to balance... >:-)

-TSG

BTW, Madgap, how's life in the working world?

Cool, I can't wait to see the chenjesu and the chmmr.

Hello.
First of all, all praises to Madgap. I read all 23 pages before starting playing the game and i want to say: great work! graphics are fantastic. gameplay is good aswell. now a few suggestions and a bug:

probably bug:
upon starting game for first time i mined some asteroids, bought fleet, constructed few mines, one starbase, went to fight the ur-quans, then i decided to mine 'roids a bit more, in few star systems couldnt have find any 'roid, then on 2 systems i've found 'roids on sensors, went that way, but no roids were displayed. i doublechecked in another galaxy and same happened. they are on the radar and not on screen. i can bump into those, after i colide i am going in opposite direction from previous course so game is registering them. but i cant mine them and see them. i tried with lazer to get them, rockets etc but they pass thru. its like its there and not there at same time. Those roids in first available system(at start few cm in front of u) are successfuly displayed and mined by me.

suggestions:
i find game quite playable and i congratulate u for it. my suggestions are:
1. instead of displaying all your ships that bump into one another all the time, making noises and annoying u, i suggest u show only one ship from fleet - the one that u switch to. like in starcon. u have all the ships in so-called fleet but they are not shown on screen. that will help u fasten the game more. tho its fast enuf and running smoothly for me at least. this will also help u dividing game into two parts - quest solving and combat. i suggest u make an option of running from combat without warp. like in Pirates. for example: fighter can/cant run from cruiser and vice versa. depends if u think that bigger ships have more powerful engines and higher speed or if u decide that small ships are more maneuverable and faster.
2. i suggest u speed up a main vessel in hyperspace
3. when buying items, if u click at certain slot it shud show u, below starship picture, text and characteristics of weapon that is already installed there and at the moment it shows u item/weapon that is selected on the left in the inventory/buy menu. that should be fixed. when i click my weapon slot i wanna see characteristics of current weapon and when i click on weapon in starbase menu i wanna c its characteristics.
4. i think that colisions with ships shud lower ship shields aswell as colisions with asteroids. if u bump too many times into asteroid ship shud blow up.
5. i suggest that instead of making asteroid small while ur mining it u might assign some value to each asteroid and lower the percentage of  mineral/metal on that asteroid. for example i ran into Aluminium rich asteroid. i start mining. there is indicator (%) that shows me 100% then lowering ... 78% ... 77% ... 49% etc. when u deplete asteroid it chages image to usual rock asteroid. no more golden veins or interesting colors. that way u dont destroy them. looks interesting, makes game more challenging if u can hit into something that can kill u, etc.
6. i also suggest u make planets/suns distance bigger than current one. at least 50%. and enable sun damage.
7. my personal suggestion would be making hyperspace bluish. for me it fits space better than red or green like sc2. btw great job on space colors, nebulas and dust. i love it.
______

now here is my offer to help aswell. i can make u a pictures of aliens for communications in rpg part of game. especially if u dont need big ones. i have a friend that is quite good at drawing, and im not that bad myself. we could draw and color it or just draw and thesteveguy could model it if u think its more apropriate. im also a coder so i can help u a bit with coding certain things, but since im student i could not spare mucho time on it. pictures, small coding tasks thats about it. also maybe few game ideas that starcon gives us at the end. i also have some v nice icons u can use throughout the game. ill post this on forums and send u to mail aswell.

Best regards,
TheSaint

p.s. the arilou and shof shippies are still blowing up before u even get the chance to look at it.

{edit:
actually i remember now that during gameplay one time when i died and went back to game menu game threw error "error cant load xxx " some module or model or something and after that this error happened. it didnt happen again.
}

"1. instead of displaying all your ships that bump into one another all the time, making noises and annoying u, i suggest u show only one ship from fleet - the one that u switch to. like in starcon. u have all the ships in so-called fleet but they are not shown on screen."

Personally, I kind of like having a large fleet follow you everywhere. It looks cool.

I have two suggestions too.

1) Make the point defense lasers a little more effective against escort and capital ships.

2) Take away the nuke ammo limit. It is kind of imbalancing and unnecessary.


If you want my help, I can build models in the freeware program Blender 3D. I don't know what kind of model files your engine can use, but if it can use mine, I might be able to help.

it does look cool, but ships often bump into u or each other, sometimes even stop u in moving by creating a bunch and they also speed down ur game, eating ur machine resources.

The only thing that really bugs me about the fleet ships is when they fly right into your mining laser or knock the asteroid you're mining flying.

Has anyone else noticed that when you have ships in your fleet with heavy autolasers and you're attacking an enemy starbase, whenever you encounter a new enemy the start firing on you? I've had my ship blown up by my own fleet.

The really sad part about that story is you actually got killed by an auto laser.  :P

Anyway, I thought that's what it's supposed to do, shoot everything in range. I mean, it even shot asteroids in SC2.

Right, but I'm talking six heavy auto lasers firing at the same time. And it's NOT supposed to shoot friendlies.

Although, in version .655, you can make a nice haul by blowing up friendly cargo ships and collecting their cargo with it.

I have tested the melee and I have few comments:

1. The AI sucks. They just fly towards you and die.
2. The koar-ah FRIED is useless when the pc uses it. The computer never uses it when he has to ( usally on nothing)
3. Yehat terminator:
a. wtf I can't see the secoundry weapon bolts.
b. No shield? That is too bad
c. Too powerful. It can beat koar-ah and ur-quan ( 1 and 2 ) without a scartch. Missle from far and if you dare to come near then you will be rained with invisible bolts and die.

Well, we can squawk for weeks about how things need to be balanced, but it might be better to just let the weapon types and damage levels be the same as they were in SC2, for now. Adjustments can be made off of that model.

Still, balancing is something you'd probably save for the end of a project. Midway through dev, content adding and bug squashing are the main focuses. When that's mostly done, you'd build a system that would allow you to alter values quickly without compiling and the real balancing act would then begin. As it stands now, most of all the specialized weapons and devices are not even coded yet, so there is only so much balancing which can take place, anyway.

That's just what I've heard, though.

I did some more testing and I have another comments:
1. Koar-ah razor just moves on. It isn't a mine anymore. It decreased koar ah ship's power by 50% ( in my opinion)
2. Arilou skiff ship automaticly explodes
3. Vux intruder battery charges up even when he fires.
4. Sometimes your hits does no damage.
5. Ur quan plasma bolt has no max range. Kind of unfair.
6. Illwrath avenger can't become invisible.

I don't think those are bugs, just features which have not yet been added. I just brought up the ammo limit on nukes, because I thought that was a feature which took away from the general balance and gameplay. With the laser, it might not need to be half as powerful against capital ships, because it is already very weak.

Perhaps an alternative, would be a system like this:

Say you have a fighter, a cruiser, and a dreadnaught. The fighter has 0 resistance, the cruiser has 1 and the dreadnaught has 2. Each resistance point will subtract one point of damage away from an attack.

Now you also have two weapons, the blastomatic and the womper. The blastomatic shoots shots which do 3 points of damage and it can fire every second. The womper does 5 points of damage per shot and can fire every 2 seconds.

So now you use the blastomatic for just under 2 seconds against the three types of ships:

Fighter: hit once 3-0 hit again 3-0 = 6 damage total

Cruiser: hit once 3-1 hit again 3-1 = 4 damaga total

Dreadnaught: hit once 3-2 hit again 3-2 = 2 damage total

And now you use the womper for just under 2 seconds:

Fighter: hit once 5-0 = 5 damage total

Cruiser: hit once 5-1 = 4 damage total

Dreadnaught: hit once 5-2 = 3 damage total

So, as you can see, the thicker armored craft are effected more by burst weapons, while lighter craft are effected more by rapid fire weapons.

It's awesome, couldn't be better.  In fact, I'd hardly even call it work.  Basically I get paid for what I'd be doing anyway. :)



That's right, I just haven't gotten around to adding support for all of the current SC2 systems or making sure all of the ships work.  The data files for the weapons and ships are open if you want to change something yourself.  I should probably write up a HowTo guide or something.  For example: to change the nuke ammo to unlimited open the Systems/Nuke.weapon file, and change Ammo: to -1...that's unlimited ammo.

The AI probably wont be updated until after I finish all of the weapon systems.  Currently they don't know what all of the weapons do, so they don't know how to use them properly...especially the secondary weapons.

I converted the strategy portion of the game over from an SC2 style go anywhere map to a SC1 style starlane map.  I was hesitant before about the conversion, but the pathfinder was a lot easier to program than I thought it would be.

The starmap is setup so you can layout a map, save it, and then start running the strategy game (through the starmap).  You can order fleets to go to various stars, build bases, etc.  I'm going to implement some kind of simplified combat results calculation tonight along with some other tidbits to make it more of an actual 'game'.  I'll try to release something tomorrow, so that you can check it out and post feedback.  

The realtime combat isn't hooked up to the strategy portion and won't be until the strategic game is fun by itself.  Keep that in mind before you download if you are on a modem line.

-Madgap

What do you mean by 'not hooked up to the strategy portion'? There's no combat involved in the strategic mode yet, or it isn't calculated at the same time?

Sounds like it will be very different from the current build.

I just ran across a REALLY wierd glitch in .655 (I use that version because I like the scout more than any other ship, and it doesn't work in .67)

I was headed for an enemy system and got intercepted, and as soon as I came out of hyperspace, my ship got caught in a massive gravity well. I blew up the two ships and then looked at the gravity well: It was black, and strong enough that I couldn't escape from it. The meteor that I tried firing go sucked back in, even.

Has anyone else run across this? Is it intentional? Traveling black holes could be kind of cool... :P

(http://www.tiermotive.de/tieralbum/4images/data/media/66/fossa-03.jpg)

I think if I stare at it long enough, it will start talking.

I suppose they would make a good sci fi alien species, wouldn't they? They are REALLY creepy looking! ;D

I don't know, it's like a strange mix between creepy and cute. Come to think of it, it's a little like my cat.

Do you raise Fossas?

The slitted pupils are what keeps it from being entirely cute...
Mainly I think the name sounds cool, but they are pretty awesome.
You must have one strange cat.

Madgap, were going through New Release Withdrawal Syndrome here! Please give us more Aftermath!!

more stuff:
1. sometimes shots pass the FRIED. It suppose to destory everything.
2. The razor blade is suppose to be stronger than the ur quan shot. (That is how it is in sc2 ) Meaning, if the razor blade hits it, the ur quan shot will be blocked and the razor will continue. In the second hit both will be blocked.

To add to this off-topical nonsense, what exactly is a Fossa related to? Is it like a ferret, or something different?

Fossas are civets, they're related to mongooses more than anything else. There are about half a dozen other species of civets.

Deep-Jiffa, in UQM, at least, the blade is destroyed by the fusion bolt. The second blade cancels out the shot, not the other way around like you have it.

The auto laser and heavy auto laser should probably not be able to destroy blades, though.

there is somewthing wrong with ilwrath ship
after some time it stops shooting a burst and only shoots single flame which is lethal for him coz all others have powerfull weapons. btw i dont hink AI is that bad if u try melee u will c that it is efficient: accurate and knows when to close on and when to keep distance. but since we are hu-mans :) we can beat it - its only a machine.

The flamer goes out when you get damaged really heavily, when the green section of your health bar starts to go down. All the ships do this to a certain extent, but it's really noticeable with the Ilwrath.

"To add to this off-topical nonsense"

Sorry, I was tired and didn't know I was posting in the Aftermath thread. I think I was seeing things. That, and the Fossa told me to do it.

I don't know why a blade should be able to go through a nuclear missile and keep on flying. I mean, they are both as powerful.

I'm not sure what that means, 'cause I never played the first SC. Anyone want to explain?  ???

In SC1, each star was connected to the stars near it by little lines. Going from one star to another was one move. So instead of a hyperspace map like SC2 has, it's like an interstate highway system.

k, thanks.
I'm guessing this next update is gonna be pretty big. I hope he releases it soon...  :)

edit: What's the latest version that allows saving? I want to be able to save. And is it still on his site, if I type in the right version number for the zip file?

Has there been a development snag, or are you just busy, Madgap?

Anyone know if there's a way my friend can make this game work on his computer? He has a  7 year old 3dfx Voodoo3 video card. He gets an error that says failed to build device list
Earlier in the topic, Madgap said "Are you, perhaps, using an old Voodoo card? (crosses fingers)" So I'm guessing he meant there's a way to make it work...?  ???

grayfox777: The bad news is I don't think you are going to get it to run on a card that old.  The good news is you can get a decent upgrade for about $40.  :-/

Fossaman: No snag, just very busy at work.  Also, I picked up Nexus a few days ago and have been playing that a lot after work.

-Madgap

Oh yea, I completely forgot about that game. I think they changed the name about three times. Very nice graphics, and lots of ships which have absolutly no resemblance to the Sulaco. :)

Never figured out if it was a strat like homeworld, or more of a piloting type action game.

Ok, thanks! I'll let him know the next time I see him on.

Also, earlier I asked about the latest version that allows saving... any way I could get it?  I like the game, but I hate being unable to save, since it seems to be messed up in the newest version.

grayfox777:

1)Can your E-mail handle a 17 MB attachment?
2)Which version would you like? .66 has more ship types, but the skiff and scout are broken. They work in .655, but the Kohr-Ah, Vux, Ilwrath, etc aren't in it.

3)Do you trust me to not send you a virus? :P

1)Can your E-mail handle a 17 MB attachment?

Well... no, but could you try this?  http://s3.yousendit.com/
It will e-mail me a link to the file on their server after you upload it, so I can get the file. use grayfox777@gmail.com
It's pretty simple and there's no registration. :)

2)Which version would you like? .66 has more ship types, but the skiff and scout are broken. They work in .655, but the Kohr-Ah, Vux, Ilwrath, etc aren't in it.

.66

3)Do you trust me to not send you a virus? Tongue

NO WAY...! Just kidding!  I trust you. ;D

There you go! That is a really simple system. I hadn't heard of it before. The file is in .zip format, so you'll have to extract it to use it.

Thanks... I downloaded it and now I can save!  ;D

I know this seems like I'm raising the dead, but there is a bit of news. Madgap has set up a forum just for Aftermath so now we can stop clogging this board up with endless threads... Anyway, the aftermath site can be found at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rkingsle/

That's all folks

-TSG

Excellent!  :D

been having some problems with the game. i press f4 and the save screen pops up. i click one of the slots and press save and it doesn't save. i also cannot scan planets. i press P to target them and then press B

See the post two prior to yours.