|
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 5
|
 |
|
Author
|
Topic: UQM fork (Read 14390 times)
|
Brent Dill
Guest
|
 |
UQM fork
« on: August 16, 2003, 02:17:05 am » |
|
I have begun development on a UQM gameplay modification, using the GPL source. The fork will, of course, be GPLed as well. I really don't want to bother the current developers with something this divergent, so I'm preparing to start my own project. Any help / suggestions would be appreciated.
Modifications in progress:
Melee modifications:
1. Updated physics
- Inertia-based ships use true inertia and have no maximum velocity (100% done)
- All projectiles spawn with velocities relative to the firing ship's (95% done)
- Ship-to-ship collisions can cause slight damage at high speeds (50% done)
2. Ship Damage
- Tech-based ships measure damage in armor instead of crew (15% done)
- Ships can take 'critical hits' which destroy components or kill crew (0% done)
- Crew can repair armor and critical damage; the more crew, the faster the repair (0% done)
3. Gameplay
- Multiple ships on-screen at once (0% done)
- Larger arena (2 more zoom-outs) (0% done)
- manual control of zoom-out (0% done)
- no wrap-around; leave the battle if you fly far enough away from enemy ships (0% done)
Game modifications:
1. Better Game / Melee interface
- All ships on both sides enter melee simultaneously; player only controls main ship, but can direct AI ships at specific enemy targets (0% done)
- Fights which do not spawn directly next to a planet never have a planet in the melee; fights which do not spawn in a star system have a much lower chance of having asteroids.
2. Persistent alien ships
- Alien ships spawn from homeworlds on a semi-regular basis, and don't simply 'appear' in hyperspace (except maybe Melnorme, Orz and Arilou) (0% done)
- Once an alien ship spawns, it can enter or leave star systems or fly through hyperspace, land on planets, and go about its business without being deallocated, only chasing the player when triggered (0% done).
- Alien ships have fuel and can run out, must return home to refuel (0% done)
- Similarly, Slylandro actually reproduce based on rules, and can be culled (0% done)
- Alien ships that take damage remain damaged after battle (0% done)
- Alien-on-alien battles are actually fought, and can be stumbled upon and entered in mid-fray (i.e., Ilwrath attacking Pkunk) (0% done)
Story modifications:
1. Orz freak out if taken into Quasispace, start Orz/Arilou war, which leads to discovering and allying with a few surviving Androsynth. (0% done)
2. Precursor artifacts can be found on Rainbow Worlds, allowing for a richer tech tree, and allowing for modules to be added to alien ships as well, a la SC1 (0% done)
3. Black Spathi Squadron
4. Ability to reprogram Slylandro probes to only seek out and disassemble Kor-Ah
5. Allying with Chmrr also allows Chenjesu and Mrmnhrm ships to be built.
6. Allow story arc after end of game (i.e., SC 3 remake done "right")
Anyone willing to volunteer time on this project is welcome to contact me at bdill@qwest.net - I would like to get all Melee modifications first, then the Game modifications, then the Story modifications. Programmers would be helpful, as would artists (although I can do both myself if I have to). Once we enter into Story mode, someone who can produce speech for the new story arcs that segways well into the existing game voices will be absolutely crucial. If I can't get that, then I'll probably just stop development and release after finishing all Melee and Game modifications.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Orz Brain
Frungy champion
 Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 66
We are the Orz. You will be *joining our party*.
|
I like:
- Fights which do not spawn directly next to a planet never have a planet in the melee; fights which do not spawn in a star system have a much lower chance of having asteroids.
2. Persistent alien ships
- Alien ships spawn from homeworlds on a semi-regular basis, and don't simply 'appear' in hyperspace (except maybe Melnorme, Orz and Arilou) (0% done)
- Once an alien ship spawns, it can enter or leave star systems or fly through hyperspace, land on planets, and go about its business without being deallocated, only chasing the player when triggered (0% done).
- Alien ships have fuel and can run out, must return home to refuel (0% done)
- Similarly, Slylandro actually reproduce based on rules, and can be culled (0% done)
- Alien ships that take damage remain damaged after battle (0% done)
- Alien-on-alien battles are actually fought, and can be stumbled upon and entered in mid-fray (i.e., Ilwrath attacking Pkunk) (0% done)
and
2. Precursor artifacts can be found on Rainbow Worlds, allowing for a richer tech tree, and allowing for modules to be added to alien ships as well, a la SC1 (0% done)
3. Black Spathi Squadron
4. Ability to reprogram Slylandro probes to only seek out and disassemble Kor-Ah
5. Allying with Chmrr also allows Chenjesu and Mrmnhrm ships to be built.
6. Allow story arc after end of game (i.e., SC 3 remake done "right")
I'm iffy about:
1. Orz freak out if taken into Quasispace, start Orz/Arilou war, which leads to discovering and allying with a few surviving Androsynth. (0% done)
- All ships on both sides enter melee simultaneously; player only controls main ship, but can direct AI ships at specific enemy targets (0% done)
And I absuloutly hate:
Melee modifications:
1. Updated physics
- Inertia-based ships use true inertia and have no maximum velocity (100% done)
- All projectiles spawn with velocities relative to the firing ship's (95% done)
- Ship-to-ship collisions can cause slight damage at high speeds (50% done)
2. Ship Damage
- Tech-based ships measure damage in armor instead of crew (15% done)
- Ships can take 'critical hits' which destroy components or kill crew (0% done)
- Crew can repair armor and critical damage; the more crew, the faster the repair (0% done)
3. Gameplay
- Multiple ships on-screen at once (0% done)
- Larger arena (2 more zoom-outs) (0% done)
- manual control of zoom-out (0% done)
- no wrap-around; leave the battle if you fly far enough away from enemy ships (0% done)
Those last will compleatly unballance the game and change the ship realations and generly screw things up.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
We are the Orz. You will be *joining our party*. Resistance is *very sad*.
|
|
|
Brent Dill
Guest
|
And I absuloutly hate:
Melee modifications:
1. Updated physics
- Inertia-based ships use true inertia and have no maximum velocity (100% done)
- All projectiles spawn with velocities relative to the firing ship's (95% done)
- Ship-to-ship collisions can cause slight damage at high speeds (50% done)
2. Ship Damage
- Tech-based ships measure damage in armor instead of crew (15% done)
- Ships can take 'critical hits' which destroy components or kill crew (0% done)
- Crew can repair armor and critical damage; the more crew, the faster the repair (0% done)
3. Gameplay
- Multiple ships on-screen at once (0% done)
- Larger arena (2 more zoom-outs) (0% done)
- manual control of zoom-out (0% done)
- no wrap-around; leave the battle if you fly far enough away from enemy ships (0% done)
Those last will compleatly unballance the game and change the ship realations and generly screw things up.
That's fair, and I intend to play-balance afterwards as much as I can to avoid these sorts of issues. Additionally, I'm anticipating re-releasing *two* forks, one with the more 'wacky' melee mods, and one without. Obviously, certain melee mods [like multiple ships at once] are necessary for some of the game mods [like multiple ships at once], but some of them should be toggleable, so you can play in "pure" SC2 mode, or the new mode. It's not my intention to make the game unplayable or screw up too much of the playbalance; I fell in love with the ships the first time around because of how fast-paced and balanced they were. However, I DO want to try something different...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Nic.
Guest
|
You get bonus points for enthusiasm, but a fork at this point could be considered "premature"; you could spend undue amounts of time re-integrating features from the main tree into your code at this point, especially considering the frequency with which the main tree changes at this (still early) stage of development. But if you're OK with that, then it's not a problem, I reckon..
But when you consider that alot of what you are working on could be applied to TimeWarp, and that they would probably love the help, I'm led to wonder aloud if your efforts might be, erm, "misplaced".
Also, since you give the outward appearance of "knowing what you are doing", I would ask in as polite a manner as I can why you would fork the codebase at this point in time rather than pitch in and help fix some of the outstanding bugs in the current tree.
Just my $0.02 USD. Ignore as appropriate.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: August 16, 2003, 03:31:15 am by Nic. »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
youBastrd
Frungy champion
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 67
It's real velour, just let yourself go.
|
So you'd prefer new ideas go to breaking our stuff before breaking UQM, eh?
totally jking, come on by anytime. Maybe the stuff you're talking about could be a new gametype for TW, Brent.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
guesst
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 692
Ancient Shofixti Warrior
|
Hey, I'm totally behind you, Brent, on your enthusiasm (sp?) and willingness to jump into this one. I'd love to play your modified melee physics if you don't mind making that available to all us lazy arse buggers who have never tried to get a compiler to run on our system.
Why don't you register your name and stay a while?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Brent Dill
Guest
|
Hey, I'm totally behind you, Brent, on your enthusiasm (sp?) and willingness to jump into this one. I'd love to play your modified melee physics if you don't mind making that available to all us lazy arse buggers who have never tried to get a compiler to run on our system.
I'll have a link posted to a Win32 EXE within the hour. 
Why don't you register your name and stay a while?
I'll also do this within the hour. I'm at work right now, and I registered to my home email.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Brent Dill
Guest
|
Also I think the Orz in Quasispace plot should be handled very carefully to avoid disrupting the sense of mystery sourounding the Orz/Androsinth. I think it should go something like this: when you enter Quasispace with an Orz ship with you yellow waves of energy should begin rippling across Quasispace and *rips* should begin to appear and disappear around you. If you go through one of these new *rips* you should fall into a pocket dimension (with a groovy wavy blue background) with a bunch of space monsters which you have to kill to get back out to Quasispace. After you fall though several of these rips in Quasispace you should end up in one with a derelict Androsinth ship floating around and if you board the ship you should be treated to a "lander" report similar to the following: Something about having explored the ship and finding no crew on board and no bodys and finding a heavily damaged captains log which should give some description of having received orders to test a expiermental IDF drive and coming to this pocket dimension and the IDF drive breaking down and the ship falling under attack by ghost energy beings and then the log should become fragmentary and say something about crew becoming posesed and then something about "I'm going to try to abandon ship" and then "Oh my God, their coming!" and then it should end. You should be able to take the Androsinth ship back to the starbase and bild more of that kind of ship. Also you should be able to avoid the *rips* in Quasispace fairly easily so as not to unbalance the game for people who like to fly around with a large Orz fleet (me ) and if you go to the Arilo homeworld they should act really mad at you for bringing the Orz to Quasispace but should still fulfill their part of the plot (giving you the portal spawner / information).
That's sort of my idea. Sort of. Basically, when you take an Orz ship into QuasiSpace, it just... disappears. Afterwards, the Orz all act even weirder than before, and around the Androsynth homeworld, ANOTHER Quasispace portal starts appearing once every few days - except instead of green, it's black. If you enter any of these rifts, you enter an area of completely blank, black space - no stars, no warp eddies, nothing. Floating somewhere in this will be a lone Androsynth ship, with a lone crewman on board, who is paranoid and psychotic. If you can convince him to join you, you gain the ability to make Androsynth ships, but from that point onwards strange and deadly phenomena start occuring throughout the galaxy - things like invisible ships, crew dying for no reason, and the Arilu and Orz being really, really mad at you.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
HentaiZonga
Zebranky food
Offline
Posts: 32
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
|
Ah, there we go. So, I'll have a link to my new code and Win32 exe in this thread tonight.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HentaiZonga
Zebranky food
Offline
Posts: 32
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
|
Hence "buggy as hell".  Gimme a break, I've been at this for less than 5 hours. I'll post a somewhat fixed version momentarily, although it will still have quite a bit of... erm... crunch.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 5
|
|
|
|
|
) and if you go to the Arilo homeworld they should act really mad at you for bringing the Orz to Quasispace but should still fulfill their part of the plot (giving you the portal spawner / information).
Deep Jiffa Owns j00!