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Topic: Aftermath (Read 98948 times)
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Cronos
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Shofixti Scoutmaster
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Progress Report?
(And Clandestine Bump  )
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ChainiaC
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Cybernetic Experiment
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here here! 
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RDH_An-R-Kist
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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!!
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Madgap
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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.
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J
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Submit or die.
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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 ?
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Madgap
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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.
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Swage
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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.
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JonoPorter
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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.
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Madgap
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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.
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ChainiaC
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Egad, I sure hope your ships come equipped with a lazarus field if that would be the case. 
Those warp demons are nasty...
Your ships could end up like... like that movie, Event Horizon
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« Last Edit: June 03, 2004, 08:16:01 pm by ChainiaC »
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Madgap
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Hmmm...that's not a bad idea for a random encounter...
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FalconMWC
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Just curious Madgap, how many hours have you spent on this game?
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Madgap
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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?
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Swage
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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 ?
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thetallman13
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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.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold.
-Old Klingon Proverb
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