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Topic: Aftermath (Read 98290 times)
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Madgap
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Good idea, TSG! Actaully, I put recoil in awhile ago, but none of the weapons currently use it.  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.
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« Last Edit: June 23, 2004, 05:42:29 am by Madgap »
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Ivy_Mike
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Ka-Boom!
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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.
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« Last Edit: June 24, 2004, 08:50:11 pm by Ivy_Mike »
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Madgap
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First, you might think about adding some kind of anti-collision logic to the AI.
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.
Second, the triangle-over-trapezoid display for ship status is a little confusing.
I think I'll be switching to damage bars next version. Still messing around with the status display.
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.
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.
Fourth, I couldn't tell which of my ships was carrying my mine constructors after the fleet had done a little asteroid mining.
The new version uses a unified cargo bay for the entire fleet. You won't have to select a particular ship.
Fifth, my mouse seemed quite slow during play. Is that something you can control?
Yeah, I'll add an options menu next version.
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?
Answer to both: Next version... 
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Madgap
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That's not a bug, it's the epic battle 'feature'.  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.
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« Last Edit: June 27, 2004, 03:39:14 am by Madgap »
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Swage
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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.
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Ivy_Mike
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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'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.
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.
Excellent.
The new version uses a unified cargo bay for the entire fleet. You won't have to select a particular ship.
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.
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Madgap
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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.
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JonoPorter
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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.
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« Last Edit: July 02, 2004, 10:38:31 am by BioSlayer »
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Megagun
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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.. 
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Madgap
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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?
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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.
Deep Jiffa Owns j00!