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Topic: Idea for UQM (Read 13831 times)
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Arne
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Yak!
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I've had a similar idea for a long time, but I suppose it's more viable now when you don't have to explain it to people, you can just say "you make stuff, like in Spore, except different!" and people will be much more receptive. That's how game pitches works. If something seems a bit alien and you need to explain it, it's an instant no-go.
For a game like SC, I'd use the Elite Frontier ship hull approach. You buy a hull and stuff it with stuff. This wouldn't work with the Arcade style gameplay in SC though, because you must be able to instantly see what you're up against so you can make a tactical response. But, SC was not about the melee for me, it was about the universe, so I wouldn't mind having customizable ships.
It's still a good idea being able to read a ship's capabilities from the exterior though. You could in Elite, the little antennas, fuel scopes, missiles etc. could be seen, and you'd know from the mass of a ship that it probably had a big laser and plenty of shields. I'd like to see battleships lined with turrets. Then the present SC ships would be something along the size of torpedo boats or destroyers. I guess I have a bit of a problem with the abstract nature of SC battles, because the universe is so... alive.
Seeing how almost all games today are geared towards accessibility over depth (a false dichotomy, imo ), I don't think TfB would depart much from the current Melee system. Departing might be quite risky and I'm sure the Melee system is an integral part of SC to many.
A less intrusive idea could be to add a flagship for each race. These are rare, and can be outfitted with various goodies pertaining to each species (which you can then loot form the derelicts), then the regular SC ships are identical 'grunts'.
Edit: Drew some haphazard ship designs on that note. Edit: I guess this idea is for my own never ending project. I just like to rant.
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« Last Edit: September 22, 2008, 11:16:00 pm by Arne »
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Arne
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I think he means to erase everything but the nacelles on the Cruiser for example, then you draw a couple of different versions of them, maybe using the ones in SC1 and SC2 (they're different). Then you do the same with the 'head' and 'body', etc. Now you can just draw several layers of stuff to complete the ship. Still a lot of work though with all the angles and mipmapping. Add programming and game balance, and the task seems... daunting.
Something which could be interesting is support for drawing (and colliding) 3D models. I'm not sure how separated the graphics drawing is from the game mechanics in UQM. It would be neat having a graphics engine as a module or something (taking arguments from the game mechanics engine). Might be a tricky task with the ship bitmap collisions and other stuff. I'm not much of a coder so I'm just ranting here.
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Alvarin
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I would like to help . My contribution can be pixel-drawing and, mainly, as a "flaw-finder" for various aspects (other than actual code).
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Alvarin
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I'd say both - for development - mailing list , for brainnstorming - IRC .
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jaychant
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We need a name for the project. I suggest calling the project Star Control Advance, for now, and we can come up with a real name later.
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Alvarin
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I'm "dwarfinblues(at)gmail(dot)com" . I don't know about the name - calling it "advance" would be jinxing it from the get go . Let's first actually get somewhere and then we'll see how "advanced" it will get .
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jaychant
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Star Control Advance would just be a codename for the project, not the actual name of the game. And actually, more than 16 ship directions IS advanced for SC2.
How about this: I'll start a poll so we can vote on what the name should be. But it'll be a quick poll, because we don't want the name to be a big issue. Besides, we should all agree on the name.
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« Last Edit: September 25, 2008, 09:49:21 pm by jaychant »
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