Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

AppGameKit/AppGameKit Studio Showcase / Star Captain WIP

Author
Message
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 22nd May 2015 00:29 Edited at: 12th Aug 2015 03:12
Link
So I decided to start a little WIP to see what people thought of my new game - and because to be honest it's kind of loosing focus slightly. It also doubles as a nice little dev log for myself.

Star captain is an FTL inspired cross between Star Trek and Frontier. The jist is that you will have two game modes - you can play Federation missions, a la Star Trek, and rank up, get bigger badder ships, complete mission assignments etc, or you can just go rogue and play around in a little sandbox universe and be a trader, assassin, explorer, pirate, taxi, miner - whatever really.

Anyway, I will keep this post up to date with the latest developments, however please leave any feedback you want, from a technical perspective or a gameplay one.

Ta.


Video 1:
So this one was from January when I was first prototyping the idea, and shows 200 units pathmapping around a ship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CUEo9FzYrI&hd=1

Video 2:
From April 16th (after a break) this video shows some of the pathmapping with debugging on - units will now move around each other and queue for others. Green is an initial pathmap, red is a recalculation after hitting a block.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es3vMDUQ8rc&hd=1

Videos 3 & 4:
From May 10th, these videos give a quick run down on the AI and editor in game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBdOlg-IcO0&hd=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd7p2VoH-t0&hd=1

Videos 4 & 5:
So I started playing around with damage system and particles, and this next video shows an early damage system. This worked by pasting two sprites then grabbing the results, but it was slow (May 19th).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoFqDHCb8ik&hd=1

So I got to looking at memblocks and now it's far more sophisticated. Damage "holes" are now done entirely in memory so that culling is based on a stencil brush that can be any shape. I have also added subsurface damage simulation using a second brush which is a damaged rebar style image. Whenever a hole is created, the subsurface damage is optionally added in and a hole cut out to match the stencil shape. This is very fast and entirely in ram so alpha channel problems no longer exist when grabbing an image.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7uWLQEh2XQ&hd=1

Video 6:
Ok, so I now have the mechanics for the space view mode sorted, including planets in an early form. The galaxy will comprise of sectors (think a tiled map) and when the player warps to each one data files will load in planets, moons, stations etc depending on what's there, and these are how the player will trade and accept missions etc. This video shows the simple "point and I'll go there mechanic", looping space and a simple planet. (25/05/2015)

Also new, but not shown (for my record) AI has improved so that rooms now have crew type preference. Essentially crew, as an example, will now have an 80% chance of going to a recreational area when awake and not assigned a duty, rather than just aimlessly wandering.

http://youtu.be/IkR5RcHHGW8

6/6/15
No video this time, but a few key updates to the game. All 7 key systems and crew roles are in the game, and functional. Systems must be manned to function. Worked in a simple asteroid routine and tied all the damage elements together - added a plasma effect too and shrapnel (very WIP). Varying types of damage can now be caused. Built and mapped ship objects, now they will also be impacted by external damage, and each has an explosive factor - enemy weapons destroy the ship by a power generator and hit it again, major fireworks now. Unit heads are now fixed when sleeping too, and lots of AI bugs were removed - pathfinding is now roughly 30%-40% more efficient.

6/6/15 EDIT:
Well, after some intensive coding, I got the new floor routine working. So now instead of drawing up to 13'500 sprites for each ship (very taxing on slower machines - such as old hardware and tablets) each ships internal floors are rendered as a single image and one sprite. On my machine (8 core 3ghz and a GTX 760) this brought along a performance increase of 17% - 79fps to 93fps. This benefit will multiply over time for less powerful machines (my laptop went from 55-64fps to a steady 71fps windowed, 96fps full screen). Phew.

Also played around with a new system that if I get it working will offer a huge performance increase and bring me back into mobile territory (with tamed down damage and particle effects), and even better will allow permanent damage and decal scarring to internal rooms too including masking by walls (think explosion marks that never fade and are limited to the room they are in by walls).

Video 7: 18/06/2015
Quite a few updates this time, but the main one is the basics of ship to ship combat are now functional. A new further zoomed out perspective allows two ships to be seen side by side, basic weapons system are in place, ships can target and fire, hull strength is simulated based on the actual graphic (each tiles strength is the sum of pixels used within it multiplied by 5), alpha colour blending now works in the memblock files - fire damage is left around holes and impacts that don't cause huge explosions now leave permanent scars and dents, added new particle effect for sparks on small impacts, and a new plasma stream effect for damage to internal systems (large power generators etc).

Additionally, I found a major bug that's been lingering since day one where a math calculation left the ships floors and objects offset by one tiles on each axis - this caused all kinds of issues which have been resolved.

https://youtu.be/h4mP07m58dA

Video 8 - 08/07/2015
Ok, it's been a while however I took a week off and then didn't get much time working on the game. However, now ship systems interface is coded in, shields are added and effective, and the hull can take damage. This short video shows how shields are affected by the amount of power sent to them, and how the ship systems won;t work while unmanned. This video also shows the AI running in full effect for the enemy ship too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTt1x2CO2pU

18/07/2015:
Quick update for myself. Discovered a fundamental flaw in the ship cloning process, and placement of components. Rewritten and fully functional - ship creation is now working fine across multiple ship and cloning for enemies. Added a grid for tile placement making it much easier. Added semi-transparent masking effect for inside of enemy ship - only visible with Science manned (later also only with scanners).

11/08/2015:
Been a while, however now have internal damage working so that ship parts are destroyed and enemy crew and non fixed ship parts are sucked out of hull breaches. Video below.

What's next: (bold items current priority, underlined in progress)
*Rework damage so that holes suck out crew near them - done 09/07/2015
*AI bug in recursive pathmapping to be fixed
*Simple trading
*Boarding parties
*Multiple stock ship types - done 09/07/2015
*AI ships within the galaxy
*Multiple space sectors (look at practicality of a seamless galaxy)
*Extend damage to internals of ship with scarring
*Internal component destruction
*External weapons destruction
*Projectile weapons to be added
*Ship to ship combat AI - rerouting of power etc
*Full dynamic AI crew generation and placement - have some start i post, asleep etc
*Space view ship generation
*Finish adding the catalogue of stock ship parts
*Add additional ship systems in

Playable alpha expected Aug 15, full release early 2016.

Any and all feedback appreciated.
Back to top
Profile PM
Rickynzx
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Dec 2011
Location: Troon, Scotland
Posted: 22nd May 2015 01:54
Link
Looking good Santman, cant wait to see a playable version of this.

Looks very promising.


Piggy Bank Tracker 2 Touch A Block Love Calculator Kcal Calc Website Blog
AGK2 Tier 1
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 22nd May 2015 11:05
Link
Thanks rickynzx. Got a long way to go but I think it's starting to get interesting.
Back to top
Profile PM
Ched80
13
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 18th Sep 2010
Location: Peterborough, UK
Posted: 25th May 2015 22:48
Link
Tagging in to this

btw you can let YouTube videos play in your post by using (youtube)VideoID(/youtube)

but replace "()" with "[]" for example

[ youtube ] IkR5RcHHGW8 [ / youtube]

generates this



Back to top
Profile PM Email
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 26th May 2015 13:59
Link
@ched80, awesome, thanks for that. I may use that in future, not sure how cluttered that would leave the initial post.

But here's a quick question for anyone reading.... I was going to work the galaxy so that it was a series of "sectors" that the player could warp between, which I still will...... However should I also make it possible to just fly between then by going far enough to the edges? Was thinking it could make for some cool missions if, for example, your jump drive was down and you had to make your way back out of hostile territory. Anyone have a preference?
Back to top
Profile PM
gwheycs62egydws
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Aug 2009
Location: The World
Posted: 3rd Jun 2015 23:53
Link
@Santman

hi
i like what you have dun

you have dun some good work

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
Back to top
Profile PM Email
SpecTre
Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 4th Jun 2015 00:00
Link
Some really good work here.

Quote: "Was thinking it could make for some cool missions if, for example, your jump drive was down and you had to make your way back out of hostile territory."


This sounds like a great idea, you could get into all types of side missions doing this.

The Amiga and Amos were great!
Download my game - Paint Pot from Amazon and Google here - http://leap.my-free.website/
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
gwheycs62egydws
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Aug 2009
Location: The World
Posted: 4th Jun 2015 00:04
Link
I think a lot of different side mission would be nice to have

from the simple to the complex
or should i say time and resource intensive ;o)

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 4th Jun 2015 02:34
Link
Thanks Resourceful, I was wavering a bit as to whether to continue it TBH.

Yeah spectrepaul, I've grown to like the idea of seamless sectors myself, thought it's going to be a pain for AI ships actually.....will require lots on "on the sly" generation that I had planned to do as the player jumped from one to another. Will see how quick I can make this though, I do want to do it.

So another question. I've now fleshed out the mechanics of how things will work, thusly:

Power will be generated by generators, and used to power engines and ship systems, however can be rerouted around the ship so that the more power you give one system, for example weapons, the more powerful/effective they will be. These system will be engines, weapons and shields. However, teleporters (for boarding other craft) and warp drive will require "one hit" power supplies that have to come from battery storage on the ship....so if you teleport crew to an enemy ship and have no reserve power left you can't bring them back etc, but can divert power to batteries to charge them quicker etc etc.

Their will be 9 roles that crew can fulfil; security, engineer, science officer, helmsman, weapons officer, medic, botanist, excursion party and comms. Ship systems are dependant on workstations for these tasks being manned, although multiple can be placed through the ship. The links are this: Security will fight intruders, engineers are needed for power rerouting to work and warp drives to be used, science officers are needed to operate teleporters, warp drives and analyse ships or planets, helmsmen are needed to move the ship and warp jump, weapons officers are needed to use offensive ship weapons, medics allow the healing facilities to work, botanists grow plants (air and food), excursion parties can board enemy ships, and comms officers are needed for ship scanners and trade to work.

Phew. So the question is, does all this seem too complicated? Essentially, the captain can perform any duty themselves, but can only do things like order power rerouting etc from his chair - since you directly control him then you will have to control that. The idea is, that if you lack crew, or some die...I want you to be in trouble - I want ship systems to stop working. Weapons officer dies? No weapons till someone else takes his place. No engineer working, or backup power? No warping out of danger.

What do you think?
Back to top
Profile PM
PIXIMID
8
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th May 2015
Location: Somewhere your currently not. ^^
Posted: 4th Jun 2015 02:48
Link
Quote: " The idea is, that if you lack crew, or some die...I want you to be in trouble - I want ship systems to stop working. Weapons officer dies? No weapons till someone else takes his place. No engineer working, or backup power? No warping out of danger."


Hi Santman, it seems like Star Captain is going to be drawing a lot of attention in the agk showcase. Sounds like a looooooot of source to cram,but anything is possible when you put your time to it. Takes patience...but any, I think that is a splendid idea. Too me, it adds pressure to the player and makes the game more intensive.

Keep up the good work.

I got the power...
Back to top
Profile PM Email
SpecTre
Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 4th Jun 2015 05:08
Link
Had to read it a couple of times to make sense but it is 3am lol.
It sounds very good to me and has scope to make you have the panic feeling of being in touble not having the resourses whilst playing.

Could have some great strategy gameplays going on in this to make the game really interesting.

Would be great if you could pull it off, very nice

The Amiga and Amos were great!
Download my game - Paint Pot from Amazon and Google here - http://leap.my-free.website/
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
gwheycs62egydws
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Aug 2009
Location: The World
Posted: 5th Jun 2015 18:40
Link
@Santman

after you posted to the facebook TheGameCreators
you caught my interest


we have talked on there and i said it would be nice as android game to play

this is what AppGameKit 2 needs to showcase what it can do
so more people want to buy it to make there own programs

i know there tying to get more people interested
any program made with it will only bolster them to make
the updates we want

I hope with at least one of my game idea that i can be part of that
path too

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 6th Jun 2015 02:14
Link
Piximid, Resourceful - thank you both very much, you'll make me blush! Lol. But seriously thank you, but my game isn't anything special. My goal is just to finish something that people actually want to play to be honest.

spectrepaul, pulling off the system stuff is easy - I've just finished the code now, so all ship systems are now linked to the crew and visually displayed. So far now, med beds are in and functional, and they are now linked to the medic stations being used - so that was easy. Next I plan to introduce a second ship and get some ship to ship combat going, then we'll see how it can impact game play. I'm thinking varying difficulties of opponent will target different systems and crew on purpose. Easy ones will just blast randomly - clever ones will target critical systems.
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 7th Jun 2015 02:21 Edited at: 7th Jun 2015 02:27
Link
So, here as per my update at the top is the new floor drawing routine. The entire ship is now rendered as a single image so every single floor tile that was once an individual sprite, up to 13'500 are possible, are now rendered as a single sprite. On my machine with this design it picked up about a 17% speed increase, however in tests where I rendered every possible tile the base speed dropped to around 20fps.....now it stays well about 80 as the number of tiles used no longer impacts the rendering process.

This now also means that the same damage and painting procedure that allows the external ship to scar can now apply to the inside....every laser blast from a boarding party or explosion will leave it's mark permanently now, and I can add things such as small debris piles etc that will also be persistent. Essentially I can draw anything I like now straight onto the floor.

I plan to now model an entire exoskeleton on the shape of the ship, sandwich the floor in the middle, and then have the top layer so that all damage will give the appearance of a 3 dimensional structure - rip a hole in the top and you'll see the inside of the ship. Rip another hole in the same place, you'll see the structure on the other side of the ship.

Anyway, this'll be the last update for a while as I'm about to build in a second ship, and that's a TON of work but a major milestone - but the next video should be EPIC!!

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM
PIXIMID
8
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th May 2015
Location: Somewhere your currently not. ^^
Posted: 9th Jun 2015 16:56
Link
DUDE!!!!! THAT LOOKS SOOO AMAZING!!! Nicely Done if I do say so myself.

Your ship graphics is really spot on.



Quote: "I plan to now model an entire exoskeleton on the shape of the ship, sandwich the floor in the middle, and then have the top layer so that all damage will give the appearance of a 3 dimensional structure - rip a hole in the top and you'll see the inside of the ship. Rip another hole in the same place, you'll see the structure on the other side of the ship.
"
That sounds radical. It sounds like a good mix.

I got the power...
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 19th Jun 2015 02:24
Link
Just a quick update, but here's an early video showing the basics of ship to ship combat.

Back to top
Profile PM
gwheycs62egydws
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Aug 2009
Location: The World
Posted: 19th Jun 2015 02:44
Link
@Santman

looking good ;o)

just a thought for down the road

make a how to make a ship tutorial
so other than add in there own ship

i have to wondering how may android devices
rill be able to run this and not suck up a lot of energy

i know by now the computer out there can run this

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 19th Jun 2015 02:53
Link
@Resourceful

A ship editor is completely built and included - it's pretty simple already. The user presses "r" and everything is completely reset - they can then load any custom graphic they want. It is resized, Transparency added if needed, and then it's scanned and mapped from within a memblock so that the game can work out exactly what is "ship" and what isn't. From then you just paint floors, walls and add objects from the menus. Everything else is automatic. I will look at some kind of tutorial though, thanks for the suggestion.

As for running on Android, not really even looking at that platform right now to be honest. With some suitable scaling down, I'm confident as stands I could get around 30-45fps on a decent device, but the damage model and the space view and planets etc would need scaled right back. The earth texture alone is 8.6meg.

I'm hopeful that I can get some kind of demo out maybe in a month or so (a few unexpected set backs this past two weeks) but it really depends on how much time I get, as always.
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 8th Jul 2015 05:18
Link
Update added with ship systems.

Back to top
Profile PM
SoftMotion3D
AGK Developer
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Aug 2005
Location: Calgary,Alberta
Posted: 9th Jul 2015 03:00
Link
wow this game looks like alot of fun! keep up the good work!

I realy like this type of strategy game!

www.sheldonscreations.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 9th Jul 2015 05:08
Link
Thanks Softmotion - I'll add you to the alpha testers list then since it;s your cup of tea.
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 9th Jul 2015 14:02
Link
Ok guys and girls, looking for a little feedback if possible.

Which should I focus on first - missions with a fixed structure, or just a free roaming galaxy?

Is anyone interested in playing around with the ship editor only?

what kinds of missions or sandbox style career activities would you like to see?

Any idea's welcome - come help me shape the game.
Back to top
Profile PM
gwheycs62egydws
14
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Aug 2009
Location: The World
Posted: 10th Jul 2015 03:21
Link
@Santman

free roaming to see how things operate

I would like to test out the ship editor

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
Back to top
Profile PM Email
SoftMotion3D
AGK Developer
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Aug 2005
Location: Calgary,Alberta
Posted: 10th Jul 2015 06:50 Edited at: 10th Jul 2015 06:52
Link
Quote: "Thanks Softmotion - I'll add you to the alpha testers list then since it;s your cup of tea. "


oh cool! thanks!

humm... i think id go with missions with a fixed structure getting tougher as you go through the missions. I guess the free roaming galaxy sounds cool too. Could you mix it and do both?

If you couldnt then id prefer missions with a fixed structure. i always find that on a randomly built event its almost always missing something that maybe blends in too much to the other random events happening. with a fixed mission structure your player may need to change his strategy to complete the mission... using the same strategy level to level should be non existant.

just my thoughts.

www.sheldonscreations.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 14th Jul 2015 22:40
Link
@Resourceful

Awesome, thanks. By the end of this week I will hopefully have a simple front end, installer and launcher (the installer is done anyway, it just needs to create the Star Captain package). Once that's done the aim is that updates will deliver directly to you via the launcher anyway.

@Softmotion,

Yip, I already aim to offer the player a sandbox universe to play around in, Frontier style with all kinds of activities such as assassinations, trade, courier and taxi missions, mining etc, but also a fixed mission based structure. I aim to run it so that if you play missions then your rank determines the mission types, but they will be generated with no set "end" - and that failing them results in your rank potentially reducing again so that you get easier missions again. However to do both initially is a big ask for a single person, so one or other will come first. Sandbox is actually easier I think, so I may go with that.
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 12th Aug 2015 03:14 Edited at: 12th Aug 2015 03:15
Link
Just a little sneaky update. Internal parts can explode if flagged to do so, although not shown in the video. For example, hitting the main reactor causing a chain reaction of explosions that can destroy huge sections of hull.

For now though, some simple examples of what happens in space if your ship gets a hole blown in it....

Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 20th Aug 2015 02:13
Link
Ok guys, I need opinions again and a little guidance. So after a TON of headaches I finally got the internal damage to map correctly (took a while but actually found a way to get a 25%-30% speed increase out of the code anyway ) with blending again (debris to come) however something about the damage just doesn't look right.

I'm no artist, and that's not helping, and at the moment there is only one damage template (eventually there will be ten external and ten internal, and if speed allows I will randomly cross blend 2-3 to create hundreds of possible deformations) - but what would make the damage better? Ignore the white particles - they are a WIP and may go or be textured, but does the holes work? Too tiled? What can improve it?

Back to top
Profile PM
Rickynzx
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Dec 2011
Location: Troon, Scotland
Posted: 20th Aug 2015 13:40
Link
Great work santaman,

WIP is looking good, only slight problem i can see with the damage, is that it seems to punch a hole right through the whole ship. It would look more realistic if you could see the inside of the ship which i am sure you had before in one of your videos.

You are making great progress and hope that you manage to finish the project, as i would love to see the finished game.


Sarah in Candyland Piggy Bank Tracker 2 Touch A Block Love Calculator Kcal Calc Website Blog
AGK2 Tier 1
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 24th Aug 2015 01:31 Edited at: 24th Aug 2015 01:41
Link
Hi Rickynzx.

Thanks for the kind comments, it's coming along. It;s just keeping speed up that's the problem now!! And yip, the holes can punch into the ship, but the idea was that large internal explosions, such as the power generator, will blow holes out the other side too....the eventual goal is to have whole "sections" of ship break off and float away. Time will tell on that one though.

As is, after some FB suggestions, I have done a quick rework. Any improvement?



This one uses some more dramatic, pre-rendered particles for the explosion, has smoke reworked, screen flash and camera shake (the flash colour and duration are variables, as is the shake force and duration and so can be easily altered or disabled).

I like the screen flash, not so sure about the camera shake. Up close I will temper it down so that it isn't so violent, but does it work???
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 18th Nov 2015 22:44
Link
Just keeping the thread alive for now.
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 14th Dec 2015 21:01
Link
Added a couple of new effects to space travel view - warping effect now done and also trailing space dust. This effect will also double as vapor trails for craft engines.
Back to top
Profile PM
Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: Sweden
Posted: 24th Dec 2015 15:50
Link
Impressive so far. I wonder why you haven't focused more on the gameplay first. The gameplay is what made FTL so great. That is what will make or break your game. Is the ship to ship combat fun and engaging? Everything else can be added later.
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 25th Dec 2015 10:16
Link
Thanks Digital Awakening, and indeed - that is the very question; "Is the ship to ship combat fun and engaging?". Erm....I hope so? Lol. This is early days, but like any developer I;ve played it a million times so it's hard for me to say. Once the final destruction of the enemy ship is in, and things like boarding etc, then hopefully it will be fun, but testers can feed that back later. As for not working on the gameplay....it;s tough to refine gameplay before the technical side of the engine is in place. But I won;t deny....I like coding graphics.
Back to top
Profile PM
Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: Sweden
Posted: 25th Dec 2015 10:47 Edited at: 25th Dec 2015 10:49
Link
I have seen many who start on coding the graphics so you are not alone. Had a conversation about this with people from my game lab, the importance of core gameplay. Everything else is just a matter of time and resources. But if the core gameplay is lacking then it's likely that the whole game will end up lacking.

From my experience. If you think it's fun having played it over and over then chances are that others will too. If you get tired of playing the game then chances are it's not as good as you thought. You always have an attachment to your own work so it's really hard to judge your own game.

It's good to have others playtesting your game as early as possible. Otherwise you might put a lot of work into things that you might end up scrapping. If you are only doing this to learn then that's fine. My game has had plenty of changes based on the feedback I've received. And it's better because of it. Luckily for me it's all been about adding or tweaking things.

But, like I said. The game looks impressive so far and it got some cool looking features
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 26th Jan 2016 02:35
Link
So after a good slog, headway is being made. Ship to ship combat is almost complete in it's basic form, with both player and enemy ships dying in a somewhat gratifying fashion - the ship gets rocked with small explosions, before a series of large explosions tear right across it, ultimately leaving it floating apart in large chunks. This was fairly intensive code sorting the particles (still not fully happy with them) and getting the players/enemies ship to break apart in it's scarred form - I'm getting rather adept at manipulating mem-blocks now!!!. Also improved the space view for planets with an optional "halo" glow effect, and added assorted options for scaling the game graphics. Next task is to work some simple AI ships into the sector and then engage in combat and enable a play through right to the end. After that some simple ship to planet trading and a very, VERY early playable demo might just finally be in order!!

No video yet, however attached is a little sneak peek of the player dying.

P.S. Is it just me, or does TGC website totally refuse to load with Microsoft Edge, and Firefox no longer does anything when you click to select a file to upload??? Chrome is the only browser that still seems to work, annoyingly.

Attachments

Login to view attachments
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 28th Jan 2016 02:38
Link
So time for a little public opinion.

This is still rough, but this is an early build of an enemy dying. Ignore the ship weapon not moving yet, that's still to be done. I was thinking some extra, random small explosions on the parts of the ship as they float off. Any thoughts anyone?

Back to top
Profile PM
SpecTre
Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 28th Jan 2016 12:56
Link
Looking good Santman, the extra explosions idea sounds good and you could also maybe see if you can make the ship pieces more jagged or something so they don't look as uniform a piece when they break up but like it, it is coming along nicely.
The Amiga and Amos were great!
My website LEAP - Download Paint Pot here!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 28th Jan 2016 14:38
Link
Thanks SpecTre.

Im getting much the same feedback on Fb, and I already have a cunning plan to make the separating chunks far more random, assuming the speed can be kept up. I've still got some time savings tricks up my sleeve anyway, so fingers crossed.
Back to top
Profile PM
SpecTre
Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 28th Jan 2016 20:25
Link
Good luck with it, it is going great
The Amiga and Amos were great!
My website LEAP - Download Paint Pot here!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Rickynzx
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Dec 2011
Location: Troon, Scotland
Posted: 28th Jan 2016 23:24
Link
looking good, but i too think the pieces look a bit too uniform, more jagged and different sizes would look better. also some smoke, sparks, explosions or fire or a random combination of some of them, would look cool too.

Sarah in Candyland Piggy Bank Tracker 2 Touch A Block Love Calculator Kcal Calc Website Blog
AGK2 Tier 1
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 29th Jan 2016 00:57
Link
Thanks Rickynzx.

Everyone said the same, so this eveing I rewrote the code and this is the outcome:



So in this version the damage separation is entirely based around memory stencils. The effect works much better as it means that I can have a stack of pre-drawn stencils and the outcome is that different ships could explode and separate in different ways. This isn;t done, the smoke needs more work but I lightened it here to see, and the actual generation of the fragments is about 100% slower, but I think I can reduce that. Any better guys?
Back to top
Profile PM
SpecTre
Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 29th Jan 2016 01:11
Link
The breaking up of the ship is 100% better, looks very good now. Like you said once you have the smoke etc tweaked here and there then I think it will be spot on. Well done
The Amiga and Amos were great!
My website LEAP - Download Paint Pot here!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
blink0k
Moderator
11
Years of Service
Recently Online
Joined: 22nd Feb 2013
Location: the land of oz
Posted: 29th Jan 2016 02:22
Link
very nice effects. epic explosion!

Sign up for NaGaCreMo!
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 3rd Feb 2016 02:25
Link
Thanks guys.

I've taken all feedback on board and spent some time with it, and I think I'm pretty much happy with it now, save for some tweaks. So to sum up:

*multiple sound effects - including a very special final one
*the breaking up of the ships is now mapped to a stencil which is applied in (slow) realtime, but still 300% faster than before (I've only added jagged edges to about a quarter of it so far, for testing)
*added a new effect which maps the split of the ship directly onto it as a flash of light as it splits up
*random explosions now occur on the broken apart pieces (and only where actual graphic exists, though this needs polishing)
*added some simple shrapnel to some explosions
*added some new voices

The attached show everything together, with first the player and then the enemy dying. Any more suggestions before I move onto working the whole lot into AI ships moving around so that combat can run start to finish?

Back to top
Profile PM
SpecTre
Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 3rd Feb 2016 10:30
Link
Looks miles better, the ship now looks more realistic being broken up this way as the pieces are not uniform and the small explosions appearing first before the large one looks good too.
Very impressive!

How did you manage to get the random pieces in the end?


Great work!

The Amiga and Amos were great!
My website LEAP - Download Paint Pot here!
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 3rd Feb 2016 16:32
Link
Thanks, I'm Def a bit happier with it now. Most of the changes were in direct response to you guys and FB, so thanks for the help.

With regards to the splits, the ships external and internal images are all memblocks. The game was designed in such a way that the player can upload ANY ship graphic they want, and the game will adapt around it - all the damage here is procedural based on pixel data in the image. Damage is also permanent, and drawn/blended into the image - so laser damage, missile impacts etc will stay forever.

So to get the splits, I have a template set up that is an image with 10 separate areas of solid blocked colour, one per fragment. This is used to split up the ship image into ten separate images, and then build the flash explosion around the cracks so that any image will have the effects mapped directly onto them. It wasn't too hard a change from what I had before, it's just keeping the speed up as generating 14.9 million pixels of data on the fly as the ship explodes that was the trick. It's still a bit slower than I want, but I'll tweak it.
Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 8th Mar 2016 23:12
Link
First quick look at the trading interface, in an early build at least for now.


Back to top
Profile PM
Santman
12
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 27th Mar 2016 00:36
Link
So, I got a little bit bored doing the trading interface (but I have to say, it's been shaken up quite a bit and is starting to look just a little cool!) and decided to spend a little time doing what I like to do best - visual work.

So I took the planets - which were currently just a cleverly lit 3D spheres in the game, and replaced them with full shader rendered objects. The video below shows a comparison between the two. One thing I quite like (and it looks better without video compression) is that as the planet rotates and an area becomes dark away from the Sun, gradually you see the lights of cities etc begin to cover the populated area's.

Let me know what you think I any feedback - this is the first time I've done anything with shaders so still a little work to do but I think there's an improvement.

Back to top
Profile PM
Chris Tate
DBPro Master
15
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2008
Location: London, England
Posted: 27th Mar 2016 16:59
Link
I like how the layers of clouds have been arranged on the surface of the sphere. You would not see this as a mere smooth surfaced 3D sphere unless you read your description which means job well done.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Conjured Entertainment
AGK Developer
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 12th Sep 2005
Location: Nirvana
Posted: 29th Mar 2016 19:17
Link
Nice to see all your ideas being wrapped around a single project. Too many times I get a new idea and then get side tracked onto a new project. Keep hammering away at this, because you have a lot of cool features coming along. This is looking great.

Coding things my way since 1981 -- Currently using AppGameKit V2 Tier 1
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-04-19 05:02:09
Your offset time is: 2024-04-19 05:02:09