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Santman
12
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 13th Jun 2016 10:19
Hey everyone.

OK, so I
Santman
12
Years of Service
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 13th Jun 2016 10:23 Edited at: 13th Jun 2016 15:42
Hey everyone.

OK, so I think it's now almost time for some very early alpha testing of the game, and I was wondering if anyone would be willing to help out?

Before saying yes, please be aware that although various modules are pretty much complete, most are not linked together yet. So, the alpha is very much all about performance testing and ideas about where gameplay should head in, and as such there won't be much in the way of playable "game". Im aiming for the end of the month, and it will consist of mainly trading in one star system with no enemy vessels, and maybe a stand alone, random combat encounter. The game will (fingers crossed) have a launcher that will update it as new versions are built, but windows only for now.

If anyone is willing, drop a comment here and I'll be in touch.

Thanks in advance
JSavko
8
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Joined: 28th Jun 2015
Location:
Posted: 9th Jul 2016 04:25
Are you writing a custom updater? I thought about making my little hobby project self updating for when I get to a playable alpha stage, but hadn't really looked into it yet. I think there are some out of the box solutions if you're using T2 (I am)

I don't post much here, but I've been watching your development for some time. I'm excited to see how things turn out!

Keep up the good work!
PSY
Developer
7
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Joined: 3rd Jul 2016
Location: Laniakea Supercluster
Posted: 9th Jul 2016 12:06
Sup,

just found this thread. I'm new to AppGameKit (I had been coding with DBPro some years ago), and I'm browsing the forum to get an idea what's going on

If you still need alpha testing, just drop me a message.


L8er,
PSY

Santman
12
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 9th Jul 2016 21:24
Hey JSavko. Yeah, the updater is a launcher/downloader I wrote a long time ago using DBPro as it happens - I know that we can run apps from within AppGameKit now (although I still am not getting the new version through Steam??) but DBPro is still infinitely better for that kind of thing in my opinion.

Thanks PSY - been working on this a while but I have a day job and that's been seriously hectoc as of late - will give you a shout very shortly. Have two weeks leave now so hope to get lots done and something playable by then.
Santman
12
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 23rd Jul 2016 13:08
OK, so the trying interface is built, and the tools needed to build the dynamic economy model are constructed and exporting the data fine, so below is a road map to a demo:

Integrate economy into the game (roughly an evening)
Fix a bug in AI
Allow game saving with crew
Add recruitment to space ports
Wrap it up into the installer/launcher

Play.
PSY
Developer
7
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Joined: 3rd Jul 2016
Location: Laniakea Supercluster
Posted: 24th Jul 2016 02:32
Good news

Keep up the work, can't wait to play
Santman
12
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 25th Jul 2016 17:41
Thanks Psy.....quite looking forward to all the assorted tech demos coming together into something playable myself to be honest, it's been a very long time coming! Lol. I originally opted to go down the open universe route first over missions initially as I thought it would be easier..... Not sure that was right now, but it's coming together slowly.
Santman
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 25th Jul 2016 23:48
Yeah - victory. The economy system is now built into the game engine and functioning perfectly. Of the two planets currently built, each have varying demands, different price structures for the varying trade goods, production and consumption, and in addition legality of goods varies from planet to planet. I plan (and have laid the ground work for) a "privalledged seller" system too - that means the player will have a status with every planet in the game, and not all goods will be available to the player until they build status, which is done by purchasing goods a planet is overstocked with and selling them goods which they are in high demand for. So for example, rough mined gemstones are a status one product - widely available and not very profitable. Status 2 will give the player refined gemstones which are far more profitable, and status 3 will open up access to fine cut grade AA gemstones which are hugely profitable....but the player must build up their reputation with each planet to gain access to these goods and will hopefully extend the life of the game.

Or trade them on the black market.....
PSY
Developer
7
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Joined: 3rd Jul 2016
Location: Laniakea Supercluster
Posted: 26th Jul 2016 02:45
Nice work !

Reminds me of Elite
Santman
12
Years of Service
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 28th Jul 2016 16:00
I never actually played the original, but I loved Frontier. If I get this even half as enjoyable I'll be chuffed..... Aiming for somewhere between FTL, Frontier and Star Trek.

As stands, last night I managed to successfully trade water between the Earth and the Moon, so the economy model and trading is now essentially complete. Now the task of pulling all the modules together into one playable package......
Scene Commander
Support Manager
15
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Joined: 3rd May 2008
Location:
Posted: 19th Jan 2017 08:08
Unlocked at OP's request.
i7-4770s 3.10ghz (Passmark 9599) - Geforce GTX 650ti (Passmark 2708)
Santman
12
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 19th Jan 2017 14:09
Thank you for unlocking, I'll try to make the updates frequent enough to keep it open.

Just a quick update for myself, but also anyone potentially interested in very early alpha testing.

*combat fully integrated, battles can now be fought to conclusion - ai needs advanced
*new hacking mechanic introduced to allow mission variety
*ai ships introduced - the game will now generate ai ships in the background as needed
*ai ships can have "pirate" personality - will attack nearby ships, and can track. Combat integrated.... Ai ships can initiate and then lead to fully playable ship to ship combat
*code now allows unlimited variety of ship designs to be interchanged within the game.... In theory 50 totally different ships will generate

Next steps, more ship ai routines, with the introduction of ai traders, military patrols and miners. Then I aim to build a play test alpha within a single system before expanding to multiple star systems.
Santman
12
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Joined: 15th Sep 2011
Location: Inverness
Posted: 22nd Jan 2017 14:46
So adding trade routes was a nightmare due to the disconnect in AppGameKit between 3d and 2d.....essentily an ai ship flying a straight line to a 3d object needed to recalculate its trajectory every frame once the 3d object moved, and it looked hilariously bad.

Now changed to an ortho camera which has fixed the odd resizing effect of the planets, and worked a new routine for plotting the 3d objects and updating ai ships relevant to them to maintain their path.

Result, smarter looking 3d planets, and the engine created 45 ai trading ships of varying types who then moved randomly between all four planets independent of player movement.

So trading is now in for a ships. Phew...... Tough two evenings coding, but worth it as it looks awesome to see all the ships flying around the system.

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