I've been prototyping, and everything has been going VERY well.
I've figured out how to define the infinite space grid and keep all of the motions and effects I want intact. So excited.
What I have to figure out now is how I want to have the interaction with planets occur in the game. Should they be relative to the player size or symbolic in nature? Should you have to reach a boarding dock or should you just be able to move into a planet and land? How should a planet look when it's animated - will it spin on it's axis top down, have a psudo-3d texture effect, or just sit idly?
So many questions to be answered for the actual space interactions - but I'm excited that I created a stable, useful initial framework for the game.
I'm going to completely remake everything when the compo starts, especially adding in a bunch of optimizations, but so far everything seems to be working great.
I have the "infinite grid", which pretty much just means that there are no defined borders - space is infinite, but there ARE defined positions. This means that I can have two planets be millions of pixels away technically, but not have to worry about GM's standard restrictions - AKA I'm learning how to make a REAL open world game. Honestly, I don't even think I've used very many GM specific functions, so I could end up porting it to C# when the competition is over. :P
I'd post some screenshots, but I'm just using some placeholder graphics, so it's not really anything TOO impressive just from looking at a picture, but the engine behind it is REALLY a step up for me. I've never done anything so involved before.
Quick summary of the protoype experiments I've completed:
- Infinite space
- Ship building system that is functional (All of the descriptions I talked about in the previous blog have been implemented and it's super easy to add new parts)
- Realistic ship movement (turning needs torque from small front thrusters, but there's no friction or other opposing force, so turning affects translation as well)
There's probably more but I don't feel like typing any more.
Edit: This next section is going to be even more of a jumbled mess than the actual blog - It's not really for you guys to read, I just need to jot my ideas down before I forget them. (I'm a very forgetful person.)
Writing down some quick thoughts so I can look back on them later -
- Maybe add a fourth general ship part: Reactor/Core to delegate power usage. Then there could be even more depth and decision making with what weapons to use with what thrusters and crap
- Dynamic hull damage - not sure whether or not to implement this because that will be a HUGE thing to have to test and prod and check before the end of the compo
- Where are excess parts and supplies stored? On ship, taking up cargo space?
- check the mining system you have planned now - is there a better way to do it? I like it, but I think that maybe it should be more realistic… I'm not sure for this one
- How are stars going to play into it (solar systems)
Infinite space is cool. You should procedurally generate everything too, so you can have millions of planets whose positions, appearances and names are all constant.
Yeah, that was my initial idea, and I'll probably do that for the final version, but I'm thinking I might just go with a couple hand crafted solar systems for the Competition because that way it'll be easier to test and make sure there aren't any bugs or unfair advantages/disadvantages.
But an actual, impossibly huge galaxy is my end goal for this game. This is going to be the game that I've always wanted to play, but nobody ever made.DarkVerse and EVE Online got really close though! :DThis is the dream game you were talking about on TeamSpeak drunk a month ago, wasn't it?
Yeah. It's probably not going to be EXACTLY how I envision the final form of the game to be when I submit it for the compo due to time constraints, and wanting to actually finish, but it is a HUGE push in the right direction.
Exciting stuff. I usually just add my quasi-structured musings to my code in the form of remarks so I don't forget them.
I'd like to see a series of posts following a sort of template, so we can see the differences and similarities in a few short words.
For example, for this blog, something like:Time Period - Space AgeSetting - SpaceRPG Subgenre - RTS (not sure if that's what it really is)Character/Weapon Types - Ships (could be like whatever kind of magic or something)Other useful infoJust fun little details.Mostly because it looked like Toast was intending a medieval fantasy setting, and we're getting a lot of varied ideas here.Well, it's more like an free-roam space exploration with battles, resource mining, and a galactic economy. There might be some RTS qualities with some of the more advanced equipment and weapons, but it's not very likely.
Edit: I actually did a lot of that in the first blog, Kilin. :PUpdated with an image because people only care about images. :\