Talvieno wrote:I'm impressed that you got Unity to look so amazing. Most people don't - or can't. You've done a masterful job.

Why thanks very much! The VFX guy really knows his stuff, and we have a number of talented artists onboard now.

Talvieno wrote:I split your topic, Mawhrin. I felt the derail was getting a little out of hand. This topic should be about your game, not about some dispute over why Unity uses floats. The new topic is here. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Thanks for doing that, it was getting a bit verbose! I replied to a post and 5 new ones appeared underneath.

It's not an inconvenience and jeeez I checked out that other topic, it's like a world war in there!!

Just to get things back on track, here is the post before the war broke out!

Anyways, there's a new article up on the UI which we've made a little more accessible with a lower density fleet list and bigger icons but the bit I think you'll like is talk about the 'open-world' element and just how we're going to pull it off mechanically. Be interested to hear your thoughts on it. 'Open-world Overhaul: Zones and UI'

I somehow missed this thread... Now I have 41 pages of this thread and a whole other forum and game to look at

Hyperion wrote:I somehow missed this thread... Now I have 41 pages of this thread and a whole other forum and game to look at

Honoured cheers! Will you literally read everything?? I don't know how you have the patience

Well that is looking cool.
Although I am not sure why you have zones when you are also returning to fewer units.

Unless you intend to have multiple fleets of a few units...
But that then returns to the issue of individual ships losing character...

Silverware wrote:Well that is looking cool.
Although I am not sure why you have zones when you are also returning to fewer units.

There will be a LOT of AI ships, some enemy, some neutral, some allied. So it's not a traditional 4X where the biggest force dominates and ultimately wins, it's more about playing the part for whatever faction you picked. Whatever the prime directive of that faction, you'll be commanding a packet of ships, I wouldn't say more than 20 - but it's hard to put a number on it, you might prefer Carriers so then you'd have lots of Corvettes. The cap is going to be on Military Points (MP) rather than the number of units.

The zones are needed to crack it open and make it feel less restrictive. If you play the alpha how it is now, we have just one large map which ends up a grid spilling off into the distance. That's not particularly enticing really I found, because movement feels very very slow as you traverse it. The zones are smaller and will contain features such as rocks to mine, stations to trade with, celestials to scan and random encounters. Jumping between them is more invigorating, especially not knowing whats lurking in them and the pace feels quicker than flying round a huge arena (although actually the ships are moving at the same speed.)

Silverware wrote:Unless you intend to have multiple fleets of a few units...
But that then returns to the issue of individual ships losing character...

This is exactly the trap we fell into lol, we lost sight of the end goal. The focus became optimising to cram as many ships as possible into a scene and then all the wonderful stuff we had coded; subsystem targeting, elemental weapon damage, simulated projectiles, all of a sudden didn't matter.

This time; smaller more personal battles that allow the player to exhibit their own style of play and we break the game into manageable chunks that can be individually manipulated to bring greater purpose to the whole. Which incidentally is the unspoken proverbial golden key of the entire project; reducing complexity through modularity.

The solution is so perfectly suited it fits like a glove, which is why i'm coding 12 hours a day to make it happen!

I hasten to add that reducing complexity through modularity is key to any project! But hey... it sounded good lol

Cool, thanks for the write up, it really does sound like you are very enthusiastic about this game. :3
So it should turn out well in the end.

Now I get to wait patiently until this is updated on steam and I can try it out and give you feedback based on the new state.

Mawhrin-skel wrote:

Hyperion wrote:I somehow missed this thread... Now I have 41 pages of this thread and a whole other forum and game to look at

Honoured cheers! Will you literally read everything?? I don't know how you have the patience

Don't underestimate me, Before my first post on these forums, I read literally every single post... in 3 days

Hyperion wrote:Don't underestimate me, Before my first post on these forums, I read literally every single post... in 3 days

Haha! Man that's crazy, some of my previous posts are a little cringe, I only reinstalled my social subroutines a few months ago

Both honoured and humbled though, thanks!

A huge week as we ramp up publicity as we continue work on the Open-world Overhaul. We take a glimpse at just how we're going to do it, the problems we'll face and some new images in the post 'Open-world Overhaul Zones and UI.'

"A ‘zone’ in short is a tactical play area, pretty much the same as a map in the current Shallow Space alpha. But why zones? Well there are inherent technical issues making a true open world space game..."



Two new ships are born into the MFC faction. The Heavy Cruiser 'Heretic' and it's sister ship the Medium Cruiser 'Hexen' have descriptive blurb and 3D turntables ready for perusal over on the blog Commander.

"These generation 4 ships are designed to be the multifunction foot soldiers of any unit and have a versatile internal and external configuration allowing them to be used in a variety of combat and civilian roles."



The first part of John Harpers new short story 'Paradijs Lost' has also arrived, tracking the exploits of Eve Walters in the Pleiadas System, which incidentally is the first core planetary system we'll be modelling in the revised alpha.

She arrived in a hurry, seemingly on the run, but who from? and just what is her crime? Find out more after the link!

"Eve flicked through her billfold. Her cards could be traced. Did she have any Pleiades cash? Her mind was a jumble, adrenaline and fear crushing any cogent thought that dared rise to the surface. She put some bills on the bar. They were PLC currency. Too much though, dammit. She pulled a twenty back. The ‘keeps hand enveloped the cash and slid back under the bar, the cash gone with it, then he moved to the rack of empty jugs. Perfect change, obviously."

I just love your ship designs! They're fairly utilitarian while not looking boring; exactly what I like best!
Function > Form. --IronDuke

except that those things are purely form

Very nice devlog, Mawhrin! I didn't know all that about the mechanics of KSP and SoaSE, and it's interesting to see the different ways that people get around the ridiculous size of space. I like that each planet has many different zones as well, I feel like that'll do an even better job than SoaSE of conveying the sense of scale (as well as getting that much closer to a realistic distance scale- always a plus!)

IronDuke wrote:I just love your ship designs! They're fairly utilitarian while not looking boring; exactly what I like best!
Function > Form.

Spoiler:      SHOW

Not by that much though...

--IronDuke

Cheers!

cuisinart8 wrote:Very nice devlog, Mawhrin! I didn't know all that about the mechanics of KSP and SoaSE, and it's interesting to see the different ways that people get around the ridiculous size of space. I like that each planet has many different zones as well,

Yeah it's crazy really, you can spin these 'workarounds' into positives though that actually enhance gameplay. In this case, adding lots of zones around the planet puts more meat on the bone gameplay wise and allows us to show off the glorious celestials.

cuisinart8 wrote:I feel like that'll do an even better job than SoaSE of conveying the sense of scale (as well as getting that much closer to a realistic distance scale- always a plus!)

Yeah trying where possible to give that sense of scale and haha yeah but in SoaSE, each solar system had about 70 planets - always made me chuckle