Cool hangar 🙂

Be nice to see a bigger image of that ship in the background

Well I wanted to hold off showing anything else since everything is changing so much and still in early development but...

...must...show...cool...things! Well, cool to me anyway.

And here's a Blender render of the ship.

Again this is just placeholder art while I focus on the game programming at first. This models typology is atrociously bad and still in flux (another reason I didn't want to show it). It won't look like this when I'm through with it (hopefully better and textured  )!

Oh and I should point out I drew the character portraits in the first image in Gimp as well. Art appears to be my strong point. Hoping to create some fun game mechanics as well. This gives a general idea of where things are headed and a bit of a feel for what I have in mind. I can't say much else simply because I haven't created it yet! Good times ahead I think though!

Time for a little supposition.

Suppose I took Master of Orion 2 and Privateer then mashed them into one game. Well that's the idea I'm playing around with. Something along the lines of a balance between the macro level of game play in Privateer with the species diplomacy, research and events in MOO2. Heavy in the exploration and science of space department, within reason though cause space math is hard! I will probably avoid the heavy strategic aspects of MOO2 since that could get cumbersome and annoyingly tedious. Something focused on that singular lone wolf experience with some depth to it. I enjoyed the charm of Space Force 2: Rogue Universe and some of its simplicity. I spent a little time editing around with it, however in the end it lacked the ability to add the depth I wanted. In fact a lot of the space games I've played seam to lack in the depth department and as a long time gamer I could never understand why that was. So I've finally gotten a hold of some tools and I'm exploring that question for myself.

X3, DarkStar One, Freelancer, Battlezone, Wing Commander, X-Wing/Tie Fighter series, Space Force 2, Galactic Civilization, Privateer, Evochron Series, EvE Online, Xcom, Star Trek Online, Sins of a Solar Empire, lots of little software guys as well. There's a lot here to inspire from.

I've spent the last 3 months coding away and I'm beginning to get a solid base to iterate from and explore possibilities. I really want to emphasize the unknown and exploring its depths so the act of scanning and identifying objects will be front and center. From that information, research will be formed and explored which will translate into technologies that can present new game mechanics.

I may be reinventing the wheel but at least I'll understand for myself what kinds of limitations exist for game mechanics. I also can't really show anything more then the above simply because I can see the potential but something gets lost in the translation to others so its far better to wait till the real deal is illustratable. Just to reiterate I am an independent developer so this just won't be anything AAA or Star Citizen oriented. With that said the above screen shots are still bleeding eye sore bad in terms of the final look and feel. Brain stabbingly bad!!! M'kay?!

This all sounds nice but its pretty cheap talk until something is presentable enough to begin to illistrate the final result, so I'll leave it there for now. Lets just see what happens as I play around with this for a few years and give my passion for space games this creative outlet.

Cheers!

Well, I'll be waiting to hear and see more 😉

I really want to emphasize the unknown and exploring its depths so the act of scanning and identifying objects will be front and center. From that information, research will be formed and explored which will translate into technologies that can present new game mechanics.

If done right this could be a great selling point, because there really isn't any games that really put a lot of thought into exploration and finding/mining these new minerals and then building or discovering something with them. Nice concept and I too await more.

I completely agree.

Convenience has trumped exploration in many games. Exploration in terms of mechanics is often seen as a barrier previenting people from accessing the game. When you have a ton of money wrapped up in a project its just too risky to rely solely on a players exporation to find content. You MUST get the numbers, plain and simple, and thus give the player information rather then letting them find it on their own. I'm thinking more along the lines of quest hubs, etc. I think exporation can be iterated through more thoroughly with a small time niche market that won't be risking so much, but can still meet this exporation need that to this date is being unfulfilled. In many respects I want to focus on the exploration knowning that it might not be as easy to get into, but I believe that exploration by its nature takes a player who understands that sometimes you won't get that feel good result at the end and accepts that. It requires accepted risks with work. The trick is to make it feel more like play and keep mixing it up along the journey. Players tolerance for accepting bad results is nill but they often don't realize accepting the bad result will make the good result much more prized and meaningful. Hmm, I think this is crossing into risk vs reward, which ties into exploration as well though.

So anyway, yeah theres quite a bit I'm keeping in mind with this. Also it might just be basic or generic or not something really big deal at first simply because I have to learn from where I'm at and go from there. I'm confident it can eventually become something fun and unique and different that expresses the expectation that goes with the ideas and values of exploration. Of course it could all be a fantasy too, exploration as its conceived may not be realistic, who knows. Thats one of my primary directives with this project. To explore exporation as THE primary game mechanism. Lets see what it becomes!

Reading your post about how "convenience has trumped exploration" reminded me of one of the reasons I quite EVE Online. When I first started playing (waaaay back in around 2005 or so) the player base was so small that, if you logged on during a weekday early in the morning, there would be maybe less than 5,000 people online. You could fly out to Khanid space and be one of only 2 people in each system, or zoom into 0.0 space to mine with no-one challenging you. In short, it felt like space should feel - big, empty, silent, full of opportunity.

Fast-forward to 2010 (when I quit) and there are so many people playing, and so many corporations, that there's nowhere to explore any more. Every system is guaranteed to be full of pilots, and it just kills the immersion.

Anyway, sorry for the slightly off-topic post. Just my way of saying: yep, exploration is cool, so looking forward to playing your game one day! 🙂

auryx

Yeah I started playing EvE around 2005 as well so I do know what you mean. I still have an active account if for no other reason then to look at the shiny cool spaceship graphics. I keep thinking they really need to double the amount of space in EvE or something because its so easy to move around large fleets now, etc. Its just so crowded, though I doubt they will, simply because they are focused more on player interaction as the most interesting way to play. Ugh, the things wrong with EvE complaints could go on FOREVAR so I'll stop.

Yes, space feels like space when its isolated, alone, open, vast, as you say full of opportunity. It just naturally conveys the feeling of space when nothing is around. Which of course brings in other psychological stresses on the lone psychi. Something to ponder.

Which actually reminds me that this will probably be a touchy subject but I only intend to make this a single player game. Multiplayer and Single player games are VERY different monsters. A lot of cool game mechanics get knocked off the shelf due to the player dynamics nature of multiplayer. I've played enough of both to see that if both types of games are not respected for their differences your asking for a lot of headaches trying to translate a single player design mechanics to work with the multiplayer interaction dynamics. If that makes sense. Its just too much for me to take in at first. Plus EVERYONE is doing multiplayer, I think its been covered enough (See EvE Online, StarCitizen, etc. ).

Thanks for the comment Auryx!

Despite the date of this topic I am still poking around with this project. The last few months I've found time to making a bit of progress so I thought I would share.

I started to develop a prototype UI for ship construction/adjusting. Emphasis on the prototype, its functional, not pretty.

From here I can start to see how to get basic systems to work together and see what ranges are available for game balancing. So far, you choose a power core which then determines what engines you can use. You then choose a fuselage that can support those engines. The fuselage then supports a certain number of modules and armor types. The armor type helps mitigate damage but also helps determine your structure value. Modules are what you attach weapons and collection equipment with. Its also how you attach cargo space. Currently I have a rough cargo system working in which you attach cargo pods to racks. The number of racks you can have is determined by the kind of cargo module(s) you've installed. The cargo pods are where you store your ore from mining and whatever else you collect(obviously). the reason I am trying it this way is because later on it will be possable to get hacked and have an opponent sub-system target your cargo rack, which would then liberate all your cargo pods into space for pirate consumption. At least thats the general idea. Its all about the execution of it though. The cargo part is working and setup in data form atleast. I'll be exploring the rest of this over the coming months, along with a whole lot of other stuff. As time permits of course.

Heres another humble example of a basic cargo interface (Click on it to see the full image).

The cool thing about the UI in this form is it actually shows how the ship mass changes as you load up on ore and it shows how much solid cargo space you've used and have available still. It will even stop collecting once the cargo space is full. As your ship gains more mass it affects flight characteristics. This is currently working in rough form at the moment. Its fun to see.

So thats just a taste of what I'm playing around with. Just to reiterate nothing is final here, graphics, functionality, etc. Its all just placeholders as I figure stuff out. This is fun though, I'm enjoying the process of discover. Hopefully I should update this a bit more in the next few months, I've got the code in a nice place where I can start to bring ideas together and see how things work. Time will tell, hope you enjoy!

Whoa whoa whoa, another update? So soon?

Yup! Sorta. I created a few 3D models for different ship modules and wanted to show them off a bit.

Tied in with my prototype interface from before and it kind of acts like a game. Amazing! So I created a couple Fuel tanks and three engine nozels. Nothing too huge but its fun to see it come together.

Also I did get the cargo pod attaching working.

Each pod can be removed and attached individually. This will be important later on when something/someone subsystem targets your cargo racks and liberates your pods into space!

Its all very preliminary work but important for me to figure out how things should go together in code as well as in 3D space. Its also nice to have something to show rather then talking about abstract data concepts that no one will see anyway. HAH.

Enjoy!