Ohhhh, this looks awesome, can't wait to give it a whirl!

So I played a bit if this and like it so far. Reminds me of the old Lightspeed/Hyperspeed games in the mixed carrier/figter control. I failed my first game miserably, only then realizing I gotta build stuff, so I'll try that.

Hopefully this turns into something more than a complex tower defense game. 😉

Could you also make the targeting reticles for enemy ships stand out a bit more, please, maybe make 'em different colors for enemies as well?

thanks for the feedback!

I'll have to google those games, I haven't played em. How far (in minutes, this reminds me I have to add a "mission timer" or something) along did you get before all of your ships died? The carrier should have lasted a while. Right now the game ends when all your ships are gone, the plan is that eventually the player's avatar is located in a dreadnaught type ship and if that ship is destroyed then the game ends. The backstory will be something like: you are in the dreadnaught hooked up to machinery/network that allows you full control over your fleet and bases, that's why you can jump from ship to ship. What is funny is that I thought I was being real original with this concept until I fired up Homeworld/Homeworld 2 and realized its basically the same thing (except being in direct control).

The color coding is definatly on the to do list and so is the art, the target box could stand to be bigger. It used to color code before I swapped to the texture of the target box (before it was a line drawing: eg: start here, go here, start here go here, use color red for enemy) etc. The HUD will probably be completly redesigned once I figure out what to do with the 2D art (if I find an artist etc), which will take a while since there are so many questions and work in process still.

The goal is for there to be a storyline and dynamic events, much more so than a tower defense, however who knows, there will be a instant action/sandbox type mode.

Here's a video of what I've been working on these past 2 weekends, better station building and asteroid bases:

thanks again for the comments

Iteration 2 is ready for download: http://arrmaytey.com/downloads.html

Brief overview: you can now position stations where you want, there are 3 new station types (defense, trading, and a shipyard). A new destroyer type ship is added to the player faction featuring 3 heavy guns and 2 missile turrets. You can now colonize an asteroid base.

And many other changes you can see here: http://arrmaytey.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16

A new youtube video is up:

Hope you enjoy.

thanks! I'm thinking you are refering to the "building" process as an animation. What's is that the process is basically me feeding triangles from the mesh into a manual object in Ogre per a set amount of time, once the build timer is up then I delete the manual object and show the actual in game object. Basiclaly it was pretty easy to do and it looks really cool for the station or ship to be built instead of it just appearing.

the special abilities are something in the backof my mind.

Although I think I'd rather go down the special ship rather than special abilities in mind.

For example: a ship that does damage and heals itself at the same time (shoots off a bunch of drones, or is sourounded by a cloud of nanites, or simply collides and chomps on the other ship).

The reason is that I never really liked the cooldown timers and micromanagement. With special ships the player jumps into a special ship and then uses whatever ability it has, although that may mean it isn't so special anymore.

I've re-drawn and modified a bunch of ship models.

Here's an example:

More info on the Dev Log

http://arrmaytey.com/wordpress/

You can download an updated installer on the main site.

Hey guys! iteration 3 is out, I've updated the first post with the details (screens, videos etc). Hope you enjoy.

You can download at: http://www.arrmaytey.com

Iteration 4 is out! The main focus was the addition of 3 tutorials explaning basic ship maneuvering, tactical mode, and combat concepts. Hopefuly the game is easy to get into now and what it has to offer is made clear by the tutorials.

I'd appreciate feedback on how good the tutorials are at accomplishing the above goals.

The download is here:

http://www.arrmaytey.com/downloads.html

Also there has been the usual bug fixes and polish including tactical mode visual changes and as always I have big plansf or iteration 5 (better physics integration, and first steps towards implementing the player command ship idea I've been planning for a long time).

Thanks for the kudos, a few neat things happened lately, I've integrated the physics engine fully into the game (see you tube vid).

Also I've begun working on the player's command ship using Solcommand's Anna-V model as a place holder

In a few weeks I'll release iteration 5 which should have more textured models (planning on buying stock art for now, hopefuly custom stuff later on) either way the visuals will improve.

I understand about the lack of time, there's a few games I'm avoiding since I don't want to get sucked in.

The ships are looking great, did you make the base as well or is that some of SolCommand's work?

Really like the engine effects in that 2nd screenshot.

The base is SolCommand's work as well. Can't wait till the bases are all textured and more ships as well. I'll throw in some "regular" (non base) asteroids in there as well sooner or later to flesh out the "in an asteroid field" feel.

Right now I'm working on adding the ability to "repair/upgrade" the command ship. Putting in the basics, iteration 6 (hopefuly later this week) will feature these basics. At the start these will be just passive (always on) stuff (EG: faster autorepair system, increased ship speed) whose "learn/upgrade" cost is only time.

In iteration 7 I hope to put in active abilities (abilities that the player has to activate) (eg: missile barrage, increased repair at the cost of minimal movement and no weapons, launching of a special heavy fighter, thruster boost for a limited time, some sort of a "super awesome super duper" weapon).

To first "learn" they will cost resources which the command ship will get from trading stations (you'll see little cargo containers fly towards the command ship). Then the active abilities will go on a timer/cooldown like you see in MMO type games. But still making them plenty avaiable (I don't like it when games make you wait too long to do the cool stuff).

Eventually the comand ship will allow the player to customize turrets and will have a one direction at a time (eg: left, rear, front) shield that the player can configure and activate.

Lots of plans/hopes/dreams!

This looks awesome!

You guys should think more about how Minecraft achieved succes by focusing on gameplay and not graphics. Forget the fancy graphics, focus on deep tactical gameplay!

Thougth I'd drop a quick line with a new ship model that will be appearing in iteration 7:

Why there is a rock?

The game's setting is in an asteroid field (a bit sparse at the moment, but will have a bunch more rocks in the future). So some of the ships are partially made out of rocks, for defense, for housing other components, for production of ammo, for (insert whatever sci-fi reason you want here)

Plus I think its pretty cool

First post updated with iteration 7 news!

thanks

Iteration 8 news -

players can now capture enemy asteroid bases (try it and let me know how it goes! it takes me about 30 minutes to capture the nearest base)

RTS elements (enemy bases build stations and ships then send them against you)

"Bare Bones" mode - textureless and shaderless for laptops without Nvidia/ATI cards

Heading more and more towards alpha release 🙂 Meaning that I need more and more feedback. Especially play testing and letting me know how base capturing strikes players (I'm a bit biased 😉 )

Main site with download: http://www.VoidDestroyer.com

thanks!

I know what you feel 😉

I've just downloaded the newest version. I'm installing it and I'll try to edit this post with some feedback. Right now I can say that it looks pretty nice on videos 🙂

--- EDIT

Okey, I've played it and I can say it's pretty good. I found some mistakes in tutorial text but this isn't important. More important thing is about ship. Terran destroyer's engines are placed wrong. I donno where it has got centre of mass but it looks crazy 😀

And I think that you should make camera move smoothly. ASAP 'cause sometimes it can be very annoying.

thanks for trying it!

The destroyer's is going to be re-done (in a few months I hope, by actual artists 😀 ) so I won't have to hear it anymore about the engines (you aren't the first one heh heh 😆 ) and I do see your point.

Could you give me more details about the camera issue? Recently (previous release iter 7) I added a bunch of smoothing (you should have seen it before it was very jagged). So basically what isn't smooth enough? Which camera? In which system? which view? etc

thanks again!

Iteration 10 is out which marks the game going into Alpha stage (yay!). Lots of exciting things are on the horizon now that the game is in Alpha - more focus will be taken on improving all the game's features and adding a storyline.

New in iteration 10:

Instant action mode: chose from pre-created scenarios (currently only 1 basic one exists) or create your own instant action engagements via the new battle editor (see video below). Instant action mode is currently wide open - all ships and objects are unlocked - this is for testing and development purouses - the full game won't have all objects unlocked until the player unlocks them.

Modding support: in game objects are now editable via xml files (human readable text files), eventually a graphical editing tool will be expanded to allow visual modding as well. Modding is in its infancy meaning that lots of removing/additions will happen - giving modders even more access to the game engine via the xml files.

Here's a video demoing the battle editor:

dynamic mission spawns as well ?

not sure if I fully understand what you mean by that?

Basically you can arrange ships and other objects on a battle field like you might have done as a kid playing with toy soldiers and tanks, then take conntrol of your side and battle it out. Eventually modders will be able to link a objectives file (a xml file) to the scenario and have pre-created objectives appear, stuff trigger, etc. Thus creating mini (or huge) story missions. But they won't be dynamic in the sense that the game creates them itself. Most likely the finished game will be story driven - though set in a sandbox (persistent) environment.

I think that ollobrain is asking if units will be able to be spawned during the mission, i.e reinforcements arriving, being deployed etc

aah I see, yeah eventually there will be support for adding objectives and triggers (spawning ships, etc) to self made scenarios.

nope dynamic missions with random objectives and rewards and random enemies