Dominium updates

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New update from Maksw. http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/06/29/visual-tweaksits-all-about-the-speed/[/url] I’ve been back visiting the unpleasant Bugland this past week or so, and also tinkering with some visual effects; velocity markers and course tunnels.Velocity Markers have two tiers; HUD markers which are projected by the ship-board systems, and ‘real’ physical markers/indicators which range from little ‘flecks’ of imaginary space dust in the scene around your ship, to full on motion blured, spectrum shifted star trails for interstellar flight. The system is fully tweakable, and seamlessly transitions as you cross the various scenes in your travels. And of course, the ‘Realism’ vs ‘Pretty’ settings will allow such cruft to be turned off.Course Tunnels are HUD markers that align to your plotted course, which you then fly through as you go about your business. Together they bring a sense of movement across the otherwise boring void of space, and allow you to visualise the currently selected course lodged with the Autopilot. And as importantly for me at the moment, provide useful debugging aids! Always tricky getting that sensation of speed, noticed a few game are stating to use a camera shake effect as well now. I like course tunnels always reminds me of the landing scene in Alien and Frontier nicked the idea as well.

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Maksw gets his book onto Apple I Book store. http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/07/02/insurmountable-odds-now-on-ibooks-finally/[/url]

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Maksw get back to working on the game http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/07/08/back-to-dominium-huzzah-etc/[/url] more on the blog. Hi folks, and a return back to Dom Dev for those tired of the flood of book updates!To avoid getting dragged into the mire with bug-fixing the vessel mount code (which is not really a priority at the moment), I’ve decided to return to actual feature development in line with gameplay oriented features.So, I’ve returned to the flight mechanics work with a view to locking it all down as far as I can.

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The tricky question of Newtonian vs non Newtonian flight/combat models http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/07/13/newton-or-not-newton-that-is-the-question/[/url] Now, this may be a dangerous combination… Newtonian and Non-newtonian flight models? In the same game?Well, if I get it wrong… yes, very dangerous! It could be horrifically unfair, leaving Newtonian vessels at the mercy of far more manoueverable Non-newtonian vessels.Consider the considerably awesome Independence[/url] War, which very doggedly set out to implement Newtonian space flight mechanics. Seriously, if you’ve never played this, go buy it! Worth every penny. Golden oldie now, but not forgotten!Now grab a few ships from say Freespace[/url] and throw them into the same game. Whups! I-War ships lose big time!So how to counter the obvious combat superiority of Non-newtonian ‘arcade-like’ flight vs realistic Newtonian? Well, clearly there have to be trade-offs. I’ve yet to iron out such things fully, but immediate ideas spring to mind. Newtonian vessels could have more powerful shields & weaponry, as they expend less energy via Inertial Compensators, they can afford heavier armour, and so on. No doubt this may spark some interest & debate, and nothing is set in stone yet, other than I want Dom to be fun, challenging and rewarding to play – for both fighters and capital ship owners, and both flight models.Most space-‘sim’ games (IMHO) deal with this by making the flight experience very ‘aerodynamic’, because this is more familiar, and more comfortable. It doesn’t break the ‘principle of least astonishment’ for the game player, i.e. the typical player expects planes to bank as they turn, to do loop-de-loop manouevers or wide sweeps to perform u-turns, etc. In space, there is no medium of friction (of any worth) to allow aerodynamic manouevers like these. All you have is thrust, and whether you can withstand the g-forces created by accelerating in a given direction. Of course, given enough thrust and plenty of thrusters, and low enough speeds, you could effect aerodynamic style movement – effectively faking the resistance caused by atmospheric drag by providing the necessary counter-thrust. But, why bother when _not_ faking it is far more effective for space combat, and provides a completely different flight experience?Well, the reason why is people want to enjoy playing the game Not everyone is into spending six months learning how to fly a real space craft, but then – plenty of people _are_… I want to try and please both camps (to increase the games appeal/user base), and therein lies a danger. By aiming to please both, you may end up pleasing none…Chances are there will be a dividing line, with smaller lighter craft using Non-newtonian movement, and larger heavier craft using Newtonian. No one expects a Capital ship to turn on a dime and flit about like a may-fly, but a figther needs to be snappy and responsive. This immediately provides a nice design conceit to separate gameplay concerns, but leaves a ‘grey area’ in the middle, where mid-sized craft (haulers, traders, cruisers) can mix and match. Here then, would be the mainstay of ‘personal choice’. If a Newtonian Gas Hauler is not for you then pick a Non-newtonian Ice Hauler, and so on. Larger vessels will also be less ‘hands on’ flight anyway, and more instruction oriented. Who wants to pull ‘left’ on a Capital ship, and wait for it to slowly drag itself about? Far better to tell it ‘turn left’ and then let it get on with it and then see to weapons control.How these control systems pan out, and what vessels they may apply to will become apparent in the fullness of time. Right now, my concerns are more in getting both flight models in place, and then tinkering with them to see how they feel. If they sit right, then the next challenge will be working with the NPC logic and getting them to work with either model as they go about their own business.When it comes to it, gameplay balancing is going to prove… interesting.BTW – reasons for the above may become clearer when I reveal my plans for space combat… which, if I pull them off, as far as I am aware, have not been done in any game to date, and would be a game changer – hopefully a good one! I would say it comes to the choice of the player and that why we should have menus in games so that the player can turn then on or off.

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Maksw been busy with the update. http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/07/20/space-flight-mechanics-check/[/url] The first phase of development on the Flight Mechanics is now complete, and I have to say, I’m pretty chuffed with the results!Let me begin by saying that this doesn’t mean ‘Flight Mechanics’ is completed and now final. I’ve implemented support for the various flight models, and established a fair number of parameters to control each of them. These, in turn, will be exposed through the UI to the player in various forms, allowing you to tweak your perfect setup. I’m intending (hoping) to set this up so you can have a flight config _per_ vessel that you own – as each will fly and handle differently, with different systems. They’ll all come pre-configured, of course, but to get the very best out of your new ship with it’s modified drive system… you will want to hit the config panel and http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/07/22/the-effect-of-mass/[/url] As Dominium’s Flight Mechanics journey continues, I’m revelling in the nostalgia of all that school math/mechanics/physics from so long ago.Now I have Newton’s[/url] Second Law(F=ma) in the code armoury, and all the various tunable ‘bits’ which affect movement and orientation (steering) I have set about establishing those basic configurations I mentioned previously, chiefly being;FighterHauler/CruiserCarrierCapital Ship (an additional one) Can read the full blogs though the links and hopefully we will see a new video about the changes.

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Video showing the engine flare system and some Newtonian flight. http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/08/06/pbr-flares-flight/[/url] 

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Just a quick blog update from Maksw about ship size, check it out here. http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/08/10/know-your-vessels/[/url]

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Nice update from Maksw blog about the development. http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/09/08/progress-update-gamey-ness/[/url] to see the rest of the blog. This past week or more I’ve ploughed headlong into my ‘niggles’ list. What is this list you ask? Well, basically bugs that I’m too lazy(don’t have time for) to capture in Redmine, and aren’t really ‘mega-issues’ that impede development or so on.However, knocking these on the head has had a profound effect on Dom – though largely all eye-candy / visual improvements, some behaviour and scene context alterations (yay, gameplay!) along with a lot of tweaks to the flight control logic.The result is… it’s feeling really nice to play at the moment! Albeit with naff all gameplay, but now at the default system, I drop into local space with 3 to 5 other NPC vessels, who may dock/undock, or fly about., exit or enter the system and so on, and generally look ‘nice’ instead of flying sideways due to incorrect orientation alignment and other oddness.

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Another couple updates from Maksw , temporal coherence http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/09/16/temporal-coherence/[/url] and front size in the GUI which i guess most people never think about http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/09/20/of-fonts-and-gui/[/url] unless it's the wrong size as in the case of DarkStar one on the 360.

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Another couple of update to MaKsw blog http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/09/22/a-little-structure/[/url] and http://dominium.maksw.com/2016/10/03/ring-systems-revisited/[/url]