Looking for writers/zone design on space RPG

[Grooverider]

Out of interest, is the entire engine not just ripped directly from XNA Space War code demo?

[Froofy-D]

I didn't use anything from Space War except the ship models.

[Ham n Cheese]

Still need help (I PMed you)? I may have some free time coming up

[Cloud9_]

Wow man, good to see you're making progress on your game Its lookin pretty good! Good luck with finishing it up and if you do enter it in a few competitions!

[Taloo]

Originally Posted by Ham n Cheese

Hey guys does anyone know if Tyen gets ass, has an asian girlfriend or knows good looking women? Can't seem to find any posts with that info

I heard somewhere he landed a mediocre looking azn. I'm pretty sure they also said she smells like fish though. Pretty fail.

Game looks good dude. If I wasn't useless I would offer to help.

[Froofy-D]

Just a quick update. I was in Thailand for 3 weeks so I got a bit behind. I should be PM-ing those interested with the demo soonish.

[Froofy-D]

Well here's a decently playable version. Still a few things left to do. Can i get some feedback on:

- controls
- player physics
- difficulty
- level curve
- ship mods
- any bugs or things that should be fixed
- performance

Link: http://gar.eecs.ucf.edu/source/Galac...RaceClient.zip

If you don't have XNA you will need this:

Download details: Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable 3.0

One thing I'm particularly interested in is the Space Blob. It is an actual gas/liquid equations simulation in real time. Let me know if it does anything funky on anyones PC.

Edit: oh yeah forgot to mention. If you want to change your screen resolution, change it in:

- Save/Settings.txt

If you want to change your name, change it in:

- Save/SPSave.txt

I still need to make a proper options menu.

[Camerous]

A couple of things I noticed.

First it is way too easy to cheese the computer. If you fly backwards then stop the ships will fly up to you then stop right in front of you and you just mow them down.

2nd there is a HUGE gap in the blobs firing ratios. You can just watch for a min and see it then just sit there and blast it and barely move as it drifts... you will not get hit if you get into this pocket.

3rd you seem to be missing a galaxy in between 10 and 20.. there is one that says it's in that range but it spawns lvl 20+ ships... it's either the 3rd or 4th one from the start.

4th I can't seem to buy any different ships.. when I go to a base it says ships but gives me no options.

5th Don't know if they just have A LOT of hp but the blob's shots can't seem to be destroyed... is that intended or a bug or do they just have a huge amount of hp?

Over all a very fun game that I played for about an hour. Really good set up.

A few suggestions:

Have a radius detector on spawning new pirate base... don't know how many times I died from a base forming on top of me and killing me before I could get out of "inside" it. Really annoying after the 10th or 20th time.

Don't give so much exp in the lower lvls. I got to 10+ before I realized it and had to skip the next 2 galaxies.

[Froofy-D]

Hey thats some good feedback thanks Camerous.

- As you suggested, I'm definitely putting in the anti-spawn radius around player.

- ship AI is deliberatly dumb at low levels. The higher levels have more chance to have the strafing and circling attack patterns. Perhaps the difficulty curve could be a bit steeper?

- Blob firing radius: the fire is split into 4 sectors, and it shoot an equal number of bullets in each sector. I haven't noticed any blank spots. Perhaps it was just random...

- I'll check on the "skipping" level range in the galaxies

- Ship Buy Menu: isn't in yet.

- Blob Shots: yeah they cannot be destroyed. I wanted you to be forced to dodge Boss shots to bump the difficulty up a bit.

[Zarcath]

Played the first area. Initial impressions is it's pretty cool, I can see some real diablo-esque qualities in it.

Weaps What does fitness mean? and what happens when you get 5000 shots? is the O,P function for debug only? I don't understand what the isotope map is representing.

also, by hammering 1/2/3 and left clicking, sometimes I'd be able to do double fire, or sometimes while "mash shotting", the shot pattern from Weapon 2 would change direction and follow a similar path to Weapon 1.

Controls - For whatever reason my fingers are confused by the controls. I do better maneuvering without using E/Q. I would actually prefer more traditional controls, with A/D turning the spaceship and an acceleration meter that's controlled by W/S.

UI - It's a little cluttered, thats to be expected. I'd like to see a graphical representation on the ship avatar for the shields, or at least a glow on the ship icon.

Blob - Looked awesome, but it's current behavior seems more suited for a defense platform (stationary that shoots static patterns).

re:Blob - I was thinking, that each space sector always has a blob up. The blob floats around and does a variety of attack patterns. While cruising through the sector, it'll absorb meteors/space trash and begin to mutate. What the blob mutates into depends on whats available in the sector (this gives each sector a chance for unique blob mutates). When it reaches it's final mutation growth, it changes from a blob to some sort of space creature, with attacks/weaknesses based on what it's absorbed. A whole blob that's been left alone would become an epic encounter.

If you attack a space blob before it's mutated, it'll split up into smaller blobs and float around. Without the right weapons, a blob might be impossible to destroy on your own. Each blob piece that splits off behaves the same (gathers materials and mutates), but has a smaller mutation rate (less mass). So if you find a giant blob and shoot it into smaller pieces, eventually they'd turn into a bunch of "rare" spawn monsters. If you were to blow it up 100x times and all thats left is 1 pixel blobs, they'd absorb onto existing pirate ships and mutate the pirate ships.

Defense Satellite - So I said that the current blob behavior is more suited for a defense platform. Defense platforms would be static defenses for NPCs. The platforms could surround a pirate station. They might also provide shielding to the station (ala Death Star).

[Camerous]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

Hey thats some good feedback thanks Camerous.

- ship AI is deliberatly dumb at low levels. The higher levels have more chance to have the strafing and circling attack patterns. Perhaps the difficulty curve could be a bit steeper?

Welcome.

And no what I mean is this... Since I couldn't find a 10 - 20 zone I went to the 20 - 30 one... at lvl 10 i was taking out lvl 30 ships using the forward then back and stop method to get 3 - 4 ships to line up in front of me then just keep clicking fire to destroy them and their fire.. never can be killed. Went from 10 - 12 in like 5 mins... in an hour play I bet I could be 20+ and then go to the 30 - 40 zone and be in my 30s in another hour doing this.. unless the 30 - 40s are drastically different than the 20 - 30s

[Froofy-D]

Camerous:

Hmm yeah i could fix that by the following method which would be easy to implement:

- each in-flight bullet has a damage amount already
- when you shoot an enemy bullet it subtracts from its damage amount
- when a bullet is <=0 damage it is destroyed
- so it will be possible, but extremely hard to destroy projectiles from significantly higher level enemies. No more cheesing higher level guys that happen to randomly get the "Basic" AI attack routine.

Zarcath:

Weapon Fitness: a rough estimation of how much you "like" a weapon. The current weapon gains fitness when you fire it, the other 2 lose fitness. When you fire a weapon 5000 times (subject to change obviously) the Isotope is depleted. You must get a new weapon.

The fitness figures into the new weapon generation algorithm, making it so that features of weapons you previously favored are likely to show up again.

Changing weapons with 1,2,3 allowing bursts: yeah each weapon is on a separate Cooldown Timer. So that is possible. Not sure if I should get rid of that or not. Is it a "feature" like forward+strafe in EQ made you move slightly faster?

Controls - I was going for WoW controls in Space Diablo. Seems like WASD strafing is necessary in order to dodge. I'd like to have fully user configurable keys eventually, even if it is only by editing a config file.

UI Life Bars: I will be putting graphical Shield/Hull/Armor meters on the player and target portraits. Maybe over the currently targeted ship as well.

Blob - Splitting is a great idea and trivial to implement. Will definitely do it.

Defense Satellite - Was thinking of putting something like that in, but I have no suitable 3D model and a looming deadline.

[Zarcath]

Changing weapons with 1,2,3 allowing bursts: yeah each weapon is on a separate Cooldown Timer. So that is possible. Not sure if I should get rid of that or not. Is it a "feature" like forward+strafe in EQ made you move slightly faster?

If it's a "feature", I would rather see it something official, not something you could cheese the engine into doing.

On that note...

If it becomes a feature, I would rather see it become your ships weapon systems loadout.

Slot 1 would be Primary Weapn
Slot 2 would be Missles
Slot 3 would be...Defense/Flares/Anti-Missle (etc)

Slot 1 and 2 can be toggled to single fire or linked. Slot 3 is a passive defense. If your weapons are linked, they have a slower rate of fire, do less damage and lose some range.

If you don't want to do multiple systems like above, I'd still like to see you able to toggle each weapon slot on, and then have the deterimental effects I listed above (uses more energy, longer time for shield recharge, less dmg/range, etc).

Will the isotopes ever have elements attributed to them? To prevent the blob from splitting too many times you'd need either an Ice weapon (to freeze it) or a Fire weapon (to evaporate it).