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Whenever I need to empty my head, the output ends up here. Have fun!
Ship navigation and damage
2009-12-29 13:06 by Nailbar
Red Roids 3D again.
Some more thoughts on how the ships are controlled and the visual model for ship damage.
The same navigation model would work for both capital ships and fighters. Camera is moved using the mouse like in an FPS, and the ship will align itself with the camera. Turrets will also align themself, but faster than the ship hull.
There needs to be a switch to turn off auto aligning so that for example a larger ship can continue on its path while the turrents turn around to defend it from attackers. Right mouse click, or something similar, would set the ships new target direction and it would align itself again.
I'll add friction to the ship movements to make it a bit more easier. Let's say it's part of the ships navigation system or something. A light figher could use a button to turn off the friction (turn off engines) so it could turn around and point its nose and weapons towards a pursuing enemy while it still continues on its previous path.
Red Roids 3D
2009-12-29 10:00 by Nailbar
More on that game idea...
When a new game is created a new world is generated with some random asteroids here and there and other space objects. A few teams start with a small base each and develope from there. Since the world is set in a server environment the team functions will be controlled by AI unless there are players present who take care of the tasks.
The tech will also evolve. In the beginning the space ships are slow and bulky. As time goes on and new tech is invented the space ships will become more advanced and look cooler. The ship design will have to be done manually, though. Too hard to get that working dynamically.
Edit: Added the Wings3D file for the ship model for download.
So here's a concept of an early space fighter. No extra shielding other than the normal thick hull. Inefficient thrusters and weapons, etc.
After some time the same class of fighters would look completely different; more streamlined, extra shields or some shield generators, maybe bigger so the player can move around inside it and fix broken parts from the inside, and so on.
The concept I made consists of 7 modules; sensors at the nose, system and life support in the middle, power generator or supply behind that, thrusters at the rear, and two weapon hard points at the sides. Should the sensor module be damaged, the ship would lose its radar. Destoryed life support or power module would cripple the ship completely. Some ships could come with more than one of each so it can continue even though large parts of it are blown up.
2009-12-29 12:10 by Nailbar
I'm not sure if I will let ships be torn into two entirely different pieces. That would be a bit harder to program and optimize. It would be easier if I'd make a simpler model for far away versions of a ship, and a close up model which consist of different parts which visually show damage even to the extent of being only the frame an a few scraps of metal left.
2009-12-29 12:12 by Nailbar
If it would be possible to rip a ship into two or more parts then I'm not really sure how to draw the optimized version of that ship for large distances. Maybe the I'll just optimize the parts one by one, but that would be tricky if a large ship consisting of many parts is displayed.
2009-12-29 12:16 by Nailbar
What to do with space debris? One thing that's always annoyed me in games I've played is that killed enemies dissapear after a while. I'd actually want this game to keep everything floating around. Debris can then be harvested and used as scrap metal by the space factories or something.
In order to keep the gameplay running smoothly I'm still thinking of optimizing areas of the map where there are no human players. A bunch of space debris, a group of AI controlled fighers, these will be turned into simple numbers when the last human player leaves the sector.
2009-12-29 12:20 by Nailbar
The highest level of RTS will show only the optimized number version of the world on a map. Fleets are moved around, but individual units are not shown. Just numbers for how many different ship types are in a given fleet.
This optimization will make captured enemy ships turn into friendly ships when they're optimized, but maybe we can live with it.
The Idea stage
2009-12-28 15:16 by Nailbar
I have this awesome idea for a computer game I really want to create. However, I don't have much extra time on my hand with the baby and all. This doesn't stop me from trying.
I figured I'd just get a project going and try to put some effort into it. Maybe get help from friends, etc. Here's a five minute sketch of what I want to make:
It doesn't actually say all that I'd want it to, but I figured I'd add more to it as time goes on.
In short, the game is supposed to be a real time strategy / space combat simulator / first person shooter / client-server game set in a dynamic world with no intermissions.
For instance, you could be a fleet general (rts) and you command your ships in the same way any it's done in any rts game. Then the capital ship is boarded by enemy fighters and next you're in fps-mode, fighting the boarders. The capital ship is too badly damaged and the evacuation pods are unaccessible due to this so you get into the boarders ship and next you're in space combat sim mode. Get the picture?
While in space combat mode you can destroy parts of another ship where a fps-battle is going on, killing those in said part of ship, etc.
Any thoughts? Want to help?
I figured I'd make this an Open Source project and collaborate it using Git. Hopefully the finished version will be released before 2050 and be platform independent.
2009-12-28 15:20 by Nailbar
Some more on what I'm thinking right now; No sound in space, but computer alerts and ship hull damage and engine and weapon sounds obviously. Hull damage should sound a bit like in them submarine movies when the enemy is dropping sink bombs.
2009-12-28 15:22 by Nailbar
Damage to ships change said ships attributes like power generation, mass, acceleration, firepower.
2009-12-28 15:25 by Nailbar
Ship modules are separated by blast doors so you get an access denied message if you're trying to open a door leading to a destroyed part. Some things, like engine damage, can be repaired manually from inside the ship but if you are inside a module which gets blown up you'll get sucked into space - this gives a nice view of what's been happening, from the outside before everything fades to white.
2009-12-28 15:25 by Nailbar
Players should spawn in logical places like the crew quarters of a capital ship.
2009-12-28 15:30 by Nailbar
The world keeps evolving with sides taking over different parts of the arena and building new bases and ships. This may be done under the supervision of a human player, or automatically. AI players needs to be optimized so that an AI-controlled ship with no human players on board will not require calculations for what the AI-players are physically doing, and so on.
Interfaces
2009-12-28 08:35 by Nailbar
After hours of head scratching and poking at /etc/network/interfaces we decided that the network card was broken. I still find that Cisco fella with them blinking lights a bit suspicius, though. Why is it camo-green? It's hiding something, that's why!
Oh, and Merry Ch.. Rats. Too late. Happy New Year, then.
Degrees celcius
2009-12-14 13:53 by Nailbar
It's -16 outside and +16 inside. Even though it's 32 degrees warmer in here it's not really too much fun.
Sofia, she be driving
2009-12-13 12:01 by Nailbar
Took a funny pic of Sofia some time back. Too bad the camera decided to focus on the gas station in the background. Otherwise it would have been perfect.
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