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[sluissa]

Damn it... every time I see this topic I think of the Terminus from 2000. That was a great and under appreciated game, I think it just got bad luck as it came out when there was a huge glut of similar games around the same time.

This honestly sounds a lot like the original Outpost game. Which I loved, but it never seemed finished... Good luck, and hope it turns out well.

[Harbour Games]

Damn it... every time I see this topic I think of the Terminus from 2000. That was a great and under appreciated game, I think it just got bad luck as it came out when there was a huge glut of similar games around the same time.

This honestly sounds a lot like the original Outpost game. Which I loved, but it never seemed finished... Good luck, and hope it turns out well.

Thank you Sluissa, and yes, Outpost is a strong thematic inspiration for Terminus.  (Ah.. not the 2000 one, I've never actually played it)

[hemmingjay]

How realistic is your November 2013 goal?

[Scoops Novel]

As for the historical descriptions you mentioned, presumably before leaving, I'd also like to see what is remembered whilst doing so and once you reach the world, ideally with your actions affecting it. I'd like to have an idea of the culture that's the upshot of all this, and personality is going to be important here.

Will there be anything else on these worlds, eventually? It sounds exactly like my cup of tea if players go "Hey, it's blue and green! I'll take it!" and realistically end up in the most difficult challenge they could conceivably have shied away in horror from. A planet full of things trying to kill them which they cant eat, contaminate their water supply's and could even be intelligent, now that is the epitome of interesting times in my eyes.

Do you intend to develop this after release?

If you do, if it's ever possible for there to be more then one ship, either setting out as you do or awakening from cryogenics after, interacting with the strange offspring of your past projects, whether they're survivors, refugees, or scouts, would be Fun.

[Psyckosama]

Sounds awesome, though I think I've played a game with this concept before...



Not saying I'm not funding it, just pointing it out...

That said I've been waiting for a WELL DONE outpost game since the '90s

[Harbour Games]

How realistic is your November 2013 goal?

It's optimistic but feasible.  It was one of the later things we hammered out in our design discussions but after going through the design document and its scope we all feel comfortable with our timeframe, and even though we've added some time for "unforseen" delays, the game may take until December to get right, but we are aiming for November.  What we will probably end up doing is releasing beta in November and playtesting until December and release.

[Harbour Games]

As for the historical descriptions you mentioned, presumably before leaving, I'd also like to see what is remembered whilst doing so and once you reach the world, ideally with your actions affecting it. I'd like to have an idea of the culture that's the upshot of all this, and personality is going to be important here.

Will there be anything else on these worlds, eventually? It sounds exactly like my cup of tea if players go "Hey, it's blue and green! I'll take it!" and realistically end up in the most difficult challenge they could conceivably have shied away in horror from. A planet full of things trying to kill them which they cant eat, contaminate their water supply's and could even be intelligent, now that is the epitome of interesting times in my eyes.

Do you intend to develop this after release?

If you do, if it's ever possible for there to be more then one ship, either setting out as you do or awakening from cryogenics after, interacting with the strange offspring of your past projects, whether they're survivors, refugees, or scouts, would be Fun.

To answer your question about culture: once on the planet you can start selecting social policies which are difficult to change once they've been decided.  They shape your colony and affect a few things beyond the basic mechanics, for example changing decals on buildings or adjusting the tone of language used to communicate colony status to you.

There won't be any alien lifeforms on planets except maybe for microbial life.  We're aiming for a scope of "Inhospitable planets" but made that way through environmental effect rather than any belligerent native flora or fauna.  If we get ridiculously over-funded then yes this would be something I would look into adding, but is beyond our scope as it stands now.  That said, if you really want to you can find a planet that will totally kick your ass.

We will do what we can to develop after release in the form of patching for balance, adding modestly priced DLC for additional features that fit within the game such as more varied disasters, more variety in planet procedural generation for more complex environments, etc.

Interacting with another colony would be a significant amount of development resources and I don't think it adds enough to the game experience to justify spending time making that a possibility when we could instead focus on the core experience of colony building.

[Harbour Games]

Sounds awesome, though I think I've played a game with this concept before...

That said I've been waiting for a WELL DONE outpost game since the '90s

Yes, so have I.  Ever since I played it there has been an Outpost-shaped hole in my experience that Outpost created but never satisfied.  Terminus is our attempt to satisfy that missing experience.

[Psyckosama]

Yes, so have I.  Ever since I played it there has been an Outpost-shaped hole in my experience that Outpost created but never satisfied.  Terminus is our attempt to satisfy that missing experience.

I like the sound of that.

I'd tell you to shut up and take my money, but I enjoy conversation far too much.

[alexandertnt]

The game sounds awesome.

Is the terrain a significant factor? As in are there going to be canyons/valleys etc which pose construction problems (or super-rough planets which are hard to build upon entirely)? Also how big are the planets?

The name made me think of the Foundation series.

[Harbour Games]

The game sounds awesome.

Is the terrain a significant factor? As in are there going to be canyons/valleys etc which pose construction problems (or super-rough planets which are hard to build upon entirely)? Also how big are the planets?

The name made me think of the Foundation series.

We're still working on seeing what we can get out of it as far as epic terrain using the procedural techniques we're aware of, so far the results are promising.  We can get canyons, valleys, large crater basins, mountains, hills, etc.  We have a great deal of control as far as making the terrain variable, and generating a planet that is rolling hills, or one that is sharp canyons and tall mountains, or one that is mostly flat stretches of flat ice or similar, we can set them all up, it's just a matter of refinement.

In addition to broad terrain features we are intending for local conditions such as terrain roughness to affect build time of buildings.  Terrain features will also affect the distribution of resources, so for example a meteor basin may be a valuable source of metals (if in the planet pre-gen phase a meteor that hit that part of the planet was of 'metal' composition)

As far as the size of the planets go, we're aiming to have it so a full-sized colony, if compressed as tight as possible and not spread out, would take up about 1/10th - 1/14th of the planet surface.  I know that's unrealistic to the actual size of planets, but it makes a more visually appealing experience and gives the player the opportunity to explore the length of the planet if they wanted to spread out that far.

[Anvilfolk]

Thanks for all the clarifications!

Starting to get more and more interesting!

[Viken]

@Harbour Games: WHy not keep the scaling, but scale the population and the like to it to match? A single colony that takes up 1/10th of a planet could have millions of colonists, which can be seperated into economic/academic classes, each with a different work preference.  It won't change much in terms of the overall design, just the numberical figures.  Say, a science lab that may originally require 30 people working in it can take 300?

[10ebbor10]

@Harbour Games: WHy not keep the scaling, but scale the population and the like to it to match? A single colony that takes up 1/10th of a planet could have millions of colonists, which can be seperated into economic/academic classes, each with a different work preference.  It won't change much in terms of the overall design, just the numberical figures.  Say, a science lab that may originally require 30 people working in it can take 300?

It clashes a bit with the original idea of you being the last humans left though. Especially not when there's still millions left. Besides, why would you build such massive buildings instead of multiple smaller, safer ones.

[Harbour Games]

@Harbour Games: WHy not keep the scaling, but scale the population and the like to it to match? A single colony that takes up 1/10th of a planet could have millions of colonists, which can be seperated into economic/academic classes, each with a different work preference.  It won't change much in terms of the overall design, just the numberical figures.  Say, a science lab that may originally require 30 people working in it can take 300?

It clashes a bit with the original idea of you being the last humans left though. Especially not when there's still millions left. Besides, why would you build such massive buildings instead of multiple smaller, safer ones.

Scale is still something we are working on.  It doesn't change a lot as far as gameplay mechanics, but it is important to get right for theming purposes.

In a few test builds we have scale that is working "Well enough", in that it seems to satisfy realism and gameplay without favouring either, but we're still tweaking.