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[EsKa]

a little bump before this gets lost, great work looking forward to beta 4.  Are there any plans for new factions or bigger maps or user defiend maps in the future, im guessing theres still a lot in the works.  Keep up the good work

Hey,

Yes, there's plenty more planned. 1.0 isn't the end goal here, just a state in which the game can stand on its own merits before we start experimenting with new ideas.

Maps

procedural generation is being added and should be available in the 1.0 release. Next beta allow to customize existing maps by randomizing where the faction spawn and the planets in each solar system. A map editor is already available in the deluxe edition (it's not very user friendly, but it works fine). I'll also add a few hand crafted maps with each major release.

Regarding map size, the 1000 sector large map, Imperium, included in the deluxe edition is already quite large. There's no technical limitation on how big a single map can be, beside how taxing it is on your CPU. The issue isn't so much the size of the map itself, but the amount of ships and stations (each one running its own more or less complex AI) that will be generated during the game.

Other games get away with larger maps because they don't have persistent agents (Elite'like games), extrapolate what's going on in the area you're not directly looking at (x-universe, while still managing to have smaller maps for some reasons), or have no agent based AI at all (nearly all 4X games).

The good news being that if you have some kind of computer from the future with tons of cpu cores, the game will use those, so nothing should prevent you from generating / building a map with 10K sectors granted your computer can run it.

Factions

The limiting factor here are the art assets. I am severely limited by the sprites available to me (praise Arcen Studio for letting people use their assets and for making AI:Wars, btw). I can, as can anyone with the deluxe edition, add any number of factions, but past a given point I will have to reuse assets and recolor sprites.

I still have some breathing room for at least one additional full (graphically speaking) faction. I'll probably add variants for the main ones (same sprites but different names, traits and behaviors) as well. After that, it'll depend on how much money the game will make, if I can hire an artist and so on.

Other Plans

That, I have plenty

Beside the usual content patches (weapons, ships, stations, special events), the most interesting one has something to do with the warpgates.

As you know warpgates are used to quickly navigate the galaxy, we also have one-way unstable warpgates from which creatures like the swarm tend to enter the galaxy. The idea here is to allow the building of special warpgates that would lead to other procedurally generated galaxies, some small, some big, some filled with swarm creatures, others empty or partially colonized.

Opening such gate could have dramatic effects on your "starting" galaxy. Imagine opening a link to another map fully colonized by the AI Core which immediately seize control of the location, preventing you from accessing and destroying the gate. Will you fight back against a galaxy worth of killing machines, or flee through another gate to some other random world and hope for the best ?

It has a lot of potential. But it's hard to get into too much details and it's a pretty complicated addition that will require a lot of work. The amount of available galaxies at the same time will have to be limited, that's for sure. And it's too early to tell how the AI factions would deal with these new gates or how inter-galaxy trading would work.

Also science will come into play sooner or later (likely sooner), where factions will generate 'science points' through colonies and dedicated stations, and use those points to buff their ships, weapons and shields.

I do have other plans for deeper combat mechanics, with passive and active abilities, defense platforms, and other goodies, but I'd like to try those ideas in another, smaller dedicated game first to see if it works well enough.


Cheers,
SK.

[etgfrog]

hm...I think other galaxies should be abstracted until the player essentially transfers command to there. This could be achieved by just tallying up the input and output of all factories that are there to determine trade potentially and have any trader going there be abstracted. Even more of a possibility is badly beaten factions could try build their own gates to try to bring reinforcements or escape through. Could add a !FUN! factor of almost beating an AI core and then suddenly a massive amount of swarm pour out of a wormhole.

[Paul]

User created maps aren't that hard to make. Little bit time consuming, but not bad. And the Imperium map is pretty great, if you're looking for a bigger map I'd suggest donating and trying it.

The plans for warpgates sound fun.

If you're wanting to make a system of science points that don't simply end at the end of a tech tree, you could make them a resource like ship parts. They could be generated and used up to create ship upgrades and advanced weapons. And warp gates could tie into that, requiring a significant tech point investment to build.

Alternatively you could make it a kind of galactic arms race, with the factions with highest science points getting bonuses. They would decay over time, and instead of being a set bonus based on science points it would be based on the average. It would just be abstracting the upgrading of the equipment without actually having to have a steady increase in damage and shield power, since if faction A upgrades their shields and weapons 10% then loses their science stations and a few months later all other factions do the same it would effectively mean everyone is back to par so you could remove the bonus. And the player wouldn't get woefully behind if he waited a while to get started empire building.


Also, a totally different suggestion: Salvage ships. Have ships that die generate wrecks sometimes, in addition to the usual loot. Especially the larger ones - fighters don't need to leave wrecks. A salvage ship might be able to pull an extra gun or shield from the wreckage, as well as a few ship parts (say 10-20%). And you might have the option to recover the ship as well, utilizing ship parts to repair it. You would still have to arm it (which becomes more difficult once you actually have to produce guns and shields at factories), but this way you could capture enemy ships.

[Geneoce]

Had a chance to try running this on my desktop. Much better! Only a few error popups and one(!) ctd. I can say that this is a lot of fun when you can manage to sink some time into it. I've been quicksaving like I'm playing Misery mod so when stuff does stuff up I've only lost 15 minutes or so of play.

I've currently been doing hit and runs on AI core patrols. I've fallen in love with their beam weapons. They were really helpful in my skirmishes. RIP space romans.

Special thanks to you Paul, I really like what you've done with the economy. Much smoother now. Can't wait for the AI changes and flight model/turret tracking in the next update. Poor NPCs have been having it rough when going against me! 

[EsKa]

hm...I think other galaxies should be abstracted until the player essentially transfers command to there. This could be achieved by just tallying up the input and output of all factories that are there to determine trade potentially and have any trader going there be abstracted. Even more of a possibility is badly beaten factions could try build their own gates to try to bring reinforcements or escape through. Could add a !FUN! factor of almost beating an AI core and then suddenly a massive amount of swarm pour out of a wormhole.

Oh sure, those galaxies will be generated when a gate is opened, there's no need to eat cpu and ram until needed. Actual content will be determined by a set of rules (age, militarization, faction(s), worlds' richness..). The "how" isn't really a problem in itself, it'll be a gradual development process, early implementations will be fairly basic and then be improved upon.

And, yes indeed, it will lead to some !fun! situations, it all depends on the amount of control given to factions/player on which kind of galaxy a path will be opened to. I like it to be semi-random, but having some additional rules so factions, under specific conditions, could open gates toward their home-world can be a very good system to break stalemates or save doomed factions.

If you're wanting to make a system of science points that don't simply end at the end of a tech tree, you could make them a resource like ship parts. They could be generated and used up to create ship upgrades and advanced weapons. And warp gates could tie into that, requiring a significant tech point investment to build.

That's basically what I was trying to mean when I said they were going to be produced by stations It's just the matter of adding another good category, production chains and possible output for colonies. The opportunity to have another system that can be disrupted by raids is too good to pass anyway.

There won't be branching trees per say though. AI/player factions will have to choose to invest points into a range of categories (weapon damage/range, shield strength/recharge, ship speed/cargo/hull, etc.) each tech level bringing a % increase. I know it's more boring that a nice tech tree that finally unlock the Beam'o'Doom, but it's also much more manageable on my end, balance wise, AI wise and code wise. It even make giving preferences to specific factions easier.

Alternatively you could make it a kind of galactic arms race, with the factions with highest science points getting bonuses. They would decay over time, and instead of being a set bonus based on science points it would be based on the average. It would just be abstracting the upgrading of the equipment without actually having to have a steady increase in damage and shield power, since if faction A upgrades their shields and weapons 10% then loses their science stations and a few months later all other factions do the same it would effectively mean everyone is back to par so you could remove the bonus. And the player wouldn't get woefully behind if he waited a while to get started empire building.

That's an interesting implementation, the way it prevent the player from starting too much behind especially as it's one of the main hurdles. I'll keep it in mind when I start experimenting with research.

Also, a totally different suggestion: Salvage ships. Have ships that die generate wrecks sometimes, in addition to the usual loot. Especially the larger ones - fighters don't need to leave wrecks. A salvage ship might be able to pull an extra gun or shield from the wreckage, as well as a few ship parts (say 10-20%). And you might have the option to recover the ship as well, utilizing ship parts to repair it. You would still have to arm it (which becomes more difficult once you actually have to produce guns and shields at factories), but this way you could capture enemy ships.

Adding ship parts to the loot isn't an issue, I don't really know why it's not already the case to be honest.

About the suggestion itself, I do have wrecks sprites lying around (far from one per ship, but more than enough to recognize to which class the ship belongs to), adding a ship type / AI module dedicated to stripping or repairing those wrecks should be relatively straightforward. Yes, I don't see why not, and it's as good a method as any when it comes to ship capture.

Had a chance to try running this on my desktop. Much better! Only a few error popups and one(!) ctd. I can say that this is a lot of fun when you can manage to sink some time into it. I've been quicksaving like I'm playing Misery mod so when stuff does stuff up I've only lost 15 minutes or so of play.

Hopefully beta 4 will work much better for you. But it kinda confirms what I thought, the better the machine, the more stable the game is. (ah, Misery, a well named mod, indeed )

Can't wait for the AI changes and flight model/turret tracking in the next update. Poor NPCs have been having it rough when going against me! 

It will make things much tougher indeed

[EsKa]

Hi,

Just a small bump to let you know that Unending Galaxy Beta 4 has just been released ! The free version can be downloaded directly from my website, while the deluxe edition is available at the itch.io store.

Enjoy

Cheers,
SK.

[etgfrog]

Happened yet again, played as a free trader, started mining, fleet of pirate ships enter the screen and destroy my ship, local military ignore it.
Ok...that is what it is, the bounty mission targets wander around, including to be around the capital of a system

[EsKa]

Happened yet again, played as a free trader, started mining, fleet of pirate ships enter the screen and destroy my ship, local military ignore it.

Not much has changed regarding pirate vs police, except that asking pirates to leave you alone (for money) should work properly now, at least random raiders, not sure about guild ships. Worst case scenario, join the pirate guild, it's still free in this beta and prevent guild ships from attacking you.

Also, if you start mining "right away", you are still in the weird early game where there's little to no military to defend against the pirates who all decide to go hunting more or less simultaneously. If you are mining near a pirate base (or a warpgate)  you will definitively be targeted early game, simply because there's very few other potential targets.

Having a more "realistic" starting position (with some military and police already spawned, factories that aren't empty, civilians already flying around...) is one of the last goals to be achieved for 1.0.

[etgfrog]

Hm...energy plants seem to be buggy now, or at least they don't produce the amount its claiming on the system trade info. Maybe because its set to be 1 second production time with a 5? second cooldown that is throwing it off? Regardless, every mission for a factory after 10 minutes ends up being about a critical shortage of energy.
Ok, dug a bit more into it, it is very weird, even though i set it to not sell to other faction, it will only store 50 energy, or x5 production cycles.

[EsKa]

I have to say, you're quite good at figuring out systems.

Nice finding, I see the issue. That's very old code I forgot about. It was put in place to ensure that factory cargo holds wouldn't cause an overflow if said factory isn't able to sell its production. Basically factories would only produce stuff if they have less than 5 times what they produce per cycle in their cargo hold. It wasn't really noticeable because such thing would never happen before the change to the power plants.

All the other issues mentioned basically come from this silly line of code. SPP don't produce as advertised because of the cap, and it takes longer for factories to fill up on e.cells causing all trading missions to be energy related.

I can't do it right now, because I really need to get some sleep and working on it right now would do more harm than good, but
I will publish a patch to fix that issue, and maybe another small thing or two depending on the input I get until tomorrow.

[ollobrains]

good to see u spotted that i was wondering what was going on with the solar things when i fired beta 4 up.  Good spot

[EsKa]

It's fixed !

I also made factory supply prices dynamic, so selling from factories to stations isn't the only way to make some money anymore.

[Geneoce]

Bump.

How goes your progress EsKa?

EDIT: Just noticed your update, congrats on beta 5. Hope release goes smoothly!

[Gabeux]

I need to check your game! Been a while

Last month I started a new X3:AP game and decided to mod it at will (I never modded X3 with **modified**-tag mods), and it was funny to bump into your mods after I got to play/buy your game. hahaha

[EsKa]

Hey guys !

Yeah there was a lot done with the game Beta 5 is out, and it (normally) fixes the stability issues, adds 2 factions, got an UI overhaul and, lots of other changes/improvements. It has an interesting bug, though. AI Factions can plant too many docks, military bases and shipyards included. That can lead to 'fun' game sessions (there's a fix for that on the technical help forum in any case).

The 1.0 release is also around the corner (end of the month), there's a procedural map generator inside. Maps are basic, works better for empire level than for space sim level. it's fast tho, click the button enough times and you'll get something decent for a game. Has options, seed, and it saves a map file for copy/reuse. I'll get back to the procedural map gen post 1.0.

I added a small dynamic "quest" line, I hope to add colony building and razing too (would help with a weakness of the proc gen too). game saving / loading works better and a bit faster. Made camera more useful too. Basically, a lot of tweaking

I made a game trailer too, it's similar to the original but it's with the latest build and it looks much nicer.

Last month I started a new X3:AP game and decided to mod it at will (I never modded X3 with **modified**-tag mods), and it was funny to bump into your mods after I got to play/buy your game.

Main plot-line aside, I don't think i played a lot of vanilla X3 (non modded) :p
Well, depends if you count the time spent in the script console as 'gaming' or not.


Cheers,
SK.