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[NullForceOmega]

I just tried out a heavy cannon ship based on my battleship design posted above, with isolated shield/power setup for shielding that almost never drops and isolated cannon/ammo systems for rapid reloading.  It managed to shred most of the built-ins without getting too badly damaged.

When pitted against my earlier design it got torn to pieces in seconds, even without continuous fire the ion cannons on the Suzaku II (aforemention battleship design) was able to tear down its defenses and cause serious internal damage, while taking almost no damage in return.

[waltd]

Hey folks! I'm the creator of Cosmoteer a.k.a. StarWright. I came here after seeing a big uptick in downloads. Thanks so much for checking out my game! I appreciate all your feedback, both positive and negative.

BTW, ship design files are literally saved as PNG files where the actual ship data is stored in the pixels themselves. So if you post that PNG file on an image sharing service that doesn't modify the pixel data (not sure if imgur does or not), then you can simply drag-n-drop the image straight from your web browser into a Creative Mode game, and the ship will be loaded and fully-functional. (You of course have to be playing in Windowed Mode for drag-n-drop to work.)

It saddens me this wonderful gem of a game gets no love by any source.

Don't be sad! I've done basically no marketing because the game is still in the pretty early stages of development. But I appreciate you posting about it!

Not much to do after a while, though. I'm not entirely sure how it has managed to hold your attention for 'a few years'.

I totally agree that there's not enough to do. Right now I'm just working on making ship design and ship combat as fun and interesting as possible. Then I'll work on adding more variety of content. If y'all have any thoughts on what other things you'd like to see in the game, I'm all ears!

Only thing that's missing is some documentation for what's going on in the txt files - I see a full-blown function evaluation in one part the AI, defining ammo resources, etc. Would be nice to know how far this could go.

I haven't done any documentation on modding because the game is in such flux right now and I don't want to have to keep updating the docs. But I'm happy to answer any specific questions about modding.

And yes, there are a few places in the data that are snippets of Python code.

Eventually I plan to create an actual modding infrastructure so that mods can simply be dropped in a folder and turned on & off from within the game.

And make sure you're doing your modding in a copy of the game folder. If you install a new version or reinstall the game, the whole Data folder gets wiped and you'll lose your mods if you haven't made a copy.

it would be nice to see a greater variety of weapons and defensive systems

Agreed! I have a slew of things planned, such as heat-seeking missiles, EMPs, fighter craft, point defenses, etc... If you have any cool ideas, I'd love to hear them!

I couldn't (can't yet?) get the arc to be flatter like I wanted

If I understand correctly what you want, this should be possible. In the ArcShield block in shield_generator.txt, try increasing the 'Radius' and increasing the 2nd value of 'Location = [1, 1.5]' by the same amount. Shields cover a portion of a circle, but that circle doesn't have to be centered on the shield generator itself, so by moving the circle (that's what the Location value does) and increasing the Radius (and maybe decreasing the Arc), you can effectively "flatten" out shields.

It's a pain in the ass to modify blueprints in certain ways, as far as I know you can't copy/paste specific sections.

Yep, there's not currently a way to copy/paste sections of your ship. It's a pain in the ass, I know.   I'm planning to add that feature pretty soon.

Remember you don't have to let crew roam the entire ship. You can cut off your engine room and attach two large crew quarters so that they're working engines full-time and not roaming the length of the ship.

Eventually I'm planning to add more control over crew. Not so far as FTL-style micromanagement (that'd be insane on a ship with hundreds of crew), but some sort of "X crew are assigned to thrusters" system.

[Neonivek]

I just desperately need to see someone play this game.

[Frumple]

There's some youtube vids up under the older name (starwright). No clue how representative of the current build that'd make 'em, but they're there.

[Neonivek]

From what I've seen there SEEMS to be a distinct lack of definitive blows.

Often making it seem like you just erode ships away.

[Cthulufaic]

From what I've seen there SEEMS to be a distinct lack of definitive blows.

Often making it seem like you just erode ships away.

That's definitely what it feels like with the really big ships, but the big cannons pack a punch and the first volleys(after the shields go down) are the deciding factor in most of my fights.

[TheDarkStar]

Is anyone else getting a gradual slowdown? It might not be that noticeable on faster computers, but it appears that crew are never removed if the ship they are in dies. After a while, there are random fields of crew lying around.

[waltd]

Is anyone else getting a gradual slowdown? It might not be that noticeable on faster computers, but it appears that crew are never removed if the ship they are in dies. After a while, there are random fields of crew lying around.

The dead crew floating in space should get removed after a few minutes. If that's not happening, it's a bug.

One thing that won't get removed are pieces of your ship that get blown off, though those shouldn't be causing big performance problems unless there are *tons* of them.

The game *will* get slower as your ship gets bigger and the enemy ships get bigger.

[Eagleon]

Thanks for popping in

I totally agree that there's not enough to do. Right now I'm just working on making ship design and ship combat as fun and interesting as possible. Then I'll work on adding more variety of content. If y'all have any thoughts on what other things you'd like to see in the game, I'm all ears!

It'd be nice to have a chance, in Bounty mode, for bunches of enemies of lower strength to spawn close together. Right now it can happen by accident, but you still hit that wall of Enterprise when you get to a certain ship value, hehe.

If your world were automagically populated by the ships you're saving, you'd have to fight your own designs, which would extend Bounty mode on indefinitely even as you play. I see how to add more ships in bounty mode.txt, but it's cumbersome. Once the community got going you could get some of that single-multiplayer element by downloading bunches of ships, maybe with a rating system Kudos on adopting the png-as-saves thing, one of the few good things that came out of Spore.

Edit: Few other random ideas. Tractor beams. Ramming weapons. Ship boarding and sabotage (you have the baddest-ass system for it, would be a shame to ignore that) and internal defense. Civilians to rescue that the bounty ships hate for no reason, with cash-moneys rewards. More part consolidation to decrease the fps-death on larger ships (big luxury crew quarters, larger reactors, bigger, more-evil ion cannon for replacing groups of three, etc. all more vulnerable and risky but higher capacity). Bioweapons - punch a hole in a corridor or ship system, kill off crew and render it unpassible for a while. Doge-ship.

I haven't done any documentation on modding because the game is in such flux right now and I don't want to have to keep updating the docs. But I'm happy to answer any specific questions about modding.
...
...shield stuff...

Totally understandable, wasn't really complaining, just encouraging people to have a look. And thanks for the help, that worked - though it looks like it sticks out the other side of the ship if what you're building isn't wide enough hehe.

Part layout is the most confusing to me. I keep making parts that have their invalid-zone (in front of thrusters, turrets, etc) intersect with the part weirdly. Also, valid door placement is a little arcane - is it defining vectors along the side of the part? I could probably figure this out on my own, but I've just been copying it over from other parts and hoping that that works.

[waltd]

It'd be nice to have a chance, in Bounty mode, for bunches of enemies of lower strength to spawn close together.

Yup, I've been wanting to do this; it just hasn't been as high a priority as other things. The main thing is improving the enemy ship AI so that they will stick together and work together to attack you from different sides. (This will mitigate what I feel is the dominant strategy of just building a wall of weapons all facing one direction.)

If your world were automagically populated by the ships you're saving, you'd have to fight your own designs, which would extend Bounty mode on indefinitely even as you play.

Great idea! I'd thought of populating the world with ships designed by other players (like Reassembly does), but not of the player themself.

though it looks like it sticks out the other side of the ship if what you're building isn't wide enough hehe

Not really sure what you mean. Send me a screenshot and I can try to help.

Part layout is the most confusing to me. I keep making parts that have their invalid-zone (in front of thrusters, turrets, etc) intersect with the part weirdly. Also, valid door placement is a little arcane - is it defining vectors along the side of the part? I could probably figure this out on my own, but I've just been copying it over from other parts.

Okay, so part layout is definitely confusing... it confuses me too sometimes! Let me try to explain:

Every part has a size. For example, the Large Thruster is 2x3, the Control Room is 2x2, the Small Laser is 1x3, etc... This size also implicitly defines the part's rectangle ("rect" for short), where the top-left cell is 0,0. So for example, the Large Thruster's rect is [0, 0, 2, 3] (x, y, width, height), Control Room is [0, 0, 2, 2], Small Laser [0, 0, 1, 3]. This is the rectangle that the part occupies and cannot be occupied by any other parts.

PhysicalRect is used to determine whether two parts are connected to each other for the purposes of enforcing the adjacency rule (two parts connect to each other only if their PhysicalRects touch each other). So for example, the Large Thruster has a PhysicalRect of [0, 0, 2, 2], meaning that the bottom 2 cells occupied by the nozzle don't count for adjacency. PhysicalRect also determines the bounding box for collision. If no PhysicalRect is specified, then it is assumed to be the part's entire implicit rect as defined above.

SaveRect is kind of weird and hard to explain, but basically it allows you to change the size of a part without breaking any saved ships or saved games. For example, a long time ago the Large Thruster was 2x2 instead of 2x3, meaning it's nozzle wasn't in its implicit rect and could thus overlap with other nozzles. I changed it to 2x3, which would have broken saves had I not set SaveRect to match the original implicit rect of [0, 0, 2, 2]. In general you shouldn't specify SaveRect for any new kinds of parts.

As you've probably figured out, ProhibitLeft, ProhibitRight, ProhibitAbove, and ProhibitBelow define a number of cells away from the part in a particular direction in which you can't have other parts. The key to understand here is that these are defined relative to the part's *implicit* rect, not its PhysicalRect. Additionally, any cells in a part's implicit rect that are *not* in its PhysicalRect are also automatically prohibited. So while the Large Thruster *looks* like it prohibits 6 cells below it, its ProhibitBelow is actually set to 5 because the two nozzle cells are automatically prohibited.

Yeah, AllowedDoorLocations is weird and arcane. It's a list of [x,y] cells around the perimeter of the part's implicit rect where doors can be added to connect to that cell. So if a part is 2x3, then doors along its left edge are always [-1,_], doors along the top edge are always [_,-1], doors along the right edge are always [2,_], and doors along the bottom edge are always [_,3]. (But replace 2 and 3 with the size of whatever part you're working with.)

[NullForceOmega]

It's really nice to hear from indie devs here on Bay 12, thanks for taking the time to drop by.

While the parts in game are very nice for mid-sized vessels, there are a lack of parts for small and large ships, I'd like to see maybe a 2x1 control cockpit, a 1x1 or 2 power supply, and some 2x1 and 1x1 fixed weapons to fill out the small size class.  I was also thinking that having an ammo storage room (like the energy stores) would be a nice addition, that way you can get better use of fabricators and cannon weapons.

For large ships it would be nice to see some heavier 'spinal' weapons, rail cannons, particle beams, point singularity projectors, soliton generators, things of that nature, maybe a larger class of generator and a formal 'bridge' with larger crew requirments as well.

Welcome to Bay 12, and good luck with the game.

[Gigalith]

I've been enjoying this. Suggestion: Unlock bounty ships for player purchase after blowing them up.

Today I mostly messed around with the Creative mode, pitting fleets against each other. Unfortunately, to get them to fire at each other automatically, I need to set them to BountyBrain. But then they'll get obsessed with "killing" some one-tile fragment of a larger ship. I've had to manually delete them. Also, they won't go after anything far-off. In short, I'd like a simple "Kill active enemy ships" AI.

Anyway, lots of fun.

[Vivalas]

Wow I'm happy I got the dev to show up! I know multiplayer used to be in the older versions of Starwright but I can't seem to find it anywhere anymore, was it removed? (or am I just delusional?)

My biggest dream is for a game like this to become something like an MMO. I layed all the plans out for it in my head, and am not sure if you are planning to ever drive the game in that direction, but imagine how awesome that would be. Imagine huge player-made bases and industry, with mines and factories to manufacture ship parts, and an in-game economy with supply and demand. It would be cool if ship repairs and what not were made only possible in bases where players can provide repairs and ship construction services, with different companies offering their own services. It would be like EVE but much much better. The idea is that ships can be turned into "bases" which show up on maps and are allowed to exceed the maximum ship size, but can only use specific parts, but also get larger industry parts.

I know it's WAY too early to be talking about this game becoming something like that, but when the idea came to my head I fell in love with it.

Also I have to ask if you plan on adding life support and simulating repairs with actual crews and damage control teams and stuff like that in the future.

Ship boarding and interior defense was another idea that came to my head.

Edit: What happened to that big borg cube ship that was in the old game? That's what I based my dreadnaught ship off of and I really loved pitting two borg cubes against each other or a borg cube against other smaller ships and reveling in the carnage.

[waltd]

While the parts in game are very nice for mid-sized vessels, there are a lack of parts for small and large ships, I'd like to see maybe a 2x1 control cockpit, a 1x1 or 2 power supply, and some 2x1 and 1x1 fixed weapons to fill out the small size class.  I was also thinking that having an ammo storage room (like the energy stores) would be a nice addition, that way you can get better use of fabricators and cannon weapons.

For large ships it would be nice to see some heavier 'spinal' weapons, rail cannons, particle beams, point singularity projectors, soliton generators, things of that nature, maybe a larger class of generator and a formal 'bridge' with larger crew requirments as well.

Thanks for the suggestions! Regarding ammo, I'm thinking of (eventually) replacing the Ammo Factory with an Ammo Storage and requiring the player to pay for ammo. That would be a way of further distinguishing ammo-based weapons from energy weapons. (Though if ammo is limited, I'll need a way to tell weapons to "hold fire" until the opportune moment.)

Today I mostly messed around with the Creative mode, pitting fleets against each other. Unfortunately, to get them to fire at each other automatically, I need to set them to BountyBrain. But then they'll get obsessed with "killing" some one-tile fragment of a larger ship. I've had to manually delete them. Also, they won't go after anything far-off. In short, I'd like a simple "Kill active enemy ships" AI.

Yeah, the A.I. is pretty dumb right now. :p  I need some way to determine when a piece of ship is "dead", but it's not entirely clear to me what that is. No power? No weapons? No control room? No crew? Some combination of those?

I know multiplayer used to be in the older versions of Starwright but I can't seem to find it anywhere anymore, was it removed? (or am I just delusional?)

Not delusional! Multiplayer used to be supported in (what is now called) Creative Mode, but I removed it because it was making my progress far slower (programming is like 5x harder when there's networked multiplayer). I would very much like to bring it back at some point, though it will likely be a separate mode(s). (Something relatively simple like "my ship vs your ship" or a co-op arena vs the A.I.)

My biggest dream is for a game like this to become something like an MMO. I layed all the plans out for it in my head, and am not sure if you are planning to ever drive the game in that direction, but imagine how awesome that would be. Imagine huge player-made bases and industry, with mines and factories to manufacture ship parts, and an in-game economy with supply and demand. It would be cool if ship repairs and what not were made only possible in bases where players can provide repairs and ship construction services, with different companies offering their own services. It would be like EVE but much much better. The idea is that ships can be turned into "bases" which show up on maps and are allowed to exceed the maximum ship size, but can only use specific parts, but also get larger industry parts.

This would be awesome!   I have ideas along these lines for the singleplayer mode in Cosmoteer. But making that work as an MMO (which is already pretty much the hardest kind of game to make) would be *incredibly* difficult and time consuming. So don't count on ever seeing an MMO "Cosmoteer Online". :/

Also I have to ask if you plan on adding life support and simulating repairs with actual crews and damage control teams and stuff like that in the future.

Life support: I will probably have some sort of depressurization mechanic. Not sure whether you'll actually need dedicated parts that generate air.

Repairing: I'd like to have some sort of repair system that isn't the instant-repair that's currently in the game. Whether this is crew running around your ship or repair bots flying around outside, I'm not sure. Regardless, ship construction will likely use the same system.

Ship boarding and interior defense was another idea that came to my head.

Ship boarding is the #1 requested feature! Definitely planned, but it's a while off. There will be a special kind of combat-trained crew that can be used to board enemy ships and defend your own ship (or maybe even put down mutinies).

Oh, I've also just set up a forum dedicated to Cosmoteer (http://forum.cosmoteer.net/), in case anyone wants to hop over there. Not that I want to discourage anyone from posting in this thread.

[waltd]

Edit: What happened to that big borg cube ship that was in the old game? That's what I based my dreadnaught ship off of and I really loved pitting two borg cubes against each other or a borg cube against other smaller ships and reveling in the carnage.

The Borg Cube (er, square?) was really more of a way to stress-test the game than it was intended to be interesting to fight. But here's the file for it (right-click, save as, put in your C:\Users\username\Documents\Code\Cosmoteer\Saved Ships folder, make sure it has a .ship.png extension).