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[Draco18s]

Perhaps AP could just be a toggleable quality. Having AP on your weapon would either (depending on how you want to play it)

Problem is, that's harder to replicate with the RNG values.  A checkbox is harder to...toggle at random.  The AI has to be able to do this too, you know.
Or well, not entirely "random."  But in the "find triangle" portion, ships are generated at random, and the AI will use a variant of that to design its own ships.

Waaaiiiiittt.... You just made a 2-D, procedurally generated version of Homeworld.

....SWEET

Just about.
I'm taking a lot of cues from AI War, but Homeworld is feeding other ideas.
I recently tried to play Homeworld again (never got far the first time) and didn't do very well.  Like "lost the second level" didn't do very well.

Moar Edit:
Homeworld has been influencing my plot decisions too. x..X
I like a lot of the basic concepts like "welcome to the mothership captain.  First interstellar ship of her kind.  Here's how to do stuff.  Yeah, it's new to us too, don't worry about it" kind of thing, which blends the in-game persona and the player together, rather than the race you're playing as being "old hats" to this sort of thing, but strangely having to teach the player the basics.

[Korbac]

Perhaps AP could just be a toggleable quality. Having AP on your weapon would either (depending on how you want to play it)

Problem is, that's harder to replicate with the RNG values.  A checkbox is harder to...toggle at random.  The AI has to be able to do this too, you know.

Yeah, that's a good point. Perhaps make it so that a % of armor is bypassed depending on the AP rating?

[Draco18s]

Yeah, that's a good point. Perhaps make it so that a % of armor is bypassed depending on the AP rating?

That's essentially what I'm doing.  AP is a number that bypasses that amount of armor.  If it was a percentage, then the same AP value would be equally effective against ships with low armor, as well as high.  A flat value means its Extra Bonus Damage (except against units with smaller armor values).  Extremely high armor values still get some benefit against high AP values (I believe armor can be higher) while low armor ships are equally unaffected (6 armor is ignored just as much as 12 in the face of 20 AP).

[Armok]

If this is going to be space, you really should have newtonian physics with speeds being relative and things having a max acceleration not a max speed and so on. Works well with the mobile mothership.

Might even include orbital mecanics if the AI can handle it.

[Draco18s]

I enjoy a good Newtonian physics game as much as the next man, but they're a bitch when it comes to RTS games.

Units have to know when to start decelerating in order to reach their target location, among other things.

I also plan on releasing the core engine as open source, so it can be adapted to other RTS games (there's a notable lack of RTS tutorials and resources currently), so I don't want the physics tied in with unit behavior and the AI threads.

Edit:
I should also note that every Newtonian physics game I've played has enforced a max velocity on top of the acceleration value.

[Fayrik]

Might even include orbital mecanics if the AI can handle it.

Orbital Mechanics? In an RTS? Really?

The only game I've ever played with Orbital Mechanics in it was Orbiter, and, in all honesty, I can see why.
(I don't see how an RTS could possibly have a friendly interface along side something as complex as orbit.)

[Draco18s]

Orbital Mechanics? In an RTS? Really?

The only game I've ever played with Orbital Mechanics in it was Orbiter, and, in all honesty, I can see why.
(I don't see how an RTS could possibly have a friendly interface along side something as complex as orbit.)

It can't.  Orbital calculations being a bit too complex for Flash to handle (efficiently for the number of objects planned), and I would never inflict that on the players.  There's dozens of variables involved even for a single object.

[Virex]

Edit:
I should also note that every Newtonian physics game I've played has enforced a max velocity on top of the acceleration value.

That's because people get rather cross when relativity doesn't kick in at higher speeds. You just know that someone will put a weight on the acceleration button to find out...

[Draco18s]

Edit:
I should also note that every Newtonian physics game I've played has enforced a max velocity on top of the acceleration value.

That's because people get rather cross when relativity doesn't kick in at higher speeds. You just know that someone will put a weight on the acceleration button to find out...

Relativity in a computer program is causing values to roll over and become negative.

[Armok]

Remember this is 2d, orbits in 2d are a LOT easier, and nothing says they have to be perfect.

And calculating when to start accelerating? when the distance left to the target is the same as the break distance using the ships max acceleration and current speed.

[Draco18s]

Remember that the player needs to realize and understand gravitational orbits as well.

In any case, I'm not working towards that end (or Newtonian physics) right now.

[Fayrik]

and I would never inflict that on the players.

Remember that the player needs to realize and understand gravitational orbits as well.

I'd hate to have to get my head around an orbital mechanic just to be able to play a tactical game.

Basically, if you're in orbit, how the heck do you dodge a missile? Such a situation gets even weirder when said orbit is perfectly 2d.

Personally, I'd just make sure the frames are always well away from a planet, so that way you can just fob the lack of orbital dynamic off on the fact that all the combat is just taking place in relative space.

[Draco18s]

Personally, I'd just make sure the frames are always well away from a planet, so that way you can just fob the lack of orbital dynamic off on the fact that all the combat is just taking place in relative space.

My "ha ha I have a background!" graphic is a nebula, I believe.

[Fayrik]

Nebulas tend to be distant. Or very foggy.

Just as long as you don't have planets drifting by or stars that are significantly more than a pinpoint of light, it just looks like the rest of dead, empty space!

[Draco18s]

Nebulas tend to be distant. Or very foggy.

Eh, whatever.  I just googled around for "space" images of exceedingly large size (over 2400x2400) and found one that looked nice.

I'm beginning to wonder if I could dynamically render a starscape graphic as well.  It wouldn't be fast to generate by any means (my large asteroids* are taking 600 ms for some reason) but it would at least have the same style.  I'll take a crack at it at some point and if I get a good result, it'll get saved and imported as a bitmap (rather than generated at run time every time).

I have never done so much dynamic art in my life, and I'm quite enjoying the process.  Frustrating sometimes, but enjoyable.

*Have I intentionally shown these?  I know I've been updating the same swf on my server, but I don't know if anyone here has looked at it recently.