creodor: the win condition actually doesn't exist yet, you could destroy the enemy gate, and that would stop the spawning of the "alien" ships, but the pirate base would still create ships, it is on a timer so it would do this forever without any need for resources (eventually this would be altered allowing you to starve bases out). The lose condition is if all your ships are destroyed. The basic point right now is survival as long as possible. I haven't made it past 20 minutes, another player made it to about 30.
To build ships: press space to go into tactical mode, click on your base either on the object itself or in the "Base" list. Then click "Shipyard" then double click on the ship type (EG: Perez/Correa <-- named after some buddies of mine). The base lets you build corvettes and frigates. If you want destroyers and carriers then you have to build a shipyard, to build a shipyard -> select a base (like you did to build ships) then click "Build" then chose a Shipyard base (double click or single then click "Placeholder" or something like that). This places a little "placeholder/ghost" object to position the station. Click Return to exit out of the Build screen, then click on the ghost object to position it, then click Build to build it. Then you'd select the shipyard object, then click "Shipyard" button then build a carrier or destroyer.
The tutorial that I missed mentioned some of the above, also the combat tutorial will answer some of the other questions.
Basically in tactical mode you can mass select your ships (like you would select multiple windows files, by drawing a selection rectangle around them) or you can single select by left clicking. Once you select a ship, you can right click on another object to designate a target for that ship (or selected ships). If crew control is on then the AI takes care of the rest.
So if you want a ship to follow you, you could select it then right click your own ship to designate your ship as the leader. However this is still in rought shape.
You can colonize other bases (the grey ones which are neutral). Here's the general process: build a trading station, build a shipyard, build a transport ship (Kamola), in tactical mode click on the transport ship (transport ship gui will appear), select source to be your base, select destionation to be the base you want to colonize, seelct colony module to be the cargo, transport ship's crew (if crew control is on) will go and colonize the base. This process will be re-done, the general steps will be the same, but the gui is a bit too narrow.
Thanks for the feedback.
The "vision" as it is in my mind is something like this:
Persistent sandbox, freeform, and story based. So for example this is the rough draft of the story: civilization re-awakens to find itself in asteroid bases (it appears that they were left behind), there's competing theories how this happened, whether it was colonization or as a result of an apocalypse. The bases orbit an artificial sun that powers the bases with solar radiation. People awaken/transition from "insert story line element that I haven't figured out yet" and re-discover tech that allows them to visit other asteroid bases, contact resumes but so does conflict (the pirate base). The increased activity and some old tech triggers the aliens to arrive (their interest is the artificial sun, which is the bases's key to survival since the sun is the power source).
You find/re-capture/not sure yet an old warship which becomes your command vessel (housing the player's in game avatar). The player repairs/upgrades the warship (through out the game) and it gives him tactical abilities (shields (in one direction at a time, but impenetrable to an attack for a limited time), powerful main guns, increased speed for a limited time). This ship is the reason why you are able to control other ships at will. It will also allow you to "hack" the enemy ships (upgradable through research, at first you only get to hack smaller ships and for limited amount of time). The story line in my mind is basically something like: find your way out of the miserable existence on floating rocks (potentially using the enemy's gate). Capture/destroy enemy ships to gain their tech (lasers etc).
The game play will consists of defending your assets, colonizing other bases, researching tech, boarding other bases, boarding derelict stations to gain advanced tech. Special events: eg you attack the enemy gate and they launch a major defense fleet, or say at part of the storyline an invasion force appears (different from the regular "scheduled" attacks). The player is a warrior/philosopher/king. The lose condition will be the command ship beign destroyed (since that's where the player's avatar is housed in the game world). Pie in the sky goal down the line: first person elements where you control a mecha type avatar and take over bases with other marines.
So I guess I don't know what exact genre that would fit into. This would probably appear a year or two down the line, due to the necessity of ingame cutscenes and ways to tell the story (stuff that isn't in place yet).
Siquo: asteroid bases can't be destroyed or damaged yet. although what will happen in the future is that when they take damage the population will either leave or be killed, if the population drops below 0 then the base isn't colonized anymore so you can't get resources or build stations/ships. Potentially down the line you could get some sort of a "death" star" laser to blow up asteroid bases or stations all together. Although this is sort of counter producitve from the player's perspective since there's not much real estate left, alien forces may not give a crap so potentially a mission to defend against a giant ship that has the ability to destroy bases. The player will send marines over to take over enemy asteroid bases (though this line of thinking I havent' explored yet, or by hitting them till the population is dead, how do you keep the game challenging and yet allow the player to impact the game world in such a way?).
Good tip on the windows as a size indicator.
Its a bit scary thinking all the stuff left to do, but also fun! I enjoy programming this stuff, and lack of ideas is basically the death of this project.
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Topic: Void Destroyer - Request for feedback on my indie 3D space sim/rts (Read 23248 times)