Star Control Founders: February 2016 Status

from StarControl Forums

Greetings!

Good thing it's a leap year or we'd have missed the big February Founder upload.

The Vault upload this month is bigger than all the other previous ones combined.

In fact, it's twice as big as all the previous ones combined.

So let's get to it:

## CONTENTS ##

  1. Earthling Commander stuff
  2. Planet Critters
  3. Ship Concepts
  4. Combat feedback
  5. Exploration Feedback
  6. Tools

Before you go further, please go grab the new ZIP file and look through it otherwise much of this will make no sense.

REMEMBER you are seeing really really early stuff. These aren't marketing assets or something.  You're seeing stuff we would never consider sharing with the general public because it's so rough.

## Earthling Commander ##

We've included the voice auditions for our female commanders.  This game is going to have many hours of audio so you can imagine how much stuff we get to listen to.

Well...not me of course. but Andrew. ;)

You can also see the direction we're going for right now.  

 

 ## Planet Critters ##

You can get an idea of the planet critters in the game.   Unlike Star Control 2, you will actually fly down to a big spherical planet (ala Spore) and drive around on the surface looking for stuff, avoiding bad things and critters and shooting critters. It'll be third person still but you won't be able to see the entire planet at once but rather just the part of it you're driving over.  It's a pretty fun mini game.

 

## Ship Concepts ##


We will be debating these the entire time.  On the one hand, we want to honor what has come before but on the other hand, we definitely want to have our ships look pretty spectacular and take advantage of all the advancements over the past 25 years.

 

## Combat Feedback ##

The combat is going to be controversial.  There is no way to satisfy everyone with however we approach combat.  

You will have the people who want the combat to be old-school top down around a single planet.  You will have the people who want us to switch to first person.  

Overall, we want to design the combat around the following basics:

  • Combat will take place within an entire solar system, not just a single planet
  • Combat can potentially take place with up to 6 people at once (not just 1 on one)
  • Combat should be third person so that you can always see your ship and recognize whatever particular attributes are unique to it in action.
From there, things are still very much in the air.  There's a video of some prototype combat that we'd like to get your feedbadck on.
 
 

 ## Solar System Exploration ##


Similar to combat, we have the solar system exploration.  This is when you emerge out of hyperspace and are flying around a particular solar system. We want to be able to have solar systems be alive (planets move, various goodies might be in the solar system, various interactive elements).  So the UI on this will be somewhat similar to the combat UI.

We'd like to get your feedback on this.

 

## Tools ##

This Winter we're supposed to start releasing the tools for the game.  There's going to be some delays in this area because right now, the QA team and many of our tool engineers are working to get Ashes of the Singularity and Offworld Trading Company out the door so the tools are not going to be ready by end of Winter.

The tools we are anxious to share with you are (in no particular order)

  1. Conversation Editor.  This is a tool that lets us create conversations, quests, etc. that should allow people to create their very own adventures.  If you think of Star Control it's really a set of loosely connected mini-games tied together by a global series of quests.  That is what the converation editor does.
  2. Multiverse Editor.  This allows players to create their own universe complete with stars, planets, etc.  It allows us to tie the quests and such with particular planets.

These two tools are pretty far along.  But without the ability to tie them together in engine, they're not real useful for Founders yet.  That is, at the very least, you'd want to be able to go out and explore your galaxy and go on adventures even if there are no bad guys yet to fight.  

Once Ashes ships (and I sleep for about a week straight) I'll be able to get this stuff sorted.

What we'd like to hear from you are: What specifically would you like to do FIRST with these tools? This will let us prioritize a bit on what needs to be polished and QA'd a bit to put up on the vault for download.

As a reminder, DO NOT SHARE anything we put up on the vault whether it be art, music or the tools.

For the next couple of weeks I own't be around much as I'm neck deep making missions for Ashes of the Singularity.  The underlying scripting engine in Ashes will probably come up in Star Control (they both share the same engine) so I'll be sharing some of the modding stuff with Ashes with you guys as well.

IF any of you are modders AND know RTS games, let me  know in this post as I can get you access to the Ashes tools early which will likely give you a head start in Star Control.

Talk to *campers* soon!

 

-Brad (Executive Producer)

 

 

57,130 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

Okay, since my spam firewall blocks Starcontrol.com as Pornography still, I can't access any of this from my computer at work (where I do all my good, lazy, day-dreaming!), UNLESS I subscribe to a post on my phone, and then access the post from my Subscriptions, which goes through Stardock.com instead of Starcontrol.com..... does that make sense? I wanted to post that workaround in case there's anyone else that has the same problem!

## Planet Critters ##

So, the Planet Critters. There are many that I like! Like the ice dragon type things! Cool. And on the "Gooey Critters" concept art, I like the one in the bottom right! Looks strangely endearing! But I want to warn about something that has happened to more games than I can even count, and never helps. Many of these critters look just like, indefinite objects, slorped together without being defined in any meaningful way. I don't know if that makes any sense, but... think of it like this: You want your players to recall, when looking back on the game, their own little made up names for these creatures! These are just my names for the various creatures you farmed for bio data, but there's the Clapping Trees, the Big Eared Mouse, The Gorilla Beast, The Big Green Spinning Tank, the Sea Urchin, The Purple Octopus, etc......

A lot of what I'm seeing in the concept art is: The blobby thing, the blob-type thing, the other blob, the green blob, the blob with arms, the blob that looks like a scrotum, and blob monster with tentacles! Blob monster with tentacles, but I already forgot what the other six looked like. But I remember the ice dragon. And the spitting flower! And the blob monster with tentacles! More like those, less like the indistinct jumble of the other sketches.

** More tomorrow **

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

Thanks for the update.  Looking good.  Still digging in the vault but what I got so far:

1) Solar System Exploration: Perfect.  Nailed it 100% imo.

2)  Combat: I like the idea of seeing the entire solar system in the fight, but it throws off the sense of scale for the ships (not that it was great in SC2 or anything) and I'm finding it distracting.  Like I'd spend too much time dodging planets instead of forming/deploying a strategy for the fight.

Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top


## Combat Feedback ##

The combat is going to be controversial.  There is no way to satisfy everyone with however we approach combat.  

You will have the people who want the combat to be old-school top down around a single planet.  You will have the people who want us to switch to first person.

And you'll have people who are wrong.

The new combat is great, provided that we can still switch to top-down. (Which Andrew confirmed awhile back.) My guess is that the camera is bound to the mouse. Why else would you have the left mouse button set to fire on a keyboard-centric game.

An open question... Was the main ship using gravity to sling-shot around the planet, or did he have a special ability like the Supox?

 

Edit: More Comments...

  • Combat took place between the human carrier/precursor and the Tywom.
  • The Tywom's 3 sats are stored in the front of the ship.
  • Were the Scryve the aliens you guys showed us at Christmas?
  • The lip-sync on the station commander is excellent. It puts 13-year-old engine rehash games like Fallout 4 to shame.
Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

Commander ideas

Not much to comment on here. All looks great, apart from baggy male clothes which make F and G "Station Commanders" look ridiculous. XD

 

Commander Voice auditions

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Abby T.)_01 --- Hearing it I picture myself as a 12 year old kid listening to my extremely unconfident older sister's notations.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Abby T.)_02 --- A little darker than the first take, but still in the same zip code.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Amanda M.) --- Sounds very sad, depressed and indifferent. I have a feeling that one day she might be found dead in her bed with an empty pills bottle on the floor...

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Carrie K.) ---  TYWORM MOTHER&U#KER!! She sounds like some sort of a closet dominatrix from Sex & The City.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Dorothy F.) --- Finally, an acceptable sample. Nothing special to note here though. Not overplayed or underplayed. Intonation for the most part matches the speech content ("seems friendly enough" is off). Third best.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Erika H.) --- Can I say a little overconfident 25 y.o. cosmetician?... Definitely not a Station Commander voice.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Julie Ann T.) --- Great timbre. Intonation is a little off in some sentences. Second best.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Karen S.)_01 --- Older lady. Great intonation. Can't decide on Tywom or Tyworm though. XD

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Karen S.)_02 --- Better version of the above.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Laura P.)_01 --- This one seems too dam lively for a Station Commander. Another Sex & The City character? XD

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Laura P.)_02 --- A better version of the above, but intonation misses the context in some sentences.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Lauren L.) --- Maybe not the best timbre to listen to, but THE BEST intonation actor. The slight alarmness (proper to military personel) in the voice creates atmospheric tension in the described situations. Love it.

HUMAN COMMANDER (FEMALE) (Marcy E.) --- Speed of speech and intonation is all over the place.


Founder Feedback Needed

Combat

The worst possible view for the combat I could imagine. It will be super restrictive for ship weapons design too.

    How am I supposed to aim my weapons in this? Not only it's isometric, but it's also perspective!! Say bye bye to one shot/long recharge/long range/"slow" projectile weapons. There's no way in hell to be effective at aiming in this view. Add motion to both ships, planet gravity and you'll be spraying bullets all over the place trying to hit your enemy for ages (just like in the vid) unless it's lasers or some sorta mini-gun with uninterrupted fire or homing missiles or if you're really close to each other, like in the vid. Also, it'll be hard to judge the velocity of any ship or object (especially fast ships coming at you from a distance). The "space dust" creates point of reference to help you with that, but it won't help you with aiming and I feel like it makes the space way too busy looking/unbelievable. It should be more subtle. It also feels like the view needs to be zoomed out a bit more too. The ships and planets look too big. Tested on a 27" 1080p screen.

Top - down view, like original, for combat, please. I don't want to fight the view in combat, I want to fight my opponent.

Exploration

Not sure if top-down here is better. The system in the vid feels too compact. Or the ship speed too great?...

    I, personally, would prefer like to check out the option where my ship is locked in the middle of the screen bottom facing north and controls would move the system around it. Accelerating and "breaking" would result in a slight pitch change of the ship. Turning, in a slight roll. I assume that's what the planet exploration is gonna be like judging from the terrain_concepts.jpg Why not have it in the star system too?.. It would also allow for a smooth transitions between screens/views mentioned below.


Planet Critters ideas

All looks good and sexy here. Love, love, love what's in  terrain_concepts.jpg

PlanetScan.mp4 - this probably should've been with Exploration vid. The star spinning around planet is cool, but pointless. First of all it's hidden 90% of the time. Second of all, it moves so fast, you can't admire it's beauty. I'd rather see it stationary with cool graphic effect of its corona, be it a protuberance or some pulsation/breathing effect etc.

    Not a fan of a separate screen for scanning and landing purposes. Yes, it mimics original, but it's not the best possible UX. It is year 2016. How hard is it to make your ship come to a planet from system exploration view  and orbit it in a non-interrupted manner without switching to another dam screen? Orient your ship as the lander oriented in terrain_concepts.jpg and make the planet spin horizontally, representing your ship orbiting and scanning the planet. Zoom into planet when the lander is out and start driving around. All in nice, smooth transitions. I understand that it's easy programming wise to just switch to the scan screen from system exploration and then switch to landed on the planet view, but again, if Steve Jobs didn't do half of all those small things he's done with iPhone, it wouldn't be here as a mobile phone benchmark today. Do you want your SC to be a Windows phone or an iPhone?..

 

Ship concepts

All is cool here. Love the single vertical wing ship with a black sphere and purple glow in the middle. Love the spinning nubs human cruiser. Tywom ship looks better than Tywom themselves. ;)

 

P.S. Mukay, Tywom, Scryve. What's the deal with "Y" in every alien race name, ran out of other letters?...

P.P.S. I'd love to start writing my own SC story and creating galaxy for it with the tools provided. I've never done anything like that before, but I'm a fast learner. XD

Reply #5 from StarControl Forums Top

Voice Acting

I think the actor/actress for this role should being able to convey a wide range of emotions. They have to be able to deliver both good news and bad news, and I would be disappointed if it was always delivered in a predictable manner that was either too bubbly in one extreme or too distant in the opposite extreme. A playful combination of the two would be great to add some organic excitement to the dialog. The character animation seems very nice this early in the production.

Dorothy and Julie Ann
These strike me as sounding coldly authoritative. They seem like more experienced ship captains but I think they lack the ambition and determination called for with this character. They might be good in other roles but I would like someone who has uses the full range of their voice and emotions.

Abby and Erika
Nice confident energy but maybe somewhat lacking in authority, basically the inverse of Dorothy and Julie. I think they'd be a great fit for a more spunky sidekick serving in a lower rank, like a mechanic/engineer or an optimistic cadet. I think these two have a lot of potential for dramatic range and I'd like to hear them read something more intimidating or scary where they are genuinely sad or afraid.

Laura P
Her first read is one of my favorites. She doesn't rush through the material, uses the full range of her voice, has nice timing with dramatic pauses and isn't too dry or distant. She has a great combo of attributes that both command authority while being playful and a bit humorous.

Lauren
There's something I like about this one that the others lack: she has a little bit more of a hint of desperation and uncertainty in her read, as though she is facing a difficult challenge but trying to be courageous despite fearing the outcome, which I think is a nice tone for the game. I don't want the interactions to always sound the same and I'd like for dramatic situations to sound more desperate.

Ship Concepts

These are all really super. I love that multiple iterations and/or classes of each ship are being considered. The idea that we might not be limited to simply one class of ship per race is awesome. Whether purposely or accidentally, I definitely see some homages and inspiration from a few classic designs in the concept art! I can tell that an effort is being made to have distinctive color palletes and shapes that are easily identifiable so that ship designs are distinct from one another. That is hugely important. Every species should have identifiable color schemes and silhouettes that can be quickly identified from a distance.

Combat & Exploration

This area is probably where I'm going to be most critical. The combat video gave me immediate traumatic flashbacks to SC3's failed 3D melee camera mode which was tremendously bad and frequently panned as something nobody wanted to use. The big reason it failed was because it was a fixed perspective that was too far away from the action, making combat disjointed and difficult, but I think it's entirely possible to make a view like this work with more development and refinement.

I believe it could be improved by zooming in closer to your ship and positioning it at the bottom of the screen with a wider field of vision both to your sides off into the distance in front of you. I refer to it as a "command view", basically directly above and behind the aft of the ship to allow you to see what's well ahead of you. The ability to have this view rotate with the nose of your ship would make the most sense, so that you are always facing forward and can quickly rotate your view to wherever you want to go. We may not be able to go up or down if it's on a fixed plane, but this is a much more direct control perspective used in many games. As a matter of fact, it is pretty much exactly the same view portrayed in the planet lander concept art landscapes. But alas, I do not feel the game should rigidly lock players into specific viewing angles.

There are tons of titles which allow several different viewing perspectives and it would be awesome to allow players to use the view they prefer, rather than forcing them into experiencing the game with a viewing option they don't like.

Agreed that it's going to be impossible to satisfy all desires about how best to experience combat and general navigation, which is why it makes so much sense for multiple view options to be implemented. This is not an unreasonable expectation given that so many games have done it in the past and continue to do it presently especially considering how easy it is to accomplish in a 3D game engine. We are probably already aware to some degree that the way to visually experience the game might cause controversy, so why not nip it in the bud by having multiple options to address them? Top-down, isometric, command view, etc. should all be options.

I get awfully tired of people bickering on forums (and the internet in general) about who is right or wrong about something as personal as gameplay preferences. Nobody is right or wrong. In an era when a game can and should be configurable to different preferences, there's no reason not to. People have different opinions about the best way to play things and good developers wisely design around those preferences rather than forcing players into a specific way of doing things.

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Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting cuorebrave, reply 1

Okay, since my spam firewall blocks Starcontrol.com as Pornography still, I can't access any of this from my computer at work (where I do all my good, lazy, day-dreaming!)

 

You don't have to show off your fandom and dedication to Starcontrol in such a..... manner..... unfortunately I have not set my spam filter to block out implicit pornographic content......  x_x  (afterall there must be a reason why your spam firewall blocks Starcontrol.com, it must reflect what.... ahem.... some people have been.... ahem.... doing.... while day dreaming of Starcontrol and Syreens..... :dur: :dur: :dur:  )

 

 

I just checked out this from work so I don't really have the freedom to fully enjoy the update.

But is sure is exciting to see some stuff, any stuff!!!!!!

 

Thanks! And I will be sure to leave some comments as well!

Reply #7 from StarControl Forums Top

I am going to think about exactly how to word what I want to say about the "3D isometric" view for combat shown in this.  For now I will just say that one sight of that was why I never even bothered to play SC3.  In the next couple days or so I will make a full post about why I think going away from a straight top down view is such a bad idea, but I want to take some time to think of how to word it correctly and try to think of some good examples/comparisons to use to accompany the points I am trying to make.  I don't want to comment fully on that right now, I want to really think that through to hopefully fully convey what I am trying to explain.

As for the other things...

I like earth ships 2 and 4.  I like 2 because it is a tribute to the original SC earth cruiser, I like 4 because it looks really cool and is still reminiscent of the Enterprise just like the original SC earth cruiser was meant to be.

I am no art critic, by for my personal taste I like the general look of the critters and landscapes.  Especially that page of landscape views, I personally think that is a great look for a modernized SC.

For the voices, Abby T's first reading is the best of them all.  Her second is also very good.  She just has a good voice for a character in a militaristic sci-fi story.

Amanda M is a good voice for a character who is supposed to not care about what is going on around her:-)

Carrie K just isn't very believable, she sounds like someone sitting at a mic reading lines.

Dorothy F is very familiar, like I've heard a similar voice in a previous game.  She emphasizes some of the wrong words.

Erika K sounds like a former Valley Girl who has taken speech lessons to lose her old accent.

Julie Ann has a pretty sexy voice, I'd use her somewhere.

Karen S's first reading is second only to Abby T in my book, her second isn't near as good.

Laura P's first reading is too strained and unrealistic, her second is very good.

Lauren and Macy are both good voices and good reads, but nothing special about them I can think of either way.

I'd say any of these voices sound good and could be usable somewhere, even Carrie K once she actually memorizes her line (hehe), but Abby, Karen and Julie Ann all stand out too me as being particularly unique in good ways.

 

Reply #8 from StarControl Forums Top

Hey! All of you griping over the 3D Isometric combat... Remember this?

 

Quoting Vaelzad, reply 1

Combat as it is being developed right now is being done as both 2D and 3D iso. What I mean by this is you have some camera control at your disposal. You can pivot the camera into a complete top down view if you so desire, or you can play it from any angle from the 90 degree top down to an isometric view that you are able to rotate around as well.  This is something I felt the player base was going to be very divided on which is best and since we can provide both without compromising the gameplay we are making sure that it can be either. 

 

So... Chill out. They've got every angle covered.

Reply #9 from StarControl Forums Top

^ So we need to chill out and not give our feedback on what they showed us?...

 

Quoting Awkbird, reply 5

I believe it could be improved by zooming in closer to your ship and positioning it at the bottom of the screen with a wider field of vision both to your sides off into the distance in front of you. I refer to it as a "command view", basically directly above and behind the aft of the ship to allow you to see what's well ahead of you. The ability to have this view rotate with the nose of your ship would make the most sense, so that you are always facing forward and can quickly rotate your view to wherever you want to go.

I see two major potential problems with this view for space combat:

1. You can't see behind your ship. This limits the ship design to front facing guns only. Can't "lay mines" or "poop homing plasma clots" intelligently either.

2. If you only have forward thrusters and front facing guns you are forced to rotate the enemy out of your view to make any 90+ degree maneuvers.

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Reply #10 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Hunam_, reply 4

The star spinning around planet is cool, but pointless

The star is at a set point, the camera is rotating around the planet, so naturally the star will go out of view at some point and be behind the planet at another.

As for the feedback: I am with others in this thread that the view is horrible for combat, i don't like it for exploration much either but that might be me. It's all fine that you can change the view but then do you not have an unfair advantage of people in isometric view can see further than someone who is in top down view?

The critters i liked, the ship concepts i found pretty good.

Will have to wait and see about how the planets will turn out, the SystemExplore video seemed to use less cartoony planets than the concept and weren't too horrible for my taste yet, but they're probably just placeholders and were kinda grey.

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Reply #11 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Hunam_, reply 9

^ So we need to chill out and not give our feedback on what they showed us?...

You do when you are jumping to conclusions... which you did. And I'm calling you on it. ;)

Reply #12 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting n0vast0rm, reply 10

It's all fine that you can change the view but then do you not have an unfair advantage of people in isometric view can see further than someone who is in top down view?

My take is that it is a balanced advantage if we can change our camera at any time (and if changing the camera is easy and is bound to the mouse or right gamepad stick). I might choose iso for long-range guided missile combat, but move to top-down for more precise shooting.

 

What might be slick would be to have an option to allow the camera to gradually change from iso to top-down as you approached an enemy ship. (Edit: And this would be analogous to having the original Star Control option to zoom based on your distance. I'd like to see both options put into place.)

Reply #13 from StarControl Forums Top

Before I go off on a several page long explanation of why what we used to call a "3D Isometric" view really doesn't work, I'll wait for confirmation that no matter what they decide a pure top down view will still be available.  One of the first things I planned to say in that post was that the easiest way to resolve the issue is to make both views available and let the player decide.  In multiplayer, players would be forced to play top down or suffer a MASSIVE disadvantage against those who are, but in single player it doesn't really matter that much although those who played in 3D isometric would have a very different, and far less addictive, experience.

If you change the camera angle you literally change the genre of the game from one that has proven to be immensely popular to one that has been proven to be very unpopular.  The 3D isomtric view, for example, was the primary reason that SC3 sucked.  I would probably never play this SC if it was 3D isometric only view, I already know how and why that doesn't work, there would be no reason for me to even try it.  If the devs have both views available in their current build they should have their two best players fight one top down and the other in 3D isometric and see what happens and what those players think after a couple hours of fighting each other.  They would probably learn much of what I would say by doing that experiment.

Just like a 3rd person over the shoulder view sounds like a good idea on paper for an FPS game, but nobody wants to play that way if you provide the option, "3d Isometric" sounds like a good idea on paper (especially to your art department) but nobody will play that way if they have the option to play pure top down.  I tried to make these kinds of games in your industry for a long time, I know the artists are big fans of taking the game out of top down and view it at an angle because that makes such a huge difference too them... this is in fact THE reason that this genre died.  But the art department just has to accept that, as it was put to me once, "everything will be tiny, with little detail, and we don't even need to make full models they can just be like umrellas that only show the top of the ship".  That's right, he hit the nail right on the head when he said that.  This genre is not a place for artists to compete with other artists who are making 3D games, this genre is where you find the games that are better games than those 3D games, not better art.

So can the devs confirm that a pure top down view will  be available even if you decide to go the SC3 route with an 3D Isometric view?  

 

EDIT:  I actually like IBNobody's idea a lot.  There is no issue I can think of with running in 3D Isometric when in "exploration mode", but then have the view angle up to pure top down as you enter a fight.  That is a great idea, that gives the art department a lot more option in the exploration portion of the ship game and only forces the essentially 2D environment that the artists hate so much during combat.  That would be a great comprimise for this game, stay out of top down as much as possible, and go into top down for combat only.  That would work well for this game.

Reply #15 from StarControl Forums Top

Well, i spoke my opinion on each separate forum page, so, well... carry on! 

 

 

:cylon:  - Shade A.I