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Star Control: Origins: August release schedule update

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Star Control: Origins: August release schedule update

from StarControl Forums

Greetings!

As some of you guessed, our original release date for Star Control: Origins was November 2017 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Star Control 2.

Clearly, that's not going to happen and this post will discuss the current schedule on the game.

The Technical Challenges

The first thing to understand is that Star Control is not a normal game.  It is several mini-games in perfect balance with one another.  That means you can't really make it with an existing game engine like Unity or Unreal.  You literally have to build something entirely new just for it.

Because you have a planet exploration game, a battle game, a space exploration game and an RPG all put together, different technical challenges can crop up.

The part of the game that proved really hard was the new planet exploration system.  

It's not just having this part be fun and interest and beautiful (which is hard enough) but that you really do have to hand craft these planets using tools.

The team previously thought that we could procedurally generate these planets (other than a handful of important ones). However, the results were far from satisfying.  If you watched what happened to No Man's Sky you have a pretty good idea of the perils of relying on procedural generation for creating fun planets to explore.

This has meant the creation of MUCH MUCH better tools.  Tools that simply didn't exist, weren't budgeted, weren't scheduled.  Because if we're hand crafting the planets to create our universe, it means you guys, when you create your own universes, are going to have to create your own planets as well (or at least download planets others have made).

And that means the tool doesn't just have to be technically capable of creating worlds but has to be, unto itself, a commercially viable consumer product unto itself ala the Spore creature editor.

The updated schedule

Thus, for the 25th anniversary time frame we expect to have a fully-realized Super Melee game available.  Think Hearthstone but with ships and fleets (your fleet is your deck) with hundreds of different ships to play with single player or multiplayer and yes, we do plan to support multiple people at the same PC playing the game (but not necessarily in time for the beta).  

Now, for marketing reasons, unless we finish before April 2018, we will have to push the game beyond that.  And I have promised you guys that we won't release the final game until there's a general consensus that the overall game is compelling.  And I don't think April 2018 is going to be enough time to get the adventure game out to you and iterate on your feedback and then record all the audio (11 hours or so of audio in several different languages).

The plan remains that you guys will play what is, in effect, a 1.0 game but the general public will never see 1.0.  Instead, what we ultimately release to the public, while marked as a 1.0, will be really more like a 1.2 level release.

This means that we'll be releasing things out to you in phases.

After the Super Melee part goes out., we'll start preparing the adventure game for release with the planet exploration part being super simplified until we're happy with the planet exploration experience.  

The adventure phase will also allow us to focus on reducing the hardware requirements.  It needs to run on a Surface Pro 4 level machine and that is going to take some time.

So the final release is hard to guess.  If I was forced to guess, I'd say September 2018.

I apologize for the delay.  If I had a time machine, we would have nixed the planet exploration aspect.  But it is such a cool and natural progression on what was in Star Control 2. And as many a developer has wrongly believed, procedural generation seemed like a good idea at the time. ;)

 

 

110,799 views 38 replies
Reply #26 from StarControl Forums Top

I haven't posted for SO FREAK'IN LONG.  But decided to see how this project was doing.   Been very busy with life and haven't had time to chime in.

I agree with taking time and making sure this game is done correctly.   This is a franchise that needs to be healthy again.  Don't screw this up. =)

I am anxiously awaiting tools to create our own universe (scripting tools) and other modding tools.   

 

Reply #27 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting dogchainx, reply 26

I haven't posted for SO FREAK'IN LONG.  But decided to see how this project was doing.   Been very busy with life and haven't had time to chime in.

 

Exact same thing for me here. Must have been 4-5 months since I last logged in.

 

And, for the record, I played SM *ONLY* when I needed to get better with certain types of ships (Orz, Pkunk, Arilou) against the Ur-Quans, Kohr-Ah and Mycons.

So I'd say I spent >99% of my time in the game. I have finished the games upwards of 20 times so far.

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Reply #28 from StarControl Forums Top

I'm all for delaying in order to make a better game. I'm admittedly tired of all the games that are released ahead of time just to make a deadline, and are falling apart or don't live up to expectations. for the SC games, I've always been in it for the story and the exploration and customization. I prefer a game that can hit the ground running, than to see another No Man's Sky.

Reply #29 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Hunam_, reply 3

Fine. Stardock couldn't pull off proper PG. But, please, at least don't trash talk the ones that COULD. NMS might not have perfect 8 quintillion planets, but 8 quint. is not 5000. And NMS has at least 5000 breathtaking PG landscapes in its universe.

Can we help build those planets for SCO, so it's not 100 stars with 500 planets to explore in 2018?

We could have essentially infinite planets.  They'd just be boring to play.  

We've been creating procedurally generated universes longer than any existing game studio -- over 25 years.  

If you think NMS pulled off procedurally generated planets successfully when it shipped I'm not sure there's anything to discuss.

Reply #30 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Hunam_, reply 8


Quoting bleybourne,
reply 6






Quoting Hunam_,

reply 3


Fine. Stardock couldn't pull off proper PG. But, please, at least don't trash talk the ones that COULD. NMS might not have perfect 8 quintillion planets, but 8 quint. is not 5000. And NMS has at least 5000 breathtaking PG landscapes in its universe.



That's a ridiculous statement. You're saying that PG works perfectly in NMS because there are (you estimate) 5000 breathtaking planets among the quintillions that were procedurally generated. But that's the very problem - 5000/8,000,000,000 (lets just stop at 8 billion) still only means that less than a thousandth of a percent of the planets were any good, and the others are all crap. If there was a way to automatically suck out the good ones then PG could be said to have worked, but there isn't until people visit them. All it proves is that PG is shit 99.9994% of the time and only works in the tiny space remaining. That's a FAR call from saying NMS worked on a PG level.

You're a fan of NMS, I get it. You've just proclaimed that to the heavens. But don't be ridiculous...



 

Are you trying to be cute here or what? Nowhere I said NMS PG was perfect. I said they made it work in NMS to the point where sometimes, on some planets it's was amazing. Stardock COULDN'T and therefore forfeited the right to criticize somebody that could.

What, are you expecting SCO to have 90% of mind-blowing planet design? Who are you kidding? You think PG'ed Moon will look worse than handcrafted?.. You think Mars and Venus will look better if handcrafted?.. You might get your expectations in check or you'll fall into one of those NMS hype black holes and it'll swallow you whole.

What's gonna happen is SCO galaxy will be shrunk to ~10% of the projected size (it might not necessarily be a bad thing for some of us). There will be noticeable amount of lazy/quick/filler design. One might even think they were PG'ed... Most of them will be Ok'ish/passable and about a couple of dozen of them will be amazing. Now, tell me, how is it different from PG?........

 

Hunam, we already, in our current build, can procedurally generate essentially infinite planets in Star Control.  The problem was that most of them are pretty boring.  

People will still be able to procedurally generate as many planets as they want.  However, we can't RELY on it for story-telling purposes.  We have to be able to make planets that are very unique and whether it's one planet or 100 planets that we do it that way, we still have to build the tools.

Reply #31 from StarControl Forums Top

I also want to be clear about the issue with procedurally generated planets:

It's not that it's hard to make them pretty.  The issue is having them be interesting to explore.  It's not like we're going to dump our procedueral generation code.  If someone wants to create a Star Control universe that has a trillion planets in it, they can. And some % of them will be gorgeous and interesting.

But, and here's the key difference: The planets in the new Star Control are there as a mini-game unto itself.  That means the mountains and ravines and such are basically levels.  

For example, there's a quest where the object you have to get is at the top of a steep plateau surrounded by a ravine of lava.  You can only get to it by trading a certain item for an improved Lander thruster.   That means we need to craft a planet to fit that description with those particular game mechanics.

The planets in Star Control aren't there just to be pretty (which they are) but for the gameplay of shooting, jumping, avoiding obstacles, etc.

Early in development, the planet was to just procedurally generate 5,000 or so planets and then place various quest items on it. That's how it is *right now*.  However, the problem is that the experience of one planet is pretty much the same as the next.  Sure, some are lava, some have acid storms, and are very pretty.  But the gameplay is very similar from one planet to the next and exploring those planets became quite grind.

And then what about exploring 5,000 planets? Let's say you can explore each one in 5 minutes.  That would amount to 416 hours of just exploring planets.  If they were all, other than cosmetics, basically the same gameplay, that would be very boring.

Now, with the tools we have, we're still going to do the first round via procedueral generation but now we're loading them up in an editor and going to town on the important planets to make sure they have interesting gameplay.  However, that means coming up with a Spore-like editor for planets.

 

Reply #32 from StarControl Forums Top

My $0.02 on Sculpted vs Procedurally generated planets...

 

In all honesty I would love to see a good hybridization of the two...

Sculpted Planets:

  • Known planets like those in our solar systems
  • Story/Lore/Mission planets
  • Side mission planets, IE Part upgrades & etc
  • Significant "Landmark" planets
  • Planets named by first round of Founders with broad overview of input on how the planet would be from the one who named it... IE:  Planet A would be a tidally locked planet mostly resembling Earth that contains a civilization or ruins of said civilization in the area of the planet that's basically locked in Twilight hours.

Essentially every planet/star other than the above would be procedurally generated for strip mining at our leisure.

 

Also Brad, I'm one who says I'd rather see it late & done right instead of on time & rushed out the door.

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Reply #33 from StarControl Forums Top

I saw someone on the steam forums advocate for coop campaign support (A tall order). If we're going to push release out a whole year, I think a drop in drop out coop mechanic (that retains both player's progress if possible) would be a major selling point. Of course, this would require multiple ships in SM and flying on the campaign map.

I'm no developer, so maybe that isn't as easy as I think it is, but I'm positive it would move copies. I know I have at least one friend who'd pick this up if we could take on the galaxy as a team!

On PG: I had hoped that this would flesh out the galaxy a little, but was afraid that reliance on it would make things too bland. Keep making the tough choices - I prefer delays to a shoddy product release.

Reply #34 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Pyro411, reply 32


Sculpted Planets:

 

    • Known planets like those in our solar systems

 

    • Story/Lore/Mission planets

 

    • Side mission planets, IE Part upgrades & etc

 

    • Significant "Landmark" planets

 

    • Planets named by first round of Founders with broad overview of input on how the planet would be from the one who named it... IE:  Planet A would be a tidally locked planet mostly resembling Earth that contains a civilization or ruins of said civilization in the area of the planet that's basically locked in Twilight hours.



I agree wholeheartedly with Pyro about the Founder-named planets getting some sculpting input from us Founders.  Any chance this might happen?

Reply #35 from StarControl Forums Top

Btw, is there going to be multiplayer beyond the supermelee?  Co-op would be nice to have.

Reply #36 from StarControl Forums Top

And as many a developer has wrongly believed, procedural generation seemed like a good idea at the time. ;)


Procedural generation works great when you set boundaries.

Star Control II has a good setup. Each star system is randomly generated off a seed and where it is on the map.
You can go into the code, shift any star by 1 pixel in any direction, and it will have an entirely new set of planets.

The only system in-game that is completely defined is the Sol system. Other important systems have one or two planets defined and the rest is up to the random generation.

I believe I heard that the starmap was randomly generated as well, then it was hardcoded and systems were moved around on a need to basis. But don't quote me on that.

Reply #37 from StarControl Forums Top

I am glad to see Stardock taking their time and giving the title more TLC. I'm also glad to see them move away from PG planets and focus on sculpted planets. And I'm most excited to see what the Stardock boys have come up with in terms of planetary exploration and adding a new layer of interactivity to the SC2 gameplay. 1 more year is nothing when you've waited 25. But a game that doesn't live up the legacy would be deeply disappointing. Thanks guys for taking risks and trying to push the envelope on this title. 

Reply #38 from StarControl Forums Top

From what I have seen, I think you guys are doing a fantastic job. As much as I would love to have the game in my hands now, I wouldn't want you guys to rush things. I hope you guys get all the time you need to make the opening as best as possible. 

 

Keep up the great work and thanks for bringing back a universe I simply loved and enjoyed.