"I Hunger!" I love it! I love that you will have a tribute to Sinistar in this as a boss ship, that is great! In Sinistar: Unleashed my brother is the voice of the true Sinistar at the end of the game. "Beware... I live!" I know I am flooding this thread with posts, but I am going to be offline for probably a month or so in a couple days. They are just about to start the public beta to start working this s
Cuorebrave, yes, that is a form of "disqualification zone". That would work, too.
Here are some suggestions for finding the right map size for the ship speeds that are present, and some ideas for how to get started in finding a good balance that will support the widest range of ships. Start by picking a range to balance before that excludes any outliers. The outliers will just wind up working out in the end. For example, you might have two “big scary evil” ships that have really powerful weapons an
If they can find the right map size where the slower ship "owns the center" and the faster ship "has the initiative", the "tractor beam" won't be necessary. The fast ship can still run a short distance, it's not as if the slow ship is anchored to the center and the faster ship dances around it. There should be more room than that, but small enough that it doesn't take an annoying amount of time before the slower ship has the faster one pinned up against the asteroids by cutting of
Cuorobrave. “Speed is life”. “Speed gives you the initiative.” A slower ship can't run away from or escape a faster ship unless the faster ship allows it to run away or escape. The faster ship chooses when and where exchanges of fire will take place, and the slower ship can't do anything about it. Realistice space combat makes for a terrible game on many levels, most importantly “flight model”. Gamers want space ships to fly like
An asteroid field works. In Sinistar we had unbeatable cloaked ships that would start swarming you if you strayed out of the game area.
The retrograde is usually only a potentially game breaking issue when the only objective is fighting to the death. Part of the reason it is a problem is that the psychology of it is all wrong, it is a fight being forced by a game. In real life nobody would fight to the death in the middle of empty space for no reason at all. There will almost always be an objective. Any time there is an objective it doesn't matter if the map is infinite in size, the players will fight
That's what I've envisioned as well. It's how Subspace worked, which I played a lot of, and a lot of other top down space shooters have worked that way as well. Any Subspace player can tell you that, since the radar is just an extension of your "visual range" off-screen, you have such good situational awareness that hitting moving ships on radar was easy in that game with either prox torpedoes or even just streams of bullets. Hitting things on radar adds another dimension to
The root of the problem here is what SFB players call the “Kaufman Retrograde”. Kenneth Kaufman's (“Zzzzzz...” It's a 30-year-old joke) original Kaufman Retrograde scenario demonstrated how five Federation Heavy Cruisers flying backwards could not be defeated by an equal pursuing force. And the Federation is the one of the worst at doing this among the races of the SFU! Seeking weapons are even more powerful in this situation. <p style=
A planet, gravity source, or other astronomical object can be at the center of the map, just like in Space Wars. I had brought this up as pretty much the first point I ever brought up in these forums because it is such an all-encompassing massive issue within this genre. It's not a design choice, it is the physics of the combat environment. One way or another, faster ships must be contained. The way that plays out the best, and feels the best to the players, is to tu
Cool. I went from 14k to DSL to a cable modem and had a cable modem for the last 15 years or so. Once I had a cable modem I stopped paying attention to modem speeds because it didn't matter. It was "futuristic fast" compared to what I had grown up with. I started "online" on a Franlklin 1100 (Apple II+ clone) and a 1200 baud modem, so once I had a cable modem "speed" wasn't really relevant anymore. I was worried my FPS/action gaming days might be over and I'd o
The map size/edge issue is one that will never have a final, definitive answer. The scenario matters, the ship design matters. There are different “best solutions” depending on the ships and the situation. A “penalty barrier” in a claustrophobic “boxing ring” size map is ultimately the best solution for 1v1 dueling for a lot of reasons I've already mentioned. Another reason that is specifically relevant to Star Control is that th
I don't know much about the meaning of modern speeds. I grew up with 1200bps, 14k was a revolutionary breakthrough, haha. Thanks for the answer, that is very good news. I was worried it might not be fast enough for games today, that's very good news that it is.
The reason a simple wall works best is that it can handle any type of weapon or device in a good way. A disqualification zone, for example, doesn't work with all types of weapons or systems. A "Repel" from Subspace, a gravity wave that flings things away from the ship, could be used to knock a player out of bounds and out of the game. Or a tractor beam could hold them over the line. A solid, no question about where the line is, barrier is easy to make work with everyth
I've been using a cable modem for a long time, but won't be able to have that anymore. I am going to be stuck with download speed 10 mbs, upload 2 mbs on a wireless connection. Is that even fast enough to play games these days?
Very perceptive, Gavros, there is nothing more powerful than aft firing weapons. The most powerful ship design has most weapons facing aft, not forward. There are advantages to the screen wrap, and it is actually the easiest way to address the issue that solves a lot of things on its own. This makes it a good choice for those who don't really understand the issues involved. The most obvious example is that with screen wrap there is no such thing as a ship being "too
I should probably add that different map edges are better for different things. In a fun/casual map, maybe a Capture the Flag thing, a barrier/wall that you bounce off of without penalty, like the side-bumpers of a billiard table, work best. I personally don't like the "disqualification zone" for a lot of reasons that mostly revolve around how the fast ship can use that in "gamey" ways. A no-nonsense wall stops all that one way or another. A 1v1 duel is a unique si
I had brought this up in the earliest days and mentioned that it is the most complex issue within this genre. You have developed a pretty good understanding of the basic issue, Volusianus. A big part of the “unresolvable” issue you are delving into is that there is no solution that works for all ships. No matter how you choose to present it, which option you choose, it will still ultimately be about map size. The most
(X4.1) Custom Distant System Destinations ;-) Thank you, Kevin Siembieda!
More subtle references might work, like they already have an Ur Quan and Spathi ship hanging in one of the scenes they posted recently. The one your list made me think of was what I call a "bank-shot" reference, two combined. Somewhere in the game a character could say "Orz's is da' bestest" in a bank-shot reference to both Star Control and Warcraft. Haha, I love it!
I definitely like the look of it. I've always thought of Star Control as being "cartoony", and this really does seem like an updated version of that look too me. I'm sure it could be done in several different styles that would make me say that, and this is one of them. I think some people don't think of the original Star Control as intentionally "cartoony" and attribute the look to its EGA graphics. For those who have always thought of it as being like a cartoon, it
Its not ego, its 40 years of accumulated knowledge of thousands of people. They seem to have deleted the post I had been replying too.
Brad, Paul, & Fred seem to have been in communication about Paul & Fred's game all along, they seem to at least somewhat planned this together. I don't think Paul & Fred are being jerks here. Top down space combat is timeless and has been a primary genre within the world of gaming almost since the dawn of time of modern games (which began Avalon Hill in the aftermath of WWII). The computer game industry abandoned this genre early on. Then two guys decided
Mine was Sheboygan III... now they just need to make a space monster that will eat Sheboygan III and they can carry on a fine tradition of comedy within the gaming world. If you make the monster look like the "Planet Killer" of ST:TOS, that would be a cool reference to anybody who recognizes the comedy world of "Sheboygan III";-)
I think they can compliment and feed off of each other, especially since they all seem to have a good relationship with each other.