Lets Take Over The Universe (LTOTU) Development Thread

3itg

Ive been making a game in GS for just over three weeks.
I wanted to share my progress with gamesalad after one month of using it, as well provide a frame of reference for some of the questions I ask on the forums.
I figured starting a thread like this would be a great way to "show off" my project as well as get help with some of my questions. (I put show off in quotes because while I am impressed with what I can do after a month, It probably not great in comparison to what others can create)

http://arcade.gamesalad.com/g/92667?GSCVersion=0.9.94

Features so far...
12 Unique Ships (more Coming)
Upgradable Weapons with Credits (credits and weapons broke in arcade)
Upgradable Shields and Armor with Credits
Upgrade your Ship with Combat Rating Points
AI Spawn that randomly selects the number and the ship type of ships in the system.
12 Solar Systems, 12 Unique (their behaviors are all the same at the moment, since I havent decided how to increment difficulty yet)
Randomly assigned AI Behaviors (A little buggy still)
Combat (A little buggy as well)
A galactic map to choose your destination
Save and Load Game Progress

This game is a branch off of another game I am in the progress of making. Lets Take Over The Universe (LTOTU) is focusing on the combat and domination aspect of the larger game.
In LTOTU, Ships dont cost Credits... You buy them with your combat rating. You acquire credits from combat, but those are used for travel, refueling, ship outfits like extra shields and armor and weapon upgrades like faster fire rate, or more damage.
When you reach a high enough combat rating... You can attempt to start taking over the planets, But this is no easy task.

High Priority Fixes that I have planned include:
Replace Art: alot of the art is either placeholders, or unfinished. Most importantly... The HUD needs serious work.
Change Music: Dark State (the game this one is based on) is an epic space RPG, with epic music. LTOTU should have faster paced music for all the combat.
Fix AI Rotation Issue: Once I figure out why they dont rotate a full 360 degrees,I'll fix it and It will make combat with AI far less easy to exploit.
AI Speed Issue: All the AI has a speed loaded by ship type, as well as a turn speed. Somewhere in my logic, its getting reduced by something. So all the AI moves and reacts like they in slow motion.


Notes:(I had to rework my project in order to make an arcade version. I had to delete alot of content to get down to the size limit. It broke some stuff and Im not to sure all whats broken, not alot to test at the moment, but I'll fix the arcade version when I figure it out, and if I can keep it under 20Mb... Otherwise Ill just stick to my iPad Project.)

I am making a larger more in depth space adventure rpg, called Dark State.
It is based on the same core project.
Dark State has planned for it:
Rotoscoped 3D Models, with 3D light effects
A never ending mission system
Commodity Exchange
More Ships
More Weapons
Much more advanced combat, controls and AI.
6 Political Factions
and 6 sided story line where you can choose your alignment and help your side save the galaxy from destruction (or help em destroy it if thats how you roll)

I would love any feedback anyone has to offer.
Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

3itg

I realized later that the arcade version doesn't work at all.
So I figured I'd post a gameplay video with some explanations of what's happening.
Capturing the audio didn't sound good so I added the music from the game as the audio track on the video.




@MotherHoose, @jn2002dk
Thanks for discussing AI with me. I am using some of the methods we discussed here.

3itg

Question about my combat mechanics.
Most of the things in the game are based on one actor.
All AI are one actor, stats and ship grabbed from tables randomly.
My store is 1 "Item" actor, and spawns a copy of itself, increments an ID integer and sells / displays a different item based on that ID.
Mostly everything is dynamic.

However...
for combat I haven't been able to figure out a way to do this with the bullets.
Up to 10 AI, each can have up to 6 blasters and 4 turrets.
Each weapon has a fire rate, and a weapon damage stat.
Right now it is set up so every possible weapon, spawns it own actor bullet.
114 actors are bullets so that each one can pull different stats, based on which AI fired it, and which weapon it was.

At about the 10 minute mark in the video, you can see the effect this has on performance.

Any suggestions on a better way of doing this?

The only thing I can think of is to just lower the number of AI per scene.

3itg

Bump in hopes of getting a response to the above question

xforce

cool game

3itg

Thanks for checking it out.
Hoping to wrap up development and release by the end of the month.
Im excited about it.

3itg

Been another month, and the game is coming along nicely.
Current Priorities are debugging Combat, as well as Planetary Domination and the bonuses each planet gives.
I have also decided to really put the shine on this one. While I debug everything, Its giving me time to go through and redo any graphics that need attention and other fine details. I will not release until all major bugs have been resolved. Working on determining whether or not this will need to wait for the LUA-free engine before releasing to iOS devices.
But without further rambling...

creativeapps

Looks interesting and video is not available.

3itg

"We are currently in read-only mode. Your upload will continue but will not go live or be editable until read-only mode is over..."
My video finished uploading but when I checked after I got your response thats what Youtube told me.
I didn't know youtube had a read-only mode.

3itg

Well it seems to work now, but the color on the video looks messed up.
Probably not bad enough to warrant a redo... at least not until I have something new to report.
But anyway, I hope you guys think its interesting.

3itg

Its been a while.
Actually... the game looks completely different now.
It seems at this point... I will never finish. Must... keep... going...
But here short video as an update...

Hymloe

Looking pretty cool. Good to see an update.

You've made some real progress there on the UI elements, nice and moody.

The movement of the ships still looks kinda odd and random! But it's coming along.

It's a long haul when you work on one of these complex sort of games isn't it!? And then you see Flappy Birds making a mint, and it's the simplest thing ever, and you wonder what you're really trying so hard for! Haha. At least, that's how I feel with my complex games.

Possibly better off just making a bunch of really simple things, and having fun with that approach.

But yeah, sometimes the hardcore games call our hearts yonder! All the best to ya.

3itg

Thanks @Hymloe,
What ship movements are you referring to?
Their movements are animated and based on physics, I have not yet figured out how to "dampen" some of the values in a meaningful way to remove some of the more subtle (unnecessary) animations.
But for the most part, I would say they are doing exactly as I intend them to do.

The video shows a few different classes of ships that each use different tactics while fighting.
Several of the larger freighters and capital ships have escort fighters with them.
Capital Ships bank and fire their turrets / lay mine fields while attempting to keep their distance.
Fighters fire their afterburner to get away from a target that is too close, spin to shoot at target, and fire the afterburner again if the target is leaving range.
Escorts receive commands to attack targets from their parent ship, and the targets get prioritized.
If the parent ship gets disabled in combat, the escorts will initiate repairs after chasing off the threat... You see this for just a second at the end, before the disabled ship floats offscreen.
Now that the combat tactics are getting worked out, I plan to add several more sets.
Something not seen in the video is the Pirates' "Sneak Attack", where they pretend to be friendly, they also set traps for the player in the form of disabled ships, and when the player gets close enough to help, they ambush.
Traders will call in reinforcements / flee.
Military ships chase off pirates and keep the peace.

I should also mention that all the ships you see are one actor. They are spawned into the scene while the scene fades in and immediately "setup" themselves.

quantumsheep

It looks very nice indeed!

Great title too!

Looking forward to the 'dampening' stuff

QS =D