Suggestions

[Elladan]

Hello,

I've come to test this game following a friend of mine ( pringles )

After few hours of testing, here are the improvements that i've thought of :

28/06

- Teleporters : To move from a point to another quickly within a space station.

- Spawn Definers : Block you can choose to revive at when you die.
You build a 'portal' that must be at least 2 of height and 1 of width ( so that there is enough space to spawn in )
You appear inside the boundaries of the Portal ( can be somekind of cylinder )
Designed to make respawn rooms in space stations.
Team/Player who owns the space station can choose it as respawn point.

- Navigation System : Actually, there is a navigation pannel. What i would see to it is a "auto-pilot" that makes your ship go to the destination, avoiding obstacle ( as asteroids ) so that the game don't crash/lag. You would also be able to choose the position of system you want to go to. This way, you could upgrade/repair or do something else during the travel if it's a long one. ( Cause being in front of your computer just for holding a key for maybe half an hour isn't that cool )


13/06

Weapons, Missiles and Beams : I've encountered some problems building them as i want. As for example, building 2 simetrical lasers, one will shoot 1 lasers, the other will shoot multiple with different firerate. Also, they might be coming from one of the laser module composing the entity that i don't want.
>> So, entities needs to be defined more strictly as 1 entity is equivalent to 1 laser/missile/beam and also, we should be able to define from which block the laser/missile/beam will come from. ( For example, i build a big "+" designed laser, and i want it to shoot 1 laser from the middle. Well, currently, it would shoot multiple lasers from an edge of "+" that i didn't choose. )

Bug using catalog : I've tried to buy a lot of ship without moving at a small buy interval ( like click,click,click on the buy button ), the first ship spawn well, but others spawned on him. It made the game go wrong ( i was teleported inside the planet hulls and had to dig my way out, and each time i went near the ship i had buyed, i was teleported back inside the planet )
>> Maybe set a cooldown for buying or at least set a security for it spawn restricted to the condition : " there is free space enought for the ship so that it doesn't stuck into another".

Doors and Energy Fields : This suggestion is designed more for space stations. Energy Fields are designed to contain a gravity, and be permeable to ships, blocks, lasers, missiles, people etc... So that when, a ship go through an energy Field, if you land it on the floor, he will stays there and someone going toward it won't be able to make it move ( as in space, if you go forward next the a ship, you can "push" it away. ). The ship is able to extract himself from that gravity with his thrusters.
Doors are a bit different, they have two state : open or close. When close, things can't get through them and they restrain gravity. When open, they let gravity influence players, and ships etc ... and things are able to pass through it.
>> The objective of those would be to set a gravity in a space station other than the one set by Gravity block, and to set that a closed room has its gravity while a open one is subject the space gravity. It could be fun, when you are in a space station under attack, that if the corridor where you are is breached, you start going off the floor and moving like in space until you reach a door and close it behind you. ( Still i have no idea if it's possible or easy to realise )

Docking Module : First of all, it would be great being able to connect Docking Module between themselves and mustn't have to be connected to a core. Futhermore, 1 Docking module link gets the ship attached a 3 rotation liberty. ( Turn of himself, Rotate arount the link to the right-left, Rotate around the link to Front-Back )
But being able to set more than one Docking link would restrain that liberty. 2 Links would leave only 1 rotation liberty ( Rotation perpendicular the segment that separate the two links ) and thus, 3 Links would make the ship unable to move.
>> This way, docking would be used for more purposes : 3 for landing ships, 2 for rotating objets and 1 for turrets.

27/05

Shorcuts : It would be cool if we could also define actions in the Keyboard option with the mouse ( right click, left click, scroll up/down, scroll click, button4/5 ) And also that we could switch to next weapon ( by scrolling for exemple ) to be quicker switching weapons.

Docking : When we dock two ships they aren't connected nicely, they got stuck in each other etc...
I suggest that when you dock you have to choose a direction in which block allows the docking then the dock module and the core are stuck next to each other as if they had been built like this. This way, the ship with the docked ship would seem as a single ship.

Thrust, Mass and Speed : I think that the way you choose to limit the speed depending on the mass is wrong :s
You set mass to be exponential ( or maybe just logariithm ) but that's wrong. I've built a 300 000 cost ship that had to get half of his blocks as thrusters ! Also, after going above 0.5, it's easy for a huge ship to get to 50 which should not be.
So, i suggest that you set mass to be linear depending on the blocks ( the weight of the blocks may vary depending on the blocks though ) and that you set thrusters to a speed that make them support approximately xx blocks.
Then to limit the speed of big vessels, you add a new formula, depending on the mass that sets a thrust limit. This way : the speed of huge ships is always limited by their mass and adding thrust so that the thrust mass is above 0.5 is easy. Maybe you could set the mass for the 0.5 speed as the mass of a planet and set a formula that goes from 50 speed for 0 mass, to 0.5 for planets mass. The following formula works pretty well ( but the 2000 coefficient is to change if you set the mass not to be exponential ) : max_thrust=(-atan(mass/2000)+pi/2)*(100/pi)

12/05

- Private catalog : i think it could be nice if players could decide to share or not their creations with others.

- Stasis Mine : That would be a new core i think for a mine, ( or maybe a module that set a mine below the ship that drop it ). Anyway, it would be a block holding itself in space and that would stop the ship for a small duration if there is a physial contact between the ship and the mine.

- Ion weapon : Would be a laser that would disconnect the hitted module from the core or the weapon controller. Doing so would prevent the ship from firing or moving if the weapons, controllers, thrusters, core, shields, etc are hitted. Still no damages would be made to hull with this weapon and no block would be removed.

- Asteroids : Now, we can harvest them for their blocks and reuse those blocks but we should be able to sell them also i believe.

- Reconstructor Laser : An idea for a new module that would take hull from inventory and place them on the structure hitted by the laser. It could be use to repair planets. However, this laser shouldn't be putting the blocks too fast.

- Cockpit Module : when making a big ship, we have blocks in the view because the view is from the core block it seems. Well, it can be quite hard to have a good sight with all thoses blocks and a cockpit module would set the view from that cockpit. After that, i've not thought about when the cockpit is destroyed but maybe when destroyed the view would be back to the core.

- Thruster/Warp Modules : A new module, Warp, that would make the ship go in straight line at a high speed. They would be great for traveling. Thrusters would be used for fighting ableing the ship to turn as they actually do. But they would get a max speed depending on the ship mass. This way, huge ships would be having a low velocity in combat but could travel fast with warp and small ships might get high speed in fights and travel with warp also.

- More planets : Could be cool to have more planets ( neutral ones ) with various radious. Maybe team could take the control over them ( by shooting the core ? ) so that the team would gain a higher income in credits depending on the number and size of the planets he owns.

10/05

- Shields and battery : I suggest that shields use the ship's battery when taking damages and that they switch off when either the player decides it or when there is no battery left. This would lead the players to make a decision about shooting back or not taking damages depending on his battery (bigger ships have bigger batteries and are more able to hold a shield) . Futhermore, the shield comsumption on battery would depend on his size and lasers would deal more damages to the shield than a missile. It would bring more strategic options about using lasers or missiles depending if the shield is active or not.

- Missiles : Missiles are doing lots of damages and aren't restricted in quantities yet. This is why, it might be better to restrict their number to 2-3 missiles per entities ( an entity represent the set of block for 1 missile with it's speed, damages, range etc... ) so that they have to be used more carefully. Meanwhile, when out of stock, these missiles could be bought at nearest shop with an affordable cost.

- Stealth Module : This is a new module idea of a block that would temporarily remove the ship from the indicators on others ship screen , using significant energy from batteries. However, this wouldn't get the ship invisible. Doing this might give players the ability to set traps or ambush others.

- Team Orbital Stations : This would be some kind of ship, buildable by a team using some new modules beginning with a team station core ( more expensive than a ship core ). The benefit of such a team station would be to share the modules they buy from shops by placing them on the station. For this reason, the station's depot capacity would be determined by the amount of "Depot Module" on the stations. Moreover, a player of the team could build a new ship there according to the catalog ( a catalog that the station wouldn't share with shops so that team could have more privacy for the ship they build ) and to the modules disponible in the depot. The station would also get some advantages over ship, as the other team can't enter it and steal modules from it, they could only destroy it.

- Docking : A ship can be docked to another but, they can't be undocked yet. This would be a usefull feature.

08/05

- 3rd Person Combat Mode : Actually, it's a First Person combat mode that prevent us from having a quick look at our ship damages while a 3rd Person would allow us to have a quick look at it ( maybe even rotate the view around the ship while maintening Alt and moving the mouse ) while fighting.

- Shields / Lasers / Missiles Balance : Actually, the way we can build lasers and missiles make them too strong. So maybe add a max range for lasers and missiles that match with the distance we can see and set limits to damages and speed. Also, i believe that ships should resist more with hull and shields to the weapons than they actually do.

- Ship Saves : Actually, on a game we can save our ship and build it according to some golds. I believe it would be better if we could save them on our HD and load them on other games ( for example, i build my ship for a hour on one game and then can use it again on others by loading it in the shop )

- Speed : I've not seen any limits to the speed a ship can go. But i would recommand that after 30 of speed for example, the ship is considered in "Light Speed" and can only go straight until he reduce his speed. This would allow ships to leave a battle but not to fight moving around at incredible speed. However, the speed limit for control could depend on the ship size ( a small ship should move easier than a big one )

- Set AI on our ship : I think it would be great if we could build a ship and set a AI for it right after if we want to. AI should also be given orders like protect from a main ship that would give direction to smallers ship controlled by AI for example.

Thanks for reading,
Elladan

 

[schema]

Hi,
thank you very much for the suggestions!

• 
  3rd Person Combat Mode: you can already zoom out using the mouse wheel. Also you can (kind of) look around your ship holding the right control key. These are at the moment just debug controls and I have yet to integrate them fully (Considering some people don't have a mouse wheel)
• 
  Balance: you are right. The game as it is is pretty imbalanced. I didn't put that much time into it yet, since there still are some new modules I want to put in. Also, different tiers of some modules are planned. But I will limit the power and distance soon, or at least let them grow much slower the more you have.
• 
  Cross server ship load: This feature is planned. at the moment, the ship you build is only saved at the server, where you build it. you can use the admin command (in chat)
  /load_ship saveName newShipName
  to load a ship without having to pay money. I'll ad a local copy of that ship blueprint soon so you can upload it on other servers
• 
  Speed: A limit will definitely be set. Also I really like the light speed idea.
• 
  AI: At the moment it's only possible to set AI on ships that you saved. But you can just build a ship -> save it under the name, lets say "ai-ship" -> use admin command in chat: /spawn_mobs ai-ship green 1 -> and one instance of your ship is spawned for team green with an AI. More complex AI as well as something like wing men will also come soon.

Thanks for playing,
schema

 

[Elladan]

Just, for the IA suggestion, it was more like being on a server in which you aren't admin. Like expanding the possibility to all players and not restricted to admin. ( After that, the admin can choose if this feature is allowed or not on his server )

 

[pringles_x]

Hi, what Elladan means, is that it would be really cool if you could build a huge ship, and since there aren't any automatic defence turrets you can add, well you should be able to fuse a small ship onto your big one as a turret, and which would be controlled by IA. In that way, you would be able to attack in other directions than right in front of you.
And the other thing is that you could buy Guard ships controlled by IA, at the same cost as a normal ship in the catalog, except that you don't control them. They would protect you and only your ship from other threats, and that would fly around you and follow you. You would even be able to select a target with the u / y button, and put an attack key, for the IA's to go and attack that target. (that would really be neat! )
Another Idea: just for gameplay it would be great if we could change the control keys for the game (some of us don't have qwerty keyboards so it's kind of hard to play )

thanks for reading
cheers

 

[pringles_x]

it lags as hell, its not really 20% of memory usage, because now i have 1fps instead of 30

 

[pringles_x]

Nevermind the error report and the last post, it was just because of the version before, i redownloaded the game works fine 200-300 fps

 

[Elladan]

Update 10/05

 

[Elladan]

Update 10/05 with Missiles, Stealth Module, Team Stations and Undocking

 

[schema]

Hi, thanks for those awesome suggestions.

• 
  Shield and Battery: the shield is already taking power from the batteries (probably to few to notice), but the shield should already turn off, if the power goes to 0. I'll increase the power usage of shield to something noticeable. haven't yet thought about a good solution for missiles hitting shields. But missiles doing less damage to shields seems to bring in a nice factor into the game, considering what damage missiles are capable of.
  
  
• 
  Missiles: so, basically a stock for missiles. I planned to increase the reload time a lot, but I haven't yet thought of a stock.
  
  
• 
  Stealth: I love this suggestion. I'll definitely do that. Furthermore, I think I'll also implement some kind of camouflage (Star Trek style): It takes lots of power and shooting will turn it off.
  Also, there should be something to counter. Like a sensory module, that depending on it's set size, will have a range, where it can detect hidden entities.
  
  
• 
  Space Stations: I already have many plans on space stations. They are going to be stationary, because they will be able to be very large and the physics won't handle a collision of 2 very large object very efficiently (yet). They can, however, once the universe gets bigger jump to other systems using a special module that takes a lot of time to charge. Also, they will have gravity (I won't reveal yet how that is going to work). I really like your suggestions and they are only logical to include.
  
  
• 
  Docking: This is feature, I didn't refine very much yet. Once I'll get to it, there will be many more things, you can do. Like setting a constraint (like a hinge) between docked ships, shared module capabilities, and even setting motor motions on the connections: this would enable you to for example build a space station with a rotating ring around it (or a robot with flailing arms )

 

[Elladan]

Update 12/05

 

[pringles_x]

About the 12/5 update
I've come to a better idea than to limit the max speed of a vessel.
Speed is not the problem but thrust is, How i see it is like acceleration of the ship, each second, the ship would be able to gain the amount of thrust in it's speed. For instance if i have 5 of thrust, every second i gain 5 km/h in speed.
This is why i have come up with a formula that would limit the maximum amount of thrust of a ship, depending on it's mass, which also means it's size, which is kind of logical because a massive ship shouldn't be able to move that easily.
The formula is Thrust(mass) = -mass + 5 + sqrt(mass^2 + 1000) this is an examble you should be free to modify because the minimum thrust a ship should have is 5, if the size of the ship tends to infinite, and the maximum is approx 35, which is for a ship without any mass.
You should mabe modify the extremums but not too much.
Whith this formula, any ship would be able to reach a maximum speed that you set, but it would take much longer for a massive one to reach it than a small fighter, which is only logical.

An other Idea i came up with is about the lasers.
I've come to see that you have put some limitations in the laser system in your newest update, but it is still a bit cheated in some circumstances.
The basic idea consists of changing the whole laser system and base it on overheat of the lasers aswell, which you havn't yet counted for.
the system would be only based on the depth of the laser module, and not on the height or width, wich I think makes all the ships look extremely alike and ugly:
1 laser block would shoot extremely fast, with a really high rate of fire, but with limited range and very low power.
this would be great if you want to make tiny fighters that can still piss of the bigger ships, but not too much due to the lack of range and power, but since the laser would only consist of 1 block, the fighters would be rather fast, which is the goal.
However, if you increase the depth of the laser, the range would significantly increase aswell as the power, but since the laser consumes much more energy and is much more powerful, well it would heat up really faster, and would need a cooldown before another shot. I'd also suggest charging up the beam before being able to shoot at the enemy.
With this kind of engine, it would be hard to get to shoot a small fighter, but if you aim well, you should be able to pierce at least 10 blocks into an armour, with a laser radius much bigger than the ones we have now. (only for the big gun)
In conclusion, the longer the laser module is, the more power it consumes, the more powerful it becomes but the more it needs to charge, and the lower is the fire rate. About the speed of the lasers, i think that the bigger it doesnt matter, and both modules should fire at the same speed , wich would be like in reality, extremely fast, and not like it is now, with only one module.
Another thought is that you should be able to turn your ship arount itself without any thrusters, because it is only logical that you don't turn your ship with thrusters on the back of it...
The Larger ships would turn really slower on themselves than smaller ships, which would certainly add a big efficiency against small fighters, but that comes to my next idea:
Changing Cores within the same ship. It would be great if you could just press q or e and instantly change the core from where you control. Imagine that you are in a large ship and come to be agressed by a small horde of fighters. You coudn't do anything against them if you don't GEt TO YOUR TURRETS! (although they might already be controlled By your AI) you should change controller and begin shooting at these small bastards from your turrets! Each time a turret would be out of order you'd automatically be redirected to the next one or to the main ship core wich controls your thrusters.
This is a really good idea because it would help a large and slow ship defend itself from small fighters, but another idea wich comes with this is that the thrust should be kept active, like a lever, whenever you press w the lever would move forward and your thrust would increase until it's maximum, and when you don't press w anymore, the lever stays at the same place, which enables your ship to move alone, without any driver, but allows you to use your turrets while your ship is moving!
In that case, you might want to add some sort of grappling hook you could use if you're lost in space and you need to regain your vessel but it's moving by itself!
Thanks for reading
Best regards
Pringles

 

[Elladan]

"Another thought is that you should be able to turn your ship arount itself without any thrusters, because it is only logical that you don't turn your ship with thrusters on the back of it..."
I totally disagree with that. But it's true that it's not logical to turn on ourselves, we should have to do some maneuvers which, depending on our acceleration take a short or long distance. This is the way it really works and thrusters are needed for that.

 

[pringles_x]

yea but side thrusters, which don't exist in the game yet

 

[schema]

I canged the thruster system now for Version 0.054 according to your suggestions. Tell me if you like the new system or if the old one was better

 

[pringles_x]

Bug report / suggestions:

After playing a while, i won a match and after that my ship didn't give me any information about thrust, mass, speed etc. even though it worked just before

After saving my ship one time into the catalog, i won a match and from there on i wasn't able to save it anymore... (the button wouldn't display)

The shield generator (i had 4) makes me lag whenever i display the shield surface

Suggestion: Remove the pre-made hole in the planets that makes it too easy to win quickly.
also increase the size of the planet's crust to the maximum, so you don't have a free space in it.

Every test was made 2 players online pc(host ) + mac player, Lan, v0.055, deathmatch mode

Cheers,

Pringles

 

[schema]

I just finished reimplementing the docking system. It comes with the next update (0.057). It's now much more robust. I also added the possibility for both the docking as well as the docked ship to undock. Also, I added a 1 second delay before the physics starts recongnizing both objects as different objects again, so you have to use that time to get away from the docked ship, or the ships may entangle a bit.

@pringles_x
I'll look into the bugs with the round end. It seems like there are still some problems in the cleaning up / restarting process. Both the speed display and the save issue come from the same origin, after round ends, the player seem to not update his entered ship anymore (so the speed and shop thinks, you are still in the ship you were when the round ended)
I'll add a low quality shield drawer maybe. If the lag is to much, you can still turn off shield drawing in the startup menu
Your Suggestion: I was planning to add some game mode options anyway (how big is the system, how many asteroids, etc), so I'll put that option you asked for there.

cheers,
schema

 

[pringles_x]

You know what would be great ?
to be able to switch cores you control from the press of a button, that way you can quickly switch to your escape pod and undock it as soon as possible before your bigger ship gets destroyed !
or you could use your turret on top of your ship when ships attack you from behind !

Cheers
Pringles

 

[schema]

I was also planning that for the cockpit module to come.

 

[mypel16000]

The Deathstar Bots dont come on automatically do they?

You should make this automatic

 

[pringles_x]

they come on automatically in co-op mode
otherwise, if you're in team deathmatch you can spawn them with the command

/spawn_mobs ship_name_here team_color_here number_of_them_here
or
/spawn_mobs ship_name_here number_of_them_here team_color_here

i don't remember.

Have fun