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[peous]

Hmm to be honest I already had this feedback, but I'm a bit stubborn

I understand your doubts about these skeletons, but I would like to have a more subtle way of destroying ships than just breaking all the connected blocks. Two visually identical ships could have a different structure and be beaten different ways, finding their weak spots. I think gameplay would be more interesting and I'd like to explore this way.

So how could the player know this structure & find the weak spots ? The thing is to find a rule so structure is obvious for the attacker.

- I could display/orient the graphical blocks depending on where they are attached, or add some overlay (like the debug arrows but with nicer graphics).
- Maybe a display mode laser scan could display ship structure for a short time, and so player could find the weak spot  I like this one

If all this doesn't work (from a gameplay point of view), I will switch back to another way of connecting parts. The one you suggested, a 4-connected could work but is more classical. I could also test a 2-connected approach, or 3-connected... Just have to find a good rule. This won't be a lot of change, as the structure algorithm is not merged with the destruction algorithm.

I just thought, maybe some blocks could be 1-connected like now, and other special blocks 4-connected, and thus bring a more solid structure to the ship ?

[Kriechgebuesch]

I can see why you like the mechanic adding depth and all but I'd still strongly advise against it. Especially because if it plays anything like captain forever I'd already have a hard time aiming at specific general areas of a ship, much less exact joints of skeletons. The only case in which this would add depth is, if the player is both able to hit what they want to (at least kinda) and to actually bother to analyze weakpoints in the structure of every enemy.

If the ship would not fall apart at all and you have localized damage it would still allow for attacking decisions like would I like to disable the engines/steering or disable the weapons etc. And when building you'd still have considerations like positioning of weapons,engines and armor.

[peous]

Hmmm I understand your concerns. I don't want to stick to Captain Commander. I'd like do something different !
But I'll see what gameplay becomes. If aiming at a specific part is too complicated, I'll make ships less fragile.

Here are some more random generated ships, and showing structure. Some use symmetry, some don't.
I agree that with random ships, skeleton is really not obvious to know.

Anyway, looking at the picture, if you had one shot for each ship, I think it's fun to try to find the best spot to fire...

So, I'll do some test, and we'll see... nothing is written yet ! and feedbacks will for sure influence the result ^^

[Kriechgebuesch]

Certainly can't argue with letting the gameplay do the talking And with a combination of your seemingly open mind and a relative ease of changing the program that should be no problem then!

[eigenbom]

Got some great ideas there, I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out..

[peous]

Some tests with ship generation and trying to learn them something...
Quite failet yet ^^

[peous]

I stopped wasting my time with genetics & random generation (for now ^^) and I added some background and some "real" combat

- Explosion effects
- Background planet
- Zoom in/out
Also, enemies can now fire on you. You can see in the video that it's really hard to survive when they are setup to be aggressive !

Youtube video

I'm nearly dead at the end... need to tune this

[peous]

I'm doing some research on thrusters & trails, as I think it's one of the more important effect on a space game.

Here are some examples of quite different thuster trails:

Unfortunately I don't know much about the subject, but I'd like the player to influe to the way his thruster trails are generated.

If someone has some references on these kind of trails, some theorical information, or some techniques used in videogames, I'm interested

[peous]

Not much reply
Anyway, I made some tests about a thuster & trail generator
Having a lot of fun ^^

The grey part on the left is the engine.

All this is WIP, I'll post more when I work on my algorithm !

[eigenbom]

i'm still watching dude, keep it up, it's looking great, especially the 3d planet in the background

[Belimoth]

Yesh, the planet is a very cool touch.

[peous]

Thank you. To be honest I hesitate, because it's not really pixel-art related...

It makes really big pixels (on the planet), and that's why I put big pixels also for the stars... But ships have small pixels...

Anyway, if you think it integrates well with foreground ships, I'm reassured 

[peous]

More about thrusters

I made a big image to better compare generated models. Main thruster trail have now sub-trails. Not realistic at all but I like the results

[eigenbom]

well the planet style sort of clashes a little, but it adds depth. you could use the planets in the game, e.g., have little block satellites orbitting them (in the 2d plane) or have little square blocks as buildings that you can shoot or dock with? i think that definitely would make this game stand out from cpt jameson..

[peous]

Oooo that was a long time without a post.
Code didn't progressed much, I am more thinking about design and universe.

Copy that, eigenbom. Like I said, I'm thinking about design at the moment, maybe an idea about this will pop !

Meanwhile, this is a fist idea about a HUD.

To be honest I'm hesitating between this rough square design, that may keep the "pixel-art" style, or something more complex like the quick attempt I made for Sirius Online. If you have any preference just tell me.