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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsMission Control [ON HOLD]
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toipot
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« on: January 13, 2013, 07:38:39 PM »

Hi Everyone,

I've been playing around with an idea for a short game project for a few weeks now, it's showing some promise so I thought I'd start a devlog to keep track of progress!

I'm aiming to make Mission Control (working title!) into a fairly minimal real time 'tactics' game, vaguely inspired by the old X-Wing mission briefings (for an example, take a look at this).

I'd like to put the player in the place of a commander overseeing a space combat mission, with a focus on ship manoeuvres / hit and fade tactics (you'll never be in a position where you can win the battle with simple force!). Many of the missions will have a get in - accomplish mission objectives as fast as possible - get out kind of structure. Hopefully this priority on mission objectives rather than simply destroying all enemy units will mean enough variety between missions to be engaging without having to introduce much complexity in terms of units or other gameplay elements.

Missions will occour in a two-phase setup, where you setup your initial unit locations and orders, and then a real time phase where you watch/control the battle as it unfolds. Although I'm yet to decide exactly the level of control that you will have over the real time phase.

At the moment I've got a good working prototype of the battle mode and mission editor up and running, but there remains a lot of work to be done as it's at a very early stage. For now here's some screens of an example battle and the mission editor to give you a feel for what things will look like, although there are a fair few examples of placeholder/programmer graphics here i'm afraid!  Smiley

"Red Scare" Battle example


Squadron movement highlighting


Mission editor example
« Last Edit: May 01, 2014, 07:06:00 PM by toipot » Logged
Mef
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« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2013, 03:38:09 PM »

Visuals look like Defcon in space, neat!

Graphics look coherent and informative, even if
the ships and stuff are just placeholders. I'll
definately keep my eyes on this.
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« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2013, 03:51:31 PM »

Visuals look like Defcon in space, neat!

Graphics look coherent and informative, even if
the ships and stuff are just placeholders. I'll
definately keep my eyes on this.
Man Defcon depressed the hell outta me.
I hope this won't be too much like Defcon.
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« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2013, 04:29:31 PM »

looks interesting. Glow the hell out of those sprites and grids for a cool and cheap neon effect!
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toipot
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« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2013, 03:53:21 AM »

Visuals look like Defcon in space, neat!

I'm really trying to go for a control panel kind of look, much like Defcon. In fact a very early prototype had all of the GUI baked onto the game 'surface' at the right of the grid area, so as to make the game look like it was being played on a physical control panel. It was pretty cool feeling like you were panning across the board issuing orders, but scrolling to the GUI became a a bit annoying so I ditched it in favour of a more traditional GUI.

Man Defcon depressed the hell outta me.
I hope this won't be too much like Defcon.

It shouldn't be too much like defcon  Grin certainly less nuclear weapons!  Tongue

looks interesting. Glow the hell out of those sprites and grids for a cool and cheap neon effect!

I'll give it a try!
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« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2013, 03:59:21 AM »

I like it. I really like these "plot board" simulators, I wish someone would make a new Typhoon game, like the old ones.

I'll give it a try!

Please, don't try and don't succeed with that =) I like the sharp graphics, I think Defcon looks terrible.
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« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2013, 07:55:23 AM »

Visuals look like Defcon in space, neat!

Graphics look coherent and informative, even if
the ships and stuff are just placeholders. I'll
definately keep my eyes on this.

I have no idea what Defcon is, sorry.  Shrug
BY what you said 'bout the game, it reminds me Gratuitous space battles, but with retro graphics. They're looking good, btw.
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toipot
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« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2013, 03:54:53 PM »

Thanks for the comments!  Smiley

Quote
BY what you said 'bout the game, it reminds me Gratuitous space battles, but with retro graphics. They're looking good, btw.

I'm planning on giving more in battle control than in Gratuitous space battles, but i'd like to give the feeling that your controlling actual independant human beings. You'll be able to issue general move/attack commands but the combat etc will be left up to the pilots. Hopefully I can try and get a reasonable impression of pilots dogfighting in 2D!  Grin.

I'd like to make the squads less responsive to commands when their commanding officer is killed etc, but i'm not sure if that would just be frustrating to the player rather than adding any strategic depth.

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« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2013, 05:14:26 AM »

I'm planning on giving more in battle control than in Gratuitous space battles, but i'd like to give the feeling that your controlling actual independant human beings. You'll be able to issue general move/attack commands but the combat etc will be left up to the pilots. Hopefully I can try and get a reasonable impression of pilots dogfighting in 2D!  Grin.

Oh, pretty cool idea! I would never thought that. But wouldn't be too complicated to control that amount of people at the same time? Or the game will be turn based?

I'd like to make the squads less responsive to commands when their commanding officer is killed etc, but i'm not sure if that would just be frustrating to the player rather than adding any strategic depth.

I think that, if the player knows what's happening, why their ship is slower to respond to their commands, it should not be that frustating.

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toipot
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« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2013, 06:07:03 PM »

Oh, pretty cool idea! I would never thought that. But wouldn't be too complicated to control that amount of people at the same time? Or the game will be turn based?

It'll be real time, but I'm planning on keeping the battles relatively small and fast. You can pause the battle to issue orders if you want to take a good look around also.

Quote
I think that, if the player knows what's happening, why their ship is slower to respond to their commands, it should not be that frustrating.

I'm thinking something along the lines of a 'command power' bar that decreases as your units get panicked/lose their CO (the guys with the star over them!). So you should be warned before your likely to encounter problems. Again though, i'm not sure if in practice it'd be such a fun mechanic, we shall see!  Grin


Quick Update
Over the past couple of days, with the help of Technical i've been working on formation movement which has been a pretty interesting problem.



I think i've settled on a relatively basic formation strategy for now that results in nice unit positioning.  It's a basic right click to move, drag the mouse to orient kind of motion. Handling multiple unit controls well is of course pretty important, so i'll no doubt come back to this to refine things a little.
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toipot
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« Reply #10 on: January 20, 2013, 04:15:52 PM »

Over the weekend I got some time to spend working on the game's internals.

I put together a basic event system, with a set of simple triggers (squad/unit destroyed, time elapsed, objective complete etc) that can be used to set off associated events. For example to add a new enemy to the mission after 5 mins, or throw a message up once a certain unit is destroyed.

I'm hoping to add the possibility of semi-randomised events associated with these triggers, so for some missions the events that occur during play could be varied to make the level less predictable.

Next up, I have to write some GUI code to get some kind of event/objective editor working!
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toipot
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« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2013, 06:41:52 PM »



Trying to get unrotated sprites to look like they're dogfighting is tough  Huh?.

I need to work a bit more on the ship's firing ranges (the green circles) too. When I get quite a few overlapping it looks a bit messy.
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« Reply #12 on: January 25, 2013, 12:26:49 AM »

Looks nice so far. What kind of orders will you be able to give? What are you thinking of for objectives?
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toipot
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« Reply #13 on: January 28, 2013, 11:45:20 AM »

Looks nice so far. What kind of orders will you be able to give? What are you thinking of for objectives?

Thanks!

At the moment i'm heading towards fairly standard RTS style orders as a control system, with the specific order allocated being dependant upon the selected unit. So typical move to target/attack target/protect target/repair target etc.

Objectives will again be typically fairly simple, destroy this target, protect this unit, capture this target etc, sometimes within a time limit. For example, a test map i'm using now has the player trying to lure away or destroy a fighter escort from a platform within three minutes so that allied bombers have a clear shot at a target when they spawn in at the end of the countdown.

In game this can be complicated by randomly generated triggers/events that can add additional objectives to mix things up during play. E.g a shuttle attempts to leave the platform, and must be disabled. Getting these random events to play nice however, is troublesome!  Smiley

 
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« Reply #14 on: January 28, 2013, 08:44:12 PM »

Looks good.  I love tactical map things...
It's a bit hard to "read" what's going on quickly with the current graphics/colours.
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toipot
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« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2013, 05:08:18 PM »

Looks good.  I love tactical map things...
It's a bit hard to "read" what's going on quickly with the current graphics/colours.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on at the moment, I'm thinking about how it can be tidied up a bit. It actually looks a lot clearer I think though in motion, In that last screenshot there are a few projectiles which make more sense when moving! I'll have to try and put some gifs up.
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toipot
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« Reply #16 on: February 11, 2013, 02:27:34 PM »

Managed to put together the deployment phase today, although as development progresses it's becoming less important, the emphasis seems to be moving to the RTS component.

For each mission you'll have the option to begin with your squadrons deployed into available green zones, or to keep them behind as reinforcements with which to surprise your enemy. Heres's a quick example of deployment.



This is also showing the (hopefully improved) weapons range indicator, this time as just the outermost surface of each ship's range rather than three separate circles. Hopefully that's a bit less confusing.


Also, a couple of new units, a repair frigate and laser mines!

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toipot
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« Reply #17 on: May 01, 2014, 07:04:49 PM »

Ugh, so this one seriously lapsed.

I seemed to get quite carried away on the technical side, spending a lot
of time on AI/orders and controls, so never managed to produce anything
that was actually fun to play.

So I think it's definitely on hold until I can come up with some inspiration for it.
In the meantime, I had added a little star system simulator for use as a map/mission select
screen. I'm hoping to be able to salvage it.

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