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[Gregg Williams]

Game looks great. Quick dev question for you, how much of those weapon and thruster effects are traditional art vs particles? 

[DarthBenedict]

Game looks great. Quick dev question for you, how much of those weapon and thruster effects are traditional art vs particles? 

There's a tablet drawn sprite animation for the muzzle/thruster flare, plus particles are used for the dust/sparks. The sprite part has a chance of being flipped horizontally for a bit more variety.

PS: Saving controls is fixed, just tweaking a few other things before I upload.

[eigenbom]

That gif looks awesome! I have a couple of thoughts: the space dust should be less homogeneous, and i don't think the planet works (perspective-wise) and is a little distracting anyway. Looking forward to the release.

[Thomas Finch]

That gif looks awesome! I have a couple of thoughts: the space dust should be less homogeneous, and i don't think the planet works (perspective-wise) and is a little distracting anyway. Looking forward to the release.

I actually disagree on both those points. I love when space games have the dust look like that. Makes you feel like you're in some sort of nebula. Probably unrealistic but I like that look. I know what you mean about the planet's perspective but if you think about it you can't really have the wrong perspective. It's space. Anything can be in any orientation.

[eigenbom]

That gif looks awesome! I have a couple of thoughts: the space dust should be less homogeneous, and i don't think the planet works (perspective-wise) and is a little distracting anyway. Looking forward to the release.

I actually disagree on both those points. I love when space games have the dust look like that. Makes you feel like you're in some sort of nebula. Probably unrealistic but I like that look.

Oh I love the space dust! I'd just prefer it to clump a bit more than be spread out so evenly, but it's a minor thing.

I know what you mean about the planet's perspective but if you think about it you can't really have the wrong perspective. It's space. Anything can be in any orientation.

Definitely .. however the game has got all its ships fixed to one plane. The planet acts like a point of reference and so all the ships are moving in a plane that is fixed in relation to the planet. Which just looks a little odd to me.

[DarthBenedict]

That gif looks awesome! I have a couple of thoughts: the space dust should be less homogeneous, and i don't think the planet works (perspective-wise) and is a little distracting anyway. Looking forward to the release.

I actually disagree on both those points. I love when space games have the dust look like that. Makes you feel like you're in some sort of nebula. Probably unrealistic but I like that look.

Oh I love the space dust! I'd just prefer it to clump a bit more than be spread out so evenly, but it's a minor thing.

I know what you mean about the planet's perspective but if you think about it you can't really have the wrong perspective. It's space. Anything can be in any orientation.

Definitely .. however the game has got all its ships fixed to one plane. The planet acts like a point of reference and so all the ships are moving in a plane that is fixed in relation to the planet. Which just looks a little odd to me.

The dust is a bit more clumped on some other maps, plus the distribution is always pretty random.

As for the planets, I've tried having maps without any and found it looked worse. I will have a look at tweaking how they look, but for now I don't really have anything planned.

[Thomas Finch]

Ah I see what you mean about the planet now. That makes sense. I can see how it would annoy some people.

[DarthBenedict]

The controls saving fix is up, other changes include:
Better effect for shattering asteroids.
Changing resolution mid game no longer breaks your hud.
Graphics settings are now changed when you hit apply instead of when you select a resolution/fullscreen option.
Bulldozers now break asteroids on contact.
Your targeting laser now goes white and pulsates as you get closer to overheating.
Weapon and component descriptions are now sillier.
Turning animation is faster.
Turning is faster in chasecam mode.

[Christian]

The more prominent text when you collect a pick up works well

Update on the controls: the keybindings save now, except for mouse wheel for special weapon. Instead staying as mouse wheel, exiting and playing again has special weapon as none and I have set it as mouse wheel again.

I don't think the targeting laser turning white is that effective because the bullets you fire obscure the laser. Well, that's probably more of an issue with rapid fire weapons like the chaingun. Maybe the actual reticle could shift color as well so the change would be more noticeable

Some more map ideas:
- Area near a black hole, with gravity wells or something similar, that alter gravity, affect your aiming and movement
- Area around dying sun, with random solar flares to avoid
- Some kind of ship graveyard

[DarthBenedict]

The more prominent text when you collect a pick up works well

Update on the controls: the keybindings save now, except for mouse wheel for special weapon. Instead staying as mouse wheel, exiting and playing again has special weapon as none and I have set it as mouse wheel again.

I don't think the targeting laser turning white is that effective because the bullets you fire obscure the laser. Well, that's probably more of an issue with rapid fire weapons like the chaingun. Maybe the actual reticle could shift color as well so the change would be more noticeable

Some more map ideas:
- Area near a black hole, with gravity wells or something similar, that alter gravity, affect your aiming and movement
- Area around dying sun, with random solar flares to avoid
- Some kind of ship graveyard

Changed the crosshair heat indicator to make it more obvious:


I'll look into the mousewheel thing now, should have it fixed in the next build. Again, thanks for the stage suggestions, a fair few of them will probably end up in game.

[DarthBenedict]

Currently working on adding objective based levels and waves. This is mostly to provide a reason for players to stay together in coop, but it should help add a bit more variety to single player as well. The basic destroy everything mode will still be there, of course.

Current ideas for objectives:
Defend a base
Collect all the sparkly wotsits
Push the important physics object to the important place
Destroy a miniboss while regular enemies are still spawning
Stay in the glowy circle for a while

Would be interested in hearing any other objectives you think would be fun.

Edit: Also, I'm seriously considering making 'collect all the sparkly wotsits' the actual objective name.

[Christian]

Currently working on adding objective based levels and waves. This is mostly to provide a reason for players to stay together in coop, but it should help add a bit more variety to single player as well. The basic destroy everything mode will still be there, of course.

Current ideas for objectives:
Defend a base
Collect all the sparkly wotsits
Push the important physics object to the important place
Destroy a miniboss while regular enemies are still spawning
Stay in the glowy circle for a while

Would be interested in hearing any other objectives you think would be fun.

Edit: Also, I'm seriously considering making 'collect all the sparkly wotsits' the actual objective name.

I usually find "collect all X" objectives boring. Unless they're tied to weaponry/upgrades, like you're collecting cargo/weapon parts and your reward for collecting everything is a new weapon or piece of equipment. But if it's collecting nonessential "stuff", I think it's boring
I like the sound of the others though

Some other objective ideas

Escort - protect another ship from enemies as it travels through the system. Usually escort missions can be a pain, but I guess that could lessened if the ship you're escorting isn't helpless, and is shielded or has auto-turrets shooting at enemies as well

Gauntlet - no enemies, race from area of the map to another while evading hazards (moving asteroids, mine fields, meteors, etc.)

EMP - your offensive weapons are disabled and you have to defeat waves by making enemies damage/crash into each other. Maybe stuff like the tether and mind control could still work

[DarthBenedict]

I was thinking of timed collect all X (and they'd spawn one at a time), so it'd play a lot like the gauntlet suggestion except that the checkpoints would be items you collect.

Escort would be pretty easy once base defence is done, just make a second base type that moves. And yeah, both the base and any ship you'd escort would have chaingun turrets because  gatling guns make everything better. You'd be able to repair them seperately from the core ship/base (mind control beam currently doubles as a repair gun).

[Regulus]

Just checked out the demo, and damn is this thing satisfying! Observing flight patterns in order to sabotage enemies is such a simple mechanic, but it is so much fun to do. I made it to boss on Earth, and proceeded to get beat-down, but I enjoyed this, and will definitely be following it's progress.

[ashtonmorris]

a weapon which teleports attack bears into the cockpit of enemy ships

That's all I needed to hear

Lol!

Dev's always find a composer right before I find their stuff.

I think it looks great though, lots of visual depth and intensity! Up-Voted

[DarthBenedict]

Just checked out the demo, and damn is this thing satisfying! Observing flight patterns in order to sabotage enemies is such a simple mechanic, but it is so much fun to do. I made it to boss on Earth, and proceeded to get beat-down, but I enjoyed this, and will definitely be following it's progress.

Yeah, plus (I'm not sure if players actually notice this) I find it helps give the enemies a bit more personality. Some types are pretty careful about friendly fire, others happily run over half their team to get you. Bulldozers in particular have no FF checking or pathfinding, they just smash through everything.

a weapon which teleports attack bears into the cockpit of enemy ships

That's all I needed to hear

Lol!

Dev's always find a composer right before I find their stuff.

I think it looks great though, lots of visual depth and intensity! Up-Voted

The music on your site is pretty cool, listening to it while I dev atm.

[ashtonmorris]

The music on your site is pretty cool, listening to it while I dev atm.

Awesome. Always nice to be heard and enjoyed.

[DarthBenedict]

Did some experimentation with higher enemy counts, it's more fun and doesn't actually make the game stupidly difficult (they kill each other even more this way). Will need to do a bit of optimization before releasing this change, though.

Also made some progress on the objectives stuff, but nothing that makes for a nice gif.

[oodavid]

Looks really tight!

For an additional game-mode you could try something akin to Timesplitters - head deep into enemy territory, grab the artefact and return. The think I like about these is that on harder modes you simply have to travel further! For the return journey you have choices; dispatch of the enemies tactically or leg-it.

[DarthBenedict]

Looks really tight!

For an additional game-mode you could try something akin to Timesplitters - head deep into enemy territory, grab the artefact and return. The think I like about these is that on harder modes you simply have to travel further! For the return journey you have choices; dispatch of the enemies tactically or leg-it.

So get to the first objective, after that enemies stop spawning and you have a choice to finish them off or just run for it? That sounds fun, I'll try it out sometime soon.