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[Lautaro]

LINKS BELOW ARE OUTDATED, CHECK THIS LINK INSTEAD: http://www.indiedb.com/games/nomad-fleet/downloads

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Hi

I'm currently working in a RTS set in space with full 3D movement. My main sources of inspiration are Homeworld and FTL. You can see more info in my devlog but for now you can download a very early prototype here (Windows version): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9078240/Unity/NomadFleet/NomadFleet.rar

The prototype counts with a tutorial level and a sample level so you can see the combat basics. I welcome any feedback.

Some screenshots:

Mothership and Fleet



Tactical map



Galactic Map (procedural level selection)



Interceptors



Destroyer and Frigate




Regards and thanks for your time.

[onirium-games]

Hey! I tried Nomad Fleet, and I thought it was impressive. But let's start with the negative things, so we can keep the best for the end

To be improved:
- general camera movement. I found it quite unintuitive, especially since I didn't do the tutorial at first. I found out pretty quickly that the WASD keys were used to move the camera, but it was still not very easy to manoeuver and it feels very stiff. I can't really remember how Homeworld did that part (last time I played it, must have been 15 years ago :D), maybe there's good ideas in there for you? you probably already looked though.
- a bug on the camera movement: when I was holding RMB, I couldn't go forward/backwards... annoying
- the UI is drawn with a delay, and it doesn't 'stick' well to the game environment: the ship frames and attack lines are a bit laggy. Hard to describe but I'm sure you noticed it.
- you've mentioned in the devlog that the visual style is not final and you're still working on it, so I'd suggest to put a lot of post process and VFX to make the whole thing feel 'atmospheric'. Also I just played Elite:Dangerous so my expectations on what space looks like may be a bit too high :D
- tooltips for UI icons, do not forget those!

Already awesome:
- ships designs, especially the human ones. They rock
- hyperjump effect, currently it's a bit rough on the edges and reminds a LOT of Homeworld but still, I'm impressed by how it looks.
- audio: I liked the background 'rumbling', the intro music... Also the fact that when you zoom on the ship you're focused on, you can her its engines. This made me say 'eh, well done' to myself.
- multi select: works like a charm, including for enemy targets. Only drawback is it's not easy to see your own ships when you're not in map view, so I kinda ended selecting random portions of space to see if someone was there... It worked pretty well actually :D

I hope that was useful. Good luck to you!

[Lautaro]

Thanks, Onirium, that's pretty good feedback. I think I can agree with everything you said.

[Lautaro]

I updated the prototype, now you can open the "Build Manager" by pressing B or the Build button in the UI, in this screen you can order your mothership to build aditional fighters. Also I fixed a bug where you can't move the camera forward or backwards while rotating the view.

[Lautaro]

New Update!

Now you can harvest resources from asteroids with a special harvester ship. Just select it and press H and it will automatically start collecting resources:

[Lautaro]

I updated the prototype with some new features:

- Research, press R or the UI button to show the Research manager. For now, there's only two upgrades available.
- New enemy light carriers. These will build aditional fighters to compensate for their losses.
- Obstacle avoidance. Is pretty basic but ships should avoid going through one another more often now.



I also added more enemies to the sample level so watch out.

[Dreii]

This is really exciting, I gave it a try and I love the way the ships look and animate while flying around, as for what can be worked on though (this is coming from my experience as a casual starcraft player) I wasn't really certain what most of the buttons did, I could guess pretty easily the movement and attack buttons but even with those pressing them didn't give me a clear Idea of how I could attack or move, Also when clicking the attack or move buttons a line appears that Im guessing shows the path that a ship is moving?

So the UI is a little unclear in that regard some hover tool tips would work wonders with that but of course this is just a prototype I understand

Secondarily, and this is just something people would have to get used too and not something wrong with the game, but it is noteworthy. As a starcraft player I kept trying to select my ships and press 'A' to start an attack haha. which of course just moves the camera. but I do think a hotkey for attacking that isn't already bound to the camera would be awesome too

Id really like to see this updated so I can give you more feedback, Ill come back from time to time and see what you've done!

This is a great start so far, I love the lore, the FTL style map choosing, and the theme in general. And like I said the ship models and animations, even just the way they get into sorties when fighting are all rockin'! 

[Lautaro]

Thanks, that's really good feedback and advice. I really need to improve the controls because many encounters like this ambush sample will be quick and bloody.

There's a tutorial that explains the movement a bit but I imagine most people will just skip it so I better take that into account. Also many buttons are just for show for the moment (ugh, there's so much to do).

Thanks for taking the time to post.

EDIT: btw there is an attack key, the Ctrl key that you have to hold while drawing a selection square. In that way you can give several targets to your selected units.

[Dreii]

Oh wow yeah I totally missed the tutorial button on the main menu and went straight for new game the first time. That one is my bad sorry!

the attack button makes it so much better, also having that tactical view is a great addition. I actually have trouble finding something to give you to fix now that hasn't been covered!

One thing that's more an idea/advice is maybe when your switching out of tactical view, have the camera move to a default position instead of the last position it was in, because when I move out of tactical view it always seems to move the camera to look at empty space and I have to find the battle y'know? So maybe make it default to a view that still kinda sees your mother ship or the main action or something. That's really my only complaint as of right now :D Great job!

[Lautaro]

Yeah I need to fix that, thanks for the advice!

[Lautaro]

I have a new version of my prototype and this time I made versions for Mac and Linux (they are untested though):

PC Download

Mac Download

Linux Download

The new version has an aditional level, a full tutorial, spanish localization, many fixes and some extra features.

[wilbefast]

Dang, doesn't work on Arch Linux 64 bit with Open Source drivers guess I should install the Nvidia ones? Other Unity games have worked for me in the past.

I really loved Homeworld

Console output:

Code:

[william@GOLIATH Desktop]$ ./NomadFleet.x86 
Set current directory to /home/william/Desktop
Found path: /home/william/Desktop/NomadFleet.x86
Mono path[0] = '/home/william/Desktop/NomadFleet_Data/Managed'
Mono path[1] = '/home/william/Desktop/NomadFleet_Data/Mono'
Mono config path = '/home/william/Desktop/NomadFleet_Data/Mono/etc'
/dev/input/js0: driver version: 2.1.0 (20100)
/dev/input/js0: fd 3, buttons 11, axes 8, name Microsoft X-Box 360 pad
/dev/input/js0: using XBox 360 Controller mappings
/dev/input/js0: axis  0: raw      0, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  1: raw    386, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  3: raw    129, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  4: raw   -131, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  6: raw      0, mapped 0.000000
/dev/input/js0: axis  7: raw      0, mapped 0.000000

Player.log

Code:

Selecting FBConfig
GLX_FBCONFIG_ID=118
GLX_BUFFER_SIZE=32
GLX_DOUBLEBUFFER=1
GLX_RED_SIZE=8
GLX_GREEN_SIZE=8
GLX_BLUE_SIZE=8
GLX_ALPHA_SIZE=8
GLX_DEPTH_SIZE=24
GLX_STENCIL_SIZE=8
GLX_SAMPLES_ARB=0
GLX_SAMPLE_BUFFERS_ARB=0
GLX_CONFIG_CAVEAT=NONE

Desktop is 1366 x 768 @ 60 Hz
OpenGL:
    Version:  OpenGL 1.4 [1.4 (3.0 Mesa 10.4.2)]
    Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile 
    Vendor:   Intel Open Source Technology Center
    VRAM:     544 MB
    Extensions: GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_occlusion_query GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_window_pos GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_point_parameters GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1 GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3 GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_object GL_EXT_vertex_array GL_ATI_draw_buffers GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_depth_clamp GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_texture_env_combine4 GL_NV_texture_rectangle GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_lod 
GLX Extensions: GLX_ARB_create_context GLX_ARB_create_context_profile GLX_ARB_create_context_robustness GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float GLX_ARB_multisample GLX_EXT_create_context_es2_profile GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB GLX_EXT_import_context GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap GLX_EXT_visual_info GLX_EXT_visual_rating GLX_SGI_swap_control GLX_SGIX_fbconfig GLX_SGIX_pbuffer GLX_ARB_get_proc_address 
Setting maxVSyncInterval to 4
GL: disabling shadows on Intel 9xx (buggy)
GL: disabling framebuffer blit, antialiasing, SRGB on Intel
GL: Detected 0 MB VRAM
Total system RAM: 7908 MiB
Initialize engine version: 4.6.1f1 (d1db7a1b5196)
XError: GLXBadRenderRequest (error 175, opcode 155/1, serial 94, XID 00000016, display 0xa8526d0
PlayerInitEngineGraphics: GPU not supported; OpenGL GLSL support is required. Your GPU (Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Mobile ) does not support it
Failed to initialize player

[Lautaro]

Sorry about that, Wilbefast. I can't make promises but I'll look into it.

Damn, multiplatform is hard.

[wilbefast]

Well, anyone who plays games really should be using the proprietary drivers - they work better (Nvidia knows Nvidia better than anyone else). I had trouble installing them and getting them working though, so I stuck to the default open-source ones. I'll try again.

[Lautaro]

I'm using Physical Based Shaders in the last version, could be possible that they are not supported by your GPU?

[wilbefast]

It seems not to like shaders?

Code:

OpenGL GLSL support is required

Which is odd because I've tested my own shader in Love2D. I will have to investigate further...

[Lautaro]

Well, I have new versions of my prototype for PC, Mac and Linux.
I added 3 new levels, more ships and features so people get a more clear view of the game I'm trying to make, for example: a scenario only consistd of a trade convoy that gives you the chance to trade resources for new technologies, and other gives you the chance to activate an abandoned outpost to get a new ship or just salvage it for resources. I also made an effort to improve the visual with new skyboxes and explosions. I also fixed some errors and added new features like double right click for a qucicker way to move ships (updated the tutorial to explain this).



My downloads are still in the process of authorization in the IndieDB page but you can download them directly from here:

Windows version (32 bit)

Mac version

Linux version

Regards and thanks for your time!

[Lautaro]

I uploaded new versions in IndieDB, you can download them here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/nomad-fleet/downloads

The current alpha demo has much more content, fixes and features (its limited to 5 hyperspace jumps though). Its also heavier so I'm no longer using Dropbox to host them.

I'm getting ready to release in 2 or 3 months but I could always use some extra feedback.