yes, I like it even more,. perhaps having the opponents movements based on the players is a good idea, just adding a bit of random or AI augmentation,. gives a reaction feel. Some engine sounds could help with the speed feedback perhaps a dial or meter as well,. I like to cockpit now,. and it is all easy for me to see, and quite pleaseing to look at.

Cool, thanks for the thoughfull feedback,. I have indeed thought of many of those same things,. I am just going at the stuff that suits me best first. I had an instructor once, in a 3d amin. course that would harp on getting the end point 'in' first and then going back in waves of improvments,. and I find this to be very sound advice, more games would get to playable states if more people followed it,. in this case the end point is just the basic gameplay,. and then I am going through and fixing and augmenting stuff,. each time I playtest it i notice/think of 10 things to do,. I forget half, and only have time to do two or three of them,. so EVENTUALY it MAY approach what I have in mind.     But i think most of what has been said will be adressed.  The sound for instance was hacked in once many iterations ago and needs major works,. but it is not highe enouph priorety yet! but I still dont have much of the 'game' I intend working but it is getting there,. .

here is the latest; 

http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_038.zip

Fixes the controler setup bug with negative values,. and hopefully makes the cockpit readouts a tad cleared,. as well many tweeks and changes,. and I have some more major new ideas to come next,. . peace
 

well that is quite neet!  i like it as I have little idea how to do such a thing,. 3d math crushes my tinny little simian brain,. but I learn stuff all the time, so perhaps if i thought deeply about it,. . i really like the way you can look around in the cockpit and steer independently,. like an flight/train/etc/ sim,.  interested to see what you make of this,. what is the engine tech?

ha, that is too cool, love the decent feel, and it looks great. the cockpit is nice,. and the physics quite good. I wanted a 'push' beam like the second weapon that just applies a bit of force to the frogmen,. I was trying to figure if your collitions physics was mesh based or boxes? so i was crashing into them and seeing how they float in the zero g., sweet..  but it was fun to blast them all too., . I like the artness of it all, . the missle objects at the start are purdy!
is this the blender engine or your own? a nice little package either way.  It ran at a constant 60fps here,. however it crashes on alt-enter,.  my dispaly is 1280x1024, perhaps the problem,. .

Yes I too wunder why more kids have not jumped all over ZGE it is free, open-source, cross platform and capable of quite alot,. and is under constant dev.  we are looking into a bit of a re-launch with more info and templets and such when it hits ver.2.

anyway thanks for posting,. i enjoyed the tech demo!  the game will be fun i'm sure!

Over in ZGE forums we just went through some experiments with VBO vs Vertex Arrays and found some strange things,. currently ZGE uses vertex arrays for models with <1k triangles and VBO for larger,.  See this thread; http://www.emix8.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=371 Try my little demo on your lappy I'm curious how it runs,. your stuff looks very interesting still,. how about some random demo,. slightly interactive is still interesting to other developers,.

ok here is the new demo;

 http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_034.zip

added/tweeked a bunch of things,. probably broke some stuff as well,. but it is just a WIP demo. for those interested, and so I may get some feedback. the cockpit layout is nicer now. anyone having framerate issues yet? the FPS is in uper left screen,. should stay around 60.  I hope not, this machine is lower middle of the road.

The game is turning into a real battle now,. and the invaders seem to have the upperhand! I will hopefully come up with some of those structures to aid the player soon,. .
currently when you 'bump' the Blue Power Nodes they recharge your shield,. additionaly, if you have some Material (Red or Orange) you will spend it to rebuild that node (if it is damaged)
If you are not quick at getting rid of the drop ships they can destroy all your nodes,. . not good.  more to come,. .

0rel- yeah is quite different already,. but I need to balance the new stuff I am adding,. it is somewhat easier now,. as the shots coming at you slow with some friciton and they shoot only when you are in range,. and less,. however there are new bad things too,. as they destroy your nodes (blue tower/tanker thingies) they spawn orange nodes!  not sure what they do yet,. more to come.

astrofra- yeah starglider was a fav. of mine back in the ST/Amiga years,. just took a look at a video and am considering doing a pixal art cockpit for this and leave the wires for the rest,. hummmm,. not sure.  I had totaly not remembered that, thought it was all wire.
 Personally I like the shaded wires,. and in fact may add some 'crome' wires, and other effects too,. on some rare objects at least,. but perhaps I can also add some settings for shadeing and wire thicknes as it depends on the res. you look at as well,. I am interested in you 'trees' game (thats Tower Toppler to me, amiga i think?) and that engine as well,. nice shadows! (links??)

 

hummm,. in ZGE I would just have the particle system rendered by the ship model and keep it relative to its position,. but that is a whole other system eh.
also, I often just ignore the built in partical system when I cant figure how to get it to do what I want,. and use simple objects I create,. if they are just billboorded sprites w/ no collitions you should not loose much performace,. and then you have full control of how they behave. you could then just add some amount of the ships movement to the parts as they spawn,. .

ha!  I wouldn't play the development ver. too hard,. as it is largly unbalanced and will all change anyhow,. I just tryed and was able to take down all three, so it is possible, though nothing else happens,. the Guided Missles are just roughed in quickly,. they have a random element to their movement as they approch the DropShips,. (the jamming signal) and a limited life time so some will fail.  I think if you launch them from a bit of a distance, aiming well, you have a better chance of getting through it.

nice!  looks very good.  re; ignittion delay- also try having the particle 'flee' from the ship so the ones that spawn inside it will create a nice ignition burst! 

that is some really nice looking images,. what are you sketching with?  makes nice softness blendy things,. this may be unpopular however i think i like the highter res screen shot,. could be different in motion though.., 
stay focused on finnishing somthing, and adding more if you have time,. my effort this time was to start by building a basic shooting game and THEN add to that the actual stratagy game I have in mind. and it is working so far, as I have a sorta' playable now and can just keep adding to that,. peace.

Excellent! glad I figured that out from your posts, thanks for reporting that people,. it is always tough to figure bugs when you don't have them reproducing on your own machine,. but you guys where clear in your descriptions!   

blueJ- those are your backup ships,. they just dont work yet. Eventually you should be able to jump around between them and place them like auto turrets or some sht,. as well as build a few other structures to help defend,. or that is my current intention and could all change. basicly I enjoy playing Enginer in TF2 and want to build a game where you get to place, build, and maintane some defensive structures in a longish running battle,.    but maintining the action and first person movements,. still not sure I will get all this into this particular game or in some future one,. . time will tell. 

If you where getting that odd bug try this new version.  If I was right deducing what was causing it this will fix it., otherwise I will need more info..,  Please report back!

http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_030.zip

also added some new stuff;

Now there are three Drop Ships., however you are no longer un-armed against them!  The RMB or the Missle Button under controler,. er, control,. will launch a self guided Missle that zooms up into the sky and attempt to take down a Drop Ship. You may want to find a good launch vector for these as the Drop Ships have some sort of jamming technology that confuses our tracking systems,. (scientist are again working on this issue!)  Also, you will need to collect enouph of the Red as well as the Orange vector debris by blasting a bunch of the locusts. When the meters are mostly full you will be able to fire another drop ship killing Missle!  I will add a sound and/or some better cockpit feedback for when this is 'ready', for now just keep watching the meters.  well atually loads of stuff still to add and to do, but I did get a bit more done today,. . peace.

Mikademus- not much missing actualy, I did quite a good job of implementing the keyboard input,. the main thing, and I suppose it was more in my mind than in actual useage, but the movement input from the controler is variable by the amount you move the sticks., so intead of 0 or 1 you can add 0 to 1 giving more adjustable, and I would think finer controls,. in practice though, because I add a small amount on a keypress and limit it by applying friction, you can get similar results,. so the basic bonus you gain by using a controler is the ability to do small or constant slower moves than you can with the on/off keyboard inputs. also the aiming moves are much smoother with the controler as mouse input is a tad erratic/shakier.

looks interesting,. keep it wierd!

a bug hummm,. do you see the orange guys standing off in the distance madly turning around and the blue tower like objects keep randomly shifting?? If so that is what happens when I hold down the RESET button on the controller or the Enter Key on the typeing device,. . could be a USB issue what you got pluged in? I will rebuild it with that reset function blocked when in keyboard mode,. give me a few minuets, gota get some coffey into me,. and read through some news sites,. .

nice!   

here you go you winging babies,. 

Well it didn't really take all that much effort to do,    it's not 'perfect',. (yet!), but I will work some more on it as I build the rest,. and in the end I quite like it! 

http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_029.zip   
!NOW with typing device input support!

Actually took longer to move all the menus around and add a little title screen,. . but that will all change anyway,. I am thinking of implementing a vector font, as that is what should be used here, but it is a bunch of work, and only changes the look of the text,. but there is still a bit of time left or I can do that after,. Now perhaps I can hear some ideas on gameplay stuff and not input devices,.   

Kjell over at the ZGE boards had this to say;



But OK, you guys are making me feal bad for not supporting typing device controles (  danm you! more time away from adding GAMEPLAY )  I will take a look and find a simple control skeem perhaps just keys w/ no mouse,.  hummm, could do simple enouph. However the gamepad is still going to provide more control (3 analoge AXIS) for the hardcore and besides my target is for a PS3 release! (when the pigs fly, but that may be soon enouph,. . )

  oh come on,. if you collect some returnable sodypop bottles and return them I am sure you can earn $20.00,. .

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=5796463&st=gamepad&type=product&id=1058188350409

http://shop.ebay.com/items/__gamepad_W0QQ_nkwZgamepadQ20QQ_cqrZtrueQQ_nkwuscZgmaepad?_rdc=1

or ask your mom for this one for your birthday; http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8221471&st=gamepad&type=product&id=1166839533325

I'm sure it could be done but it would be a very low priority, as this setup uses at least 3 variable inputs,. so how to map that to a mouse and keyboard?  also a mouse is less than ideal as it does not re-center,. . so to do so would require a reworking of the conroles.., basicly just not currently likely    save those pennies..,  also if you own any consoles just get a USB adaptor for a couple of dollars and use that! 

PS- I was a hold out on getting one too, but I use it all the time now and find PC games to be much more CONTROLABLE with a controler,. go figure. (although, of course I still play TF2 with a mouse and board!)

ok a functioning playable DEMO!   

http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_028.zip

a 39kb win. .exe file [ thank you ZGameEditor! ]

extract it with the settings file for the controler setup,. you need a dual analog gamepad!  Default is setup for an XBOX 360 controler, with a rudimentary menu at the start where you can try to remap it to what ever you may have,. . I will make that nicer eventually,.

This DEMO is just a shooting game for now,. you glide around and shoot the Orange Guys, they will try to destroy all the Blue Energy Stores,. you can recharge your Sheild by bumping these,. I'll have to make that a bit nicer too,. . currently you don't have a weapon to stop the Drop Ship, however that is being worked on by our scientist,. . soon come.

If you hapen to drive over the Debri you will see an Orange and Red Meter appear in the Cockpit HUD these will be useable materials in future,. the 'main point' of the game isn't really built in here just yet,. but you will be building Structures to defend against this Invsion,. (if I have time to build it all that is., )  I just started adding the sounds this morning,. so it is a bit overwellmingly noisy,. I intend to have them fade in volume by distance, if all that measument don't kill my performance,. perhaps it will just be a very noisey game 

well anywho,. have fun!

for the next iteration; I would like to get a Radar working in that box lower middle,. currently is just shows your vector relative to the view,. you may see some other PodRunners like you on the battle field,. but they are not accessable yet,. hopfully you will be able to jump from one to the next and coordinate a defence,. .  giveing them basic turret like AI to defend themselves,. . I have loads of ideas, just have to find the will to finnish it.