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[iPope]

Space Station
This is a game idea I have been thinking about for a while and I have finally simplified down enough so that I have something I could actually make. The game is about (as the title might suggest) managing and maintaining a space station. The twist is that you have no direct control and can only add modules to the space station, if the environment allows it. The aim is to stay alive as long as possible. Their might also be two player, I am not sure about that.

The game play is pretty much dragging and dropping pieces of space station on to the map. Everything else is handled by your faithful astronauts, who are completely AI controlled. You can not see them but they will do things. For example obviously they will use up supplies, and depending on the role of the astronaut they may go order more and a shuttle will arrive with them. Each module in the game will generate tasks and the astronauts will handle those tasks.

The game is inspired by dwarf fortress and space station 13 yet it will be nothing like those games.

Game Modes
Normal - Stay in positive money
Research - Make money from research only
Space Hotel - Make money from tourism only
Space City - Be able to support 100 astronauts *
* After a game modes mission has been completed then the game carries on as normal.

Game Difficulty Options
These make the game harder:
Meteor - Random meteors will hit your space station damaging or destroying modules
Alien - After a random amount of time your space station will be attacked by aliens
Far Away - Your space station is far from Earth and shuttles take longer to reach you
Dark - There is no sun, you can not use solar panel to produce energy

Current Progress
I really have most of the core items coded, content management, map management etc. I don't have anything visible but this will be coming shortly. I have got most of the game play features and the AI planned out so that wont take up to much time. I've been working on a few mock-ups and I want to go for a really simple style. Below is an image of a mock-up station with a few of the parts that will be available to you.


This is at x8, the game would usually be at x6, I might change this though depending.

Ignore the tile set to the left I was using and look at the cluster of items to the right. In between each module it is connected by the gray line, this just shows connections. Some modules can only be connected in certain places, such as the large module with the pink strip. This is the living quarters, it only comes in one size and each one can support 3 astronauts. To the left of that there is a large C shaped module. This is in fact the dock, and can support one shuttle and a time. Above these are empty corridors leading to the science wing.

That is all I got for now, tune in later for hopefully some actual game screenshots. I'm currently working on getting the placement sorted out (it is going to be a little odd, as the connections aren't part of tiles) and then money and building modules.

[PleasingFungus]

An interesting idea! Are you sure you want to make your astronauts invisible, though? (If I'm interpreting "You can not see them" correctly.) I suspect that not being able to see the astronauts that make things go will both confuse players and take away a sense of connection to the game.

Best of luck!

[iPope]

Thanks, I am a little concerned with not being able to see the astronauts. In one sense, if I want to keep everything the same resolution then their is not enough room but if I made the astronauts actually x1 then it would be great to have them on screen. I would need to look at how to represent them inside modules but it would cool to see them do EVA.

I've also been looking at the way modules would be placed and attached. Rather than going with a grid method I think I am going to go with a more Captain Forever style placing, with less rotating and fancy effects. It should be pretty easy to use, even with little yellow indicators for attachments!

Edit:



So what you are seeing is not much but really it includes some fundamental elements. Firstly, I have the drawing system set up to scale to anything I want. Secondly, modules can draw to the screen! Last, you can see the grey connectors. Now these aren't actually part of the module image, in fact they are drawn and generated by code. They are defined inside each modules class, and currently just draw that they are there. I already have it worked out how to do the building, and with the way connectors are defined it should just be basic math to work out where to draw each module.

[Dom2D]

An original idea! I hope it'll have a nice simplified UI and ambient music, so that I'll feel like I'm an astronaut on that station!

[mokesmoe]

Maybe you should factor in the doors into the size of the modules, so you don't get offset by one pixel when you use a double piece and two single pieces next to each-other.

[yokomeshi]

Maybe you should factor in the doors into the size of the modules, so you don't get offset by one pixel when you use a double piece and two single pieces next to each-other.

Apologies if you don't like people doing this kind of thing, but I tried an edit:

I also doubled the resolution so you could show the astronauts walking around.

[iPope]

An original idea! I hope it'll have a nice simplified UI and ambient music, so that I'll feel like I'm an astronaut on that station!

Hey thanks, if I can find someone to music then that would be awesome. The idea for UI is to make it display information only and have the whole game played by keyboard and possible XBOX controller (I don't have a controller so bleh).

Super awesome idea. But one question popped up in my head. "Plotwise", where do the astronauts get the modules? Maybe they build the modules themselves?

Thanks for the comment, I was thinking that they either built them out of metal supplies while in space or they got delivered by the dock.

Maybe you should factor in the doors into the size of the modules, so you don't get offset by one pixel when you use a double piece and two single pieces next to each-other.

This is something that will be checked for when you are placing a module, can it actually fit? The doors are done external from the module as it allows me to do cool things while programming. Hopefully I will be able to have all the modules contained in one space station class that will manage connections and life support etc.

Maybe you should factor in the doors into the size of the modules, so you don't get offset by one pixel when you use a double piece and two single pieces next to each-other.

Apologies if you don't like people doing this kind of thing, but I tried an edit:

I also doubled the resolution so you could show the astronauts walking around.

Thanks for the edit, it looks quite nice with double the resolution. I like the way you have displayed the astronauts, colours wasn't something I had thought about!

Edit:

Not a lot of progress here, just ignore the messed up connection ports. What we are actually seeing is the space station class in work, currently just managing drawing and adding modules to an array and removing them without duplicates. Now I just need to work on getting the space station class to allow me to add modules by connecting them to other modules and we should be dandy. Might take more work that it sounds though.

[iPope]

I'm going to try and update this every day. I have been ill all day so I haven't really been programming at all. However I did have the idea of space fungus at a random point attaching to the station and spreading, consuming and destroying modules. Only killable by fire and destruction of modules to stop the spread.

Mockup:

[Altemore]

I dig your idea. Managing a space station could be fun. May I suggest rather than simply keep afloat moneywise, there should be incentives to upgrade, like, say, needing to build research modules by a certain date. In any case it could be an x-com ish mechanic where you need to produce tangible results or the government will not support your venture. I love the space fungus idea, I can totally imagine it being chaotic and horrifying  

[iPope]

Well I missed a day because I was ill and didn't do anything. However, I did manage to grab an hour today to do a little programming, family and parties and social life are such a bitch to the average game developer. I started hacking away at building how to build. I only got selecting connections done (shown below) and I need to get little shadows of modules appearing. The code at the moment is all testing code, so I can identify what I need to move into functions and how to do everything. So I guess what I'm saying is in a few days everything will need to be moved about and made neater. Anyway, here is the image:

[iPope]

  Success for all, after many a hour hacking and finding ingenious solutions to all my problems I have implemented building. Problems: It is really hacky and ugly and also scrolling through the connections with the arrow keys looks like a none starter so back to mouse I guess. It need some rewriting and the module class needs a little rewrite but it works 



The transparent module shows what you are placing. You can places modules on your modules, I need to fix that or you will have astronauts roaming in your astronauts. Also, only support for this module. That needs fixing as well.

[dangerousday]

You can places modules on your modules, I need to fix that or you will have astronauts roaming in your astronauts.

This is looking really cool. I can't wait to see where you take this project!

[iPope]

I am not going to lie to you, mainly I have been really fucking lazy. I switched connections over to being selectable with the mouse but this whole system I am using is really stupid. I haven't been doing much because I am dreading writing the new system. The idea is that when building the module selected is hovering under the mouse and if one or more of the connections on the module line up to other connections then you can place it. It's just going to be hell to write and for various reasons I haven't been very productive. 

[iPope]

With all the snow-citement over here in the south of britian I have been real distracted. When the big snow eventual does hit thought I'll get more work done. In other news, devlog icon!

[iPope]

T-t-t-triple post. At least I have actual content this time.



So I have been re-writing the building system during my time off because of snow. It hasn't really taken that long, I am just one lazy bastard. Now the module you want to place is under the cursor and then when you click it checks that a) it is not colliding with another module and b) it connects to at least one connection. It is super fast as well thanks to the magic of "break" and "return", don't you just love them !

Progress Edit:
I have rewritten the module class to allow for more better stuff with cleaner coding and less passing around random variables etc. It is much more programatical now  
Anyway, onwards and upwards. I am going to start implementing changing module after I add a visual indicator to if you can build somewhere or not.

Another Progress Edit:
We are on a roll today!


Now we have multiple modules, and they can be placed, and it is awesome and it is fun and it is cool. My hands hurt  Now it is time to work on game play  (yes I have this many hands).

[RCIX]

  this looks really cool! Can hardly wait till i have something to at

[bslinger]

This is looking great, this is exactly the sort of idea I enjoy, I have a fetish for AI simulations where there the player only has control over the environment, and I love the simplified graphics style you've got going on.

How are you planning on showing the activity of the astronauts? I do like the idea of actually being able to see the astronauts walking around, but I could see how that would add a layer of complexity to the whole thing, as you'd have to start dealing with proper path-finding and interactions between the astronauts and modules/each other. Maybe version 2? 

[iPope]

This is looking great, this is exactly the sort of idea I enjoy, I have a fetish for AI simulations where there the player only has control over the environment, and I love the simplified graphics style you've got going on.

How are you planning on showing the activity of the astronauts? I do like the idea of actually being able to see the astronauts walking around, but I could see how that would add a layer of complexity to the whole thing, as you'd have to start dealing with proper path-finding and interactions between the astronauts and modules/each other. Maybe version 2? 

I am planning on doing AI and path finding for little astronauts. How complex it will be, I do not know. It should be pretty simple to get them moving about, the complexity comes in with the simulation.

[iPope]

I mean to post this yesterday but late is better than never, so here it is:



That green bar thing is actually a progress bar representing that modules now have a build time. At the moment the build time goes down every frame but in future it will require astronauts to work on it to complete the production. Time to get cracking on astronauts, but first I'm going to add cost to building.

[James Edward Smith]

Will the eventual game allow you to see inside the modules, like a cross section? I think that would make the game much more visually interesting even if the graphical representations of things were incredibly primitive.

Seeing dots drawn on what is clearly the outside of the station just seems confusing to me.