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[Hempuli‽]

About the Vehicle stealing; I agree that the current style of gameplay supports the way of "fly the thing to the battlefield - die - the enemy has it now", and the digger stealing in the beginning of the round is especially annoying. However, I'd myself prefer some other way than making the vehicles 'owned' by a certain team. Of course, if there are no other choices, I'll do that anyway.

As for the host/early player thievery, I'll make it so that the enemy base will be blocked until there are more than 1 player playing.

Also, my intention is to add at least 1 new type of ore that'd be used specifically for research. Research itself should be some kind of a meaningful thing to spend ore on, since it'd grant bonuses to your team only.
  Researching will have two parts: 'actual' research and upgrading. 'Actual' research is basically like unlocking new vehicles/items - there's a tech tree and the scientists click on the stuff they want to research at a time. Some of the currently existing items will probably be made unavailable at the beginning, so they must be researched first.
  As for the upgrading, it will mostly be related to character health/speed and such. I'm not totally sure what kind of things could be upgraded, since that kind of stuff has a high chance of breaking the already flimsy balance of the game. Health upgrades are a must, but damage is something I wouldn't want to touch, and movement speed is something that might cause more trouble than aid when upgraded.

Today's update will hopefully add some simple researching, fix certain bugs and maybe add another new item. The lightsaber is something that'd require pretty extensive coding but man the idea sounds amazing to me!  
EDIT: Another thing I should really look into is the round winning and the losing/winning screens. The way the timers reset is really curious, and it's no fun when the game reports that people have won/lost even though the round is still running. Hmm.

[Del_Duio]

About the Vehicle stealing; I agree that the current style of gameplay supports the way of "fly the thing to the battlefield - die - the enemy has it now", and the digger stealing in the beginning of the round is especially annoying. However, I'd myself prefer some other way than making the vehicles 'owned' by a certain team. Of course, if there are no other choices, I'll do that anyway.

Hemp, what about if someone tries to use a vehicle they don't own it takes 30 seconds or so to "hotwire" it? Also if you do this have the 4th class be a Carjacker or something that reduces this time to 10 seconds or so (?)

Just an idea!

[nahkranoth]

As for the host/early player thievery, I'll make it so that the enemy base will be blocked until there are more than 1 player playing.

I think this can work. I agree that taking the enemies vehicles is not a bad thing. (Had some nice fights around the digger for instance)

I don't think carjacker class would add something. What i am curious at is what the research will do to the game balance. Especially if your talking about another ore, their should be a difference in the speed you mine the diamond and the research ore. We will see...

[mokesmoe]

I was really just trying to think of a better way of having team-owned vehicles because I don't want to ever see 'only red team can use red vehicles'. Also, I was thinking just a 5 second timer for hijacking vehicles. Just enough time for any nearby teammates to try to save the vehicle.

A good upgrade would be jump hight. Maybe grenade upgrades would be cool? Whenever someone on your team throws a grenade it gets a bigger blast radius? Sorting it by which team made it would work too, since grenade stealing doesn't happen very much anyways. Researching lower prices would be nice too.

Round winning/losing should be completely server based. No matter what each player has on their timers, when the server's timer reaches zero, it sends a win/lose message to each player, and they show the win/lose screen.

An idea I had was to make vehicles even cheaper, but give them a build time.

[Hempuli‽]

1.67 is out! Changelog:

• Bugfixes, such as the one related to turrets.
• Implemented the vehicle lock discussed above.
• A new item, the loyalty chip, that instantly makes a "teamless" machine locked to your team.
• You can now view a changelog for the new updates.
• Really unfinished research. You can currently only research bonus health up to 200 hp.
• Missiles now do more damage to people in vehicles.

EDIT: AAAGAGASFSAF The health research happens for both teams! Man I'm stupid, haha. Gotta fix that quickly.

VERSION 1.67 GET!

Also shojin, I think the distorted guitar might be quite overwhelming in the in-game music. It kind of drowns the other instruments. Otherwise it's great as always.

[Qqwy]

After playing today, there is one thing I feel missing, and that is the ability to control the different in-game menu's (when building a vehicle or researching something, etc) with your keyboard. The rest of the game is completely controlled with the keyboard, and needing to switch to the mouse slows down gameplay.

Of course, this is just a little suggestion  .

It is an awesome game. I played it for about three quarters of an hour or something, and I really enjoyed it, and I want to go back and play more when I have time.

[shojin]

Also shojin, I think the distorted guitar might be quite overwhelming in the in-game music. It kind of drowns the other instruments. Otherwise it's great as always.

Yep... I left that compressed guitar channel on. WHOOPS!

[Hempuli‽]

After playing today, there is one thing I feel missing, and that is the ability to control the different in-game menu's (when building a vehicle or researching something, etc) with your keyboard. The rest of the game is completely controlled with the keyboard, and needing to switch to the mouse slows down gameplay.

I agree and wonder why I haven't done this yet.

[shojin]

Are you going to have the ability to change your game type when starting a server? I feel like death match and king of the hill (which you've already play tested) Are awesome, but I miss having death match now - even if I like king of the hill.

Another variant you could make would be capture the flag. That makes defending your base a whole lot more important.

Also, for another vehicle/research-able thing (perhaps you carry it - like the rocket launcher) would be a deploy-able turret, which lasts until it's killed, auto targets and shoots at the enemy, but has a slight delay before it starts firing so that the enemy has a chance to kill it - maybe insta-death from a rocket launcher or something?

[mokesmoe]

Also, for another vehicle/research-able thing (perhaps you carry it - like the rocket launcher) would be a deploy-able turret, which lasts until it's killed, auto targets and shoots at the enemy, but has a slight delay before it starts firing so that the enemy has a chance to kill it - maybe insta-death from a rocket launcher or something?

We already have that.

I agree about selecting gametypes, and that CTF would be fun.

[shojin]

We already have that.

So it is! Don't mind me.

[Qqwy]

Bugs I found out while playing today:

-Sometimes you cannot see mining machines of the other team. You can see blocks disappear, but the 'digging effect' (the mud flying around) is also invisible.

-At one point, somebody could use two vehicles at one time

-Planes can very easily get stuck on the Engineering Deck. You cannot get them out there anymore.

-One time, it was possible for me to join a server were one side had already won (0 seconds left)




I was thinking about the Ninja idea somebody told earlier. I think this would be a great idea. The major part of the game seems to be jump-based: dig a hole between the opponents base and the control room is Strategy #1.  Having a person who can jump just a little higher than the others would be interesting. Also, the ninja could have a built-in stealth-cloaker, so that when he is standing still, he becomes invisible. He obviously should have less firepower than the Fighters should have.

You could use the Ninja as a unlockable research option as well: People can become ninja's only after a scientist has unlocked it. Then the ninja's can be a bit stronger than what I said above, of course.

[piper65]

I was thinking about the Ninja idea somebody told earlier. I think this would be a great idea. The major part of the game seems to be jump-based: dig a hole between the opponents base and the control room is Strategy #1.

I really like the ninja idea too  . it could have some kind of wall-jump it would be great for turning around the game when one team has dug a huge hole in front of your base. It could be weaker than other classes in HP and attack but have the built-in cloak to compensate. I think it would really make the game more fluent.

Another way of achieving this result could be adding a rope item (spelunky-like), that could be shot down. But sometimes there is no ceiling that i could attach to.

[Hempuli‽]

You could use the Ninja as a unlockable research option as well

shojin & mokesmoe: yeah, at least CTF will be in. Also I've thought of some sort of base defending mode, but haven't really got ideas of how that'd work.

Qqwy: The two first are stuff I'm afraid I can't help with too much. From what it seems, sometimes the game fails to send enough data to tell other players that you've entered/left a vehicle, thus making it bug. If this happens, the player looking weird should be asked to reconnect. I'm trying to find out why it happens, but in the worst case it really can't be fixed.
 The engineering deck thing is a really idiotic design choice I left in place. Removing that hole to the next update.
 As I've said earlier, the round winning is very wonky with all the timer resetting and such. Once I feel like not being lazy, I'll for sure look at it.

When it comes to the fourth class thing, there seem to be two potential options:

• Ninja/'Spy': Basically stealth-based offence. Higher jump, perhaps even doublejump? Slightly worse damage but some extra skill, like the auto-cloaking.
• Engineer a lá mokesmoe: A class that can create items without being in the base. This could easily be hugely OP and is probably a bit difficult to implement, but I like the idea. Also they could unlock vehicles faster, perhaps?

Today there wont be an update or the update will be very small, because I've had a long day and tomorrow will be another.

[Lazrool]

It's really hard to say anything about this because there was only one other guy playing with me. It looks good and from what I've played it plays well too.

The lifts were a bit annoying because they block jumps or something. I think holding jump should be the same as holding up as far as lifts go.

[Qqwy]

I found another bug while playing: When a bomb goes off near a Builder vehicle while this Builder is just putting down a block while the 'earthquake' of the bomb happens, the background-block of the built block will be misplaced, and not properly on the tile-grid. Its small and circumstantial, but whatever  .

[Hempuli‽]

1.68 is here!

As I said, this is a small update:

• Small graphical update to the locks
• Cooldown to weapons
• Cooldown as a research subject!
• bugfixes and tweaks
• I made the lobby a bit less busy. Now you'll know when someone joins a game.
• The teams start now with 300 money.

VERSION 1.68b GET!
EDIT: The cooldown was bad.

[mokesmoe]

I wasn't the one who suggested the engineer as a mobile item maker, but anyway: A way to make him not OP would be to give him a build time where he has to stand still while making the item.

on the other hand...

Random ninja ideas!*:
 - Have a natural cloak that is better than item based. If he stops moving before the cloak runs out, it starts charging from there and he doesn't get revealed; (Think Cloak and Dagger from TF2) or just have it last longer once he starts moving.
 - Have him run up walls. Maybe overhangs would stop him, unless he had a jetpack.
 - A sword instead of a gun?
 - Maybe make natural cloak a researched ability?
 - Give him 75 health and 15 per upgrade. (always 75%)

PS: Have an expensive research upgrade that increases jump hight to 3 blocks

*(not necessarily good ideas)


EDIT: There should be a setup time instead of waiting for more than one player. Actually, it should just lock you in your base, instead of out of theirs. I joined a server about 30 seconds after it was made and I was the third one there. We had already lost all of our vehicles and had a big ditch in front of our base. The second player shouldn't have to win a 1 on 1 duel against someone just outside of the base who can reach the digger before him in order for his team to have a chance in the game.
Basically I'm irritated that if I join a game in progress I have a 50/50 chance that I've already lost. I'm not saying it's an impossible to beat strategy, but it's nearly impossible to win after it's been done, and almost no one seems to know how to stop it. [/rant]

Actually, I though of another way to help stop the problem:
Hey everyone! When you join a new server, head straight to your own digger and protect it!

[shojin]

- Have a natural cloak that is better than item based. If he stops moving before the cloak runs out, it starts charging from there and he doesn't get revealed; (Think Cloak and Dagger from TF2) or just have it last longer once he starts moving.
 - Have him run up walls. Maybe overhangs would stop him, unless he had a jetpack.
 - A sword instead of a gun?
 - Maybe make natural cloak a researched ability?
 - Give him 75 health and 15 per upgrade. (always 75%)

I like. Especially the sword idea - it certainly equals out with the wall running or higher jump. The natural cloak as you explained it is perfect for this character.

EDIT: There should be a setup time instead of waiting for more than one player. Actually, it should just lock you in your base, instead of out of theirs.

This.

[mokesmoe]

I like the idea of being able to build items on the fly, but the ninja just keeps sounding more and more attractive. Also, I kept mixing up the engineer and cybermason when the engineer was still in the game, so have a character that looks completely different would be nice. I suggest black suit with team coloured bandanna.
Also, the lower health probably isn't necessary. Leave it out at first, and put it in if he's OP.