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[Ankmannen]

The launcher will download the latest bits as they are released.

https://spacealotstorage.blob.core.windows.net/release/win-x64-spacealot-launcher.zip


Codename: Spacealot(Formerly PaperSpace, changed due to copyright issues)

Platforms: MonoGame-compatible platforms with enough screen size. Smaller screens will be used to get meta data from your game while at work. Information like resource and production stats will update in realtime.

Components used: Farseer Physics, MonoGame

I'm working on a new project that is a combination of a 2D space adventure game and an industrial simulator. You start of with a small ship with a couple of tiny lasers attached.

The first thing you need is to gather some resources and refine them using your ships resource processor. From the refined stuff you can expand your ship or build another one in any shape you'd like. You can switch ships by simply relocating the cockpit to another object. An extreme example would be to attach a couple of engines to an asteroid and move you cockpit to it and you'll have yourself a asteroid ship.

Concept gameplay videos

NEW -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siKBnQ8gApg&feature=youtu.be (The first mining droid ever, added 2014-08-24)



(7 min gameplay video, added 2013-08-10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RewR3j4fpKk&feature=youtu.be (first concept)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDuEZxhUm10&feature=youtu.be (60 fps, no crafting, some more resources)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ffbM_XfvtY&feature=youtu.be (processing pipeline in action)

In the video you see some simple mining of an asteroid from your two small lasers. There is no such thing as a mining laser, only smaller or bigger lasers. After some IRONORE has been collected they are refined into STEEL. From that you can expand your ship. In the version in progress you have to craft the actual steelplate from STEEL and then attach it to the ship. The crafting process can also be automated in the future to support the feature of micro- to macromanaging.

In time you expand your world and automate entire industries to build the stuff you need. Or you can just build an awesome fighter instead and go for adventure. Perhaps stealing someone else's factories?



The image above is from the crafting of the ship. The placeholder graphics you see is

• C for cockpit, this is the unit you can move to other objects to gain control of it
• R for reactor, your standard space fusion reactor that provides a small amount of energy. The bigger the ship, the bigger/better reactors are needed.
• Proc is the processing unit that refines the raw ore to stuff like steel. Input on the left side and output on the right at the moment. The process can be chained. You can even combine several lines to feed an autocrafter to build whatever you need. Transportation and storage blocks is also available.
• The 3x3 minecraft standard crafting thingy is for manual crafting.
• Blue squares is where you can put new structure units to expand your creation.

Also looking for an artist to clean the project of ugly programmer art!

[Ankmannen]

Added new game play video showing some new Resources.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDuEZxhUm10&feature=youtu.be

[Ankmannen]

Space is big. And it has planets. My primary concern right now is to naturally include planets in my game. Even when zoomed out to the max a planet is HUGE and if you ever happen to see one in your game it will be for a short moment before you are crushed against the surface due to gravitional pull.

My possibilies are

1) When you get close to a planet you get a choice to enter orbit. You'll never actually see the planet for reasons explained above. If you have a landing ship created you can enter the planet.

2) Don't have planets... That would be wierd...

Anyhow, on the planet you have a 2D view from above where you can, as in space, build bases and refine stuff and so on. My twist on this is that you can start a mine and you flip into a side viewing 2D mine (like Miner dig deep and a thousand other clones) BUT with a second twist of having the ability to flip the world 90 degrees on its Y-axis. 3D but 2D.

On the techical side I'm working on setting up my VS environment (and later on build server) to create builds for all supported MonoGame platforms at once.

Any thoughts would be great!

EDIT: Or just dump the flat surface mode and move directly into the 2D mining mode. And also, you can place defence satelites (read big guns) in orbit to protect you planet.

[cragwind]

Cool, just what I'm interested in!

I've also struggled with how to implement planets in a top-down game like this. To me, the sticking point is that I don't want to present an overhead view of a ship in a side-scrolling environment, especially with gravity present. My solution is to just stay within the asteroid belt or upper atmosphere and skip the actual planet.

The processing pipeline for resources has a lot of possibilities. You could use junctions as a threading model - some processes may take longer, so parallelize them by providing more than one processor adjacent to the output square of the previous process. Likewise, multiple outputs could end up at a single tile, which is the input for a fast process.

[Ankmannen]

I think I've got it figured out. There will be distinct regions of zoom. The current one is the local zoom as it is implemented in the videos. When you have reached a certain Tech-level you can zoom out further to the next distinct step: Solar system. In this level you can travel the local system, visiting planets and stuff.

This goes on over the steps of interstellar to intergalaxy. All new stuff is generated as you go along. Of course you dont have the tech to travel intergalaxy from the start.

When getting close to planets you get a choice to land, provided you have the Tech to do so.

I agree with the flexibility of the processing pipeline. That is the industrial part of the game and was originally a game idea on its own. Like your ideas with different speeds of processing, making the designer really think about layout. For larger industries you need to find large asteroids and perhaps even fuse asteroids together.

[Ankmannen]

Video of the processing pipeline in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ffbM_XfvtY&feature=youtu.be

Turning oilsand into raw oil into plastic.

[s0]

I think I've got it figured out. There will be distinct regions of zoom. The current one is the local zoom as it is implemented in the videos. When you have reached a certain Tech-level you can zoom out further to the next distinct step: Solar system. In this level you can travel the local system, visiting planets and stuff.

sounds good. that's what i imagined spore would be like when i saw the first previews.

best of luck with this!

[Ankmannen]

sounds good. that's what i imagined spore would be like when i saw the first previews.
best of luck with this!

Something like Spore but with the ability to enter micro-management again.

Working on a launcher (with news and update features) and cross platform builds of the concept at the moment. Hopefully I can start to push daily builds automatically for anyone who would like to test the game.

[Ankmannen]

For those interested in a playable build, check out http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=34403.0 for the 0.03 version.

Static launcher that will download the latest version and launch it for you.

http://spacealot.blob.core.windows.net/release/Launcher.exe

[Ankmannen]

Updated the launcher. Thinking about adding the first enemy ship - The Slacker. A reminisce from millions of years ago. Used to be the glorious drones of the galaxy warlords. Nowadays senile, underpowered drones floating in space, attacking whatever it can. Great for target practice and metal recycling.

I'm adding this to create a minimum threat in the game so that you would have to build shields and automated lasers to your creations to fend them of.

New units coming up

* The Slacker (enemy)
* Automated Defence Laser (the ADL)
* Tractor beam
* Shields

New features

* Create structures on asteroids. Just add steel blocks and whatever unit you like.
* Move asteroids with tractor beam

New blocks

* The stabilizer (keeps an object of up to 50 tons in place, great for positioning asteroids in space so the don't fly away when hit).

Not in the next release but upcoming

* Energy management. Still have a few game concept thingies I need to figure out.

[Bursar]

Played the previous build for a bit yesterday, and quite enjoyed it I'm actually toying with a very similar thing at the moment, but I'm not going down the crafting route. The ship is still modular and made up of blocks, but you buy the blocks from space stations.

You mentioned chaining processors together so that the output bin of one is the input bin of another. Is it planned that this lets you autocraft items? So rather than have to bring up crafting window and manually create a new steel block, you create a 'blueprint' for a steel block and load it in the processor. Then when the right number of items are in the input bin, the processor goes to work and starts churning out steel blocks.

Maybe advanced processors can be fed from multiple input bins. You could then put a blueprint of a processor into a processor, load input bin A with steel and input bin B with computer chips. The processor will kick into life and then a new processor block will be deposited into the output bin.

I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes!

[Ankmannen]

Thanks for playing! 

If you run the launcher you'll always have the latest build. Current is 0.04 (fullscreen). What game are you working on? Any bits available?

You mentioned chaining processors together so that the output bin of one is the input bin of another. Is it planned that this lets you autocraft items?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm aiming for. There is actually going to be a unit called AutoCrafter that you can place and all holders except for the output acts as inputs and if you select it you can set a template for what to craft. An item will be crafted if A) there is enough power available B) The unit is enabled C) There is enough raw material

Also there will be transport units that moves resources from one holder to another.

Maybe advanced processors can be fed from multiple input bins. You could then put a blueprint of a processor into a processor, load input bin A with steel and input bin B with computer chips. The processor will kick into life and then a new processor block will be deposited into the output bin.

That's a very good idea!  And blueprints can be discovered giving you a reason to go on adventures!

I love the start of a new game, it's all possibilities!

[Ankmannen]

First a general question. Is frequent updates appreciated or considered spam/annoying bumping of the thread? Any guidelines for this? Don't want to annoy anyone.

Second, this is the current progress in order to reach the goal of adding the Slacker enemy unit.

* Added Engines

Can be crafted with

[empty] [Steel] [empty]
[steel] [chip]  [steel]
[steel] [empty] [steel]

The ship gains +10 acceleration for each engine placed. In future builds the engine will consume a considerable amount of energy. The ship gets heavier for each block added and requires more engines. But engines need a lot of power so you'll have to make a trade off between speed and size at some point.  A larger ship also means more shields needed.



Build 0.05 available at

http://spacealot.blob.core.windows.net/release/Launcher.exe

[Atrus]

It's your devlog. Your style.
But I must say, game looks quite neat.

[Bursar]

The game is coming along nicely. I'm looking forward to getting more things to craft.

Will it be possible to rearrange the layout of the ship? It bugs me that your demo ship isn't symmetrical

[Ankmannen]

The game is coming along nicely. I'm looking forward to getting more things to craft.

Will it be possible to rearrange the layout of the ship? It bugs me that your demo ship isn't symmetrical

You can build your ship anyway you like. Just add structure units and balance it Thinking about making balance important in order to gain max engine power. If the ship (or engines) is unbalanced then one side of the ship will have to work less to keep the ship stable. If all engines on one side is destroyed, then you're in trouble.

Everything is rearrangleable. You can place and remove stuff however you'd like. Put you cockpit and a couple of engines on an asteroid and you'll have your self an asteroid ship. Steal stuff from other objects if they aren't guarded!

Currently (no pun intended) working on the energy management. I shamelessly ripped the power meter out of Total Annihilation

After that is done I'll try to add some more units. Any suggestions on what to create first is appreciated.

I'll also add somekind of ingame help to make the crafting easier. Or create a wiki.

[Ankmannen]

I also need a new name for this project since PaperSpace is a trademark of Autodesk. Any suggestions?

I was thinking about Spacealot for a while?

[Ankmannen]

Release 0.06 available

http://spacealot.blob.core.windows.net/release/Launcher.exe

You must have XNA Redist 4 installed (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914)

• Engines can be crafted
• Items can be removed and replaced (enter crafting mode by hitting C and hold the left mouse button for one second to pick up the unit). Cockpit cannot be relocated yet.
  
• Structure blocks can be removed and replaced
• Energy management basics
• You can craft a reactor
• You can craft a medium laser

Crafting templates

These are temporary until I get the entire subsystem of items and units where I want it to be. Then I'll focus on content.

I'll also create a wiki as the official source of crafting templates. But there will be hidden items as well. And blue prints for those can be found somewhere in space. You could also try every combination available.

St = STEEL
C = CHIP
Pl = PLASTIC (refined from Rawoil, refined from oilsand, found in asteroids)
Si = Silica (Raw material found in asteroids)
Go = GOLD (refined from GOLDORE, found in asteroids)
SP = Steelpipes

REACTOR

[ St ][ C ][ St ]
[ St ][ C ][ St ]
[ St ][ St ][ St ]

Generates energy

MEDIUMLASER

A smaller laser (the only one available at the moment)

[ Pl ][ SP ][ SP ]
[ St ][  ][  ]
[ St ][  ][  ]

STEELPIPES

Used to build other stuff, such as laser cannons

[  ][ St ][  ]
[ St ][  ][ St ]
[  ][ St  ][  ]

STEELBLOCK

Structure base object, expand you ship with this and add units

[ St ][ St ][ St ]
[ St ][ St ][ St ]
[ St ][ St ][ St ]

ENGINE

Will make your ship accelerate faster. The heavier the ship, the more engines needed.

[  ][ St ][  ]
[ St ][ C ][ St ]
[ St ][   ][ St ]

STORAGE

Storage bin to be placed on the ship.

[ St ][ St ][ St ]
[ St ][  ][ St ]
[ St ][ St  ][ St ]

PROCESSOR

Processes stuff from the bin on the left to the bin on the right.

[ St ][ St ][ St ]
[ St ][ C ][ St ]
[ St ][ St  ][ St ]

CHIP

When logic is needed, a chip is all you need.

[  ][  ][  ]
[ Pl ][ Si ][ Pl ]
[ Go ][   ][ Go ]

[Ankmannen]

Example of a ship built with the 0.06 version. A lot of lasers and a bunch of reactors to generate the energy needed!

[Bursar]

Excellent. I'll play with the new version tonight