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[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Glad to see project lives!

This

[Rogod]

Yay friends! I actually figured my absence had gone unnoticed lol.


If it feels like v0.80 is taking a while, I might have a very good (legitimate) reason for a change:

I heard you like proc-gen games, so I put a proc-gen game in your proc-gen game so you can proc-gen game while you proc-gen game.

Still a few bits to do before I can release this - will hopefully get some juicy gifs for publicity etc.

[JobLeonard]

You added a dungeon crawler mini-game? 

[Rogod]

Yea I felt the other 2 minigames were a little stale and didn't really add much, while still being better than nothing.

So I wanted to add something a little more substantial that folks might actually play. (Also totally to make more use of the 3D engine lol)

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

That's sick

[vdapps]

Oooo, really niceyy!

Do you plan to use it "just" as mini-game or you want to make it integral part of the game? (like, apart of roaming around star systems, you have to do also some dungeon crawling to achieve something important).

[baftis]

Yay friends! I actually figured my absence had gone unnoticed lol.


If it feels like v0.80 is taking a while, I might have a very good (legitimate) reason for a change:

I heard you like proc-gen games, so I put a proc-gen game in your proc-gen game so you can proc-gen game while you proc-gen game.

Still a few bits to do before I can release this - will hopefully get some juicy gifs for publicity etc.

Well, now you've just outdone yourself. This looks great.

[Rogod]

Update v0.80
Not one single ray was cast

• Added a new minigame (can be found as an arcade cabinet in bars on space stations like RockBlaster)MazeBase isn't really inspired by anything specific, but I think we all know the era I was going for here.
  Procedurally generated mazes, keys, doors, alien baddies (they stand still and block your way for technical reasons), alien friendos, doom-guy face, beeps/boops, HUD bars, minimaps, space swords, etc.

• Randomised bar names so they don't seem like they're all run by the same guy

• Which room you were last in on a space station is now saved

• Fixed meteors landing on a newly generated cosmos after loading a previous one

• Some other bug fixes and tech debt were taken care of

@vdapps
While I'd like to make 3D environments an integral part of the core gameplay, I can't really see anywhere that this would fit in without feeling jarring and clunky. (Especially as teleporters are an established part of the lore - who needs to traverse a maze on a planet's surface when you can teleport from your ship to the end of it ) I am likely to just use the 3D engine for other areas like the space station, where it's just something pretty to look at, rather than something the player is expected to frantically navigate.

[JobLeonard]

Being able to "immerse" yourself in a space station or colony with no other gameplay mechanic behind it would still be pretty cool though. Although I would explicitly label it as sightseeing to not confuse the player in that case

[Rogod]

Aye that's what I was going for with the space station - I think I've balanced the look & feel quite nicely there.

The only other place I have a vague plan to implement a 3D perspective on is maybe a view from hotels or other buildings on planet surfaces.

Need some more features in the game before I make up my mind on that one however.

[vdapps]

Ufff, dungeons, space stations, now hotels? Seems that soon there will be more to do than in Skyrim. Hard to believe that it's one man project.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Around what time do you think the game will be released?

[JobLeonard]

Do you mean when "v1" is done? Because Rogod has been releasing new versions for free on his website all the time

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Oh, dear Forgot about that.
Yeah, I guess v1.1, when it gets "RELEASED" Like out there ... or dare I say when it gets ... *completed*

[Rogod]

Yes I'm afraid the roadmap for project Startron says little more than:
v1.00 is coming in "20 arbitrary time periods" and v1.10 is coming in "30 arbitrary time periods"
(Quarterly revenue is expected to be £0)

v1.00, as with games like Minecraft, will just be an arbitrary milestone, rather than to represent anything specific or significant. (Although I may celebrate 100 versions at the very least. )

Startron was always intended to just be an ongoing project to tinker with for my own and anybody else's enjoyment, with each version in some way better than the one before.

There is still a large finite to-do list, and I'm sure momentum will run out eventually (hopefully near the end of that list) but there is still plenty more to keep me busy for the foreseeable, so plenty more for folks to enjoy in the versions beyond.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

v1.00 is coming in "20 arbitrary time periods" and v1.10 is coming in "30 arbitrary time periods"

Acceptable

[Rogod]

Update v0.81
Oo shiny

• Upgraded the sphere rendering code so they don't look quite so much like pie charts now

• Added 2 new addons:
  • The zoom drive moves you 10x faster around the cosmos overview
  • The radiation disruption neutraliser will cancel out communication interference when near black holes

• Energy funnels will now power entire planets when fully charged (providing another use-case for them beyond obliterating other cosmic entities)

• The main menu now transitions better onto the screen and has a few more reassuring beeps to go along with the rest of the interface

• Fixed the perspective of the space station messing up when loading a game that was last saved while viewing the cosmic database

• Fixed the last position a player was on an entity not loading correctly (the feature was basically not implemented properly in the first place - blame the devs )

• Fixed lower power outputs on conduits overwriting higher ones so a sunlight collector could effectively cancel out the power output from an explosion chamber if positioned part way along the wire

• Possibly improved the keyboard responsiveness (this is just an overarching issue with the input available in terminals - they're locked to your operating system's key-repeat rate, but I had previously coded this a bit stupidly so it should be a little less noisy now)

• A couple of other bits of tech debt were addressed too

The future:
• Catto/doggo species choosing
• Friend-ships
• NPC interaction
• Grog α & Grog ß storyline (so far only hinted at in a news headline in the space station bars)

[JobLeonard]

Oooh, nice! Did they always have a propertly oriented shadow relative to the sun, or is that new?

[Rogod]

Aye they did, but it was a bit flat and boring:


Although probably less scientifically accurate from an overhead perspective, I just prefer the new shading as it says "sphere" more.

[JobLeonard]

Huh, you know I still quite put my finger on what is different but it definitely is better. Did you just use a flat circle to calculate the shadow before and now use a (faux) 3D sphere instead?