Ships can turn around now, and a basic computer AI is almost complete (<-- takes a lot of time
)
This is day 7, if this was a 7DRL challenge, I'd be screwed up already, which is a good metric for the upcoming challenge on February 2010 (I managed to get more time up to this point than I thought I would, situation may be similar on february). (I must not let the scope grow again)
This is a description of the combat system, which foundations were proposed by Mr. Jeff Lait (of
POWDER fame),
please discuss!
Combat System Description
* One army agains another army of starships
* Player controls one Army, Computer controls the enemy army. (Maybe hotseat mode in the future)
* Each ship has a movement range and a firing range.
* Player can move only one of their ships each turn, then goes the other player.
* All ships fire automagically each turn as long as their enemies are in their firing range. (So the player only moves them and turns them)
* Each ship has a shield which is damaged everytime they are hit, if shield goes below zero the ship explodes in thousands of flixels.
* If the player loses all his ships, he loses
Following are the pending tasks, from the base planning:
* Add Sample Ship Data
* Finish Fire Action
* Simple Enemy AI
* Sample SpriteGear Data
* Mock combat scenario generator (with SpriteGear)
* Capture SpriteGear
* Mock assault group generator (2 Ships alone + 1 SpriteGear)
* Starmap generator
* Create Expedition
* Expedition generator
* Sector Generator
* Setup Assault Group
* Ship Data
* SpriteGear Data
I also managed to grow the to-do list with some cool things (courtesy of having left my home keys at the office). Here goes, unordered and crazy
* Ship rotation
* Missile and laser fire animation
* SpriteGearAI, can summon slave ships
* Add alien factions
* Fighting over planets and asteroid fields
* Add recovery to ships
* SpriteGear capture
* Tie battlescenario generator to section type and zone difficulty
* Movement animations
* Add flavour messages with portraits
* Add expedition status screen
* Add energy cost to ship warps
* Add fancy ship warp animation
* Add fancy starfield simulation parametrized by zone
* Add mothership section tile to zone
* Add friendly space station section tile to zone
* Buy and sell ships and supplies at friendly space stations
* Add quest sections, can do quests for energy to warp to other zones
* Add a tutorial
* Add pre battle setup (show what’s the enemy, then select a formation) [Stand Fast, Balanced Wedge, Line, Outflank, Inverse Edge] Each formation has an energy cost
* SpriteGears have special moves which van be triggered via command, or used automatically while on crisis
* SpriteGear are commonly weak at short range and need to be escorted
* Show detailed ship data in a square on hover, including faction, model, direction, energy and an image.
* SpriteGears are cau... [end of notes]
An alien from the Orice sector also pointed out some things to note:
you’ll definitely want some more dynamics later to make it more fun (like positional bonuses, shield ships, different types of ammo/shields, repairing, cloaking, etc
its just hard to tell what is your ship vs an enemy ship
[the cursor] should change or flash or let you know you are in firing range somehow
i would expect you would hit ‘lock target’ and then I would mouse over the enemy - just need to make sure the visual feedback reinforces that
Also, I'm keeping track of all this in
my blog, just in case you want to bookmark me
Aprox. Work Time: 18:45 (15:15+3:30)
Over the original plan:
Expected: 14:00
Invested: 14:10
Advanced: 19:00
Community
