I could not resist having a quick look at what shadows may look like. Please forgive me for defacing your exellent artwork. It really is superb.
I still like the clean fresh look you have made. But here is the results of my shading in! Used 2 overlay layers in paint.net.
One for shadow colour, one for illumination colour. I was just curious as to how it would look.
[quote=“Vermeer,post:61,topic:37009”]
Well, shoot. …I’m sold.
Those look gorgeous. (I’d eventually like to implement a day/night cycle, so it’d also be great to vary the intensity of shading and make interior lights stand out.) I might PM you about this later.
In other news, some final tweaks to terrain generation, and basic versions of the mag line and shield wall are up on github. (If you’re looking to run it, TestGame has been renamed to WorldDebug, so watch that.)
http://s22.postimg.org/xo9m7g3zl/takeoff_screen.png
Offworld immigration and supplies should now be working, along with extra work on maglines and shield walls. I’ve disabled mining facilities for the moment while I work out the mechanics in more detail.
http://s22.postimg.org/xo9m7g3zl/takeoff_screen.png
Offworld immigration and supplies should now be working, along with extra work on maglines and shield walls. I’ve disabled mining facilities for the moment while I work out the mechanics in more detail.
I love the art style, but one thing I’ve noticed is that on lower-contrast (read: average) monitors, the color looks very washed out and a lot of the fine details are lost. Looks fabulous on my expensive work monitor though. Maybe a gamma calibration screen would be in order (one of those “adjust the slider until you can see X” things).
Hmm. I actually reduced the colour saturation by about 30% compared with earlier drafts because the colours were too intense on my laptop screen. I’ll look into it. Shading might help too, now I think about it.
I love the way the game is presented as the artwork and story/background, rather than as the technical nuts and bolts. It looks a load of fun. And REAL science fiction too.
I love the art style, but one thing I’ve noticed is that on lower-contrast (read: average) monitors, the color looks very washed out and a lot of the fine details are lost. Looks fabulous on my expensive work monitor though. Maybe a gamma calibration screen would be in order (one of those “adjust the slider until you can see X” things).
Hmm. I actually reduced the colour saturation by about 30% compared with earlier drafts because the colours were too intense on my laptop screen. I’ll look into it. Shading might help too, now I think about it.
I love the way the game is presented as the artwork and story/background, rather than as the technical nuts and bolts. It looks a load of fun. And REAL science fiction too.
To come back to what we were talking about macro vs micro:
If the macro has a different timescale than the micro, then you should simply slow time while you’re zoomed in, and speed it up while zoomed out. Then say 10 years pass, you could zoom in again and a lot would have changed. If the AI is sensible with building or even better if the player is able to set broad trends it should follow (I want emphasis on industry, I want emphasis on research) then it would continue down those trends in the player’s absence. Also, if you’re building in California or Japan you don’t need to see all 25 million or whatever residents. Just show the important stuff. Military / science buildings, food facilities, etc. And maybe you could also say it’s just representative of the larger whole.
For example, in Master of Orion 2 you would only do anything based on groups of a million people. They might look like 1 person, but fictionally they were 1 million. That works fine.
To come back to what we were talking about macro vs micro:
If the macro has a different timescale than the micro, then you should simply slow time while you’re zoomed in, and speed it up while zoomed out. Then say 10 years pass, you could zoom in again and a lot would have changed. If the AI is sensible with building or even better if the player is able to set broad trends it should follow (I want emphasis on industry, I want emphasis on research) then it would continue down those trends in the player’s absence. Also, if you’re building in California or Japan you don’t need to see all 25 million or whatever residents. Just show the important stuff. Military / science buildings, food facilities, etc. And maybe you could also say it’s just representative of the larger whole.
For example, in Master of Orion 2 you would only do anything based on groups of a million people. They might look like 1 person, but fictionally they were 1 million. That works fine.
Glad you enjoyed it. I actually find the art & background easier/more fun to work on, which might be the main reason I presented it. Which isn’t to say the technical aspects were trivial, but in the final analysis they’re sort of invisible to the player.
Don’t hold me on the ‘real science fiction’ thing, though. I might be adding psychic powers yet…
@ Eli Deventhal
It all sounds very nice in theory, but if I wind up maxing out the processor with just one settlement at normal speed (which might happen yet,) I don’t think simulating multiple settlements at greatly sped-up rates is going to be viable, leave alone the question of exactly how I write governor AI in the first place. I could approximate what happens based on broad trends, but then I need to be able to translate from that approximation down into the fine details, and again, I don’t really know how to do that. Is it possible? Maybe. But it’s not my priority for the moment. Likewise, I could pretend that all my walkers are representative of bunches of people, but then I can’t simultaneously assign them individual personalities or relationships.
Now, I do have some ideas for having a limited degree of interface between your local settlement and the ‘big picture’ view of the larger setting, but the player’s ability to affect interstellar politics is probably going to be pretty restricted.
That said, I do appreciate the suggestions, and will try to get around to incorporating as much of them as I can.
Glad you enjoyed it. I actually find the art & background easier/more fun to work on, which might be the main reason I presented it. Which isn’t to say the technical aspects were trivial, but in the final analysis they’re sort of invisible to the player.
Don’t hold me on the ‘real science fiction’ thing, though. I might be adding psychic powers yet…
@ Eli Deventhal
It all sounds very nice in theory, but if I wind up maxing out the processor with just one settlement at normal speed (which might happen yet,) I don’t think simulating multiple settlements at greatly sped-up rates is going to be viable, leave alone the question of exactly how I write governor AI in the first place. I could approximate what happens based on broad trends, but then I need to be able to translate from that approximation down into the fine details, and again, I don’t really know how to do that. Is it possible? Maybe. But it’s not my priority for the moment. Likewise, I could pretend that all my walkers are representative of bunches of people, but then I can’t simultaneously assign them individual personalities or relationships.
Now, I do have some ideas for having a limited degree of interface between your local settlement and the ‘big picture’ view of the larger setting, but the player’s ability to affect interstellar politics is probably going to be pretty restricted.
That said, I do appreciate the suggestions, and will try to get around to incorporating as much of them as I can.
I think I’ll have to take a break from working on this for the next week or two, since other commitments have come up.
I think I’ll have to take a break from working on this for the next week or two, since other commitments have come up.
Actually in the meantime, I might explain myself a little further. One of the things I’d like to do with indistinguishable-from-magic psyonic mojo would be to take a leaf from, say, the Prince of Persia reboot, and make functions like saving/loading the game a kind of rationed resource.
One of the major concepts behind the Dune and Foundation series (which are two of my biggest templates for the setting,) is the idea of using hypercognitive forecasting of the future to enhance decision-making.* The application here would be that saving/loading the game is actually the player-character exploring alternate futures, and selecting the course of action which produces the results they desire. The drawback is that such forecasting eats up mental stamina, so that every time you quit-and-reload, you lose a chunk of mana based on how far back you retrace your steps.
Actually saving (and/or quitting) the game, on the other hand, gives you back a chunk of mana (or whatever) as the player-character pauses to meditate. Mana also regenerates slowly over time, and can be spent on a bunch of other FX, like time dilation (game speed settings/bullet-time), issuing psychic suggestions (unit micro) and other more traditional forms of direct intervention- healing, damage, recon, transport, et cetera.
I’d like to have this kind of mechanism because (A) I notice I’m personally terribly prone to abusing stuff like game speed settings and save/load features, and (B) because the game will probably have a pretty slow tempo otherwise. But the idea is to complement automated behaviours rather than overshadow them, and the mana economy should ration the amount of micro the player can really afford.
I’m not sure how much, if any of that I’ll get around to implementing, and it’s likely that some of the Schools would provide special abilities of their own. But, while I’m fantasising idly and borrowing liberally from genre precedent…
[quote][i]
Perception (Powers that forecast the future or see the past)
Walk the Path (saves the current game)
Deny the Vision (reverts to last save- contested in MP)
Blind Sight (peels back all fog of war)
Ancestral Memory (bonus to skills based on homeworld)
Projection (Powers that affect time, gravity and hyperspace)
Remote Viewing (reveals a distant area of the map)
Time Dilation (slows down all action in an area)
Telekinesis (throws or transports chosen target)
Singularity (teleports nearby targets elsewhere)
Suggestion (Powers that manipulate behaviour)
Concentration (intensifies focus on current task)
Voice of Command (gives the target a single short order)
Mass Figment (distracts all enemies nearby)
Possession (complete, indefinite control of target)
Metabolism (Powers that affect the physical body)
Suspension (puts the subject in stasis)
Vitality (eliminates aging and disease)
Potence (heightens strength and resilience)
Regeneration (rapid healing- can raise recently dead)
Synesthesia (Powers that affect sensory/motor coordination)
Kinesthesia (enhances all reflex-based skills)
Imprinting (enhances first impressions and socialising)
Truthsense (immunity to suggestion or deceit)
Acceleration (increase move and action rate)
Transduction (Powers that invoke energy and affect matter)
Forcefield (boosts target shields)
Shockwave (repels and damages nearby enemies)
Integration (assists in construction/repair)
Disintegration (deals severe damage to one target)
[/quote]
* In the literature, there’s something of a question mark as to whether this involves jedi-style magical clairvoyance or simply logical extrapolation from past trends like a chess player seeing ahead 12 moves. …Don’t ask me about shooting lightning from your fingers.
I’d be really careful about this if I were you. Checkpoints in an action game are one thing, but messing with peoples ability to save in a single-player strategy game is not usually something people are going to accept. If you want permanent consequences to actions, simply making the game world persistent with no explicit save mechanic whatsoever might be preferable to erecting gimmicky barriers around save/load mechanisms.
Actually in the meantime, I might explain myself a little further. One of the things I’d like to do with indistinguishable-from-magic psyonic mojo would be to take a leaf from, say, the Prince of Persia reboot, and make functions like saving/loading the game a kind of rationed resource.
One of the major concepts behind the Dune and Foundation series (which are two of my biggest templates for the setting,) is the idea of using hypercognitive forecasting of the future to enhance decision-making.* The application here would be that saving/loading the game is actually the player-character exploring alternate futures, and selecting the course of action which produces the results they desire. The drawback is that such forecasting eats up mental stamina, so that every time you quit-and-reload, you lose a chunk of mana based on how far back you retrace your steps.
Actually saving (and/or quitting) the game, on the other hand, gives you back a chunk of mana (or whatever) as the player-character pauses to meditate. Mana also regenerates slowly over time, and can be spent on a bunch of other FX, like time dilation (game speed settings/bullet-time), issuing psychic suggestions (unit micro) and other more traditional forms of direct intervention- healing, damage, recon, transport, et cetera.
I’d like to have this kind of mechanism because (A) I notice I’m personally terribly prone to abusing stuff like game speed settings and save/load features, and (B) because the game will probably have a pretty slow tempo otherwise. But the idea is to complement automated behaviours rather than overshadow them, and the mana economy should ration the amount of micro the player can really afford.
I’m not sure how much, if any of that I’ll get around to implementing, and it’s likely that some of the Schools would provide special abilities of their own. But, while I’m fantasising idly and borrowing liberally from genre precedent…
[quote][i]
Perception (Powers that forecast the future or see the past)
Walk the Path (saves the current game)
Deny the Vision (reverts to last save- contested in MP)
Blind Sight (peels back all fog of war)
Ancestral Memory (bonus to skills based on homeworld)
Projection (Powers that affect time, gravity and hyperspace)
Remote Viewing (reveals a distant area of the map)
Time Dilation (slows down all action in an area)
Telekinesis (throws or transports chosen target)
Singularity (teleports nearby targets elsewhere)
Suggestion (Powers that manipulate behaviour)
Concentration (intensifies focus on current task)
Voice of Command (gives the target a single short order)
Mass Figment (distracts all enemies nearby)
Possession (complete, indefinite control of target)
Metabolism (Powers that affect the physical body)
Suspension (puts the subject in stasis)
Vitality (eliminates aging and disease)
Potence (heightens strength and resilience)
Regeneration (rapid healing- can raise recently dead)
Synesthesia (Powers that affect sensory/motor coordination)
Kinesthesia (enhances all reflex-based skills)
Imprinting (enhances first impressions and socialising)
Truthsense (immunity to suggestion or deceit)
Acceleration (increase move and action rate)
Transduction (Powers that invoke energy and affect matter)
Forcefield (boosts target shields)
Shockwave (repels and damages nearby enemies)
Integration (assists in construction/repair)
Disintegration (deals severe damage to one target)
[/quote]
* In the literature, there’s something of a question mark as to whether this involves jedi-style magical clairvoyance or simply logical extrapolation from past trends like a chess player seeing ahead 12 moves. …Don’t ask me about shooting lightning from your fingers.
I appreciate the warning, though I’ve generally found background auto-saving to be too punishing and arbitrary save/load options too forgiving, so I thought this might be interesting as a middle ground. Are you aware of other citybuilder/strategy titles I could look at that attempted this? Not trying to second-guess, or anything, just curious.
EDIT: Okay, how’s about this for a tweaked alternative: by default, the game uses the automatic-save-on-quit-persistent-world approach. However, the player can spend psi points/mana/spice capsules/whatever to create an explicit ‘save point’, and then gets a minute or two of subsequent play before their ‘precognitive vision’ fails, and they have to either save their progress (walk the path) or revert to the last save (deny the vision.)
It would work in basically the same way, except that the player controls when the system kicks in. Does that sound any better?