Space Corp 5 [PC / Mac]

Community Forums/Showcase/Space Corp 5 [PC / Mac]

Banshee(Posted 2005) [#1]

RELEASE VERSION (PC&Mac): http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/SpaceCorps5.zip

ORIGINAL [PRE-RELEASE] POST
I've got my first BMax game to a playable condition and finaly have it ported to the Mac after descovering more about OSX and iMac graphics cards then I was ready to learn.

This is written in the BMax demo and is not quite finished (i'm adding a campaign option at the moment). If all goes well in my new job i'll be getting BMax after xmas and i'll release this properly.

I'll post some glamour shots later, i'd be interested to hear feedback on the gameplay - and very keen to hear feedback on how the game runs from as many Mac users as possible as this is my first games related foray into Apple Mac's.

The download is about 25mb (there's some hi-res background images I think saved at 100% quality, i'll ammend that later. Also a few .bmp's need converting to .png).

I know the menu music sounds bad because I couldn't get BMax to play .mp3's and had to do a low quality conversion. I'll look into this before the game is fully finished.

PC Edition:
Minimum: Pentium II, 8mb Graphics card (16mb recommended), 64mb RAM, Windows 98 or higher.

Mac Edition:
Minimum: G3 (G4 recommended), 8mb Graphics card (16mb recommended), 128mb RAM, OSX 10.2.8 or higher.


gosse(Posted 2005) [#2]
Nice!
It's a bit weird when there's an explosion and all ship are "vaccumed" around.
Can we play a campaign? Or that's not in yet?
Would be nice to have a list of available features and options (+ the controls).


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#3]
I'm going to finish off the campaign mode during the week, i've got to brush up my Mac skills ready for a new job tommorow so i've no more time right now to code. (But I regard forum browsing as an essential Mac skill :) ).

Controls are:
Steering: A/D or Cursor Left/Right
Thrust: W/S or Cursor Up/Down

Firing is automatic when in range and more or less facing an enemy. I found with these games the player just holds fire down anyway, so I may aswell do it for them.

Ceasefire: Hold Left or Right Control
Pause: P (any key to cancel)
Turbo Mode: Tab (Space or Enter to cancel)
Quit Game: Escape


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#4]
Here's the beauty shots I promised:




To use the score panel, the number at the top is ships in play. Each team has two scores showing the first is the number of waves of reinforcements due to arrive (they appear when one team has 20% or less of the quantity of ships in play) the second is a score (based upon tonnage destroyed). The score is used, as a ratio with the other teams, to determine what ships are awarded in the next reinforcement wave.


deps(Posted 2005) [#5]
Man, this was great! I didn't know what side I was on and a lot of times there was so many explosions that I didn't even know where I was. Most of the time I fly around in a circle trying to hit as many enemies as possible while trying to avoid enemy fire.
The graphics looks really nice.
One thing I didn't like at all was that sound or music or whatever it was in the menu. But the rest of the game was great.

Is it going to be a commercial game or a free one?


xlsior(Posted 2005) [#6]
Becky,

I just played the demo, and looks pretty good, especially considering the short time you spend with Blitzmax so far.

A couple of ideas for improvement:

- I noticed you have all your media present in the file you distributed. You can enclose all of that in a single file, simply by using the 'incbin' command. That way all your media, etc. is rolled into the actual executable, without the need to make any other changes to your program

- You may want to turn off the mousepointer, it can be a little distracting when left on the screen

- You may want to consider a full-screen mode as well, they tend to be more emmersive than windowed mode, especially when there is a lot of action going on.

- Since some of the screens are very hectic, it can be very tricky to see your ship appear after you die & respawn -- especially since your ship often looks different than it did before you died. By the time you manage to spot which ship is yours again, you often have lost a good chunk of health again. You may want to think about some kind of system to show the user where he is. For example, when you respawn have a red circle radiate & fade away from your position, as a visual clue of where to look. Something small like this can make a big difference in the playability.

By the way, nice little explosion animation. Do you mind if one 'borrows' this for future use, or rather not?


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#7]
Thank you :).

deps: I know about the sound problem, I cant get BMax to play an .mp3 so I need to find a solution.

xlsior: The last SC game had 3 or 4 mods that I know of, keeping the files open is an important part of allowing that. Media theft has never been a major issue for me, people tinker 'locally' with my 3D models sometimes - but only 1 person ever released anything with my stuff in without permission in 30 years of coding. Oh and a guy who rebranded several of my (and other peoples) games as his own.

I will make the final game fullscreen, although i'm at a loss to see how at the moment I will figure it out. That'll fix the mouse pointer.

Tip for finding yourself, you are always in the middle :)... I might add something visual when the scene changes though as you say it could really help.

I can do you explosion anims in that style endlessly, tell me the length and tex.res. There's no need to have exactly the same series of images - I have it rigged up in Max all I need do is give it some settings and a fractal seed and I get a new bang :)


xlsior(Posted 2005) [#8]
I can do you explosion anims in that style endlessly, tell me the length and tex.res. There's no need to have exactly the same series of images - I have it rigged up in Max all I need do is give it some settings and a fractal seed and I get a new bang :)


Hmmmmm. Are you offering to render one? A 256x256 @30 frames or so would be fantastic -- One can always scale it down later if memory should become a problem.

I am hopeless with 3D WYSIWYG rendering programs.

The only 3D program I've tried that I can get something half-way decent out of is POVRay, but that's all text-based and looks more like a programming language than a 3D drawing program. Not very well suited for special effects like explosions, though.


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#9]
As requested some explosions for you: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=53954


Erroneouss(Posted 2005) [#10]
Nice... Running it on Linux using Wine...
Good work. :)


Who was John Galt?(Posted 2005) [#11]
I think gameplay tweaking will be all important with this one. Love the gfx and it creates a real epic feel.. keep up the good work.

I'm sure you already have this planned for some of the other game modes, but if you don't... the game needs a mode where you don't continually respawn - I've never been much into these deathmatch type modes and I'm sure there will be others like me.

Fullscreen - yes def need this - just set a bit depth other than 0 to get full screen.

Good stuff.


Matt McFarland(Posted 2005) [#12]
Offtopic: Why does Banshee Studios not mention Becky Rose? At all?


deps(Posted 2005) [#13]
Offtopic: I think that's because a lot of immature kids keeps harassing her for being a female programmer.


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#14]
Offtopic: The website is horribly out of date, and nobody can be bothered to make a new one. Including me.


Grey Alien(Posted 2005) [#15]
I must admit I'd wondered the same as I had a good look at it once and couldn't see you. anyway hope this game goes well for you, gonna finish it?


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#16]
>gonna finish it?
If I loose interest and dont want to write the campaign mode I can finish it by taking that out, fixing the menu music and the download filesize and bolting on a splash screen... So one way or the other it will be finished :)


Matt McFarland(Posted 2005) [#17]
If you loose interest? are you going to unleash the interest unto the world? ;)

The game looks great!! I will check it out when I get home and post the appropriate feedback! :)


Matt McFarland(Posted 2005) [#18]
Well, I tried it out and I regret to say that I had a bad experience. I loaded the game up and hit skirmish and my ship starts out fidgiting like crazy and lasers are flying everywehre and the sound is too loud (louder then other sounds on the computer) and then i blow up and appear in another part of the map and the ship is jerking all over the place, etc etc etc. I dont think I was experiencing the normal, to say the least :(


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#19]
You where possibly being blown about by explosions, if you where unlucky enough to start in a small ship this could happen. I think I will restrict the ship options available at the start of the game so only ships within a certain range are selected.


Ferminho(Posted 2005) [#20]
It's looking great Becky. Still I don't like the gameplay very much, but I love the idea of dozens of ships shooting like crazy at each other, and graphics and effects are neat.

Is there no 'fire' key? the ship auto-shoots and this is what I dislike most. Is this intended or is it my pc?
What I would change (would be great if there was an option for this): I'd make ships go a lot faster and would add innertia. This is what troubles me mostly, there is no way of making wild manouvers to escape from slow-perfect-followers, or feel like "woohoo!" x)

Of course it's my opinion, if you like it the way it is, there is nothing more to add :) it's very polished, good work!


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#21]
Autofiring was qute deliberate, you can ceasefire by pressing a Ctrl key if you choose but otherwise it will fire whenever it is appropriate to do so. Having written several of these style of games in the past i've found most players just hold fire down anyway, this method at least gives them a break from the sound effect playing.

Speed is a relative matter, relative to arena size and arena population density. No two players will ever agree on a speed because: Some players fight strategically and dogfight; some stand, rotate and squirt; some players fly in endless circles with the fire key on. The speed of play and AI have to be geared up in such a manner that the latter two gameplay methods will fail more often than suceed.

Although it is possible to be scissor/paper/rocked out of a combat with another ship, in most cases there is no such thing as the perfect persuer - this is where team mates come in. Learning the AI's foibbles allows you to manipulate it. I now mostly survive when i'm outclasses by another ship, and sometimes even still get a kill...

Mommentum innertia is a possibility but i've never personally liked it because it makes processing the AI in dogfighting infinately more complex and results in significantly less AI in the battle. Currently this game will run 400 AI on a mid range 2Ghz Pc and only just dips below 30fps (my target speed), if I add innertia i'll be lucky to get 100.


Who was John Galt?(Posted 2005) [#22]
The start screen on this game sends my hard-disc whirring and crashes my machine or makes it unusably slow if I don't kick the game off immediately.


Matt McFarland(Posted 2005) [#23]
I cant move at all and my ship always is "vibrating" I think something is wrong with the game? I've tried to play several times and the start is always the same.


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#24]
@Matt - are you running on a Mac or a PC? What system specs do you have?

@Nomen - Do other BMax or openGL games do the same to your PC? I'm only showing an image, playing a .wav, and drawing some text quads to screen - it's hardly a cutting edge technology menu so perhaps the issue is with drivers?


Who was John Galt?(Posted 2005) [#25]
Banshee-
No I've had no problems with other Bmax stuff. It's really weird that the menu gives me problems but not the game. I'll have another go tonight and get back to you.


Matt McFarland(Posted 2005) [#26]
Running on a PC, its an Athlon XP 2500+ with 1024 DDR with nvidia 6800 GT


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#27]

RELEASE VERSION (PC&Mac): http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/SpaceCorps5.zip

I ditched the campaign mode but polished off everything else. The final build is just 8.53mb for both versions.


xlsior(Posted 2005) [#28]
Still looking good, although I did run into some issues when playing now:

The FPS counter in the upper right counter goes completely nuts, alternating between *huge* and tiny numbers... too fast to read, but it goes between 1000+ FPS and negative numbers. The minus sign is half-transparent, like every other frame is considered a negative value.

when that happens, the action is either very choppy, or I get kind of a 'double-vision' effect -- rather disorienting. Other times things are smooth, but a good portion of the time they aren't.

when canceling, the FPS shows a steady 30.

I have a feeling that there may be some delta-timing going wrong?


Jeremy Alessi(Posted 2005) [#29]
Pretty cool ... but I stink at it!


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#30]
I have a feeling that there may be some delta-timing going wrong?

Yes you've found the one shortcoming of my delta timing code. It cannot cope with machine capable of running over 1000fps. Please downgrade your computer to something reasonable :) !

I suppose i'll be doing a patch at some point now...


xlsior(Posted 2005) [#31]
Well, that sure explains it then.

But while my machine isn't bad, it's not exceptional either. Maybe you should downgrade to a slower programming language? :-)


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#32]
This patch file should fix the speed issue on fast PC's.

http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/SpaceCorps5-Patch.zip

Could you let me know if it works please Xlsior? If so i'll update the main download.


xlsior(Posted 2005) [#33]
...File does not exist.


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#34]
You're quite right, i've no idea where i've uploaded it too either! When I get home later i'll repost the file to the right place :) sowwy


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#35]
Patch for PC version uploaded, sorry about messing it up. I hope it fixes the issue :)


xlsior(Posted 2005) [#36]
Yup, looks like that did the trick!

*much* smoother now, no more stuttering, ghosting, double-vision, and all that.

One thing I did notice now things go smoother though: when you are the tiny little pod ship, you can fly at the same speed or faster than your lasers, making for some very odd visuals at times.


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#37]
I thought I keyed the speed to only overtake lasers if you where riding a shockwave (which doesnt effect the lasers), maybe I got that wrong :/ Oh well. I'll update the main download archives tonight for PC and Mac, thank you very much for helping me resolve that Xlsior :) *hugs*


xlsior(Posted 2005) [#38]
It's not like you're overtaking them left and right, but it appeared that most of the time you would go the exact same speed as long as you kept flying straight. Overtaking possibly when hitting the tail-end of a shockwave.


Banshee(Posted 2005) [#39]
The download has been updated to fix a few speed problems.

Computers that ran the game over 1000fps had inconsistent gameplay speed, now fixed.

Slow computers suffered from an unresponsive menu system, now fixed.