Star Rogue - Work log

Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Projects/Star Rogue - Work log

EdzUp(Posted 2012) [#1]
Well after a period of not actually coding and looking at all options I am looking at doing a testbed version of Star Rogue in monkey, with the networking things hopefully i can interface it all with a blitzmax server and see how it goes. On the whole monkey does seem to be maturing quite nicely and i think now is the time to put it through its paces in regards to minib3d and everything :)


Xaron(Posted 2012) [#2]
Do you mind to write a bit about that project? What is it? :)


therevills(Posted 2012) [#3]
Is this going to be like your Elite remake ;)


EdzUp(Posted 2012) [#4]
Well Star Rogue will be a updated port of my dark basic game Starflight 2000, that game features:
a huge galaxy - the size of the that was 4 billion by 4 billion sectors each with upto six star systems
different races - there were ten races in the galaxy with options of adding an unlimited amount
full 3d graphics - everything was 3d
always different - the whole game was procedurally generated from s series of numbers

This game was the one that got me onto the Blitzbasic beta team iirc as mark loved the game and tbh its waaay long overdue for a remake, i like the elite 4 thing have had some failed starts on the project over the years but real life situations have stalled them (got married have kids and family :)) so once i get back into the project i will post screenshots and html5 demos as it goes forward :)


more soon...


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2012) [#5]
do it. nuf said.


EdzUp(Posted 2012) [#6]
I will upload the old exe so everyone can see what it was like back in 2000-01

when i get back to me pc that is


EdzUp(Posted 2012) [#7]

there's a picture of the old dark basic game


EdzUp(Posted 2012) [#8]
For all those that wish to try the old starflight 2000 game (taking into account its about twelve years old now) you can download it over at http://www.edzup.co.uk/images/sf2000.zip please note it requires Direct X 9.0c to run :D

If ya on vista etc you might need the d3drm.dll which is require but is missed when installing DX9.0c for some reason. Get it from http://www.driverskit.com/dll/d3drm.dll/494.html the text link at the bottom.


EdzUp(Posted 2012) [#9]
Well coding is coming along, im on Ubuntu Linux 12.10 now and monkey compiles perfectly (HTML5 ATM haven't tried the others) but the idea is to release the game on as many platforms as possible. Yes we did intend to use 'Unity' for this but they haven't got a Linux editor out yet and as its a 'FAFF' (Fun And Free Fridays) project they aren't likely to any-time this millennium (chalk one up for BRL ;) ).

I will post more when its getting there ATM I have been getting the BBS system down complete with 'rather cheesy' news stuffs ;)


NoOdle(Posted 2012) [#10]
the old dark basic game


Wow dark basic... that brings back a lot of fun + frustrating memories.


EdzUp(Posted 2012) [#11]
Yeah I started it back in 2000 (hence the Starflight 2000 moniker), it was going to be ported to Blitz3d but real life issues intervened. Now I have more time I want to get back into it and bring the whole sf2000 era back into modern day.

I have about 25% of the BBS code done and I want to get into the flying around the galaxy code done next along with galaxy generation and system generation. Development of the game will be ongoing and I want to complete this version as I know there shouldnt be any underlying issues that will crop up because of a 16k line language limit ;)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#12]
Well coding is coming along nicely now i have real-life issues sort, on the whole the game is pegged to use minib3d and monkey i will whack out some sceenies asap

I finally have the BBS complete so i can now move to star system creation and development, what im aiming for is a much more advanced version of sf2000 which will be mouse/touch controlled with multiplayer if i can add it in :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#13]
Well having looked at minib3d and taking into account that im using my linux netbook i am forgoing the 3d idea and settling for a more traditional starflight top down 2d fare. To this end i now have the system for scaling done and im currently adding in the star system creator. After that i will move to galaxy map and navigation then onto other sections of the game like docking, planetary landings, exploration, mining, combat, piracy, illegal activities, military missions, and wars between the ten or so races from the sf2000 universe. Its my fond hope that with monkey and what i have learned over the last fourteen (yes its been that long) years i can complete it finally :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#14]
Well I now have asteroids on the system map (of varying sizes) these sometimes move slowly through the system as well :). Im quite impressed with monkey at the moment as I have 5000 asteroids in the game with no slowdown what so ever this is a HUGE step up from the old Star Flight 2000's 200 asteroids maximum.

Once the entire game star system is in I will put up some piccies so everyone can see the game in action :D

It does run aboutt 75% speed in HTML5 but that isnt my target audience (mainly for testing) in glfw its lightning fast :D


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#15]
Well done! How did you manage to get the asteroid count up from your previous version?


computercoder(Posted 2013) [#16]
Sounds like you've been hammering this pretty hard, EdZup :) Keep up the good work, and can't wait to catcha glimpse of this game!


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#17]
@Sammy:I am returning the game to a more traditional 2d viewpoint this has increased what I can put into the game no end :).

@computercoder:Yeah I have been coding prototypes for this game ever since Blitz3d was released and i now feel that im getting closer to what I originally envisaged for the game this should be the final prototype. This will be the one that I want to say 'this is what I wanted it to be' :)


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#18]
Interesting, so it's no longer a 3D game now EdzUp?


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#19]
No its no longer 3d, it was thought that going back to 2d would be more better for the game what with all the 3d mass space epics out there these days with more to come. Going back to how the original starflight viewpoint was has given me more leeway to get more into the game and make it more tablet friendly :)


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#20]
I think that's a wise choice Ed, I've seen a few excellent 2D space based strategy/sims appear lately and they've been very well received.


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#21]
Yeah that's what i thought too :)

also concentrating on 2d allows for greater freedom as i don't have 3d overhead's for the game. At this moment in still laying out the star system once that's done i will do some screenshots of the game :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#22]


Very very early WIP screenshot, all graphics atm are placeholders this is a early test of the asteroid rings that used to little the original SF2000 star systems. As you can see however they are very very dense atm and will need some adjustments to get it working perfectly, I will be playing with those over the coming weeks to get everything perfect and the star systems to proper scale that I can be happy with the end results :D

This is a Linux build as you can see :)

EDIT: I have now fixed the backing of the placeholder player ship so its no longer a box :). Also I have the sizing for the sol system, this might not be in the game but gives a good indication of scale for the generator, what I want to do in the end is have the game generate everything procedurally this will make the game more appealing and keep overheads small on the art front. On the whole the asteroid belt will not appear in all systems I do plan of having asteroid fields as well to throw more into the mix these were planned for SF2000 but language problems forced that one out the window.

Things that are planned are:
Realistic sized star systems - dont worry im not doing a frontier that was waaaaaay to boring tbh flying between x and y, shooting at z. I still plan on having the jumpdrive.
Hyperspace: I want to keep then FTL drives this time though FTL wont end in the target system it will jump you to hyperspace so you can navigate to your target destination :)
BBS-the SF2000 bbs will be completely revamped and added to so everything you do may or may not make news ;)
TIME - no not a clock in the corner, I want to game to work out how long you were away from it. Dont worry not for missions etc BUT more for news articles and missions you didnt go on (others doing missions etc).
Combat - yeah I already have a code base for this so its got to be refined and tweaked :)
Landing - like Starflight (which its based on) you will be able to orbit a planet, land if you desire (and its safe to do so), and release a rover ATV to explore (with limited fuel). Landing will be selecting a interesting location on the planet surface and then actually landing (with thrusters etc).
Races - yes the ten races from SF2000 will be in there too this time though they will actually have territories and border wars :)
Missions - yup missions will be in from SF2000 along with missing ones like military missions etc :D

Things that are not planned:
3d - this isnt planned as yet as 3d overheads can slow a game to a crawl and the daft light limits cause problems as well.

All planned and it will be nice to finally get to release the game in its intended state :D

More soon...


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#23]
Sounds great Ed, plenty of depth and some nice RPG/strategy elements too. Roll on the beta! :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#24]
Well the original sf2000 had loads of this in already so i have old code and design elements for it all in doing now is porting and refining all the code from dbclassic to monkey. On the whole its rather painless but converting from 3d to 2d and making it touch controls only (mainly for tablets and mobile) is proving to be a nice interface :)


computercoder(Posted 2013) [#25]
I remember messing with db classic... I still have it somewhere on disk and in a box :) Then I moved to BlitzMAX and never looked back! :)

Your project looks nice and fun. Keep up the good work!


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#26]
Bought dbclassic after a pc floormat demo after that i started playing around with system generation, then added some ships flying around, after that it exploded into sf2000 but i had to stop after hitting the db error wall where no matter what you do it fires random error lines which was a pain.


computercoder(Posted 2013) [#27]
How painful. Its sad when something like that halts an otherwise really good thing like this. At least you're back at it now! With a better chance of getting it finished :)


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#28]
"Shudder!", DB Classic, never had before or since a more buggier piece of software. :P


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#29]
Well heres to finally completing the dream :)

Once the game is out there i can add and improve on it making it even more :)

Atm im playing with scales i have a sun thats 339.2 times the standard image size and im doing the math so it stays on screen no matter what until its completely moved off the edge :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#30]
Right thanks to Adam and his excellent minib3d conversion i have begun porting sf2000 to monkey with some added extras that were planned but never implemented, the adjustments are:

1) Huge star systems with multiple suns

2) military missions

3) completely cross platform with touch capability

i already have the suns in the game and in converting mh prototypes from max to monkey once that's done and i have done the star system creator i will release a tech demo of phase one of the game like i done back in the sf2000 days :)


RENGAC(Posted 2013) [#31]
Hope to see it in action soon!


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#32]
Cool! :) Looking forward to seeing it.


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#33]
Yeah its looking way better than it used to thanks to Adam and his minib3d conversion, the new version will be 3d like the original starflight 2000 game. However this time i will be able to complete it and release it for android too :)

it was gonna be 3d initially but minib3d didn't support non vbo's until Adam added em so once again a big thanks to him for that :) Well i will be porting the planet code over next and sorting the different coloured suns etc

Before everyone jumps on the realism bandwagon (i had it with sf2000 ;) ) its a game and isn't gonna be a realistic simulation its for fun :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#34]
Right planets are in I just need to fix a small bug then I can move onto moons, stations and asteroids :)

After that I will release a demo to the masses and move onto getting the game mechanics together :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#35]


the planets are lit up by three suns in the system, the two you can see are part of a binary rotation. Once I clean up some more stuff I will release another demo :)


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#36]
Looking good Ed!


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#37]
I still got to make the suns different sizes, sort out textures and do some space dust and add in the final meshes but after that it will be ready for prime time :)

Edit: it seems there is more work to get the whole system to look how i want it. For one i will need to lay out everything before creating the system etc, this isnt a major setback as i have a plan already for it. Apart from that though the star systems are huge heck they are so big ive had to add a Jumpdrive key to get around (it takes a couple of minutes to get to the furthest star on jumpdrive and thats before laying out the new systems) :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#38]
Well things are moving forwards, there is still loads to sort out and i got to redo some of the calculations as some are a little off. However it is moving forwards and is starting to look quite nice, i still got to work out how to edit a texture if its even possible but that will be after i have added the moons and stations etc.

on the whole the game uses a seed to create the entire system that takes around 550 milliseconds to create a star system which is brilliant but this may go up with textures.

Why use monkey i hear ya ask well i want to bring the entire game to android, ios and windows phone 8 :)


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#39]
Sound good Ed. Are you generating your own textures for the planets or using pre-generated ones?

Monkey is a good choice, there's simply not much of a choice for this genre on the App Store, esp. on Android.


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#40]
I would like to generate my own but I don't know how portable the generation system is in minib3d, by minib3d i mean the texture editing front. If that's good then i will do my own otherwise i will have to get loads of pregenerated ones and mix and match.


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#41]
I'm pretty sure it is possible but I'm not familiar with the syntax Ed. It would be nice to have some generated ones to give each system a more individual look.


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#42]
Yeah true, the idea is always there and they do give the game a certain look :)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#43]
After faffing around for what feels like an eternity I have decided to go 2d once again then reasoning behind it are three fold:
1) I have some excellent 2d tiles for all aspects of the game so I'm gonna use them for it :)

2) Adam doesn't seem as thrilled to be coding minib3d as he once did.

3) texture Editting Isnt as easy as it is in blitzmax I had that version up and about within a month and it looks incredible.

Don't worry I have loads of code to track together now and I am gonna do a huge galaxy like sf2000's just with much more depth :)


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#44]
2) Adam doesn't seem as thrilled to be coding minib3d as he once did.

been working on win8/winrt portion of it.
3) texture Editting Isnt as easy as it is in blitzmax I had that version up and about within a month and it looks incredible.

do you see differences? bugs? let me know as detailed as possible what the problems are and any example code helps greatly.


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#45]
I don't know if the non vbo version has this only but i still get sprites disappearing as soon as they go a pixel beyond the side of the screen.

on max minib3d you editted a pixmap and then done pixmaptotex to convert it for use. Os there something similar in monkey minib3d as i haven't found it.

good to see ya still plugging away at it :)


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#46]
on max minib3d you editted a pixmap and then done pixmaptotex to convert it for use. Os there something similar in monkey minib3d as i haven't found it.

the way to do this is to load the pixmap or create a anew one, and use pixmap.SetPixel(x,y,r,g,b,a).
then load the new pixmap with tex = LoadTexture(pixmap, flags).


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#47]
Ah brilliant thanks for that this will allow me to create everything.

Before I convert stuff is the mesh creation commands completely cross platform, is desktop, iOS, android and win phone 8?


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#48]
Finally got round to adding in mouse flight, for those who remember it the while flight thing is like freelancer and its beautiful to behold.

on another note i got compiling on windows going again after problems with mingw.

in adding space dust at the moment to give a sense off speed, then its generation and media protection (thanks to Adam for pointing me in the direction of that one :) )

Edit: having issues with rotations atm ie controls reversing when past a certain point so im gonna try the same approach i did with db and that is rotate the ship using rotate instead of turnentity, this basically means that I limit the rotations to 0-360.0 so this should fix the issue as no matter what it never overlaps :)

its these little problems that makes coding interesting and keeps the grey cells working and the end result is anything like sf2000 then i will be happy :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#49]
Well the controls are fixed to sort the problem I used the following code (borrowed from Star Flight 2000):
Pitch += 0.1    'this can be anything
If Pitch<0.0 Then Pitch += 360.0
If Pitch>359.9999999 Then Pitch -= 360.0

Yaw += 0.1 'this also can be anything as in SR I use mouse inputs
If Yaw<0.0 Then Yaw += 360.0
If Yaw>359.9999999 Then Yaw -= 360.0

If Pitch>=90.0 And Pitch<=270.0
    Camera.RotateEntity( Pitch, Yaw, Roll )
Else
    Camera.RotateEntity( Pitch, -Yaw, Roll )
EndIf


Basically I just check to see if the pitch has been reversed then just reverse the left and right movement this mean no matter the orientation the controls stay the same. Also another thing using RotateEntity instead of TurnEntity means I dont appear to have gimbal lock either :D


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#50]
UPDATE: Woohoo I now have the Freelancer style controls for flight, ie you can press Space to turn on and off the flight mode or the right mouse to use it.

Also I have space dust in the game now this really breaks up the blackness of space.

NEXT: texture generation and media encryption, textures come first so I can see what platforms it works on and media encryption comes next so I can safeguard my media.


therevills(Posted 2014) [#51]
Cool! Any screenies or videos of your progress?

media encryption comes next so I can safeguard my media.

Maybe not for this thread - but is it really worth the trouble? IMHO I don't think so.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#52]
I will post a few screenies maybe a video when I get the GUI in there :)

On the whole I like the speed of the whole thing at the moment I get a really nice 60fps on a old ASUS eeePC 701SD with Ubuntu Linux 13.04 installed.

On the encryption front I havent really looked into how viable this whole thing is this is why its something I will look at after the texture generator is complete if I have to have a few images in the data directory its not really a biggie its just a bugbear I have tbh. Maybe its about time I put that one to rest seeing as these days its very easy to rip media from an exe anyways via things like screen grabs or memory hackers.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#53]
Well with the text system of minib3d not working as intended I have chosen to write my own font to minib3d system, if all goes well I will bes able to render everything in 3d :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#54]
Heres some piccies of the new stuff in action




As you can see we have multiple suns, planets, space dust and basic flight controls.

What im working on at the moment is:
1) Getting my font system to work ( http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=4683 ) currently this doesnt display anything which is a problem but I can work at it. I might have to create a whole 3d rendering system for the entire game system.

2) setting the speed system up so we can accelerate etc and setting the turn ratio up so it works fine (so different ships have better rotation)

3) Texture generation so I can make textures for the planets, moons and space nebulae, this is another big section of the game which will set it off perfectly :D

4) Adding basic meshes back in, Jumpgate, space stations, asteroids etc :D


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#55]
Very nice Ed, looking forward to seeing ships flying within your systems.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#56]
Taking into consideration its a 900mhz Asus eeepc 701sd with linux and its very playable :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#57]
Well stage 1 is complete thanks to Adam once again for testing to make sure this was working, it seems one of my files was corrupted (USB key) I have since moved the project to a more permanent home :D.

Next up will be texture generation then I can release a demo for everyone to look at, I also want to sort out the speed system so that its not on/off speed wise but ship acceleration etc. Who knows I might add in the jumpgate and moons too :D


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#58]
Better than a video here is a Win32 WIP alpha demo get it from http://www.edzup.co.uk/images/starrogue.zip

Controls are Cursor Up forwards, Cursor down to go backwards, J to jumpdrive (go really fast), Space to turn on and off mouse flight and mouse to turn :D.

Do take into consideration that this is VERY EARLY WIP :)


therevills(Posted 2014) [#59]
Very smooth here on my Win8 PC and the controls works nicely too.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#60]
In the next update there will be moons, I have finally added them to the mix.

Next up the texture generator so that it all gets some difference in the planets and moons, after that I will add space stations, asteroids and then its the distance checking system then I can add a relative to system and make that bit as fast as I can then its a go :D. Also I will need to add the other space users so its as 'full' as sf2000 was :D


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#61]
Well progress on the whole thing is going well im currently porting from BlitzMax code to monkey so once that is done I will be able to put up some more piccies of the whole thing in action. its looking more and more like the old sf2000 after that i can finish the whole thing and update everything :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#62]
Well we now have the original Star Flight 2000 texture generator in the mix as you can see from this pic;



This is a basic gas giant that is in the original system, on the whole the ENTIRE star system took just 3.6 seconds to generate which is very nice. What I want in next is the speed system and Hyperdrive so we can jump between systems then after that I will add in asteroids, space stations and the galaxy map :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#63]
New version up, get it from http://www.edzup.co.uk/images/starrogue.zip (Win32)

This one features planet textures and a backing texture for the galaxy (WIP) on the whole what I would like is how well the project performs on your computers and if there is any slowdown in places? So please post specs, OS and how it plays :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#64]
Wooooohooooo finally got the game on me Nexus 7 (v1) and it runs perfectly now alli need is to add the touch controls so I can actually play it then I can test it fully. I also want to add the asteroids and other space users then the fun can begin :)

Edit: for those that are interested the game looks the same as the windows version but takes a little longer to generate (12 seconds but that could be cause its in debug) :)


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#65]
Congrats Ed. I use the Nexus 7(V1) as my Android testbed too, quite powerful but not too overly-powerful so to ostracise most other modern Android tablets IMHO.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#66]
basically it was all I could afford but once the game is out there who knows I might be able to finally upgrade lol


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#67]
Well I have the basic flight controls in there just adding the speed controls today and I'm really happy that it runs as fast as the linux version on me nexus tablet.

After the speed controls I will add asteroids, stations and NPC's :)

Edit: well speed controls are in and the game looks incredible, it runs faster than me laptops now and it really shows how versatile monkey and minib3d is :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#68]
Having added hyperspacing over the weekend (to a randomly selected system at present) it seems garbage collection Isnt being done on minib3d entities. Don't get me wrong I call all the FreeEntity and FreeTexture commands then delete the list entry but after hyperspacing five times on me nexus it crashes with a out of memory error.

I can fly around the original star system for ages, I was testing for an hour the other night and it was still running at 60fps. Its just releasing and generating a new star system that's at fault, well here's to bug hunting and finding a work around :/


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#69]
might be wrong but I recall discussion about an option/function method call to force the GC to do its thing, if that ever got implemented then you could call it just after you warp to a new system to ensure the old one is wiped from memory.

Will see if I can find where I read that.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#70]
Well just when ya thought it was safe I have finally got round to adding in the asteroids and they look incredible.

On the game front I have hyperspacing in there but it crashes after a certain number of jumps so I'm on a bug hunt till I can pin the command down that causes this problem once its outta the way I will post some screenies of how beautiful its looking and i will get NPCs in too :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#71]
One thing monkey has over all other languages is how easy it is to have touch controls and mouse and keyboard in a game and use either in depending on the target. At the moment I have the android touch controls for me tablet and keyboard and mouse for everything else :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#72]
Well its working about 90% of the time i think the main issue is how long its taking to generate the star systems now i have an idea on how to get around it by rehashing the old system and generating most of the required stuff at load time. I will have to look at this and see if its doable if it is it will mean all i will be doing is texturing, scaling and repositioning entities :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#73]
Well here are some shots of the game in action :)





As you can see the font has been changed along with some android tweaks and controls, I still have loads to do though :)


Soap(Posted 2014) [#74]
Looking good! Keep it up!


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#75]
Well after digging through my font system I have pulled it apart loads of times to find the font was in the wrong order so I have reordered it and I'm now gonna add NPC's to the mix mainly cause I feel to alone Lol. I will also add collision so we can smash into things and explode all over the cosmos :)

For those interested ALL fonts loaded into monkey has to be in ASCII order.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#76]
I have cobbled together a system now to store stuff in the executable after working out a few kinks I will release a new executable :)

On the whole I want to work out other files etc but its getting them loaded as well :)

I have also started loading the meshes so NPCs can be seen whizzing around, I will also upload a android apk for testing if anyone's interested in testing it :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#77]
I am currently getting loose ends sorted for the next release i want to make the generation system return whilst generating (i think this is causing some of the issues with crashing).

on another note if i can do a 0-100% scale i can then implement hyperspace so you can see yourself whizzing through to the other end of the tunnel and exiting will put you in the new system.

once i have some shots of this i will put em up.

on a side note having large arrays of data in code isn't a good idea as the translator goes on vacation lol

more soon...

Edit: I have found one of the problems I had with my font system this has now been fixed, that will teach me to design the texture when I'm knackered I missed one letter Lol. On the whole after I get the new font into the game once again I will get on with tying up more loose ends and then splitting the generator apart so its not all created at once this should make the game more mobile friendly where if something takes too long to work its terminated to prevent crashes.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#78]
Before everyone writes monkey off as a bad idea, here is some more shots from Star Rogue, these show the new external view (I still have to make it so the movement keys rotate camera instead of the ship when in turret view and external). On the whole the game is coming together nicely and I still have to add NPC's but the meshes have now been converted to minib3d format.

Here you can see a earlier shot from the External view in Star Rogue


Here is the early ship with texture, the ship is over fourteen years old so dont worry they will be replaced with new ones when I have the game mechanics in there.


I am still working on this and would love for it to be complete on monkey, my only hurdle is Win32 compiling atm I get a VC++ COFF error if anyone knows how to fix this please let me know. Once NPC's are in I will be releasin a APK for mass tetsting :D


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#79]
Well I've finally got round to seeing about the Relative To function so we can see what we are nearby to, this function has two purposes one the user sees as the 'Relative to:...' The other hidden variable is the collision system ie when you get to close to something you will get injured by it. Unfortunately for the player the bigger the item the more damage so a missile could do a small amount but crashing into a asteroid probably isn't a good idea Lol.

Next up will be some tweaks to the system and more tweaks to the NPC pilot system! After that its over to combat :)


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#80]
Great stuff, I think I haven't posted here yet but I really like what you're doing (being an Elite/Frontier fan by myself). Please keep it going! I know you do a Unity version parallel but I'd love to see a Monkey version, too!


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#81]
I do work on the monkey version more but there are some aspects that seem at the moment to be easier in Unity but i do prefer coding in monkey mainly because quite simply it loads faster, runs on anything and gives more of a retro look to the graphics.

i know its hard to believe but in not aiming for x3 or eve like graphics more like Freelancer :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#82]
just converted this ( http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=2885 ) to monkey so now in future no matter what platform im on the galaxy will remain the same and everything will be there :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#83]
Righty I have done quite a bit on the ol Star Rogue front firstly I have been looking at the back end code and have now completely got rid of Rnd and replaced it with Shagwanas converted Rand function (converted by me), the main change here is no matter what happens the galaxy will be the same no matter the operating system or hardware its running on. At first glance this might not sound like much but I do intend on adding multiplayer to the game at some point so everyone having the same universe is very handy.

Things on my TODO list are:
1) NPC - I still have to finalize these I have an idea for these and want to make the AI much more than sf2000s simple AI, this will be done via a fear/panic value so when they are in combat their fear rises till they hit their panic level then they will try to flee. Some races will have no panic and are completely ruthless in combat this will be apparent later on.

2) weapons - I want to try to implement bolt weapons over sf2000s beam lasers I will run tests on this before commiting to them, if it works it will look better but if not I will beautify the beam lasers anyway.

3) Space stations - I have the mesh and code done for them I will add them in before the next build the mesh will change as will all of em later on.

4) extraction - I have a media protection system in development and at the moment its looking good but once complete I will put all media in an encrypted file for decompression and decryption later when loading. I want to test this on Desktop and Android targets first but I don't think it will work on HTML5 though.

More soon...


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#84]
I always had the impression that Rnd works deterministic over all platforms?


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#85]
It does BUT if I move beyond monkey then I need to make sure everything is the same


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#86]
Yep of course. But moving beyond Monkey? Tse!... Shame on you! ;-)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#87]
OK still working on media extraction it's getting there but still some to do (slow going as time limited) its looking better than the Unity build though as the draw distance is what I wanted. Unity doesn't seem to have the same draw distance than monkey even when set to the same values.

On another front my two testers (my kids who are 6 and 8 ) prefer monkey over Unity, the reason is logical though if ya think about it which is "monkey looks much more friendly and easier to use, Unity has to much on screen which we don't understand" so there ya go monkey has the kids seal of approval as its more friendly LOL :)

More soon...


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#88]
Its alive, alive, ALIVE LOL

Well I have finally extracted some files from the DataBlock system I still have some loaders to write but once complete all my data will be in an encrypted file away from users of the game. Yes I know there are ways to get the data from memory etc BUT it will protect my media from standard users which is what I wanted after all nobody would want to just give all the media away when selling a game and im sure its one of the bugbears with monkey as a whole. Once I have fully sorted the media system out and tested it as much as I can I will release a new demo with the new system in place so everyone can see it in action.

So if there are no more surprises (as if LOL) I should be able to get a demo out soon, I will also test the system on android as it will be useful to see how far I can use the system. Im not sure if HTML5 will be a target given the nature of the beasty.

More soon...


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#89]
Well i have been redesigning the hud graphics and examining the rendering system, now i do believe I have finally cracked it so it wont crash on generation of the system. On another note i have decided to make this game more like Freelancer too :)

The reason for the change is i have spent many happy times playing Freelancer but only a few in Frontier as it stands most of the time in Frontier was waiting, this is something i didn't want SR devolving into. The mechanics are similar and i have modelled the trade lane (just need a texture now) then i will adjust the generator to make Freelancer style systems :) Don't worry the game will not have a set star system map like Freelancer but a generated galaxy :) please note though populates systems will have trade lanes uninhabited ones wont but can be reached via wormholes or hyperdrives.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#90]
Well after looking long and hard at the whole project and looking at different possibilities I have been coding an editor in monkey which is coming along really nicely I did have a version in blitzmax but the GUI module (maxGUI) throws a segmentation fault on Linux which is a pain. However I have been coding a GUI module in monkey which is also portable to anything which is cool, at the moment I have panels, buttons and windows coded in the system I'm gonna add textfields and textareas and other gui elements in the current system then use that to use in other games and stuff.

On the whole Star Rogue side of things I will use the GUI to make an editor for star systems etc which will all fit together to make the whole game. At the moment I can place suns, tradelanes once I add the rest I will make a starting system then load it into the game and release a new demo with the new system :)

Don't worry this project isn't dead and the Unity version is not being worked on and this is my main version now :) oh and I have changed the font finally :)

More soon...


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#91]
Good to see your still moving forward Ed.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#92]
Yeah its hard going in some areas but its coming together once I get more done I will post some new screenshots and a new demo :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#93]
And here is the complete image of the Tradelane for Star Rogue, the red and green circles are WIP BUT it will do for the purpose its been created and that is speeding players and NPC's around the universe :D.



Next up will be the HUGE Jumpgates that will allow small ships light fighters etc to move around the galaxy :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#94]
Woohoo the GUI system is starting to take shape and is now working as expected, on the whole editor thing I now have Sun creation down with the GUI elements for that so I can create suns on the fly as required. What im working on next is the whole Jumpgate code this will allow me to create Jumpgates, Galactic Gates (huge gates that take you to other sections of the galaxy), Wormholes (these can take you ANYWHERE in the galaxy) and Unstable wormholes (same as wormholes just use at own risk, yes they can kill you but can provide a daring escape route).

What I got pencilled in for the editor is:
Suns - these are rather self explanatory ;)
Jumpgates - we have looked at these already
Tradelanes - these are the picture above, basically a way of quickly getting around the star systems
Space stations - well every space game has them and Star Rogue is going to be no exception ;)
Wrecks - these can provide cash injections but are a risky venture especially as most are in ....
Danger zones - these are things like Nebulae, mine fields, asteroid fields etc
Specials - these are things that dont fit the other category's :)

So as you can see its being worked on and is getting there, once I have a basic star system to demonstrate I will put a new demo up :)

Once I have a basic system in the editor I will also post some piccies of it all in action, the great thing about this is no matter where I am I can create star systems because using monkey to do it all and not using any special stuff I can run the editor on my tablet so my productivity will shoot through the roof :)

Heres a piccy


More soon....


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#95]
We we also now have tradelanes these are white lines in the editor, when loaded into the game it will determine where to place the meshes for the gates.

once i add the rest of the segments i will be creating my first system then releasing a demo of it all in action :)

heres a pic;



AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#96]
and not using any special stuff I can run the editor on my tablet so my productivity will shoot through the roof :)

wow!


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#97]
Yeah the entire editor is coded using vanilla monkey, the whole game could be coded using anything at all which gives me loads of options, i do however want to use monkey for the game as well using minib3d :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#98]
Well a lot has happened this past week these are as follows; :)

1) The editor is about 60% complete now, I have to finish the Wrecks, Danger Zones and Specials data sheets along with the load/save system and Base System information screens then the editor will be completed. After that I will compile for Android and start creating :). Also I have to complete the edit system so I can edit what is in there already :)

2) EdzUp Framework was born, yeah I got bored including loads of files so I merged everything into a simple Framework now I can do it all from simple commands that are all in the same place. All these commands are also scaled to all resolutions so when you create a game you can be sure it will look the same on ANY resolution :) (might have to make sure its got a 4:3 check in there somewhere ;) )

3) GUI system is getting there even more this will be part of the edzup framework when its complete or I might do it as a separate module, now we have basic text entry and numeric entry this brings up the keyboard on Android/iOS systems.

My Framework allows for scaling and rotation (like everyone elses frameworks ;) ) mine takes commands like Max with Framework.Scale and Framework.Rotation this then effects all the drawing commands until you set a new scale or rotation I thought this way was easier than specifying drawing scales every draw command dont get me wrong there are commands in there for that too but I thought this was easier ;)

More soon...


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#99]
Well after a vacation I am raring to get back into coding Star Rogue using monkey :D, right off the bat I have kicked out some of the nasty bugs that were either causing problems with the game or just annoyed me (yup if im not happy with it then how can anyone else be?). The problems are as follows;

1) The joypad on tablets/phones - I have redesigned it and now it is scaled dependent on the resolution of the actual system its running on so tablets will have a bigger control pad than a phone BUT the graphics will look relatively similar just phones have less screen space as the screens arent as big. Yes the game is catering for 640x420 and upwards (yes I know this is a odd res but I want to cater for everything possible and still have a playable game :) ).

Oh and its now on monkey 79e too :)
2) A system glitch that would cause the game to intermittently crash, yes I was rather lazy about this one as I didnt want to track it down but the vacation seemed to blow out the cobwebs and I managed to find it and fix it.

Next up is re-ordering the generation system so it caters for textures first (depending on how many are required) and then generates them whilst we have the hyperspace system going on (like the old sf2000 ah happy days) once that is completed and it works to my liking I will release another demo. Yes atm I am sticking with the Frontier style generator mainly because this is actually what sf2000 was like and jumping to Freelancer maybe a nice idea but its not the same game so there you are. Dont worry though I can use the editor for another space game that is in the pipeline but more about that another time :D.

Once we have everything in there I can then get another loverly demo out hopefully with screen res switching etc for Desktops and a apk (yes I promised one ages ago) for android devices :D


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#100]
There has been loads happening on the Star Rogue front that makes the game even more amazing (yes I do say so myself :) ) these are as follows:

1) Reordered generation - the generation system has been completely reordered and adjusted so it no longer hogs the runtime when generating star systems, the upshot of the entire thing is that times have gone from four seconds down to a rather minimal one second on my old eeePC 701SD laptop. Another thing is it has opened up the possibility for me to add in the Hypertunnel that was in SF2000 where between systems you had a loverly colourful tunnel this will be added into the game in the next release :)

2) Texture generation time has been reduced this is partly down to the reordering but its there

3) Frontier like systems - I know I wanted to go with the Freelancer style systems but in the end I thought that it wasnt like the original SF2000 game so im going to use the now complete editor for another game as and when it arises. Dont worry Frontier like in size and layout NOT physics or devoid of NPCs :)

4) Fixed a bug with the camera button - when hyperspacing the camera button was disabled whilst it was waiting to hyperspace this has now been fixed :)


TODO: Well I have loads of things on my todo list and its partly the reason that I changed this topic to a work log so people can comment on its progress, yes its taken ages to get here BUT taking into consideration monkey is a much more different beast than max I am very happy with the end results. For those wondering whats different well you cant just put in a 'Delay( 1 )' and hope your app doesnt crash you have to release your functions after a certain time or the app will crash and be terminated on mobile, this was what killed SR early on as the generator was taking about 15-20 seconds to generate so Android killed it. Well back to the todo things that are needed are:

1) Hypertunnel - I cant wait for this :)
2) Space stations - these are next on my list
3) NPCs - need finalising for generation etc
4) Main menu and title graphics
5) Icons
6) Galaxy map - yes its gonna be BIG
7) Models and textures for all of the ten initial races (more after release)
8) Combat
9) Info screens
10) BBS system for docking
11) Docking - always helpful
12) Networking - this may be after the initial but has ALWAYS been planned for the game (hence the requirement to reduce the generation times etc)

So yeah there are loads of things to sort and then I can release a early WIP demo for android as well as soon as I done the early tests and added the hypertunnel :D

More soon...

EDIT:Well I have readded space stations to the game as well once again, the whole system also now has bounding checking to make sure planets etc arent inside other things in the system so its more easy to navigate around. After a little adjustment stations are now nearer planets than the moons so should be easy to find for missions etc.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#101]
Heres the hypertunnel in action :)


Unfortunately on my eeePC 701SD 8Gb it only takes less than a second to generate the whole new system so its a fleeting glimpse of hyperspace :)

The controls on the screen are for the tablet version and are only on screen for position and scaling testing, on desktop versions they will not be on there as keys etc will be available :)

Next up display modes :)


Landon(Posted 2014) [#102]
Very cool


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#103]
.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#104]
Well the Editor now works flawlessly with Monkey 80c (pity 77f didnt work as well) I have been toying around with the editor on monkey not because the whole project idea BUT monkey at present is the best tool to create the editor that runs on my Android tablet (Nexus 7 v1).

On the whole I had to write the GUI and adjust my framework a bit but now it works as intended and allows me to make the game I always wanted. Why I want to create the editor for tablet you may ask and the answer is very simple, I wanted the editor on my tablet mainly because I dont have loads of time to devote to turning on my laptop, setting it up, waiting for x development platform to load, typing, seeing to family stuff. Now with it all on my tablet I can just create and save then upload to my website for use or email it to my account for use :)

How big will each system, well the test system I made (one sun, a space station, wreck, danger zone, two jumpgates and a tradelane) all come in at a whopping 338 bytes (yes BYTES). So with the size of games these days I should be able to map out quite a universe and still keep it 'downloadable' :)

On the Star Rogue front I STILL HAVE NOT been able to rectify the freezing dead ships which is annoying as it would have helped no end but I will still use monkey to update my editor and make simple 2d games that I can upload to the internet or GoogleStore :). I would love to complete the whole project using monkey but it seems that minib3d isnt in development atm and I dont have the time to delve into it. If Adam was to fix the freeentity situation and possibly complete the system I would have continued development OR mark releases the 'monkey 3d' module. I could go 2d with Star Rogue I suppose now there is an idea I will look into :)

Who knows...


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#105]
I'm glad you got it working, it would be a treat to see the game itself using Monkey.

If the game bugs you find are indeed within MiniB3D I feel for you. Working with 3rd party tools / libraries is always a risk and we hope the reward is worth it in the end. Maybe you can make a breakthrough on your own or get some further help with it.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#106]
Well I only release ships when they are out of range of the player and these ships stop dead in the local vicinity not only that but they are dead with no data attached.

I may go 2d for now as simply 3d limits what I can put onscreen and I didn't want that :)


slenkar(Posted 2014) [#107]
2D is a lot easier


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#108]
Yeah I am working out a 2d system for the game. For me I enjoyed 2d games a lot more than 3d games :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#109]
Well I have finally got the edit mode in there now so I can edit things already in the systems, all I gotta sort out is updating the GUI with the edit data so its correct then the editor will be 100% complete and upto v1.0 :)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#110]
Now the first run of the editor is 100% complete, I can now place down and edit all existing stuff in the whole system. With the file system I can save and load data and use it on my tablet too :)

On another note I have also completed the first run of my 'rather basic' GUI module and I have added it and the file handler to my framework so now all I have to call is Framework.GUI. and Framework.FileSystem. respectively this means no matter what I can always use the systems without having to faff around all the time with files as the whole framework is in the modules folder this makes life sooooo much easier.

To add to another note as well I have done a basic work around for Star Rogue (monkey edition) so the npc's dont remain in the system, its a rather ugly hack but it works. To sort it I had to create all the ships required for a particular system at generation time so they are randomly selected and then they are hidden when not in use. Its not ideal and it means there is only a random selection of a hundred ships in the system and they are recycled BUT it works.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#111]
I have finally got round to stage one of Star Rogue, I can now zoom the scale of the screen from normal view to zoom out about 50x this will be used for the different speeds the player can go. One change is the project will be 2d this will add in the interstellar travel to the game (smaller engines will have serious trouble in interstellar space speed wise, bigger engines mean the faster you go in interstellar space) it also opens up attacks etc in interstellar space just like Star Flight.

The original Jumpgate idea will also still be in there from SR and can be used to get around quickly :)

Another note as its total 2d I have chosen monkey along with the EdzUp Framework to make the game :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#112]
After having a look at the Unity system, the whole procedural texture system we have currently and the whole 2d vs 3d debate, we have decided to make the entire game 2d. Before ya gasp in horror the reasons for this are million fold as I will explain:

1) Star flight the game all this is based upon was top down 2d this is the art direction we are using now.

2) with 3d using the original system I could have -65535 to 65536 sectors of space on the x,y,z now this is big but some of the bigger systems are off scale and tend to look a little screwy.

3) system sizes have been increased to -2billion to 2billion on the x and y, if the project does go 3d eventually then it would be z as well.

4) already just last night I have coded infinite asteroids, nebulae, mine fields and open space areas this lends weight to the new huge system ideal.

5) flying off the outer edge of the system will now put you in interstellar space (original star flight) where you can navigate to another system or reenter your the last one.

6) jump gates will now transport you to another system in the game which could be anywhere on the game map, likewise wormholes just transport you to a sector x,y and a offset x,y so you could end up deep in interstellar space.

7) the galaxy map has changed to be like sf2000's where it was billions of sectors across, there will be predefined systems for each race but there will also be procedurally generated ones for the rest.

8) we have a system in place so you can build your ship from components so you can make it as fast or as armed as you like it this is also nice as we also want the player to be able to make their own components if they have the blueprints.

9) The whole project is being coded using monkey, it could have been Unity but monkey is very very lightweight for this sort of project and I don't need overbearing 3d for it at all just paste, move and rotate. I also have EdzUp framework for just this sort of game :)

As soon as I sort the nebula density I will post a screenshot atm it looks like we hit a really dense cloud :)


Xaron(Posted 2015) [#113]
Nice to hear! Keep it up! :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#114]
Yup its much nearer the original design doc now, yes its 2d but this will be the definitive Star Rogue game :)


Xaron(Posted 2015) [#115]
I follow this closely even though I'm quite silent here. Using Unity for 2d is still pain compared to Monkey, especially in cases like you do.


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#116]
Here is the first images of the new engine in action

Entering a half density nebula (max density is very very thick)


And a asteroid field :) (alpha issues have already been fixed)


Finally open space


The first two images are at maximum zoom as well :)

What I'm gonna put in next is the star system loader then add more in from there till the game is complete :)

Edit:Just added variable speed ratio, variable turn ratio is next so faster turning ships can bring to bear faster than slow cumbersome freighters (unless they have turrets that is ;) )

Edit 2: Added rotation to asteroids now they turn in space, will add it to mines as well also want to add more density for things like minefields :). Also turn arcs are in so the ship can no longer turn on a sixpence :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#117]
Finally changed the editor to accommodate the new changes to the system which will allow all the required stuff to now be created and allow for all the extra fun to be had.

Once I compile this for me tablet and get a system out I can then add the final loader to the game and go from there making everything as required :)

New stuff added are debris fields (a freelancer favourite here) and black holes, before everyone jumps up yelling about black holes I can stop em there and say "this is a game not a science experiment" ;)

Edit: Fixed a few small bugs in the editor so now its a go for loading and getting the whole game together :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#118]
Well the test star system Aradis has now been completed and now is loaded into the game via internal framework commands :)

Next up for the game is getting things on screen so when we get near to something we can see it :)

Exciting times ahead :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#119]
Well I can now fly around in the Hayclon nebula which is HUGE to say the least.

Next I'm adding suns, planets, wormholes, jumpgates, debris fields, stations and trade lanes. After that I can add NPCs and the rest of the universe :)

Aradis is currently the only system in the game but its a complete system and its a nice experience to actually fly around in it. Once I complete the graphics and get them in the game I will post a HTML5 demo for you all to play you wont be able to leave the system though ;)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#120]
Well we now have suns in the games (scaled to size) and on the whole its looking nice. I have also put a HexToRGBA converter into my framework so I can now change the colour of the nebulas to any colour I wish :)

Next I'm going to add the space station (WIP) and see how that looks then maybe some more piccies :)


tiresius(Posted 2015) [#121]
Yes more pics please this is sounding really nice.
If this ends up becoming some sort of 2D Elite , I'm all in !!!


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#122]
It will play like a 2d frontier/starflight game where you can explore the whole universe :)

After the basic game is down I will be adding so much to it as time goes by :)

Here is the new Hayclon nebula


and a WIP station


finally here we have the biggest sun class in the game :D


all of this is at maximum zoom so you can get a idea of scale for all of the items currently in the game, once I complete the rest of Aradis I will put up a demo so everyone can test the game :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#123]
Well I now have the unstable wormhole in there now this wormhole can seriously damage the player (its unstable), and if used will deposit the player to a random sector of the galaxy. Unstable wormholes are recognised by the random size of the wormhole and lightning thrashing out of it.

I have also added the debris to the game this will finish up that segment of the engine, I have also done the mines too :).

On the whole the entire game is coming together now and once I complete the graphics for the jumpgate, planets and get the other segments done I can put up a demo :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#124]
Planets are now in along with indicators, I have also sorted the FileSystem so it silently fails for the HTML5 target :)

Once I fix some bugs I will put up a web demo :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#125]
Well heres another progress report for the game, the planets are much better as well now that I have redesigned the planet using GIMP. What I have to add now is a modular space station for the game and design the internal sections of the ships so the player will be able to move around them.

For the HTML5 version I will add the data for the Aradis system as the target doesnt support file loading so I will have to put the files data into the game as code so it can be loaded.

On the graphics front I am also starting to add the planets and other images into sprite sheets so that the game will load better on HTML5 once thats done the game should open better and allow the demo to be released for all to see.


Pakz(Posted 2015) [#126]
@edzup
How big of a change is there that you wil get far into this project? I myself had a bigger project once and I got bored with it when reaching about 14000 lines in. I now make smaller parts of bigger games to learn about it more. Sometimes a bigger problem or inexperience in parts of it kills a big project.

Btw. I have no linkedln so I can not add you. I got a request from you for it :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#127]
Weird I haven't added anyone on linked in for ages.

The project currently runs at about five thousand lines there is loads to add in there though and when its at a demo stage I will release a demo so everyone can see it in action.


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#128]
Well I have now added the whole HMTL5 demo system in the game, I just have to make some small adjustments to the graphics as atm the entire engine uses loads of SetColor calls and HMTL5 dont like that so I will have to sort out some demo graphics. Also I have fixed the rotation system so on all platforms no matter the scale of the screen the rotation all works as it should do.


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#129]
Well here's a rundown of the latest changes:
Added - main menu (so i can change resolution etc)

Changed - Star systems, now there is MUCH greater depth and the possibility of upto 2000Au sized systems (not that I would have a system that big yet)

Changed - System creation, no editor now its all text based so allows easy editing:) All data is encrypted though which is a EdzUp Framework system :)

On the whole I'm moving forward with the monkeyx version only as its much faster and easier to write than other platforms:)

Aradis has changed a little but the basic star system is the same, also tradelanes are gone you now have to physically fly through the universe, I will add a jumpdrive though so navigation is easier :)

As it stands after I complete the parser for the systems I will revisit the HTML5 section and get that done so I can demo the game (finally!). After that its adding npcs, docking, landing, internal ship stuff, walking around on planets, in ships etc and other SR stuffs


Pakz(Posted 2015) [#130]
Edzup. I am still recieving email from linkedln for an invitation from you to hook up. Last one was yesterday. Do you have a virus that sends it?

Looking forward to the demo :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#131]
It seems linked in spams people in contacts even when told not to, just block the address.

There's loads I want to add but a base alpha demo is one step


tiresius(Posted 2015) [#132]
2000 light years for a solar system seems overly large but I don't know ....
Any more new screenies to share?
What list of fun things to do in the game?


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#133]
Erm supposed to be Au not ly that system would be ludicrously massive

There are going to be several different things to do in the game and it can and will be played in loads of different ways rather like star flight 2000 :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#134]
Well loads has been done in the past week:
1)All EdzUp star systems are now encrypted and have new bits

2) new zone for the game is a NULL zone this removes affects of zones that are in the system before it so as an example a nebula, nullzone and a asteroid field would only have asteroids as the nullzone would cancel the nebula. This new system will allow us to make asteroid belts so there is a asteroid field with a nullzone slightly smaller.

3) controls have been changed to keys (flight) and mouse (aiming), this will also move over to android as well making it all easier for all players to be on a even play field.

On the whole the project is moving forwards and allows for us to make a stonking game :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#135]
Finally I have had a bit of time to spend on getting back to coding, I have added the credits screen and I'm currently working on the options screen once that's in i can move forwards and get more of the game done.

Currently the new system needs a little adjustment as flying from Freeport 1 to Aradis 1 takes about two minutes at full jumpdrive so that needs some work. Also scales need adjustment too as Aradis 1a is a little bigger than a fighter lol

On the whole its moving forwards and I have code in place for internal views, planet views and station views (for walking around). Yes like starflight you will be able to walk around in your ship etc.


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#136]
Here is a very early WIP demo of the new Star Rogue game

Controls are:
W, S, A, D: face in that direction, diagonals are also allowed
Cursor Up/Down: Change speed
Z, X: adjust zoom
J: Jumpdrive

Mouse to aim, there is no shooting yet as I wanted to get the renderer down properly so it works. This version runs at 60% of the speed of the GLFW version which I will also be releasing a demo of soon.


k.o.g.(Posted 2015) [#137]
Have you tested the pixelated CSS property and smoothImage = false property on your game?


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#138]
yeah its in this build of the game and give a more retro feel to it all :D


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#139]
New version uploaded.

This one has the debris field around the unknown wormhole and the nebula is the correct colour. Also the demo mode now loads from the correct directory.


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#140]
*NEW VERSION UPLOADED*

Now with mouse flight, space to flight lock so no need to hold down left mouse.
Jump drive now accelerates the longer you hold it and Aradis got a hell of lot bigger.

This new flight mode is much better than the old one and will make the game much more easy to play, jumpdrive has been adjusted too now you have to accelerate to top speed then engage jump BUT as you hold the jump key down the jump accelerates upto 100 times your max speed. I added this as getting to Aradis 1 was taking to long and some systems could be 2000 times bigger than that small distance.

EDIT:Added new controls 'V' for velocity lock and Tab for afterburners this will allow you to change direction whilst velocity locked.

EDIT 2:New version uploaded so when velocity locked the speed controls dont work and afterburners can be used for acceleration and flying around :)


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#141]
Today I have added more stuff to Star Rogue, weapons are now in there (not amazingly noticeable at max zoom but that's for jumpdrive anyways).

I have fixed some niggles where you could jumpdrive when velocity locked (only in that direction). Finally shooting is also stopped whilst jumping :)

Instructions are in there too so controls will be in there from now on making updates easier to handle.

The Star Rogue link in my sig points to the new version and will be updates everytime there is a new build :)

Yes I'm using monkey to make a HUGE space epic this epic will be on Android too which was the reason for choosing monkey or Unity (monkey won in the end :) )


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#142]
New worklog and version uploaded :D

http://www.blitzbasic.com/logs/userlog.php?user=26&log=1882


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#143]
New worklog :D


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#144]
Well I have finally got round to adding in more to the whole game experience. Now when I shoot a poor defenceless NPC (they don't return fire yet) they now show damage and explode when killed. Next up is getting avoidance AI, combat AI and then making the different pilot category's like trader, hunter, police and pirates.


EdzUp(Posted 2015) [#145]
New piccy for ya :)



As you can see Aradis is on the galaxy map, this is one of the pre-generated systems for the game and loads of others will follow. If you want to see what the new galaxy will look like head on over to www.edzup.co.uk/SRDemo/SRDemo.html where you will find a HTML5 version of Star Rogue.

Please note the final version of Star Rogue is MUCH faster than the HTML5 demo version which is there just for demonstration purposes.

Controls are in the instructions, however F4 accesses the galactic map and F1 returns you to flight mode from it.

For the stats fans out there (if there is any ;) ) the current area is four billion by four billion sectors each sector having a possibility of upto ten star systems in it.

There are NPC's in the demo but at present they just head for the jumpgate these are being worked on as we speak ;)


EdzUp MkII(Posted 2016) [#146]
Finally got back to coding using MonkeyX1, with an eye to port to X2.

New additions are:
1) NPC's now will turn hostile to someone shooting them, this is still WIP and currently pirates and police are the less forgiving for being shot. I still have to make them fire at their quarry but its getting there, I also want traders and unarmed people to run for the hills. Maybe also get local police involved in the altercation if its a clean trader etc being attacked.

2) EdzUp Encrypter has been created, this now takes any data file and encrypts it to required specifications. It can take images and other media but at present I want it for system and galaxy data.

3) Fixed a rather annoying bug with the HUD system now the button bar is behind the HUD images, no longer will the locator icons vanish behind it.

4) Started adding player damages to areas of the game for example heading into the Hayclons demise debris field will damage the player even to the point of death.

I still want to show a damage symbol for the damage types so you can see when your entering an area of danger then I will hopefully get a new version up for everyone to pull apart.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#147]
Started galaxy map loader, this will load in the predefined systems into the game. When you view the galaxy map there will be specific systems in the game that are pre-generated so I can lay out areas of interest and special zones :)

Dont worry not all systems will be pre-generated most of them will be procedural the user made ones are for specific places of interest so the game can gel together for example human and alien systems and the backing story for example. Once the base stuff is in there along with the loader I and the ability to travel between systems I will put another demo up :D

On the whole the game is slowly coming together once again, once I have more in there I will put some more screenshots up :)

EDIT: I have now got the pre-generated star systems into the game, next up will be getting them into the galaxy map ASAP. Once I get that all done I think some more pics are in order ;)

EDIT 2: After fixing a small bug in the loader and generation system I have now got the whole galaxy displaying correctly its amazing looking at the procedural galaxy and whizzing around it with the new speed key which makes it scroll faster its loverly to see the pre-generated systems in there as well all nicely tucked away in there ;). I will be taking some piccies of the new system in action but to be honest it doesnt look any different from the star system image above. What I want to add next is links so systems with jumpgates to other systems have a line between them, this is my next challenge :D. NOTE wormholes will not be linked with lines ;)




EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#148]
Jump gate links are now in the galaxy :D. These show which systems are linked together by jumpgates allowing you to plan a route easier



Once I add more systems into the game I will be adding in more and more links


Chroma(Posted 2016) [#149]
Looks very cool Ed!


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#150]
Finally finished the random system generator, this is a fancy name for a complex function that makes all the galaxy's star systems. I still have control over the inhabited ones it's just the uninhabited systems that it will make.

On the whole I'm very pleased with the results and I can have an infinite combination of Star systems as it's got a series of seeds that are used to generate each section of the system giving the game more possibilities than anyone could explore in a lifetime :)

Next up completing the AI and then leaving Aradis to explore the galaxy ;) also maybe adding more of the Terran star systems to finish them off.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#151]
Well over the last week I have been on a bug squashing frenzy, there were several bugs which during the coding stages get put on the back burner till its time to deal with them these were:
1) Full game mode had a error when loading some of the graphics - this wasnt a major problem as I was developing in demo mode but with the random generator now under way it was needed for testing.
2) Generation crash - this was caused by the data not being there and all it needed was a small check
3) Sun placement - As the suns are the first thing placed in the game they didnt have anything to orbit so now I can have single sun systems right upto eight stars in a system the generation system can handle any number of suns as well but lets not be greedy ;)
4) Planet placement - this was in the wrong place for some of the parent bodies so the planet would orbit over the other side of the system
5) NPC issues - the NPC's still have to have some coding love BUT now they dont crash the game if there is no gate to go to.
6) Nebula colours - now the loader which loads the Aradis and Akaron systems into the game now takes into account the colours of the nebulas in the data, this was another thing that the demo system didnt require being done seeing as the nebula in the demo is hand coloured for HTML5.
7) Smoke colouring - with the nebulas colour it affected the ships smoke trails this has been rectified
8) Sun colouring - another oversight on my part, I didnt set the colour variable when generating suns so every sun in the game was a black hole. Imagine a whole galaxy of those now that would be a rather nasty place to be.

As you can see some of them were a pain to find and some were quite easy but now they are all got rid of I can move into getting NPC's to attack each other and the player this is my next task and one that I will relish to see in action :)

Edit: I now have the system radius for leaving the system and going intergalactic, now I need to make sure that if a NPC runs beyond this distance they leave the system. All these little things will add extra mechanics to the game, things like attacking a target before they escape the system etc. All of it makes for a interesting game ;)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#152]
Over the last week I have been tacking together a nice pack routine that will take the files for Star Rogue and encrypt and pack them into larger files for distribution. Early tests with the pack data are promising and I'm getting on writing the extractor for monkey now, once this is done the only data in the Star Rogue game will be the packed data files, some audio data and the executable. Audio data can't be written to like images in the engine which is a shame but audio is generic in most cases anyway so it's ok ;)

Edit : Well I can now extract all images from a pack file when required and it's fast I just need to step on a bug which is annoying me then I can get it all packed up for demos etc ;)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#153]
Well after squashing the bug which I was having I have now packed up most of the data in the whole game into separate files these files relate to the section of the game they are in for example:
Stellar - this contains all the data for the star systems as a whole and allows me to quickly load and use them as required.
GameData - this contains all the game specifics
Mapping - self explanatory this one its all galaxy and system mapping data.
Terran - data for the Terran race

As I add to these packs with extra content I will be able to release new races etc as required making the whole game easily expandable as time goes on and allows me to setup a narative :)

The only data I have to sort out now is the animated images and sound data once this is sorted I will move forwards and get another demo out :D

Yeah it may seem like overkill to encrypt and compress my data so nobody can steal it but it's not about stealing of the images, it's about making it much more difficult to just change the images and release it as a new game. It's this sort of thing that has happened in the past so I tend to now make it harder to do that. As it stands monkeyX loads them in almost as quickly as standard images it's just a few milliseconds longer which is fine when loading data.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#154]
Well things are getting there this week I have been fixing a rather nasty bug with the data loader, the images load perfectly now but the data loader had a rather nasty bug which was a pain to track down. It all started because I was writing bytes from the BlitzMax stream to the file and loading them into monkey (which loads them as ints) so this threw a big problem with the decrypter this has now been fixed and it works fine.

Now onto anim image loader then its complete :D

Thanks to ImmutableOctet the animated system is now working perfectly and the entire game is moving forwards now I can get on with it :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#155]
NEW DEMO available Here

There is still LOADS to do and some of the menu options dont work as well as they should as its all very early alpha, there is a new key in there which is G this will generate a whole new system for the player to fly around. Yes it will be one of four billion different systems in the game and is generated procedurally on the fly as soon as you press G.

Enjoy the demo and I hope to keep it updated as quickly as possible :D


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#156]
Finally got round to getting NPCs to attack each other and to be honest it's a Warzone, the base idea is as follows:

Traders either head to a station, jump gate or out of the system.

Hunters and police look for bounties on people.

Pirates look for people with cargo.

All in all it works rather well, what I got to do now is change spawn chances so high tech systems will have more police and less pirates and then these change dependent on tech so backwaters could be a pirate haven :)


Pierrou(Posted 2016) [#157]
Hi, still don't really get what that game is about but the latest demo isn't working here :(

A requester pops up saying libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll is missing...


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#158]
Now that us strange as it's vanilla monkey :/

Definitely something to look at


Richard Betson(Posted 2016) [#159]
Perhaps a MinGW issue?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4702732/the-program-cant-start-because-libgcc-s-dw2-1-dll-is-missing


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#160]
Richard Betson: thanks will have a look at that, would have thought that wouldn't happen in Monkey as it's the latest stable version.


Pierrou(Posted 2016) [#161]
Just a quick search:
http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/posts.php?topic=9041&post=94844&view=all#94844

I think I had the same issue once for some reason and just had to install the right MinGW version.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#162]
Pierrou: thanks it seems using MingW 64 isn't an option even though 32bit is installed as well. I would have thought monkey would be that finicky but I will get it sorted and put up a new demo :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#163]
New Demo up

Hopefully this stops the gcc errors as I have used GCC 4.8.1 which is recommended :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#164]
Some minor adjustments this week as I have been very busy with real life issues, this week I have redesigned the button bar (the thing in the top center of the screen) this will now function as the main system for navigating most of the sections of the game there will be some sections that you will have to actually get out of your ship for but this will be talked about later when that is in the game or is under way in the coding sense.

On the whole all the button graphics have been done all I need to do now is lay out the specific menus and sections of the game then I can move onto other sections.

Now the NPC's are rather ruthless I still need to make it so they actually get a bounty on their heads for shooting clean pilots, I have made it so hunters will not actually attack another hunters quarry as its considered bad sport. If the hunter gets killed in combat however the quarry is fair game ;). Police and hunters work in unison so if there is a pirate in the system you can guarantee that if its a high security system then they will not survive long.


Pierrou(Posted 2016) [#165]
Hi
By the way the demo is now working but unless I've missed something important there's isn't much to do/see/... yet...


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#166]
The demo itself is a small part of the finished game over the coming months I will be adding loads of new stuff. If you press G in the demo you can generate a new system.

The icons around the side of the screen indicate points of interest in the systems :)

Also instructions on the main menu will give you the other keys :)

Thanks for testing it and I'm glad it now works as expected :)


Pierrou(Posted 2016) [#167]
I once saw one or two other ships floating around passing by, and watched my ship follow the same direction, hands off the keyboard for several minutes until it reached some rotating structure or yellow cloud, either flying too fast or too slow to enjoy the ride...


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#168]
You can adjust the speed using the cursor keys and also the zoom so you can see more of the surrounding area. It's early days at present but wanted to go for a real time star flight feel :)


Pierrou(Posted 2016) [#169]
Yes we can adjust the speed but as I said it ends up feeling too slow or too fast. Either you're going somewhere very fast and fly past ships and things without being able to interact or you're flying slowly to see what's happening around (not much at the moment) and never get on destination. Real time star flight feel.... It takes something like 1000 days to go to Mars, in real life,why not, but who wants to spend so much time watching some tiny grey rectangles on a computer screen? Looking forward to see more things happen!


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#170]
Press J when at full speed the more you hold it down the faster ya go. Yeah I agree there loads to add and more is being added all the time once I add more interaction with the stuff around you then I will release another demo :)

Well the button bar now works as expected which is good as it allows easy navigation of the game screens. Now I'm adding in the different screens of information to give the game some more stuff to do also I want to put the docking system in before a new demo is released as this will give you information and help on what to do and where :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#171]
Well I have managed to get around to adding more to the project what I wanted to change was the Jump drive mechanic at present you can jump around the universe at will but I wanted to change this, this has now been done. These changes are as follows:

1) Jumping near a gravity well is prohibited so you cannot use the drive this near a planet, sun or black hole.
2) NPC's now can have a Inhibitor fitted when they are attacking they can activate it and then this stops all jumps within a certain range (dependent on the class of the inhibitor) this will allow the old Elite mass lock system to be done.
3) As usual jump drive has a velocity lock so if you arent fast enough you cant jump.

I am currently also designing police and military ships to make the game more varied, there are also new classes of civilian ships coming as well for the terrans :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#172]
Well now I'm working on the Networking framework module so once that's complete I can actually have all the players in the game flying together etc.

There's loads to do and using MonkeyX is brilliant as it makes coding easier once I have the networking down I will release a new demo with it in there for everyone to rip apart :)


tiresius(Posted 2016) [#173]
I didn't know you were going multiplayer with this. Very ambitious!!


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#174]
@tiresius: it'd going to be my last big project and the space game I always wanted to make to this end I have a list of things I want in there and the challenge is getting it all in Monkey AND running on android :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#175]
Well a lot has been happening this week i have started on the bbs system for stations and the racial import files (yes im taking a break from networking). All racial files for the game are modular this means i can add and remove races as i need, at present there is fourteen races currently planned but this is always subject to change :)

The files are all in there and relate to the bbs system so they were required as is the parser for them :). One the docked system is in the game and the player screens then i will upload a new demo of the game for everyone to play :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#176]
Well im back, after a four month hiatus (due to serious real life issues which I wont go into) I am currently reacquainting myself with the Star Rogue system. I had envisioned a 3d version of the game but to be honest after things like Elite Dangerous and No Mans Sky I wanted to do something different so 2d it is. Once I have got back into the swing of things then I can move to getting everything back on track and hopefully updating it all so we can release new content and make the whole thing much more than it is now.

I also have to pull apart the packing system as there are areas of that which I dont like the look of and to be honest in some cases dont actually work to this end I want to do that section of the game first and then move to adding more and more to it till its where I want it to be for final release on all targets :D. Over the last few days I have been kicking a few bugs but some of the issues seem to be different every compile so these I will be tackling first maybe recoding sections of the system to make sure it doesnt happen again :).

I would port to MonkeyX2 but at present in my eyes it doesnt look complete enough for me to jump forwards and dive into it, MonkeyX1 maybe a little less functional than X2 but its actually release ready and you dont need any external files (a pet hate of mine) :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#177]
Well I'm still sorting the real life stuff out but I have got some coding down in monkey which is nice ;)

I have decided to move forwards with hardcoding star systems into the game for the systems I want in there that are inhabited or of special significance, all the others will be procedurally generated and will for billions of different systems for the player to fly around.

Of all the versions of Star Rogue I like the monkey one the most as it's nearer the original plan for the game than all the others yes I could write a engine in C++ to do the game but why reinvent the wheel. The game will use mojo1 not 2 as I want it to as accessible to as many people as possible :)


MikeHart(Posted 2016) [#178]
That sounds good. How long have you been working on the game now?


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#179]
Ages on and off but not much on the past year but want to get back into it as I want to take it to completion :)

Edit: Today I have managed to cobble together some more code that will enable me to make the systems in code rather than as data files. On the whole this will make loading quicker and more portable :). Weirdly enough coding using monkey or C++ actually feels like coding when using some of the ready made engines it feels like patching things together which doesn't feel right.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#180]
After banging my head again a wall (not literally) I have worked out a way to make the whole thing like the design doc. In the design doc there was the ability for users to actually MAKE star systems and other races.

Stepping far back from the project I can see that the direction I was taking wouldn't allow for this to happen as it would be all enclosed and encrypted. I now have a plan that would allow it to work so I'm putting that into action :)

More soon...


Xaron(Posted 2016) [#181]
I'm a follower of your progress and love that you're still with this project! :) Keep it going!


MikeHart(Posted 2016) [#182]
Yes, keep it up. No matter how long it takes.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#183]
I will do I want to complete the project this time :)

Thanks for the support guys it means a lot it's taken fourteen years of prototypes to get here but monkey feels more fitting than Unity.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#184]
Well I have finally managed to get some stuff done and bring the game back to the level it was before my mad dash to add copy protection to the game ;). Dont get me wrong I would still love to make it so that people didnt steal my media or change a few graphics and call the game their own BUT that can come once I have something worth protecting.

Now that that is out of the system and I have loads of other things ready to go into the pipeline I want to move on GALACTIC NAVIGATION yes it has to be in caps as this is the biggest part of the universe and something that is actually already in there to a certain degree. You could press the G key in the old demo to create another new random system from a total of four billion different permutations and arrangements. Once you reach the outer limits of a system (set during loading or generation depending on the system) you will leave the system and go galactic. Once your out there your energy levels will start to decrease until you enter a new system where the solar panels will recharge you OR you run out of energy and effectively your character dies a hideous death lost in the intergalactic space between systems never to be seen again (or turns up in a future film about hostile organisms) ;).

I keep getting asked 'why monkey' quite a lot and I also have posted this answer in other places, the answer is more different than I first thought and here it is:
1) MonkeyX allows all targets - yes there is LOADS of faffing around to get it to compile BUT when it does its good to go.
2) Retro rendering - MonkeyX has a certain retro feel to it which I am trying to get for Star Rogue. I dont want to make another Elite Dangerous but more like another Starflight.
3) MonkeyX2 has higher requirements than MonkeyX1 (mojo1) - this has put me off a little as I dont want to use SDL if I did I would go C++ as SDL compiles for all the majors as well including android (with some faffing around)
4) Netbook - yes it works on me netbook so I can still code when I am out visiting relatives :)

So ya see its quite simple really it works on everything and makes my game look retro :). Im currently using 85e which works on everything and I havent recompiled the 86x versions yet ;)


Xaron(Posted 2016) [#185]
Nice! Keep us updated! :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#186]


As you can see there is now an extra button AND the players locator arrow currently on the system you're in and in the direction you're facing. Pressing F5 (the new button) will zoom the view back to the players current location.

Next up will be making the player move around the galaxy this will be interesting as the intergalactic travel will open up all sorts of issues from conflicts in interstellar space to weird things that are out there :). Once movement is in I will then be able to allow players to explore the vast galaxy which will be a interesting area I hope as there are plans for several alien races and other things in the game to make it feel more alive.


MikeHart(Posted 2016) [#187]
Looking good. I like the retro style. Which font is that?


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#188]
The font is a home grown one for the Star Rogue game :)

I might change the arrow so if your in system it just shows you where you are with a target icon, when you leave the system it will point in the direction of travel :)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#189]
Well I have coded in a mode switcher in there now so it will jump to full screen the same res as the desktop, the only issue to fix is the flickering on the screen due to something or other.

Is there a way to get the hertz of the desktop and depth then setting that on the desktop target?


MikeHart(Posted 2016) [#190]
With Desktopmodes you get the screen sizes. Why do you need the hertz? Do you use SetUpdateRate(0) ?


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#191]
in max you could set depth etc monkey ya get width and height and hertz.

I'm just getting mad flicker at the moment which could be a driver issue :/


MikeHart(Posted 2016) [#192]
That is weird. Never experienced it. Sounds like there is no VSync.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#193]
Strangely enough narrowed down to the flags of the SetDesktopMode system if you specify 1 it's perfect but 1|16 for triple buffering and it flickers more than anything.

Now I worked that out I now have to get 4:3 mode down so it all scales correctly and I can move on other sections of the game :)


MikeHart(Posted 2016) [#194]
Does your graphic card support triple buffering?


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#195]
it says it does in the blerb on the Intel website but it's a Intel gpu ;)


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#196]
Well today I have added some more of the graphics for the game now there are basic place holders for Hydroponic's and habitation sections of the Terran space stations.

I also have begun to adjust the game so players can dock with the stations, once docked you will be able to walk around and interact with the different sections of the stations like you could in starflight. I am also working on the graphic's for that as well so the inside of stations will be interesting and interactive :).


MikeHart(Posted 2016) [#197]
Walking around in the station? Once you have screenshot to share, I would love to see that.


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#198]
Well I have still to do the graphics for the stations but im working on it, I have also been working on getting everything else fixed that are currently loose ends.

To this end I have setup the star system loader and generator to allow for primary suns this is what the star map will look to when generating the whole star system thing, the star map itself will lock onto the the primary and when selecting another body in the system it will move focus to that and then allow you to see whats orbiting that. In Star Rogue you DO NOT have to have stations that orbit planets/suns you can have them free floating in the universe the system itself will work out how far they are from the primary for star map generation.

Its all rather technical but once complete I will upload a new piccy of the whole thing in action :D. After this I will add in the whole internal views thing and station view, this view will allow me to code the internal ship view, planet surface view and space station view all will be catered for by this system and mean its easier for players to navigate. On the whole the project is still moving forwards there are going to be some 'adjustments' to the system before the whole game is release Aradis and Akaron will be retired in favour of other names that I have selected (all 150 or so of them) these will make up the background of the Terran sector of space. Of course there will be LOADS of others races out there with their own rich stories and backgrounds after more is in then its going to go to 'war' ;)

More soon...


EdzUp(Posted 2016) [#199]


As you can see we are getting there slowly, this system map will be different from games like Frontier/FFE and Elite Dangerous in as much as;
1) If you click on a object it will make that the primary and a new map will be generated for that item and what orbits it. For example Aradis 1 has a moon (Aradis 1a) if you click on Aradis 1 then that would move to the left where the sun is and the things orbiting Aradis 1 would trail to the right so it would show Aradis 1a.

2) Descriptions and details are not set at present, this will change and allow me to mould the game as time goes on even after v1.0 release.

3) NOTHING is to scale, this is to make it easier to manage the rendering and scales of everything in the game :D

4) Its still WIP. Yes I have LOADS still to do on the star map but its looking quite nice as it is, I still have to do the 'mouse click' selector and more information about the relevant items clicked on. There will also be a lock on system so if I select Freeport 1 in the system map and return to the game the locator arrow will point me to Freeport 1 :).

5) There is plans for a counter to show how many items are in orbit around any given item in the game ;)

Its still slow going in places but im really happy with the results currently and once I get everything to a playable state I will release another demo :D

EDIT:


As you can see number five is already in there ;).

I have also added a new section to Ultim now the text written to the screen can be adjusted to fit a certain sized window, in the image above the description for Freeport 1 is actually one line of text in the game engine but is adjusted by Ultim to fit the screen. On the whole I am very happy with the end results I still have to add the selector for planets etc so we can scroll through the system etc that will be next but on the whole its looking very nice and how I wanted it to be :).


MonkeyPlotter(Posted 2016) [#200]
Looks like your making good progress Edzup. Interesting to read your points on your choice for Monkey.