Spotlight: Fighters, pt.2, and More!

I was going to talk about fighters in part 2 of this series, but thought better of it. Oh, you’ll still find out more about fighters – it just won’t be from me talking, but through the magic of video. And Fraps. Which is totally killing my desktop, I might add, forcing Starfarer to run at less than the silky-smooth 60 fps. Using Windows Movie Maker isn’t helping much, either – I had to scrounge up some plugins to export the project in HD – by default, you can’t even do that. Ahem.

This video has me setting up some combat scenarios in a sandbox.  It lets me spawn ships and fighter wings at the touch of a button, and then they fight it out.  In the actual game, you’re controlling a ship – but in this sandbox, we’re just watching the AI fight it out.

As our crack Eastern European video production crew was not involved in the making of this video, please pardon any rough edges.

Ok, I lied about not talking.  I’ll just do a brief breakdown of what’s going on in the video.

In the first part, you’ll see a pair of Wasp wings (interceptor drones) taking on all comers with frightening efficiency.  They fare well against other fighters, regardless of their type – as they should, being a top-flight interceptor.  In the end, two Xyphos wings cut them down to size.  The PD lasers let heavy fighters track the fast drones effectively, and shields neutralize most of the incoming damage.  The Wasps also don’t do so well vs larger ships (not shown in this video) due to their flimsy armor.

The second part has an overwhelming torpedo strike bring down an unfortunate Venture-class vessel.  The moral of the story is torpedoes hurt, a lot, and if you’re too slow to get out of the way, you’re in for a short but painful day.

The third part has a Condor-class light carrier (refitted freighter, really – cut away some of the hull next to a cargo hold for a flight deck, slap on some heavier armor, and it’s good to go) taking on the same Venture.  The Venture is tough as nails – it needs to be, in its role as a frontier prospector/trader, but the Condor has a strong fighter escort.

The fourth part… well, think of it as a gratuitous, extended jam session.  An Onslaught with all the high-tech toys takes on just about everything, until it eventually goes down.

Enjoy!  If there’s something particular you’d like to see on video before the alpha comes out, let us know in the comments.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Development, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Comments:

  1. This is truly magnificent! If I can be guaranteed that the finished game will be “open world” I will throw my money at you s hard, it will cause an explosion bigger than any in that video!
    I do have a suggestion on shields though.. I see that once a ships shields run out, the hull starts taking damage as per most space games. I’d love to see one where, depending on the tier of the shield, it will let only a percentage of shots get through..if you know what I mean.

    Immense work! You should be proud 😀

    by IMakeWeirdThings
  2. Glad you like it! Can’t make any guarantees, though that’s the plan. Would the money have a percentage chance to get through the shields? 😀

    Actually played around with something a bit similar early on – partial shield penetration by beams. A cool concept but turned out to be a bit hairy when it got down to the details. Shields still aren’t quite done, though – expect to see a little more mechanics to them.

    by Alex
  3. Haha well quite possibly! Once I see a bit more of the actual gameplay ie space travel etc, I’ll definitely be preordering.
    The ship design is fantastic and I love the hull damage especially watching the molten shards gradually cooling down. I’m excited 🙂 I think more people need to know about this project as it’s tucked quite nicely in the internets and deserves some recognition. I’d send a few emails to some gaming blogs like kotaku etc if I were you. Might get you a bit of dosh rolling in!

    by IMakeWeirdThings
  4. Thanks, glad you like it! Yeah, we’ll definitely start getting the word out a little more soon.

    by Alex
  5. This game looks sick, but unfortunately my parents (with good reason) will not let me use their credit card over the net. So i’ll suggest things to add to the game. Maybe you can reduce the amount of charcoal looking textures on damaged ships, as it only takes a few seconds of weapon fire and the ship looks like an irregularly shaped asteroid. Maybe add more debris, and have the “less HP more twisted metal” type approach to damage sprites. Just a suggestion, cause i love to look of the ships and the pixel style art is amazing, so covering it up with excessive molten and black sprites is just a waste. Keep a little of the molten texturing though, as it is pretty cool in moderation.

    by TheSuggestor