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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Replay System and Development Blog Posts  (Read 2608 times)

Poisander

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Replay System and Development Blog Posts
« on: June 15, 2011, 05:01:17 PM »

I've just recently pre-ordered Starfarer and have been loving the Alpha version of Starfarer. It's in a much better state than any program labled "Alpha" has a right to be in :) I've only been able to beat missions of medium difficulty or lower, anything above that I get wiped out. It doesn't matter though, because even losing is fun. My one wish is that I had more feedback as to why I am losing.

I think sometimes I get so involved in controlling a single ship, that I forget to give additional orders to the other ships around me. Often I find that they have been destroyed, but I'm not even sure how because I was intent on controlling my own ship that I didn't see their demise.

I'd love to see some sort of replay system, so that after I lose I can go back through and review where I went wrong and see what the enemy did to defeat me. This would help me learn and come up with better tactics for future playthroughs.

Secondly, I like to work on writing small games as a hobby and really enjoy programming. I love to read Indie developer blogs like your own and appreciate your posts about the thought process behind some of your design decisions like the Modern Ship Designs blog post. Would you consider doing a blog post about the developer tools that you use? It looks like you are programming in Java, based on some of the information I have seen about modding. Did you write your own particle effect system? Did you start with some game framework to give you a head start, or have you had to start from scratch? All of the weapons and battle effects look awesome, I'd really like to know more about how this was accomplished.

Keep up the good work!
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mendonca

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Re: Replay System and Development Blog Posts
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2011, 02:40:45 AM »

I'd love to see some sort of replay system, so that after I lose I can go back through and review where I went wrong and see what the enemy did to defeat me. This would help me learn and come up with better tactics for future playthroughs.

In principle I think this is a fun idea, and would indeed be invaluable in providing feedback for the missions. Would also be hilarious to see how dumb you are when you don't notice those Piranha bombers flying at you in a straight line from the other side of the map to send a load of ordnance in to your unshielded side. All because you were concentrating on trying to zap a few meaningless Talons whizzing about on the other side.

Don't suppose it ties in *that* well with the whole grand single player campaign thing (maybe more of an 'arcadey' option?) but would be fun if it's not too onerous to code and implement.

But on the other hand, having the option to dissect and analyse every aspect of your last battle does sound like something a dedicated fleet Commander would try and do ...
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Alex

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Re: Replay System and Development Blog Posts
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2011, 11:52:15 AM »

Replays would be very nice to have... but are pretty far from straightforward to do. One day I'll take a real crack at it, but I suspect it'd take about a week of work just to figure out if it's going to work well or not.


Secondly, I like to work on writing small games as a hobby and really enjoy programming. I love to read Indie developer blogs like your own and appreciate your posts about the thought process behind some of your design decisions like the Modern Ship Designs blog post. Would you consider doing a blog post about the developer tools that you use? It looks like you are programming in Java, based on some of the information I have seen about modding. Did you write your own particle effect system? Did you start with some game framework to give you a head start, or have you had to start from scratch? All of the weapons and battle effects look awesome, I'd really like to know more about how this was accomplished.

Hmm. I appreciate your interest :) I don't know that a post like that would be interesting to a lot of people, as it's bound to get rather technical and a bit dry. Still, might not be a bad idea, if there's something interesting to say.

But to answer your question, yeah, it's in Java, using LWJGL to get at the OpenGL and OpenAL calls. Aside from that, the engine is just about entirely custom. Well, we're using a library to decode oggs, so I guess that counts :)

Personally, I find that writing your own stuff vs using an existing engine ends up being about the same amount of effort. I'm sure there are exceptions - writing a full-featured 3d engine is going to take a *long* time (assuming one even has the chops to do it). Then again, if you know what you want, you don't actually need "full featured"...
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