Wednesday 6 February 2013

Alternative Planetary Rings

This is a follow on from the previous post in case you havn't already seen that.

Made some more changes to the planetary rings by removing the 3D effect which made them look like they went behind the planet. They now look flat and circular, which I think fits much better with the graphical style of the game.

This also means I can put small ice asteroids within the ring, which could possibly be used as a resource for something in the game.


I am going to create new graphics for the ice asteroids/chunks which will be a bit smaller than in the screenshots and look more like sharp ice. At the moment they are using the same graphics as the ore asteroids.


25 comments:

  1. You're very active recently. Good sign.

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  2. I did really like the Ring designs in your previous post but you are right that these are more in keeping with the overall design philosophy of the game. Like the idea of giving the rings a practical use also. Really looking forward to this Game!

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  3. Been lurking around this blog for about a year I'd estimate. Really digging the simplistic graphics for this game, simple, yet oh so sweet. Looking forward to further news of this game.

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  4. Wish I could play this right now!

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  5. Better. Really.

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  6. Yes I like this rings more this style fits much better with the game.
    Taking idea from EvE online, some planets can have Ice asteroids, this ice can be very useful on the game, a rare resource with wich you can create fuel for you carriers to make jumps without a stargate... Not large jumps...maybe 2 or 3 systems away...or you can have a radius showing how long can be the jump.
    Argh Im very excited with the odds of this game xD

    New idea inspired by EvE, you can build space stations with defences ect in systems where you really dont need to build a colony but is good to have a military force there, of course the station needs fuel to be online... :P

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  7. i am lead to understand that in reality planetary rings put out alot of radiation. should that be a thing?

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    1. That wont be a feature, but they will give some other bonuses towards colony development.

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  8. Those are better than "3D" ones, but only because they may be of some use (icy asteroids). If I would be talking only about visuals than they would be just a joke when compared to previous, even in this game's grafical style.

    Will planets have moons in a future?

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    1. The older 3D effect rings look ok out of context, but they are not consistent with the game's graphical style. (especially when you zoom out) I dont agree the new ones look a 'joke'.

      It's possible that moons could be added in the future, although that would probably mean increasing the sector sizes.

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    2. Wow! Fast answer :) Thank You :) Please, don't get me wrong. New ones look really good. And will propably look even better with those ice asteroids (by the way, ore in asteroids will propably be depletable, but how about planets?). What I meant is comparing them, not judge them on their own. As for looking how things look if zoomed out... Well, this is far beound my possibility, so I can not tell :P Anyway, I hope that my "harsh" opinion didn't irritated You, nor angered. If that is the case, than I am sorry, and You have my apology for bad choise of words.

      As for making sector's size bigger because of moons, that doesn't have to be necersity - on one screen (the upper) I see asteroid belt. Moon would propably be formed out of those asteroids, so insted of them You would have a moon.

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    3. No problem, your opinion didnt irritate me.

      Planets wont produce any usable resources (which may change in the future) although they do have a natural resources value which contributes to commerce at the planet and create's income (credits).

      It would depend on how big the moons will be and the maximum number per planet, if its just one then the sector sizes would be ok. Definitely a feature I would like to add once I can think of their purpose, but will most likely have to wait until an update/expansion after the game is released.

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  9. Glad to hear (read?) that.

    I see... So it is going in this way with economy... Planets for money (credits) and asteroids for resources. Pretty much like Sins of Solar Empires. Does it means that in very long games it is possible to simply run out of resources at all? And thus making Yourself unable to build new units? (providing that all units will need resources of course) Or will there be a possibility to obtain more resources even if all asteroids have been mined? I know that I am asking many questions, and I am asking propably about things You didn't decidet jet for sure. I hope that is not a problem for You. I also realise that whatever You will say it may change in a future (afther all You are developing a game, not finishing it)

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    1. Yes, planets will mostly be for obtaining credits and trade/strategic resources that give global bonuses.

      Each asteroid will take some time to respawn once it is depleted. You can continually mine one sector without running out of asteroids so long as theres not too many mining ships there.

      I havnt had the chance to test this yet so it might change.

      I'm against having limited resources as some games can be very long indeed.

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    2. Ok... So asteroids will be respawning. That means we will have infinitive amount of resources, but speed of obtaining them will be dimnishing until it will reach lovest possible level (when You do not have any asteroids to mine, and are waiting for the next one to respawn --> mine it and again wait for the next one... and so). I am very glad to hear it, as I personally hate situations when I may run out of something completly (both - in games and in real). So for me it is great information :)

      How are You planing to addres sides of conflict? Are You planing to create few of them (like in Sins we have Advent, Vasari and Trade Coallition) with diffrent units and strategies, and technology? Or do You plan do something like Master of Orion 2 where each race have the same possibilities when come to technology and unit creation, but each have their own unique bonuses and penalites, which have major impact on game? Or maybe You plan just make it like there is only one race divided in many factions which all have absolutly the same possibilities?

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    3. There is also the refinery speed/capacity to consider, as you cant instantly refine all the ore into resources once they are unloaded at a colony. The refineries take a while, so for the best efficiency you should spread mining operations around your empire.

      To begin with there will probably be 3 factions you can play, which are all the same race (human). Additional factions/races will be added over time.

      Each faction has totally unique bonuses, ships, modules, weapons and research but there will also be some basic modules/weapons that they can all use.

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    4. Ok. For now I think that I do not have more questions. Thank You very much for Your time and willingnes to answer every one of them :) That is really nice of You. Of course propably more questions will come from me, so it is defienetly not long term situation ;) I must say that the more I read, the more I like what You are planing and I hope all the best succes for You and Galaxial.

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  10. will there be another update before march?

    also, beta this summer? :)

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    1. I am currently working on the colony development code and new interface screens for it. It's a fairly large feature so could take a couple of weeks. Will be another dev log once thats finished.

      Dont have an estimated date for the beta yet.

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  11. Please remove email contact from this webpage, since you dont answer on it anyway.

    Did you considered migrating XML to LUA?
    This will allow much better modding possibilites. Even at begining if you dont plan
    using LUA as scripting, but just as data definition. Additionaly, you could be able
    to focus on building just the game engine while community would do other nice things.

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    1. There was a time about 4 months ago that I wasnt recieving any mail at the galaxial.com address due to a problem with my domain records, but that was fixed.

      I make an effort to reply to every email and blog comment (as you can probably see)
      So could you perhaps send another email to test if its working?

      I did consider using Lua but at this point I dont feel any scripting will be neccessary for modding and would add more time and difficulty to the development.

      The moddable parts of the game are mainly just data. Such as weapons, ships, factions, research and planets. You cant change game behaviours, the user interface and AI.

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    2. Well, not sure what XML lib do you use, but using LUA is quite easy.
      Many well know titles used it (Stalker, Supreme Commander, or indie Eufloria).

      I understand your concerns about time and difficulty. I amazed that you alone
      done so much. At the begining, using LUA will be no different that XML. You will
      just use them as DATA files for weapons and etc. Later on you can extend it
      adding scripting and UI ability.

      I am afraid, it might be too late already to migrate since your alpha looks awesome
      and there is a lot of things already. But still, someone can grab XML data
      and generate LUA out of them ;)

      I've forwarded an email Ive sent while ago.

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    3. Seems theres a problem somehwere, thats why your not recieving my replies.

      "This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
      Delivery to the following recipients failed.
      ****@uu3.net"

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    4. I cant find anything in my logs, seems you are not responding
      from galaxial.com. Can you tell at least domain of your email?
      Seems you hit my anti-spam wall..

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    5. Everything sent to galaxial.com is forwarded to my Outlook account. It has worked perfectly fine in the past, but researching that error message, its possibly a problem within Outlook/Hotmail. (not a lot I can do about it)

      I've changed it to a different email account, so you should have gotten a reply now.

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