Friday 6 December 2013

Galaxy Map

The past month I have mainly been working on the galaxy map screen to make it more informative but still trying to keep it very minimal.

(150 planets, 1 player, 3 AI)

The sector icons are now colored to show the different planet types. Surrounding each planet there are small circular icons to show if there are any ships in that sector. (green = player, red = enemy, blue = allied, white = neutral) 

It hasn't been implemented yet, but you will be able to hover the mouse over the ship icons to display the number and class of ships at the planet. Hovering over the planet icons will also show more information about them.

(25 planets, 1 player, 3 AI)

The jump-gate links and borders are colored based on the owning factions relations to you.

There may be more than one enemy/ally that will show the same colored border and jump-gate links. So to distinguish each faction, the smaller circle at the center of each planet icon will be used to show its unique "faction color".

However this is not shown in the screenshots as the faction and relation colors are currently identical for testing.

Empire Sphere of Influence

(Very rough sphere of influence style empire maps)

I have also experimented with rendering some "sphere of influence" style empire borders, but ran into performance issues with the really large maps. I think it maybe covers up too much of the screen, hiding all the stars in the background which look nice as you move around the map. (the stars use 3D positions)

I have abandoned this approach for now, in favor of the smaller overlapping borders you can see in the first two screenshots.

Planet Colors


Colors used for each of the different planet types have been tweaked slightly. Volcanic was difficult as the planet graphics are limited to just one color and no detail. (lava or rock?) 

Each of the types (Temperate, Desert etc.) have a few variations so they won't all seem identical.

Miscellaneous

  • Galaxy generation code completely rewritten (now cleaner and more efficient)
  • Probability distribution working properly for planet types, bonuses and trade goods
  • Detailed galaxy log created during generation with lots of statistics (using for balancing)
  • Started on the high level AI for factions (aware of all the objects and territory they control)
  • Initial design work done for the different government types 

 

Bonus Screenshot

(The leftovers from a large cruiser battle)

8 comments:

  1. Voted! Can't wait to play it!

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  2. Wait.. voting for .. game of the year? or what.. something of the year? This year! :) Will this mean you are throwing out, at least a TECH demo to enjoy ?.. now that you hate releasing unfinished games :D Anyway, you got my vote, and money when ever you want them!

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  3. They have a section for upcoming games as well, so not just game of the year.



    Don't think it has to be released in the year, I seem to remember "Infinity - The Quest for Earth" making it top the top 100 a couple of years ago. :D

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  4. You have my vote! Screens look beautiful as always.

    I dread the time when I will see my empire surrounded by red blotches as though it's an indication of the blood that will be spilled if the game continues further. ;)

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  5. Voted! This game sure needs some extra attention!

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  6. voted, looking good!

    a question though, from the galaxy map, it's hard to see how the game actually works... Are each node on the first picture a planet? Or does each go into like a system or sector or something (second picture) and then a planet?



    also, how does the planet scale map work? Is the only way to go from planet to planet via the link gate thingies? Or is that done by conventional drives and we go between systems with the gates?

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  7. oh wait, so each one is a planet then, kinda like SOASE?

    sry, just saw the caption under the pictures

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  8. Thanks. :)

    Yes, each node on the galaxy map is a planet. To travel between each
    planet you use jump gates (kind of like X3, SOASE, EVE Online)

    In a much earlier version of the game and first video released, each node used to represent a system with multiple planets, but that was abandoned.

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