Projects down the line: space shooters

[Destructionator XV]

Back in my DOS days, I wrote a series of cool programs that were 2D space shooters. You and your opponent, who would share the keyboard, control your ship on the limited 2d map, and fire your guns to work down the other player's shields, which regenerate and take damage in quadrents, and eventually blast down his hull to win.

The DOS game supported custom ship designs with custom weapon placements, and was a blast.

I intend to revisit the concept, and after finishing an updated version of the 2d one, move on and write a 3d space shooter.

The 3d one is quite a ways away on my schedule. When I do get around to it, I want to expand the fighting field to be infinitely big, use only relative velocities, and have an in-cockpit view. Other than that, it would basically expand upon the ideas the updated 2d game has planned, with the third dimension added.

The 2d one is going to be a project much sooner, but a start date is still not set up (I want to to the RTS and get back to M3 first).

What I would do is take the DOS ideas, rewrite them, but better this time. There might be different types of shields, sensors, and weapons. Each player would sit at his own computer, and the gamage would occur over a LAN (or the Internet).

I envision being able to drop back shields to double up the front shields, stuff like that. Rather than have both ships always on screen, you would have a sensor range, and if the enemy is out of range, you don't see him, but instead a projection of where he would be if he continued on his last known vector.

Pretty much, other than that, I want to reimplement my awesomely fun DOS game.

I'm open to comments and suggestions, and when development actually begins, I will tell so here.

[DesertFly]

If you have a "projected location", and the other player radically changes their direction/speed, it would be possible for you to lose each other, and fly around aimlessly for some time without spotting the other. Of course, you could just make it so that after a certain amount of time without visual contact the sensor "calculates more" and "becomes more accurate" and changes to show exactly where they are or at least the general direction they're in. Also, maybe having some sort of obstacles would be cool, like rocks that you have to avoid, or maybe a stronger "alien" ship that flies in shooting at both of you, so you have to temporarily stop shooting at each other to kill it, or avoid it and hope that it kills the other player first.

[The Village Idiot]

If you have a "projected location", and the other player radically changes their direction/speed, it would be possible for you to lose each other, and fly around aimlessly for some time without spotting the other. Of course, you could just make it so that after a certain amount of time without visual contact the sensor "calculates more" and "becomes more accurate" and changes to show exactly where they are or at least the general direction they're in. Also, maybe having some sort of obstacles would be cool, like rocks that you have to avoid, or maybe a stronger "alien" ship that flies in shooting at both of you, so you have to temporarily stop shooting at each other to kill it, or avoid it and hope that it kills the other player first.

That reminds me just a bit of Asteroids there Desertfly. I do agree that if you have a large enough map and small sensor range, then you do have potential to loose your opponent for a very long time. So some kind of generic "that direction" indicator or something that would get you a little more oriented after a certain period would be helpfull.

As for anything else you could really need I do agree that different shield/armor configurations and different sensor/weapon arrays. And the adjustable - more front, less rear shielding, or even a more side, less front rear could be nice. But I guess that all falls on where you can mount the weapons and if you could do a Broadside battery weapons set up. And it may be an Easyer said then coded option...but... Different offense/defense set ups would be good. IE: Heavy weapons platform, weaker shields/armor/slower regen rate. VS lighter weapons with greater Shields/armor/regen rate. and such variations in between. Hope that helps more then hurts, I am sure you can get alot of suggestions for this one.

BTW I like all of your game ideas, wish I could get ahold of them some day.

[Destructionator XV]

That reminds me just a bit of Asteroids there Desertfly.

Actually, Asteroids is one of my favourite games of all time, and my original intention with the first game in this series was to be an asteroid clone, but I wasn't up to the task at the time.

I think I will be adding some asteroids and AI ships, all optional so you can turn them off though.


I'll comment further on the suggestions given in the future when I start seriously working on this game.

BTW I like all of your game ideas, wish I could get ahold of them some day.

When I ever finish them, they will all be up for download on this site. I am just lazy and easily distracted, so it may take a long time.

[Destructionator XV]

Just like for my RTS thread, I am reviving this thread to tell you all that it is not forgotten, and it is going to share the base framework code and libraries with the RTS, which happen to overlap with M3's underlying audio and input code which is why this is on my mind now.

The 2d version should take mere days to do; I have done it before (the DOS version mentioned in the OP) and the concepts are pretty simple (Newtonian physics basically). I might actually do it as a fun playable test for the framework before entangling it with the massive conglomerate that is M3's core. I won't promise it (since I risk falling behind schedule on M3 and I don't want to do that), but if I go with that, the 2d game will be alpha (playable, but not quite done) ready by this time next week.

The 3d version will require much more work and a 3d graphics system, which will take time (since I am currently a 3d newb). 3d won't be coming until at least late February or March of next year.

[Destructionator XV]

The 2d one is about half done, look at these splendid graphics.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

And it has sound and best of all joystick support. This exists mainly as a test of my engine, but despite its simplicity it is amazingly awesome. The objects fragment as they collide and momentum, including angular momentum, is conserved leading to a Newtonian fun time.

If anyone is interested, I'll have a Windows build in a week or two (about the same time M3 hopefully will be ready to be seen). Also the graphics will be more complete by then.