Anger's Alternative

Also I have an idea. Why not make the customization similar to kerbal Space Program's? It will have freedom of customization while still staying within your faction's tech boundaries. and the ship won't look ridiculous.

kerbal Space Program's - not familiar with it... any more details?

We managed to land on the moon of kerblin once. We survived it but the main nozzle broke, so we weren't able to return home.

Abstractness wrote:We managed to land on the moon of kerblin once. We survived it but the main nozzle broke, so we weren't able to return home.

Did you died?

Loki wrote:

Abstractness wrote:We managed to land on the moon of kerblin once. We survived it but the main nozzle broke, so we weren't able to return home.

Did you died?

No, still sitting on the moon. we never run out oxygen or water or food. The game is constantly being improved so maybe they'll add the possibility of dying because of lacking resources.

KSP's customization is rather snap onto each other at certain points.
It can still have the freedom like spore's but at least it will limit it to certain parts or functionality of the fighter and that it would limit it only to certain places so that it won't look awkward or totally out of place or something.

Just so to set standards.

I'm not really good at describing stuff.

Ooh, shiny ','

I'm not a coder, but I can do things such as conceptualize, designwork, and other things that could work on the artistic side without breaking into the actual modeling (I has no access to 3D designs, simply a head full of ideas, a love of spacey games, and a pen and plenty of paper)

GratuitousLurking wrote:(I has no access to 3D designs, simply a head full of ideas, a love of spacey games, and a pen and plenty of paper)

similar boat as me when thinking this up - coder, head full of ideas on space combat games, but no artistic direction in mind whatsoever without others' help. not much happening right now, i (or loki) can add you to the group so you can see what has been thrown around so far if you'd like...

Just to say i cannot help with this project at all, i dont have the talent. But kep it up and i know you lot can come up with a REALLY good game.

Think of me as your male (non-homosexual) cheerleader lol

Believe i maybe albe to contiube to some programing, Lua is not language im currently familiure with but a quick glance over it would reviel it is simular to C++, will do some research into the language and will post in furture how i get on learning Lua, i believe i should bealbe to pick it up quickly tho and be ready to aid.

As it stands id probly be must useful in improving physics, such as veriable projectil volocity based on ships current volocity and ships handling physics.

Will report back in a week or maybe sooner about my progress on Lua, good luck to all in this project

before you waste a week of time (not that knowing LUA is a waste, it is a fantastic extensible stack language with source available) we are currently looking at Unity3D as the engine. less scripting, but the languages it supports is C# and javascript (and one other i can't remember because i didnt intend on using it)

Thanks, so what would you advice is best to be researching about in terms of what will be most useful?

If I must be honest Iv not know programing for that long, but I had played around with game developing tools for years and have good ideas of ways of implementing things, intact it's all this year's and the continuing interest that got me into learning C++.

Would like to assist where possible, and get some experience with other programmers, am a quick learner so even if I can only spectacle the progress that would be appreciated.
Thanks for some info on Lua.

Unity3D is free in trial form / limited function. the best way to learn is by tinkering, so i suggest you get a copy, read through some tutorials and get to know the program and how it works and what it is capable of.

myself aside there are currently two other people who have done any coding of some sort so far... check the moonfix section (under squads) and have a look through...

ok. been some time now, and a LOT has happened behind the scenes.

i had life-altering realizations along the way, project stopped and started a few times with completely different approaches... honestly the whole thing turned out a bigger mess than intended, and i'm taking the blame for that.

putting the past behind, i have been working on my original approach, per this thread - an Lua-based game engine. between first suggesting it here and now, i've radically changed the intended architecture of the engine.

the new engine
i've called this engine Godsource. yes i am narcissistic enough to think my ideas are better than yours
but seriously i do think the approach i've taken with this incarnation of the lua game engine idea is a keeper (engine name is to do with another game project, fyi). i have been working on it silently for about 6 months now, on and off. the last month or so i've picked it up again and am making quite some progress.

the engine core is more or less ready, and rather than hard-coding things like sound/graphics i've devised a module-based system that extends the properties and capabilities of objects in-game, even while the game is running! the modules themselves do take a while to put together and test. however it is this modularization system that has taken me a while to design and construct. that said, this is the current status:

core engine code - just about done, making changes as-needed.
module: core - beta stage
module: input - beta; reworking into new structure
module: state - beta stage
module: phys - in-progress
module: render - alpha; reworking into new structure
module: audio - planned (bass library)
module: net - planned (Lua extension)

the actual 'game' will be entirely done in Lua. entirely. and the necessary code will be tiny. i mean that in all seriousness (the engine core Lua code is less than 100 lines with comments, formatting removed, state module could manage < 80).

now... the engine isn't there yet to make a game on top of it. when it is, i will be releasing the necessary binary files (exe's dll's etc...) with very likely, the Lua source entirely open to modification (at first anyway). on a proper release i will compile the Lua source as well. when things get to that stage, as before, all are welcome to contribute to it.

the project is hosted on google code (link in signature). the engine Lua specs and reference lives there (as i slowly update it). when binaries are available for download - that's where you will find them.

Very nice to see. I look forward to the progress and , when the time come, trying to help in some way.

ok guys, been a while i know but... the game engine is officially past the minimum requirements where it can support actual games.

below is sample code for the test scene, and the result. nothing fancy to look at but it supports the basic elements of a game, and the engine architecture is such that aside the bound calls to the engine (gs namespace) the entirety of the engine API is open-source in Lua itself (the dofile line - works like an 'include' command in other languages but with dynamic compilation). in short this means that if you don't like my wrapper API (aka GEO), you're free to write one of your own, or even, if you dare, just use the engine bindings directly (not advisable though).

pics or it didn't happen:

Threadus resurectus!

I see you've been keeping busy

Loki wrote:Threadus resurectus!

I see you've been keeping busy

indeed. and still am

i've been waiting for this stage for a long time - hard part's over now, the proof of concept exists, and now i'm in 'build mode' refining the API as i'm putting together a moonbreakers-like test game.

of my original 7 steps (almost two years ago, how time flies...) -
1 - meh, when other people become involved i'll deal with it.
2 - done. opengl works without any problems this way, assuming other libraries will behave.
3 - model rendering, and display lists on the way, textures pending resource manager module, otherwise done. sfx - leaving to later.
4 - GEO API above covers this, net code is another thing that can wait a while.
5 - basically where i'm up to.
6 & 7 - visible at the end of the tunnel.

furthermore... i'm still open to what i suggested back then...

myself from 2 years ago wrote:what i am looking for once the client is in a stable state and ready for game dev:
anyone with game design / balancing experience.
anyone who likes working with scripting languages.
modelers / graphics designers / audio engineers / etc.
more testers.

I can commit to some testing, but no longer have the time available for project management.

ok, that will do... either this weekend or more likely next, ill have something semi-working to test / play around with. mostly i'm curious what platforms this will work on because compilers.

Good to hear from you again. I don't have time to directly contribute to your project. You could use your game engine to develop a learning/testing environment for the AI. Sooner or later advanced learning environments are going to be needed for any advanced AI development.

never worked with AI learning or testing directly this way, but i imagine these are more proof of concept tasks to test & research with? i just don't expect a computation-heavy AI to be implemented well within a game engine i suppose...

The AI is going to be the player, not an npc. So the heavy computations are outside the game engine.
Yes it's proof of concept tasks to test/demonstrate the learning capabilities of the agent. Just imagine the AI is like a newborn and has to learn everything. When it fails it gets punished by the game and when it wins it gets rewarded. It's reinforcement learning, as if you would train an animal.
Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfGD2qveGdQ

makes sense... i'm thinking a TCP interface or pipes should suffice for the AI to interact with the engine / environment. at least from my end, it is easiest to assume that either a player or an AI of some sort can connect through some common interface and take command of an object / entity / structure (and receive feedback for it the same way)

regarding the protocol of comms once a channel medium is agreed on, not terribly important how it is done, from my end anyway.

Abstract, when your nascent AIs grow up and take over the world, I just want you to know that I think your work is amazing!