Anger's Alternative

the license comparison:
http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses

i dont see why we should use a proffessional version - we do not need
ai pathfinding, no water and no dynamic shadows. And the money thing doenst affect u if u are planning to dothe game for free at the beginning. And if there is a opportunity to oversized that amount the costs of a pro version are earned quick anyway.but this is still not the right point in time to discuss or think about that stuff.
As far as i know unity free stuff can be imported to Unity pro but not in the other direction.

models, textures, sounds, graphics, and so on are just imported, so anyone is free to work on the source files of those and ill re-import it when it has been updated

indeed thats nice for models textures sounds and samples !
There is a wide range of supported filetypes but all the design styles have to fit - this might be more difficult than expected now. The good news is that they can be changed very easily so stuff will perhaps just take more time and happy patching.

[quote]
now, honestly, when i asked for client programmers, they were to help build the 'player' program for the game. since unity provides that, it is much simpler if i keep the master files and work on them on my own. anything that i cant import is essentially the internal mechanics of the game (something i want to retain authoritative control over), and it is far simpler if there is one person making changes to that as it stands anyway. unless anyone feels otherwise? [quote]

well dont get me wrong but i have to contra here ...
dont know exactly what u are meaning with internal game mechanics but u can import scripts or even whole assets and prefabs from other sources. So for example if someone can script a lobby room for the game server u can import and implement that.

If u are planning to use event receives a much more detailed base of used strings, names and values is required among the coders.
Dont underestimate the problems u can have understanding someoneelses code or methods ... i ve heard that there are some roads leading to rome ...
--> gamedesign doc !

I rather would like to see some stuff of unity project in a dropbox or something and all devs can access it. This offers some good advances if we can communicate like noone is modifying the code some other guy is just modifying. Thats the only dumb thing can happen. But each dev can have a local test and coding copy.


So what ive done so far was making a quick n dirty pseudo f3 and a pseudo bomber in Blender and played in Unity with it to check out the possibilities. And it became clear very quick that the server client communication is planned in every detail before it makes sense to start real coding.
we will need profiles or even some databases (especially if u are planning with skinning models,ship classes and modifications and authoritive control - from what i´ve read i would be for the opposite (non-auth) but thats no problem !)

I didnt continued because i still do not have the idea what the main game aspect and feeling is about and decided to wait for the game doc.

awesome! i dont want to discourage you from making content, but please hold off just a little from posting about it - there will be a new area created just for this in due time to discuss the specifics of the game, this is more of a Q&A and discussion of the basics of the game and how the collaboration will happen.

by internal game mechanics i meant things like the physics of the game. ie, things that are going to be universal rules to work everything else in on. anything that defines how the game works on a base level, etc... i would prefer to work those in on my own at least to begin with, since that is the aspect i care most about and that it will influence the feel of the game significantly.

if i implied that all scripting would be done by myself alone, then no lol, i didn't mean that... i only want to define the fundamentals myself, ie, how everything works and fits in together but not necessarily the specific things themselves - screens, modules, players, network model, physics, etc... pretty much everything else im open to being developed by anyone, including the content, i would just ask that you run it by me before adding it in yourself if you don't want to have me merge it all on my own (which im happy to do).

anyway...

re event protocols... these will be documented with inline comments, with the author given the choice whether to document it another way. but the code must be commented to explain what everything does and if possible / relevant why.

im cool with having dropbox set up for this (used it before, dont mind it but it has its issues too).

how i would prefer things if via dropbox:

anyone is free to fork / copy the master / final files to work on / test. that way others can test your developments too without it being merged in the final / master copy. after review, the developed components will be imported into the final / master copy. i would prefer to handle the importing personally to begin with, but via dropbox anyone could do it - just agree who will do the merging beforehand.

the files will be structured as a Master folder and a folder for every fork created. the person creating the fork is responsible for it. the master folder is not to be touched by more than one person at a time if avoidable (initially myself). adding anything to the master folder or modifying its contents should be documented and consulted with the team first. lastly, i shouldnt have to say it, but so no one claims i didn't... immaturity will not be tolerated with dropbox contents; messing with anything out of line without good reason to will not be looked kindly on.

that fine with everyone, or anyone care to add / change anything with that?
ill wait a little to give everyone time to read through all that lol, and then get started.

also a working project name... anyone interested in calling it in some way honoring moon breakers? the final name will be decided after the back story is created, this is just for development purposes.

(there is still time to address anything per above, but if i dont see any requests / suggestions im assuming no one has anything left to say at this time)

anyone who vouched to help manage this thing (and still wants to) please pm me asap; Loki, i think it's time we made the section for this project, looks like there isn't too much more that can be discussed without getting into specifics (which will take up their own posts). i want to get in touch with everyone who will seriously contribute to managing this project soon, preferably at the same time over vent, so we can make a start on setting up dropbox and such, swapping contact details, planning the game's structure, etc...

everyone else who still wants to contribute / test, please sit tight until that section has been made and you are given access to it. in the meanwhile just reply to this thread with how you wish to help.

(the poll was to grab attention and judge how many were interested - i am not going by those votes to actually include people into this project; partly because i can't tell who selected which option)

as for a working name... how about project moonfix? (taking a stab at the current glitchiness of MB )

I'll make a new section and membergroup in a day. I'll wait until we get a name for it.

Moonfix will be the default unless something else is preferred in a day.

I have one word (for now) for you Anger , KickStarter. I'm here if you need any non-technical help , but you knew that.

science wrote:

the-anger wrote:
and yes, an off-the-shelf physics engine/library is preferred, not writing one ourselves if it can be helped, it's an exercise in and of itself to do...

If you really want to do it, remember that permissively licenced open libs can be thought of as mutable templates in that you can modify them as the need arises. You would then have 3 options, incorporate the entire lib (often done) into your own source tree, fork it into a new project or make your modifications in such a way that they can be accepted back into the upstream project source.

Bullet is zlib licenced so there should be no problem there and it may be a better solution than using the release lib to make
some calculations only to modify the results to work with the manifold geometry within your own code.

not sure how i missed responding to this lol, my CDO must be acting up again (like OCD but in alphabetical order)...

i think this may become redundant... ive been reading a lot over the last few days into what unity is capable of doing (reading through the scripting API & networking tutorials in particular) and more and more im beginning to feel that the manifold approach will either be annoying to implement smoothly (9 partitions to track locally would be the most stable approach in respect to physics and network, gets messy very quickly if done wrong) or will not be required at all (gameplay ideas in mind will likely make it an unnecessary constraint, but this can always be reviewed down the track / created for specific game modes).

assuming the FTL travel is implemented as described (you can use the FTL to get to where you want to go to some accuracy but it must recharge for a few minutes afterwards, along those lines), my thoughts are that this will not impact gameplay too much to warrant a manifold arena... you can only jump to known locations & internal solar system coordinates (could be explained by FTL relying on solar energy / presence), which means you cannot use FTL to get to places far away from the solar system (and flying out far enough, if you could wait it out, would result in hitting an out-of-game-area death, like MWO; it is cheap but no one has any business flying that far out lol). FTL 'gates' / buoys / beacons will be mission specific - these will facilitate mission-critical jumps around the system, but you're free to fit a FTL device and make it there yourself.

if anyone has seen the movie supernova, the FTL tech there is what i would like to have implemented here, but the tech re-explained to work within a solar system only. visually, the effect is what i would like to copy to an extent. if you havent seen it, here is a quick description of it:

they call it the "dimension drive" / "D-Drive" (the ship AI calls it that too, but upon enabling it announces instead 'plasma acceleration active', which could be tech related or actually what the drive does, not clear in the movie). it is a risky piece of tech to use, requiring matter stabilization pods for the crew (in the movie one faults, not quite killing the captain of the rescue ship... messy lets just say lol). it also requires a recharge time in the scale of hours, and can jump distances on the scale of 1000's of light years (scale those figures down some to explain intra-solar travel limits). visually, i found the effect to be very original as far as scifi depictions of FTL go. the drive obviously works by traveling along compacted / elongated space, and the visual effect illustrates this nicely. first, the FTL tech requires specialized nodes on the front and end of the ship. upon the drive activating, these nodes project a beam of energy seemingly to infinity in both directions, creating a rail of light. the front/end nodes on the ship begin to arc energy to one another, enveloping the ship and compacting it into the beam; as this happens the ship is beginning to accelerate along the beam. as the ship is totally engulfed and compressed & stretched into the beam, the entire beam disappears, appearing to move with the ship into the infinite. on re-appearing, the beam appears first, then shortly afterwards the ship emerges from the beam. the beam of light itself decomposes during re-entry and disappears once the ship is moving at a slow sublight speed (as it was before jumping).

edit - using this form of FTL would require a no-obstacle condition - the drive's coordinate-lock ought to fail if there is anything known to be in the way (or within some distance of the travel path & exit point). gates using this tech would function (for playability's sake) similar to ones in cowboy beebop - passing through the first gate activates the FTL, energizes it and presets the exit coordinate as the other gate.

(still edit)
the gravity model will still be fully newtonian and a generated force for major items in the solar system (down to moons, excepting asteroids). as far as hud / info purposes, the most gravitationally influential object will be the only source of gravitational forces shown. this means planets will have a definable boundary of where their gravity ceases to have influence, allowing for the equivalent of area markers (ie, hud indicators such as 'now leaving earth's orbit' and 'now entering sun's orbit'). it also simplifies gravitational orbit calculations for display - the current orbit parameters and the parameters of the orbit of the most gravitationally influential object nearby to be available on the hud. the orbital trajectories will likely be overlayed too to make things simpler. the solar system itself may or may not be modeled on ours - i would prefer many more planets to fly about for one. the gravity-emitting bodies themselves will not be influenced by gravity, rather, their orbits and physical properties will be defined in a hierarchy as functions of time (planets will orbit the sun, moons planets and so on, these will create gravitational influence but on their own will do nothing; keeping their locations as functions of time makes the calculations more stable too).

re kickstarter - ive thought about it (and known about it for some time now)... basically the licensing for unity will make any donations / startup funds too much to think about... im not above listing this on kickstarter but if/when that day comes it will be when this game is already almost out of alpha. i figure kickstarter will not be very appreciative of a project that doesn't look like it will be ever finished (cough MB, cough), so at least until that point ill hold off considering it.

ps - tomorrow is a public holiday for my region (melbourne cup day) so ill be on vent for as much of the next 24 hours as i can (starting once im home lol) to discuss things in person if anyone wishes to ask.

My favorite dog-fighting plane is the Swordfish-II from Cowboy Bebop. It has a big main engine with after burner and can reverse its thrust. It also has small thrusters below its wings, which give it an STOL/VTOL ability. It can fight in space as well as in different atmospheres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?eature=endscreen&v=JCEStAcKx2c&NR=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jBMbJ2dpBo

A game with such intresting ships would be nice.

(for those who are unaware, weapons-wise, its similar to the cobra)

great anime... havent watched it in a while, but yes. already going to draw on that a fair bit for the dogfight feel while still retaining realistic (well, believable) physics. it's one of the few depictions of atmospheric and space dogfights that actually look somewhat like what you would expect them to in real life.

the-anger wrote:(for those who are unaware, weapons-wise, its similar to the cobra)

It has quad machine guns, a long range beam weapon and two tracking missiles. So it has a bit of every fighter.

I'm in for testing!

(sorry, already sent you a message anger, didn't get to the part about tester needing to wait, go figure... lol)

If I may, I would like to help come up with some ideas for ship modules. I would also like to keep track of the modules, their effects, what ships they can be mounted on, pretty much anything.
If anybody had suggestions for modules, I could take them over the PM system. I am thinking that I could have a constantly updated list on MS Word, which I would then use to make the list of modules on the general discussion boards, or something...

Maybe we can ask Loki to make a new group, similar to the squadrons...

Lemme know what'cha think!

Abstractness wrote:It has a big main engine with after burner and can reverse its thrust. It also has small thrusters below its wings, which give it an STOL/VTOL ability.

Yeah... That would create some pretty interesting dogfights...

A new section and usergroup (MoonFix) has been created below the squad pages. Anger will start adding people to the group based on your involvement here.

Loki wrote:A new section and usergroup (MoonFix) has been created below the squad pages. Anger will start adding people to the group based on your involvement here.

awesome & thanks

i have to step out for a little (hour or 2) but when im back ill get to it... i just woke up lol... (didnt sleep until about 5-6 am, can't remember)

love cowboy be-bop !!!!

alrighty, some notes & status added to the moonfix section. ill probably stop updating this thread from here on; if you can't see the section and you want to participate, post here / pm me / email me / apply to the group / etc... ill take notice one way or another.

update - some working alpha builds of the ship physics are available for testing.

i'm down for game testing

hi,

I could not help with the technical side, but I have some skills and potential with making the background of the game... basic scenario, description of the ships or also development of the ships - I would love that, I always wanted to design a game that someone could bring to life. I cannot show you my work, because all of it is in Czech language and the google translator wont translate it good, but my style is admired by the people who reads my tales

I understand that this is not the most important part and it will take a lot of time before something like that come to tops, but if you want, you can count me in. If there is anything from the "text" side of the game needed, contact me on the e-mail (see my profile)

Try Babelfish for translations; much better

Loki wrote:Try Babelfish for translations; much better

thanks for tip, but I do not trust online translators for prose, Czech is one of the most difficult language to learn/use and there are so many double-triple meaning expression that would not end well in some automatic translations...

eltazar wrote:

Loki wrote:Try Babelfish for translations; much better

thanks for tip, but I do not trust online translators for prose, Czech is one of the most difficult language to learn/use and there are so many double-triple meaning expression that would not end well in some automatic translations...

Lol that's why you proof-read the output and run it back though the translator Takes a lot of time, but it may be better than trying to write it out yourself.

Sorry,really dont have much time to read the whole thread right now,just 1st page(.Excuse me if i said things which are discussed earlier.I think i can give you some concepts and I want to take part in testing.

What do you think about dogfights in planet atmosphere and its orbit?

Loki wrote:

eltazar wrote:

Loki wrote:Try Babelfish for translations; much better

thanks for tip, but I do not trust online translators for prose, Czech is one of the most difficult language to learn/use and there are so many double-triple meaning expression that would not end well in some automatic translations...

Lol that's why you proof-read the output and run it back though the translator Takes a lot of time, but it may be better than trying to write it out yourself.

yes I know this process, but I have bad experiences with this type of translating... but I will take a shot with it.

Hey I am up for games testing! I don't have any experience with C++ but have some in other languages and hopefully will be learning C++ next year. Would be happy to help out or at least try to if you need me =]