Update#21 : A Long Quiet Night

I know I haven't been posting much, life's got me busy as well as the map being pretty complicated. I wish it wasn't taking so long, I want to get past this and on to making MORE DETAILS AND AWESOME STUFF. I haven't stopped - I never stop - I just get caught up in life. Yesterday, for example, I went to the wedding of a cherished cousin. It was my first full big wedding and it was nice, and I was gone for the whole day not exaggerating. Just remember that I'me taking my time to get the fundamentals right and solid, and the maps are a fundamental piece of what will make this game different and awesome.

Revealed : Large space ships will be very expensive, and each one you build will be like a little achievement. If you can mass-produce large ships, I'd consider you a superpower!

Update#20 : Real Graphics?

Having no desire to have a game entirely without graphics, I've created an image board to where I'm uploading saved images. It's located at space.booru.org and you can just enjoy the images there so far or upload your own! All you need to do is create an account, and then on this page you should be able to upload a picture. All I ask is that for the source you should enter the address where you got the picture from, and in the tags you include the word "tagme" so that I can deal with it later.

A 'booru' imageboard is one where people upload images and they or others can add information to the image in the form of 'tags'. When looking for an image, a user only needs to search for one or more 'tags' that interest them and they'll get all images which have all of the requested tags. So, if you only want to see pictures of nebulas, you just search for "nebula" and all "nebula" pictures will come up.

I want to build up a collection of nice pictures that can be used in the game, and any help with this that I can get would be really helpful. Please, no copyright-protected material!

Update#19 : Better

I've had my rest and have been refreshed by a little vacation. There's a new task list and carefully recrafting the star map has begun. Things are still a bit foggy as to how long it will all take, since I still have to do a bit of rebuilding and such... still, I feel good about it again =)

Update#18 : The Great Brwar

I thought the next few days were going to be great for visible progress for the map; at least for me. I thought it was going to be an exciting week of churning out new map visuals, and I thought I'd surprize you soon with another fancy screenshot despite saying that I wouldn't.

What I discovered and realized is that I made a change in plans a few days ago and I've been running with it as it seemed like an insignificant change that I could just go ahead and do. What I forgot is that I wasn't originally going to go with this idea so soon because of how much extra work it was. I've already started it though and it's what I want the final result to be, so I pretty much have to go through with it and finish.

There is another piece in 'The Great Brwar' : code quality. For the last little while I have been so excited about making progress that I've cut corners and sacrificed on my idea of code quality. While not a huge issue now, it could become a problem for me in the near future. Compound this with the fact that I need to write a lot of new code, and it means even more work. Thus, I am no longer so excited about getting it done.

Furthermore, the specific functionality of the map is more complex than I really expected... or at least I'm now daunted by it where I wasn't before. Whatever the case, I need to spend some time carefully designing how I really want the star map to end up looking, and working, and... well, as I said, it's complicated.

SO, instead of an exciting week of creating my awesome star map engine, I'm taking some time away to rest from coding, and do the proper planning and design that I need to do anyway.

That's all for now~


Revealed : The three primary resources in UNIVERSE required to make things will be Metals, Minerals, and UC ('Universal Credits') ... These are just the basic resources used to make outposts, buildings, ships, and other commodities.

Update#17 : Nightfall

Finally, I have something to show for the last few weeks of effort. I won't be revealing much about it, but I will be giving you this fancy screenshot about it. The first sample of my star map at work. It's absolutely unfinished and the end result will look nothing like this.... but it is a start. It is THE start.

I created five (5) teeny tiny star clusters of stars from my star generator, centered on 5 logical points that I can use to easily see if the map functions are all working properly. Right now, all I wanted it to do was draw something and it did that. I think I've earned my dinner today, so I'll be going to do that once I'm done this post ^^ but then it's back to work! There's a LOT more awesomeness to cram into this little box, and now that I've gotten this far, I don't want to waste any more time! And, I'm sorry to say that you won't see any of the progress for a while.

I'll try to make regular posts to keep you updated, now that it's getting exciting =3



Revealed : There will be 2 main types of travel engines. One is used to travel within a solar system and can help with evasion in battle, the other is used to travel the vast distances of interstellar space.



PS ~ In case you're curious how many stars are in that picture ........... the answer is 514.

Update#16 : Waning Orange

After much hard work and some amount of frustration, I've finally completed the first piece of my Genesis Engine. I can now make spherical star clusters at a whim! With that done, I am now moving on with producing a star map, with which to see said stars and thus further develop everything ... the star map will be a critical element, as a lot of what goes on in the game will involve the star map. I feel like it shouldn't take too long to make, but I get the feeling that it will take another little while as I start having to consider and design things that I never even thought about before... I don't think I'm forgetting anything, but I'm sure I'll find something. There's always something.


Revealed : Star designs and star-cluster formation is modeled after realistic patterns as observed in astronomy. Entire galaxies be modeled according to astronomical observations; while still being randomly generated!

Update#15 : The Promised Dusk

Alright, that stuff I mentioned last time is out of the way, now. There is nothing left that I need to do between now and working on building up the maps... so, the next thing I work on will be building up the maps. You won't see much or anything until it's done (or at least done-ish) but when you do, it's going to be pretty beyond awesome for a text-based space empire game =D

HELP I'M ALREADY GETTING OVERLY EXCITED ABOUT IT

Revealed : Leader and Empire names will allow spaces in them!

Update#14 : The Sun is Setting...

... but it's not down yet.

I have the original/remade admin tools finished and a couple new ones added, but before the stars can start coming out I want to implement one more little back-end feature. Basically, I have these admin tools, and I want a record of what I do with them. If I screw up somehow, I want to know about it and what I did.

This will also serve as practise for other record-keeping functions that I will likely add in the future, such as keeping a history of purchases.  It's a big deal and not quite as simple as it sounds; I'll want to keep such records in a secondary database. Why? Suppose you make a donation of money to me or purchase in-game tokens with money, and then something happens that requires me to restore a previous backup from before your purchase. If the special records were in the same database, then your purchase is lost and I'd have to look through bank records or whatever to confirm your claim of "gimme what I paid for!"

That's just an example, but yeah, I think it's important enough to delay the mapping thing one more time.


Revealed : All of the playing and competitive features of UNIVERSE will be free! UNIVERSE will raise money by selling small token items and features that won't have any real effect in a player's ability to do well in the game. Details are being kept quiet for now!

Update#13 : A Measure of Clarity

This is just a quick little post to note that I have approximately 1/2 finished my pre-mapping task on the new admin tools. It's much nicer than the old tool page already as well as more concise while giving more/better information! This will definitely help building and management later.

Revealed : There will be a trading system permitting the exchange of almost everything!

Update#12 : A Detour Through the Scenic Route

As I was starting on the path to building an early-prototype galaxy to start with mapping, it occured to me that I would want to add an admin tool for easily generating star clusters for this purpose.

My special admin tools - which I made soon after starting the project - were and will be useful... but also consider that they predate the completion of the mail system. At the time of their initial build, I felt that I could afford myself the liberty of having one loosely-developed page. The page that would only ever be seen and used by myself was allowed to be ugly, because that would make it easier to build.

Now, I have since grown in my proficiency and find that it seems messy both to look at and to add on to. I wanted to add my personal development tools and map, but didn't know how to comfirtably make them fit!

So, I'm building my server/admin tools again. I should be able to do it fairly quickly now, and the page will be much more flexible.  Anyway, I want to say sorry for the delay that this will cause, but - yet again - it is an investment to the future, which will be wonderful. I promise.

I think that, for fun, I will start mentioning little tidbids of what neato things will be part of the game in a little end-of-post section that I'll called 'Revealed' ... especially things that will set it apart from other games, but sometimes maybe not. Some of these things might have been mentioned previouslydue to my poor memory, and some things might be mentioned repeatedly, oops! Anyway, that's all for now~


Revealed : Player-designed space ships.