While things are fine and continuing now, some more little personal issues came up that cost me a few days on development. Something on a higher level doesn't want me to get this project finished at all......
That aside, I'm still working on designing and building the map system. Even though the final product never really looks like the concept drawings, some of the details and constraints and concepts make it in and really help in the overall finished product... I guess by the merit of simply having more thought put into it? I don't know, I'm not a design theory specialist!
Anyway, back to work!
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Update#66 : Keeping It Up
Since the last post I've done a bit of relaxing and resting, and a bunch of little improvements and additions on various things. Mainly, getting ready for the meat of the work do be done in implementing the awesome new map. Oh, and ... *checking paypal* ... nope still not resolved, oh well.
So, about those mapping pages. There will be one link that takes you to the 'Mapping Center' which then has a link to each of the main map types: Regional Star Map, Solar System, Planetary System, Planet Surface.
For each link there will be a field for coordinates; if left blank, then you will be linked to your default or saved location of the relavent type. So, for example, when you sign up your account will be pre-loaded with default settings like...
Star Map: shows nearby stars, centered at your home star
Solar System: viewing 'your' solar system
Planetary System: viewing details of your home world
Planet Surface: viewing the surface and details of your home world, showing your capital
I'll probably also add a 5th coordinate option which - based on the coordinates you input - will make a best-guess assumption about which kind of map to use.
As I've mentioned before, the coordinate system will probably be somewhat overwhelming when you're just getting started, and so I'm also going to add nice little buttons and functions so that you can play the game without ever really having to figure out what the letters and numbers mean.
Alright, gotta get back on this roll and keep making things. The very next thing I'm going to do is... get a drink, and then delete all of the current stars to make a whole new batch of full star systems, ready and waiting to be seen with the glorious new maps to be...
So, about those mapping pages. There will be one link that takes you to the 'Mapping Center' which then has a link to each of the main map types: Regional Star Map, Solar System, Planetary System, Planet Surface.
For each link there will be a field for coordinates; if left blank, then you will be linked to your default or saved location of the relavent type. So, for example, when you sign up your account will be pre-loaded with default settings like...
Star Map: shows nearby stars, centered at your home star
Solar System: viewing 'your' solar system
Planetary System: viewing details of your home world
Planet Surface: viewing the surface and details of your home world, showing your capital
I'll probably also add a 5th coordinate option which - based on the coordinates you input - will make a best-guess assumption about which kind of map to use.
As I've mentioned before, the coordinate system will probably be somewhat overwhelming when you're just getting started, and so I'm also going to add nice little buttons and functions so that you can play the game without ever really having to figure out what the letters and numbers mean.
Alright, gotta get back on this roll and keep making things. The very next thing I'm going to do is... get a drink, and then delete all of the current stars to make a whole new batch of full star systems, ready and waiting to be seen with the glorious new maps to be...
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Update#65 : Square + 1
Well that was fun. I got into a nice little roll for coding after the last update... it continued until now, about 14 hours later I think, with me having fully implemented the site's main News system. It's 07:57 now, so I'm going to bed.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Update#64 : Square
While I really want to get the map and economics done, I feel the need also to have a proper news page/panel so I'm making up a simple news article system for me to create and edit news items in the game. Not everybody will be eagerly following the babbling of the devlog when things get going (I probably wouldn't if I was just a player!) so I think it's only right. Also it would be more concise and focussed on the game itself, while here I feel free to babble, as I so often mention.
Also, I'd like to do this news thing as a break from the 'complicated' and full-of-mathematical things of the main game issues. When I get back to those things I'll probably feel a bit more refreshed and eager, which I could use... not that I'm not eager to get it all done, but sometimes there's a monotonous feeling to constantly doing research and tweaking numbers and equations and mulling things over in the mind; things that I otherwise really enjoy, just not for 12 hours a day every day!
Also, I'd like to do this news thing as a break from the 'complicated' and full-of-mathematical things of the main game issues. When I get back to those things I'll probably feel a bit more refreshed and eager, which I could use... not that I'm not eager to get it all done, but sometimes there's a monotonous feeling to constantly doing research and tweaking numbers and equations and mulling things over in the mind; things that I otherwise really enjoy, just not for 12 hours a day every day!
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Update#63 : Deeper into Reality
As always, I've been a fair bit busy lately with several tasks in addition to living life.
First of all, working on a rough outline of the economic system and values for the game. Build times will be related to pricing and a few other factors, so I need to get those figured out, along with the works of population.
Next, I'm assembling on paper all the details that I want for all of the maps and their interface details. The 3D mapping of stars and planets is intended to be a major new feature of this game compared to others of this sort, so the maps really should work nicely I think.
Finally, I've been looking in to setting up a donation page, in case anybody wants to help me out with a bit of money... what would it do? It would mostly go towards buying precious time for me to keep working full-time on the game. I might have to stop doing that soon and replace some of the time with getting a job. I was hoping to get the game into a playable open-beta phase before that happened, but it has this way of taking longer to do everything than I want it to. If I have to get a job, then hopefully it will be a part-time job and I can still devote most of my time on game development... but that's something I won't worry about for another 2 months, for now I'll be more focussed on development. People who send donations will have their donation recorded (duh) and later their name will be shown on a "special thanks" page or something like that, to mark an appreciation for what they've done for me and thus for everyone in the UNIVERSE.
So anyway, economy, maps, donations; these three things are my focus these days, pretty much which ever I feel like working on at the time is the one I work on.
Tomorrow, probably, I'll add a new page... the big UNIVERSE title link will no longer redirect users to the front page. Instead, it will lead to a new 'nexus' page which will have news posts, devlog links, links to miscellaneous pages (like the store!) and other information; it will also be the page that players will be brought to by default when they log in.
Well that's enough babbling for now! o/
First of all, working on a rough outline of the economic system and values for the game. Build times will be related to pricing and a few other factors, so I need to get those figured out, along with the works of population.
Next, I'm assembling on paper all the details that I want for all of the maps and their interface details. The 3D mapping of stars and planets is intended to be a major new feature of this game compared to others of this sort, so the maps really should work nicely I think.
Finally, I've been looking in to setting up a donation page, in case anybody wants to help me out with a bit of money... what would it do? It would mostly go towards buying precious time for me to keep working full-time on the game. I might have to stop doing that soon and replace some of the time with getting a job. I was hoping to get the game into a playable open-beta phase before that happened, but it has this way of taking longer to do everything than I want it to. If I have to get a job, then hopefully it will be a part-time job and I can still devote most of my time on game development... but that's something I won't worry about for another 2 months, for now I'll be more focussed on development. People who send donations will have their donation recorded (duh) and later their name will be shown on a "special thanks" page or something like that, to mark an appreciation for what they've done for me and thus for everyone in the UNIVERSE.
So anyway, economy, maps, donations; these three things are my focus these days, pretty much which ever I feel like working on at the time is the one I work on.
Tomorrow, probably, I'll add a new page... the big UNIVERSE title link will no longer redirect users to the front page. Instead, it will lead to a new 'nexus' page which will have news posts, devlog links, links to miscellaneous pages (like the store!) and other information; it will also be the page that players will be brought to by default when they log in.
Well that's enough babbling for now! o/
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Update#62 : GENESIS
I am now finished the core of the Genesis project. That is, all of the world-building stuff that needed to be done before I could move on, is finished. Thus, I can finally move on to other things... I can start whole new code files and web pages... and I can create a basic playing universe within which we can frolic and make war!
Maybe I'm just tired (it's almost 6am) but it doesn't even feel real to be finished this stage after working on it for so many months. I just don't know what to think of it!
I'm probably going to take a day or two off, to get done a couple little things that I promised myself to do once I finish with Genesis... another heap of laundry, a good dusting&cleaning of my desk, a bit of room-cleaning... all that good boring life stuff that most of us either hate to do, or just regularly do.
Next order of business: A new and complete mapping system (we currently only have an obsolete star-map, though it's still revolutionary, hehe!) and creating player asset objects (cities, outposts, fleets)
Continuing from the idea proposed in the last update, I came up with another little possibility; 'normal' difficulty allows players to pick an area from which their homeworld will be chosen so they could start closer with friends, while the nice-world 'easy' difficulty skips that option and is placed on any nice planet in the universe. Remember galaxies will be large and vast in this game; while other games might need only hours or minutes to cross a galaxy, crossing a galaxy in this game will likely take days. Therefore, while players who pick normal difficulty won't have as-nice of a homeworld, they will benefit from immediately having local friends to help them, while the 'easy' player would start out relatively alone. Thoughts?
Revealed : There are probably billions or even trillions of possible solar system formations in this game... And yet the real universe is far more diverse and interesting!
Good Night!
Maybe I'm just tired (it's almost 6am) but it doesn't even feel real to be finished this stage after working on it for so many months. I just don't know what to think of it!
I'm probably going to take a day or two off, to get done a couple little things that I promised myself to do once I finish with Genesis... another heap of laundry, a good dusting&cleaning of my desk, a bit of room-cleaning... all that good boring life stuff that most of us either hate to do, or just regularly do.
Next order of business: A new and complete mapping system (we currently only have an obsolete star-map, though it's still revolutionary, hehe!) and creating player asset objects (cities, outposts, fleets)
Continuing from the idea proposed in the last update, I came up with another little possibility; 'normal' difficulty allows players to pick an area from which their homeworld will be chosen so they could start closer with friends, while the nice-world 'easy' difficulty skips that option and is placed on any nice planet in the universe. Remember galaxies will be large and vast in this game; while other games might need only hours or minutes to cross a galaxy, crossing a galaxy in this game will likely take days. Therefore, while players who pick normal difficulty won't have as-nice of a homeworld, they will benefit from immediately having local friends to help them, while the 'easy' player would start out relatively alone. Thoughts?
Revealed : There are probably billions or even trillions of possible solar system formations in this game... And yet the real universe is far more diverse and interesting!
Good Night!
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Update#61 : Moon Rise
Wow! I can't believe it's already been a week since I started on moons, it feels like only 3 days!
Well, it's done now, and that's what counts. I think Asteroid belts will be easier and faster to make, but only time will tell.
Overall I'm happy with moon formation, though I've recently gotten an idea for something to add to the game that I can add that I think might be good or bad, which would affect the early game for any player. The issue stems from the fact that 'Earth-like' habitable planets are rare (not by design; just the result of natural planetary formation ends up making them rare!) so if these alone are supposed to be the starting homeworlds for all players, there might be very few start locations. If so, even a very large galaxy might not have many potential homeworlds.
Idea : There would be two 'difficulty' modes: Easy and Normal.
Easy
> Starts on an Earth-like world, having moderate-good starting resources and lower building costs.
> Starts with basic research levels.
> Starts with a civilization just starting to join the galactic community...
Normal
> Starts on a random colonizable world, having decent starting resources.
> Starts with moderate research levels and a few free levels that can be custom-selected.
> Starts with a civilization just recovering from a past cataclysm which reduced it to one colony...
I think (and hope) that most people would choose 'normal' because they want to start with better technologies... Did I mention that research can be expensive? Well I am now, and I will during signup.
Input/criticism wanted!
Well, it's done now, and that's what counts. I think Asteroid belts will be easier and faster to make, but only time will tell.
Overall I'm happy with moon formation, though I've recently gotten an idea for something to add to the game that I can add that I think might be good or bad, which would affect the early game for any player. The issue stems from the fact that 'Earth-like' habitable planets are rare (not by design; just the result of natural planetary formation ends up making them rare!) so if these alone are supposed to be the starting homeworlds for all players, there might be very few start locations. If so, even a very large galaxy might not have many potential homeworlds.
Idea : There would be two 'difficulty' modes: Easy and Normal.
Easy
> Starts on an Earth-like world, having moderate-good starting resources and lower building costs.
> Starts with basic research levels.
> Starts with a civilization just starting to join the galactic community...
Normal
> Starts on a random colonizable world, having decent starting resources.
> Starts with moderate research levels and a few free levels that can be custom-selected.
> Starts with a civilization just recovering from a past cataclysm which reduced it to one colony...
I think (and hope) that most people would choose 'normal' because they want to start with better technologies... Did I mention that research can be expensive? Well I am now, and I will during signup.
Input/criticism wanted!
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