Crucible XXI 23/05/2014

Still no exciting things to show- it's turning out to be quite complicated and there are various moving parts what with dealing with time zones etc. So in light of that, I will be mostly discussing things and showing off what I have done.

I made some more adjustments to the UI so that it shows less, more useful, information. Specific details on the active effects of each improvement on a system is accessible by highlighting the improvement, rather than listed in a huge text box. Along with this are some more general quality of life improvements, such as buttons remaining highlighted after selection, ensuring all buttons follow the same rules (orange when active, bright orange when selected, grey when inactive). I also made some slight changes to the way that the boxes are laid out- hopefully simplifying it.

Over the past few days I have been re-writing and re-naming all the system improvements. Originally there were 5 generic and 3 defence improvements per tier (32 total) available to all races, with only 2 race-specific improvements (8 per race)- that's 56 improvements total. Now, however, there are 3 generic and 2 defence improvements per tier for all races, with 5 race-specific improvements per tier- bringing the total up to 80 (or 140 when I include the other races)! This has meant that I have much more flexibility creating improvements that utilise each races unique resources and play style, and so hopefully the improvements are both more meaningful with regards to the gameplay, and also more interesting mechanically. Below is a picture of all the improvements available to humans (each box is one tier).

Next week I'll be primarily working on improving and expanding the military side of gameplay- so primarily invasions from heroes, and also a new missile system I have not previously mentioned in which systems can build and store missiles to be fired upon other systems. The main issue with these mechanics is not implementing them, but making sure that they are easy and logical to use, which at the moment they are not. I've included a picture of the targeting system to give you an idea of how the missiles will work. The background image is just a large Hubble deep field image I pulled off the internet (and is rather bright!).

And here is a little taster of what will be coming soon...

Crucible XX 19/05/2014

Well I had hoped to have some exciting things to show off by now, but unfortunately they are not yet ready (hence why there was such a big gap since my last post). However I have spent a lot of time planning and designing my UI, and I am happy to say that I have a working version of the system screen to show off! As I said a few weeks ago, most of my time is spent on behind-the scenes stuff at the moment, but hopefully this Friday's post will be something special :)

This first screen shows off the rough placement and aesthetics of the UI. I have retained the orange theme, but have used a lighter colour to prevent the UI seeming too dull or hard to see. The font has been changed to one that is more readable, and I have chosen to use white due to feedback on using a darker colour. Labels related to resources output are colour coded for ease. All interactive buttons are orange, whilst text boxes are grey. The text boxes have grouped content based on a particular theme (eg. military power/resource output/overview etc.). I have tried to provide as much information to the player as necessary whilst keeping the UI clean and clear of 'waffle'.

A second screenshot shows the layout of the construction of improvements. A planet is selected from the list on the far left. Then an improvement slot is selected, which in turn reveals all the available improvements. Currently only the first tier of improvements is available to be built. Selecting an improvement will bring up a final window containing all relevant details. This includes a quote that adds some flavour to the particular improvement (at the moment this is just the same quote for each one), the details of what the improvement will do, the cost of constructing the improvement, and a button to build it. You may also notice that improvements have an upkeep that must be paid each turn (not currently working but seen above the improvement slot list).

Finally this screenshot shows how the central list changes size to contain information about the built improvements. Where the details on the right detail generally how the improvement will work, this list shows the actual effects on the planet from all system improvements. You may also notice that the improvements are not balanced at all- a knowledge production of more than 1000 is insane!

Well I hope that was worth the wait, and there will be more changes, additions and improvements to both the UI and gameplay in the weeks to come. Another thing I would quickly like to say is that I have scrapped plans to work on implementing multiplayer in favour of a worthy single player AI. I have made this decision since I cannot realistically implement both features within a reasonable time frame, and I need more experience in designing AI than I do  with networking. However this does not mean that multiplayer is not on the table, and it may come post release depending on the ease of implementation. Thanks for reading, and I'll be back again on Friday (hopefully).

Crucible XIX 02/05/2014

A maths-intensive week this week, highly enjoyable. Still working on the theory side of the game, so there will be a lot of super good gameplay changes coming up soon (I'll talk a bit about them later). Also done a new video to make up for no blog last week. I finish work in 9 weeks, so I expect to be working much faster for the summer months. Also I'll hopefully be finishing off my Steam page soon, so I can get that live and looking good.

State of the Game (Build 1.08):

• System rotation. This is a big deal. All systems now rotate slowly about the galactic centre. Systems rotate at slightly different speeds. This means that the map changes shape slowly throughout the game, and as a result the connections between systems can change. This is intended to add an extra layer of strategy to the game, as some systems may become cut off from the main empire over time, or new routes to enemy systems may open up. This is designed to be unnoticeable in the short term, but create large changes over the course of a match.
• Randomised systems. The majority of systems (non-lore related systems) have randomised planet types in order to add more variation to each match. The number of planets in these systems is constant, however.
• Improved Pathfinding. Heroes now use an A* pathfinding algorithm to move. This takes into account the distances between systems (the previous algorithm only calculated the number of connections).

Upcoming Changes

• Empire technology tree. This will be divided into 4 tiers. Each tier contains technology that costs progressively more (eg. 10 for T1, 20 for T2, and so on). All technology within a tier costs the same amount, but every time a technology is research, all other technologies in that tier double their research cost. The idea behind this is to force the player to choose route through the tree carefully since the technology gets expensive quickly.
• Hero upgrades. This will become more of a skill tree similar to it's original state in the game. All heroes share a common tree with upgrades like armour, movement speed etc. Hero specific upgrades are also available depending on the hero type. Certain empire techs can even open up upgrades previously available for other hero classes.
• Expansion penalty and improvement penalty. Colonising new systems or planets creates and empire wide resource penalty for a certain amount of time. If colonisation is too fast, this penalty becomes very large. There will also be an upkeep cost on system improvement slots.
• Finalised the system screen and main menu designs. These are likely to take a lot of time to implement because there is a lot of trial and error involved. It does look snazzy however.

That's it for this week. Remember to check out my new video, and I'll (probably) be back next week.