Broken Sigil, my little game.

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

I had mentioned on the rmb that I'm in the progress of making a video game, and there was some interest in me creating an OOC thread about it. So, I present: Broken Sigil, The current working title for my little game. It is a top-down 3d space shooter focusing on Capital ship combat. The idea is to have big, slow, and powerful ships slugging it out with each other in space. Before going into any more detail about specifics, here's a little video I took of the game right now. Note that I haven't even been working on this a week yet, so it's veeeeerry early in development, probably not even an alpha.

More on the Mechanics:

Currently the movement is a fairly simple system, use wasd to make the ship move in different directions. More uniquely, there is a system of 'inertial dampners', which will effect how you can move. If they are on then your ship will behave more like, say, a boat. With them off you'll just keep going off into space even if you're not thrusting at all. This way you can have a bit of greater control over your movement, and you can switch between have them off and on to adapt to different situations.

In terms of weapons, the ship currently only has one type. However, my plan is for each playable ship (there will be more than the one shown in that little clip) to have three weapons. The most basic weapons, the ones I've made thus far, are activated with spacebar, and the others will use the mouse buttons.

Right now enemies just sit around and shoot, not moving, but I do plan on most - aside from ones specifically meant to be static - being able to move and fight the player that way.

And finally, here's some pictures of some of the models I've made (not all are in the game yet)

Models:

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

Made a new model for the current playable ship, as I was unhappy with the previous one.

Model:

[Cybelos [ERE]]

Some ideas if you're taking them:

-Big bad maybe? (something to work towards)

-Maybe the enemy ships drop fuel or scrap
of which you have a limited supply/lasers take away from your hull and the salvage can repair the holes.

-You're a space frontiersman attempting to mine the asteroids and you're being constantly besieged by ever more difficult enemies. Mine all the ore and you win, get blown up and you lose.

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

I'm definitely taking ideas!

Those are some interesting ones, and I think I'm definitely going to add something pretty similar to your second one there, as a way to recharge energy, and then be rid of the charge over time...or maybe mix the two....I don't know.

[House of Judah]

So, taking a look at what you've got there, here are my initial thoughts:

1. Doesn't really strike me as a slow ponderous capital ship.  That ship is really highly maneuverable, more like a cruiser or a destroyer.  That's not necessarily a problem, but since you said you wanted this to be capital ships slugging it out, I felt that was one of the things I should bring up.  Have you considered instead allowing the player to lay in a course for the ship and letting it make it's slow way there unless the previous course is changed?  Since you already have inertia mechanics, it wouldn't be that hard to add in (I would think).  You program in a course and let the game calculate the inertia at various steps.  If the player wants to make a course change, they can but then they are still dealing with the initial inertia at the time of their change.
   
2. Capital ships are bruisers.  They can roll through and give as good as they get.  But that doesn't mean they have to.  Warfare is as much about tactics as it is being well armed and armored.  You have asteroids in the field.  Let them create imperfect information (for both the player and the NPCs).  The ship can roll around an asteroid, expecting to continue on it's merry way only to find itself staring down the barrels of an enemy flotilla just waiting to open fire.  Or, having found itself out gunned, a ship takes to the asteroid field and hides from the enemy.  This can open a door to additional mechanics like sensor drones which remotely send information about what they can find back to your ship.
   
3. Capital ships are humongous.  They can't (or at least shouldn't) be able to bring every weapon to bear at the same time.  For a little extra challenge (and to really elevate that much needed tactics) limit the arc and range of weapons.  Sometimes you can see the enemy but don't want to fight them, so you stay out of range and skirt around.  Or maybe their long range weapons will beat you if you keep it a capital range engagement, but your close in weapons will shred them if you can survive to get them in range. This can play particularly well if you implement the ideas 1 and 2.
   

These are some initial thoughts about the game, you can use them if you want. Other than that, it looks good. Graphics seem a little cartoony, but I don't think you need to worry too much about making it look like AAA-game material (at least at this point). You can always change that up a bit if you need to.

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

Yeah, this current ship is a smaller one (I've classed it as a light cruiser) and is meant to be a bit faster and quick than most others will be.

I quite like the idea of setting a course, that would be quite interesting. I shall look into that. I also definitely want to limit the arc of weapons, it would definitely add to the tactics. Ill probably also add some kind of zoom so that the player isn't so locked to one view.

Sensor drones and things also sound really cool, I think that's another thing ill look into. Making a basic version of that should be pretty simple.

Thanks for all the ideas!

[House of Judah]

And another idea that I had but forgot to bring up earlier: squadrons. Light cruisers and even battlecruisers can operate independently for commerce raiding or light patrolling. Capital ships are intended for the big engagements as a member of a fleet. If they are the only capital ship, then they have a fleet of smaller ships around them. Just saying. If you limit the weapons to primarily broadsides (which would up the challenge and play into classic ship & said naval tactics), capital ships can form a line (or wall if you make it 3D) of battle.

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

Oh I definitely want some kind of squadrons.

---------------------------------------------------

I've also got a mostly working turret system, so they only rotate a certain amount around. Still a bit of finicking I've got to do, but it works...mostly. I may go for a more broadside focused system though, as it would be quite interesting. (It would also be a lot easier )

Also, I have a couple models of some bigger ships made, though they are not set up in the game to played, so here's a quick comparison of them to the currently playable ship (much more befitting of the title capital ship.)

[House of Judah]

Have you considered missile tubes instead of particle beam/mass driver turrets or in addition to? They can also play in the inertia system, and are even more conducive to a broadside system than the turrets are.

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

Have you considered missile tubes instead of particle beam/mass driver turrets or in addition to?  They can also play in the inertia system, and are even more conducive to a broadside system than the turrets are.

Oooooh, that would cool. It also gives me the idea to have some kind of torpedos as well...

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

Hmm...So apparently making a turret that can rotate but also has a limit to it's rotation is quite difficult. I'd think it wouldn't be, but it would seem it is...so broadsides are looking nice right now

Perhaps I can settle on a sort of compromise where the turret still rotates but the projectile won't fire if the ship is in the way...would be easier.

[Byzantine_Bithynia]

Don't mean to spam, but holy crap am I happy. Managed to get my little compromise to work. Finally after two days I can move on from that...

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