So as you’ve probably worked out, one of the distinguishing features of Shallow Space is concurrent activity spread across several play areas that we call zones.
Each zone contains ships, fixed structures and ‘Space Objects,’ and linked to them might be resources, random encounters and quests. A Space Object is a procedurally grown cluster composed of rock, ice, debris or gas. If a ship is sitting within the confines of a Space Object it might be granted a number of Status Effects that can have a positive or negative effect on its systems.
Inside the zones, ships only have a limited ‘Deep Scan Radius’ in which a non-allied unit is fully revealed and Space Objects will need to be scanned to reveal hiding ships and resources.
These clusters of Rock form part of a Space Object. All parts of a Space Object need to be scanned before the contents are revealed...
Shallow Space will be bustling with traffic. AI ships completing various tasks will all contribute to the general ambiance and add unexpected incidents to manage while you build up your fleet. That traffic will move around from zone-to-zone and if it is allied to the Player will share sensor readings including links between zones and its contents. If a zone doesn’t contain a player or allied unit it will be considered ‘dark’ meaning very little information is visible most notably on the Zone Map in which icon and links are hidden.
Moving between the zones is a tricky mechanic because if we let the majority of these ships jump freely it’s probably not going to be all that fun. It certainly won’t be as fun as having the option of ambushes and boxing in, so a ships main method of traversing zones is to travel to predetermined ‘Jump Safe Areas,’ these are choke areas which serve as links between the zones. ‘Short Range Jump’ is an ability allowing you to move instantly within the zone but its cooldown will affect the use of the Jump Safe Areas. Cruiser and Capital ships can also be fitted with an auxiliary ‘Point-to-Point’ support module which will allow them to jump across several zones at once but its use consumes Hydrogen.
Anybody coming to or leaving for Zone 24 via this Zone will land here.
In the Beta, the sandbox will be initially contained to one planet so we can hammer out any issues on a smaller scale but eventually each planet will harbour a number of zones and the planets type will generally dictate the types of materials and activity that are generated in those zones.
One or more of a planets Zones will contain a waygate – enabling mainstream travel between planets and other planetary systems.
Lets talk about unit construction and fleets...
As the player progresses the game they will receive instructions on how to build ships and structures, these instructions will unlock blueprints. The player will also be able to build research structures to unlock blueprints in addition to finding them in the wild.
Finding a nice little corner here to setup shop - unit construction is in.
Fixed structures will provide a number of other additional facilities to the player such as power, refining, construction, storage, weapons or sensors platforms, and some structures can house the small but potent Corvette units. Fixed structures can be placed in any occupied zone.
Unit construction will be slower than a traditional RTS, the focus will be on selecting quality units to build up flotillas that fit your particular playstyle with fewer units than in the present alpha. Even still the Player can dynamically assign ships to groups that can fly in formation. These groups can operate independently anywhere in the Shallow Space sandbox likely questing, patrolling or gathering resources.
After the completed beta we’ll be adding Officers and unit veterancy so you can turn them into hero units which will add abilities and bonuses to grouped ships. Much fun.
Let's talk tooltips and UI for a second...
Behind the scenes there is a lot of information driving the cogs of the game, some of that useful to the Player, much of it would confuse. Of course the trick is getting the right information on screen at the right time and so we’ve been investing considerable effort into that over the last month.
Ship Configuration now happens in-game, modules can be hot swapped with a 60 second 'weapons fooked for a bit Captain' cooldown status
We’ve moved to a window based system that will let you handle everything from inventory management to ship configuration and unit construction. Not only will this feel more immersive by reducing the amount of time the Player spends ‘out of the game,’ but it allows for a certain flexibility when doing tasks such as comparing loadouts.
We appreciate that the big issue with this is ultimately, the more ships you have, the more windows onscreen and we’ll combat this using composite windows such as ‘Combined Inventory’ and have constructed a window manager that remembers the last size and position of the window and even which zone it was open in. We envisage the Zone system might also act as a sort of desktop further enabling concurrency, an example might be to bounce seamlessly from unit construction to observing a battle in a neighbouring zone – with the windows hiding, reappearing as required.
But the real heroes (and a large timesink development-wise!) will be the tooltips that really leak those glorious details.
In other areas we’ve been scheming and plotting with regards to sound effects and music. Starting again in that area using some of our funds to enlist the help of a professional editor who has already completely themed the UI with SFX. Separately, we have the building blocks to a procedural battle music system with a thrilling score written by the same guy who wrote the music from the last video. From the visual side we have some new ships we’ll shortly be unveiling including a new ESE secret-faction prototype Battlecruiser. Over on the story side we’ve started fleshing out the first non-linear campaign and are adding to it with side quests and additional backstory.
So as we hope you can see, progress remains strong here with only a few lead items left on the todo list and good old clean up before we’re ready for Beta testing. So look forward to the unveiling of some new ships, a breakdown of what to expect in the Beta and a new video coming soon!
Paradijs Lost (Part 4)
Hassle on the journey to Paradijs, as Jack and Eve travel to uncover the dirty secrets of the Pleiades Corporation... (Additional parts: 1, 2, 3)
They were three days into their journey to Ares when the Veeps arrived.
Two of them. Wing and Man. Eve had never seen them this close before. Like an ice cream cone on its side, the scoop of cream all sharp polygon edges. Distinctive tri-shaped prime movers. Large guns pointing in all directions. Heavy armour too. They only had two weaknesses. One was inertia, the other was battle cruisers, but most people didn’t have one of those up their sleeve.
They pulled into formation on either side of the Tigress. Eve watched from the cockpit, waiting
“Remember,” Jack said. “Whatever happens, just play it cool. You belong here. This is a PLC ship. It belongs in this system, and we aren’t heading for the gate, so we’re not exactly trying to escape.”
“Sure,” Eve said, though her father’s words from her youth came screaming back. Don’t try to outsmart the badge. Just run like hell.
Static hissed over the comm and then a voice came in with that stuck-up accent of the well-off Pleiaden.
“Freighter, identify yourself.”
“Hi, sure, this is the Light Freighter Trojan Horse,” Jack said, cavalier.
Eve elbowed him in the ribs, mouthed “Trojan Horse?”
The comm hissed again. “Identify your cargo and destination.”
Jack leant back in his pilot chair and activated the comm with a casual flick. “We’re heading to Ares. No idea what the cargo is. Couldn’t care less. You want to know? Come over here and inspect it yourself.”
Eve slapped his hand from the comm switch. “What the hell are you doing?” she breathed. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
Jack’s smile was gone. He leant forward and pushed her extended arm away. “Just leave this to the professionals, eh?” He toggled the comm again. “Look, I’ve got a bunch of engineering nerds hankering for this crap, whatever it is. Do you want to come check it out or not? I’ve got a timetable to keep.”
He pulled his finger back and smiled at her. “People become policeman for one reason: To make themselves feel bigger than everyone else. This kind of person doesn’t want to do a ship search when they’re invited. It takes the fun out of it.”
Eve watched him with raised eyebrows, not quite believing the brash approach. The comm was silent however, which she thought may have been a good sign. Then she gasped. “Who is this ship registered to?”
“The Planetary Adjustment subsidiary of course. Where else do you think I got this idea from? I purchased this ship legally from them, I just, well you know, might not have completed the paperwork. It’s all legit anyway.”
Eve shook her head then returned her gaze to the two ships outside. A single shot from any would cause a ruckus in the ship’s systems. A second would cause fatal damage, a third would probably destroy it. With the proximity of the Veeps she reckoned she’d have about a tenth of a second heads up that she was about to die. Not terribly encouraging.
Moments passed. Eve felt the tension in her twitching arms, her pulsating heart, her rapid breathing. A tenth of a second, a tenth of a second. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. She needed every fraction of that tenth.
“They’re not going for it,” Eve whispered. “Get us out of here.”
“They’d make us the instant I sent power to the engines. For this particular hand we’re going all-in.”
Eve eyed the ships again. She needed to do something. She just couldn’t sit down waiting while someone decided whether she lived or died. She needed-
A flare outside. Eve screamed.
The Veep veered away, its engine wash as bright as a missile launch. She almost had to swallow her heart back down to her chest, long gulping breaths to calm it still.
Jack chuckled. “Everyone falls for the Trojan Horse.”
“Because no one would be stupid enough to be that blatant.”
He shrugged. “When everyone says something can’t be done, a little voice inside me tells me to do it anyway.”
Eve smiled, despite herself. The man wasn’t short on confidence. “Is your little voice telling you to get me to Ares?”
The Trojan Horse sliced through the soupy atmosphere of Ares and they landed on an open platform at the original Adjustments base.
Jack stopped at the ship’s door and donned a breather. He passed one to Eve. “The pressure is good outside, you just don’t want that shit in your lungs.”
Eve felt a quip coming on about the shit she had put into her lungs when she was young, but the door whirred open and the moment passed.
The sky was red and burning, like gaseous fire. Standard atmosphere flowed through her lungs but the pressure and the view curdled her stomach. She lowered her gaze to the catwalk ahead. Triangular support structure ran below the walk to the barren ground below. Ahead, Jack had nearly reached the door to the base. He pressed a hand to a console and the door irised open and he stepped through. Eve raced forward and followed him into the airlock. Jack closed the door and the airlock cycle started. A green light flared, the inner door opened and then Jack removed his mask.
“Ok, let’s head to the control room,” he said.
Eve removed her mask, breathed in the air. It felt fresh and clean.
The facility was about twenty years old, Eve guessed, based purely on the style of the place. Empty, bland, a stark grey colour across the floor, walls and ceilings, it was at once both unattractive and hostile, setting her on edge.
Again Jack seemed to know the route from rote, though she suspected a few of the turns were lucky guesses. The corridors all looked the same. If there had ever been anything in the facility to personalise it, it had long gone with everyone else to the second stage Adjustment base.
She paused midstep, something nagging at her, but it was gone and she kept moving.
They entered the control room, a circular space of chairs and control screens and standing space in the middle. Eve glanced at the screens quickly. Atmospheric content and density, rock and mineral spectra, gas bore depth and other such things.
Jack was fiddling at one of the controls. “Ares has a pretty long orbital period. Ideal situation is we wait until it’s at the right part of its orbit to minimise travel distance to the map plus give us a speed boost.”
“How long will that take?” Eve asked, though she figured she could probably guess.
Jack kept typing then turned to her, an embarrassed half grin on his face. “Fifty two days.”
Eve’s jaw dropped as she studied his eyes for the glimmer of a practical joke. No luck. He was serious.
“Fifty two days?” she repeated, still unsure.
“Ideally,” he said, rising.
“That’s a quarter of a Terran year!”
“It’s only half a Paradijs year,” Jack retorted. Then he went serious. “But agreed, we can’t wait that long. We don’t have the supplies for one, but the risk of exposure increases exponentially the longer you stay still.”
Eve nodded. Finally, something she could agree with, not just logically, but deep in her bones. Movement meant life. Always moving, always one step ahead Jack turned back to the computer. “We could stay here a few weeks. Seventeen days tops, then we have to get moving.
“A fortnight is doable,” Eve said. “As long as you don’t get ideas.”
Jack laughed. An honest laugh. It sounded good. “Well now you’ve jinxed it. You see all my ideas are really just great plans, the groundwork laid long ago. For me to come up with new ideas would take some time, and we only have a fortnight.”
Eve laughed back. She felt the stress flowing out. “You are a true gentlemen.”
A clang beyond the door froze Eve. Jack’s gaze snapped to the door. Eve suddenly realised what had bothered her before. When she had removed her mask the air hadn’t felt musty or old, as if no one had breathed it for many months.
It had felt fresh.
As if someone was still here.
The door to Eve’s right opened.
A man stepped through. His head down studying a pad, he immediately sensed their presence and his head snapped up, long blonde hair bobbing.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His eyes narrowed, glanced at Jack, turned to Eve. He backed away.
Jack put his hands up. “We’re bleedin' lost is what we’re doing here.” He stepped forward. “Some sod orders me to come in with a cargo load of converters and I show up and no one is here.”
Blonde stared at Jack, his feet spreading for stability. The silence built. Eve moved her own feet, inching closer.
Blonde squared his stance toward Jack, clear confrontational body language. “What kind of converters?”
Jack mirrored the stance, put his hands on his hips. “Catalytic converters.”
“Of course,” Blonde said. They continued to stand off, neither moving, gazes locked on each other. Eve could feel the testosterone flaring from both sources, like magnet poles trying to push each other through invisible forces.
Blonde moved.
Eve was ready.
Blonde dived for an alarm console to his right, but Eve swung her leg forward, crashing into his genitals, dropping him to a knee.
Jack was already running and when Blonde got back to his feet to reach the alarm, Jack crash tackled him through the open door. They hit the corridor floor, fists already flying. Jack was on top. He slammed his fist down, pulled back his other, then jerked and rolled sideways as Blonde snap punched his throat.
Jack kept rolling, his gasping echoing through the corridor. Blonde jumped up, swung his foot out, missed Jack by millimetres.
Eve ran in behind Blonde as he swung again. Eve grabbed the long blonde locks and yanked his head back as he swung. He spun around his centre of gravity and dropped to his back.
Jack was back on his feet, but staggering. He dropped onto Blonde, a knee either side of his head, locking his neck between his legs. Gasping for air, Jack launched a fist down into Blonde’s nose.
The explosion of blood followed the snap of cartilage and Blonde was still.
Jack rolled off the limp body and lay there sucking in air, rubbing his purpling throat.
“Son of a bitch nearly killed me,” Jack gasped, the words a struggle, as if he were breathing through a straw, which in some ways he was. “what kind of scientists are they hiring?”
Eve glanced at the Pad that hadn’t left her person since she’d escaped Eden and the data that had made her public enemy number one. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He lifted an arm and Eve helped him up. He leant against the wall, still wheezing, doubled over. He stayed that way for a minute, then gulped in another breath and kicked Blonde in the head. Then he leant back on the wall for another breather.
“So,” Eve began. “Catalytic Converters, huh?”
Jack shrugged. “I panicked.” He pushed off the wall. “We’d better get going.”
Eve looked at both of them. One was a dead weight, the other a liability. She wasn’t sure which was which. “What do we do with him?”
“Probably best not to kill him,” Jack breathed, straightening up a touch. “Find a closet to lock him in, smash the controls.”
Eve eyed Blonde. He was actually well built, probably pushing ninety kays. Jack was barely upright, she’d have to do the heavy lifting. “Does it matter? As soon as he doesn’t check in we’re screwed.”
“Better they find him than he alerts them,” he said. He grabbed one of Blonde’s arms. “Now suck it up and help me.”
They manhandled Blonde into a locker and fritzed the controls. Jack was breathing hard by then, his throat a fireworks of purples and reds. She helped him across the external catwalk and back into the Trojan Horse.
She settled him into the pilot’s chair. “Are you going to be able to fly?”
Jack grinned, then grimaced, coughing. “Honey, I’ve flown this rig whilst mostly dead. I can handle only half dead.” He fired up the ship, and was half way through his pre-flight when he swore. “How long were we in there?”
Eve shrugged from the co-pilots seat. “An hour and a half?”
Jack’s eyes glazed over and Eve thought he was about to pass out but they hardened again. He shook his head. “We’ll have to risk it.”
“Risk what?”
“Our re-entry would have caused local warming of the air. If we take off again before it disperses it might register on the Adjustment sensors.”
“They can’t be that sensitive.”
“They’re trying to rebuild an entire world. You need a high level of accuracy for that.”
He pulled back on the controls and they jarred free from the surface. The world tilted around as Jack pushed them nearly vertical and blasted up through the sky. Eve pulled up the rear view and watched the engine plume run bright but quickly lost in the red atmosphere. Soon even that faded to black and they were in space, their exhaust a neon sign to anyone watching.
Jack arced the Trojan Horse back around the planet as if trying to catch orbit, but he kept accelerating.
“Slingshot?” Eve asked.
Jack nodded. “Aye. A rough one, but it should give us a boost.”
The ship shuddered as it brushed the upper atmosphere. The planet hung just above them. The engines screamed, a steady vibration through the ship, soon eclipsed from the shaking of the manoeuvre. Around they went, keeping a steady distance from the planet so it looked like they were making little progress, but the speedometer kept climbing and then they were away, the shaking diminishing to the simple thrum of the engine.
“Where are we heading now?” Eve asked once the noise had dropped.
“Kuiper Belt,” Jack said. “That’s where the Map is. At least the Map I know of.”
“That’s pretty far out,” Eve said, thinking travel time, exposure to risk.
“Has to be. Any closer the PLC would find it.” He shrugged. “It’s a blessing and a curse. Its orbital period around the star is so long that for all intents and purposes it’s stationary. But eventually a pattern of flight paths will emerge that the PLC might be able to figure out.” He checked something on the display. “I’ll make a course correction once we hit the asteroid belt, then we turn off and coast and we should be home free.”
Open-world Overhaul: It's Evolution #5
Cool things on the cards this week as a few of the team are meeting up in Europe.
Myself and Alex will spend a few days working together to balance the scene a little more and do a code handover and we’ll also be meeting with Vincent to discuss what happens after the Overhaul update is complete and we need to start looking at the campaign. He'll have answers to the tricky questions like managing lines, voice actors and localisation. Vincent has produced more video games than we can remember, including the heavenly spawn ‘Nexus: The Jupiter Incident’ (may golden petals fall forever at its feet) so we’re in good hands I feel. We’ll try and snap some photos!
Meanwhile John Harper, the resident scribe is plotting the treacherous path of the campaign and side quests, very exciting stuff – we have quite a tale to tell interwoven with all the short stories and vignettes you’ve no doubt seen on the blog but don’t worry if you missed them – they are all right here.
Ship configuration makes it's way over to the Overhaul. All the descriptive text for the modules will be hidden away in a comprehensive tooltips system, which will enable you to do things like compare modules very easily.
So regarding the overhaul, we've finished moving across the mechanics we want to keep from the current alpha but one thing that has been left behind you’ll be happy to know, is the camera. A number of you have been screaming out for a Homeworld style ‘planar’ camera and we’ve added exactly that. In the current alpha our six degrees of freedom took 6 keys, 2 modifier keys and the mouse to master, in the overhaul it now takes just 1 modifier key and the mouse. Combine this with some inventive ‘adaptive scaling,’ the camera knows to adjust the sensitivity of movement based on zoom making things far less cumbersome. Try to look out for it in the smooth circular camera movements in the video below.
The game also now has a rudimentary AI that will simulate such tasks as auto-attacking, mining and trading (soon to be extended with patrolling etc.) and it’s all driven by a background concurrency simulator dubbed ‘Cerebrus’. This concurrency thing is cool because it means if you are in one zone, activity in the other zones continue in the background. Also of note, the ship configuration screen is now fully integrated and ships can be assembled using procedural weapons and modules that can now be found as loot.
Take it from us this is a but a small eclectic cross section of the progress made in the background really, the evolution is both rapid and exciting but sadly not something we can really show.
The fleet panel continues to evolve with the unit grouping icons, the addition of working action icons and the enemy & allied forces sections.
The fleet panel evolves with some better hologram icons along with the addition of the ‘Action icon’ which is designed to give an at-a-glance status of what each ship is doing. Feedback from yourselves also suggested that there should be enemy and allied ships listed in the fleet panel so you don’t have to fumble about clicking in 3D - so we have added collapsible sections for those ships also.
It’s obvious that when you look at the fleet panel, it doesn’t leave much room if the player has a number of vessels in play. Also if the player has stations and support platforms in the current zone that could add additional clutter still. To combat this we’ll be bringing back the ‘Flotilla’ icons from the current alpha. But rather than have the groupings fixed before the game starts, you’ll create these groups using traditional shortcuts (eg. CTRL+2, CTRL+3, etc.)
When a group is selected, all player fleet icons outside that group will be hidden. Hopefully that will make things much easier if you have groups of ships missioning in different zones. But In the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if we added an alternative high density collapsed icon view similar to SoaSE – just for the sake of completeness.
Top left, the dazzling and functional markings of 'Endless Space,' Bottom right our blank canvas.
We’ve put together a little video shot 1080p 60fps (below) just to highlight how well this thing is running. Maybe we should have left it a little longer before pushing anything out because parts of it are blatantly unfinished but hey it’s an alpha. The zone map at present is a fine example of programmer’s art – functional but not particularly beautiful! But the basics are there and you’ll be surprised at how quickly it gets bought to life.
We’ll draw inspiration from the 4X genre, notable SoaSE and Endless Space and make the zone 'jump-link' lines pronounced and contextual, highlighted if available, hidden if not. We’ll also add summary boxes to the zone giving a rundown of material composition and fleet strengths. Looking at the zone map, it’s easy to forget that there will be other planets, each with their own zones filled with topical resources and ultimately missions, so with all of that, still lots of work to do there.
So as usual, big progress everywhere and still lots to do. It’s just crazy, some tasks that you think can take hours might take days and vice versa. One thing is for sure however, the to-do list is getting smaller, so every day we get closer to the cake and that can only be a good thing!
Cheers from the team anyway, we're loving the likes and comments coming in.
Also enjoy this preview video which incidentally happens to be our 50th!? Checkout the channel page to see videos going right back to the very start (wincing here!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4lYjVQrdDY
Dev Ramble #1: Who the hell are you anyway?
I’m going to break from tradition here in a couple of ways: Firstly I’m going to level with you and address you one person to another because every idea starts in a single persons mind and secondly, I’m going to talk about the scaffolding surrounding the game rather than the game itself, give you a little bit of background.
So my name is James, I live in the UK. I grew up in a dodgy area, so rather than my parents letting me mingle with the local reprobates, they instead opted to put a computer in front of me at the tender age of around 7. Probably the best thing they ever did for me.
The computer had two games and back then they were very expensive, but DOS came bundled with a flavour of BASIC and so I became exposed to computer programming from a very young age. Professionally I moved into computer support, later infrastructure design and consultancy and through hard work and determination found myself in a high paid role managing a midsize budget and a small team where I also opted to do a degree part time in Business and Software Design.
Afterwards, I continued to hone my software development skills, and worked on a couple of new business start-ups, helped out with a few indie projects but I think it’s fair to say that my heart has always been with computer games, both playing them and making them. I grew up playing the likes of Starfleet Command, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, Warcraft (the RTS’,) Syndicate and the Ultima games.
So one day, I was watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and was enthralled in the last ten episodes which was effectively a total war footing: The Federation, Romulans and Klingons vs. the Breen, Cardassians and the Dominion – simply put; EPIC.
Eager as pie I launched Steam (back in 2013) and started trawling the library and I found nothing.
Surprisingly, besides Homeworld and Nexus there hadn’t been a game that truly focused on fleet warfare for over 10 years. That’s a situation that disturbed me so deeply that it prompted me to put 12 years of hard work and a very well paid job into the proverbial shredder.
So I’m an effective manager and a good programmer this much I know, I had a poke around and yes there were game development environments that had evolved to the point where all the time consuming 3D maths had been whittled away and a suitable abstraction layer existed between the game engine and OpenGL/DirectX. This removed a truckload of time consuming nuances and made it so possible that if I worked hard, like REALLY hard, I could potentially code this thing on my own – that’s important because developers and managers are the biggest costs.
So over the last three years I’ve been asking myself the questions; how can we make realistic ship movement, what should govern the AIs decisions when the ships move and fight, how I can imbue the player with as much of the responsibility of a fleet commander without overloading them. Perhaps bizarrely, we designed the game from the ships upwards, rather than picking the generic RTS template and working down from that. At the same time I hunted for talent, drew up specifications, set up business, got distribution sorted and built an effective team.
I met Alex, who I consider my partner in crime now – he lives in a completely different country on the other side of the world but we have a great friendship based on mutual appreciation and necessitation. He’s a VFX dude predominantly, but kickass programmer too and I fed him a long list of assets that I would need to make Shallow Space. Now truth be told, that’s time consuming work and I didn’t expect him to work for free (neither did he!) so he setup a business himself and sold the assets publicly – strange feeling at first but it is what it was; a means to an end.
Then we have the designers, again – talented people, time consuming work, I wasn’t going to insult them by offering them empty promises of X percentage. So I paid them what they were worth out of my own pocket and later, using the funds that you guys have provided, grew the team so that we have additional designers. They are all technically contractors, but interestingly they were all in a rutt of some form, either their talents weren’t being appreciated or they were stuck doing jobs they didn’t enjoy. When you pick someone up and dust them off like that, you get the very best from them and therefore, the very best for the game.
We attracted the attention of Vincent Van Diemen, producer of Nexus: The Jupiter Incident which blew my mind frankly, he is a great guy absolutely dying to help in whatever way he can.
From here, I thought, it’s easy – put the pieces together, create high quality assets and media, attract the attention of the press and therefore a crowd – a self-fulfilling prophecy, or so I thought.
How wrong was I.
After I figured out that suspended not a meter above my head was a highly polished glass ceiling, I did feel a little dejected. No matter what quality of assets or game we produce, we’ll likely never get major coverage. I was pretty gutted at first until I rationalised it all and spun it into a positive and realised that actually, it’s a good thing.
That was an important day actually because that’s when I stopped trying to pander to the latest popular review/preview category and development of Shallow Space as a wannabe-famous game ceased.
So ‘what do Players actually want to see in this game’ I thought, well that part was easy – because you’ve always been gracious enough to provide feedback and if you’re good enough to give it, then I’ll read it – every word and the feedback strangely lead me back to the game I was dreaming of in the first place.
So ‘how can I reach people’ I thought, well Steam alone does a fantastic job of that – but I still need to know who I’m talking too, know my target audience.
According to my figures you’re an average of 33 years of age and male. Well that’s easy, because I’m 33 years of age and a male. So I sat down and brainstormed the things I would want to see if I were you and it was an interesting if not obvious list: Transparency, honesty, trust, consistent communication, reliability and above all, evidence that I was being taken seriously as a customer.
I set my pen down and realised I’d made a mistake, rather than making the dream I’d settled for some halfway house that doesn’t seek to innovate or advance. I might as well of handed the idea to a AAA game studio and said ‘here make this.’
We’re Indie, i'm not afraid to admit that now we can break the mould and do things differently and more than that, we absolutely should. I remember that moment clearly; it was like an articulated lorry driving into a 50 foot bell.
I closed my laptop and went into the living room. I turned on the TV and by pure chance guess what was on? Yep, that same episode of Deep Space 9.
It was then that I realised, I had to take the risk – it’ll mean a setback initially but I need to pull the project apart and make the game I wanted to make originally. Procedural open-world environments, an intimate relationship with the ships and combat… I don’t need to spell it out; you’ve no doubt read the Overhaul articles.
I took a chance and talked about it here and that’s when the people came. There has always been the people attracted to the idea from the start and I’m forever grateful to them. But then there were new faces, the Steam articles started getting a surge in likes, the blog saw twice the traffic every post. People were talking about this.
Now, I’d always been careful to keep my job in the background, though I think they knew that by now my heart was on something else. But last month (March 2016) I did it; I took voluntary redundancy and made Shallow Space my fulltime job. You’ll be pleased to know that I personally have the money now to buy my time enough to release what we deem ‘the minimum viable product’ but actually, even with the Early Access funds trickling in we’re going to see a lot more than that.
You’ll also be pleased to know that, even if the funds dried up tomorrow, we still have enough money to finish the game. If the bank burst into flames, I can take short term IT contracts and work the game on the side. But what about burn-out? Those boys are putting a lot into this game you’re probably thinking... Well I know me personally, I’m far happier now that I’m doing one fulltime job rather than two and the guys, they are looked after – they can walk away and come back, the pressures on them are minimal.
It’s happened now, all the ducks are finally in a row and let me make it official:
Welcome to the start of something truly beautiful.
James
Paradijs Lost (Part 3)
So Eve and her new friend escaped Eden, but they are not of out trouble yet! The journey to Paradijs continues... (Additional parts: 1, 2)
Eve watched Eden shrink into the distance, carrying on its eternal journey. It was a binary pair with Paradijs in orbit around the Pleiades star. The smuggler burned enough juice to break from Eden’s frame of reference. Now, he said, all they had to do was wait for Paradijs to come around its orbit and fly straight into them.
The process would take many days.
“So we just sit here?” Eve asked, probably for the tenth time. The smuggler had turned off the lights and controls, and dimmed the air and heat systems. She was watching him from reflected sun and starlight.
“Everything we do makes us visible to the police,” he said. “Except doing nothing, so that’s what we’ll do. We’ll sit tight and no one will know we are even here.”
Eve crossed her arms. She’d never been great with stillness. Always moving, always running, always one step ahead. A motto that worked equally well in her father’s world and her own as a journalist. Sitting still was not part of the bargain.
She stood to relieve her twitching legs. “What if they find us? What if they are sneaking up on us right now?”
“Then we’re dead.”
“That’s not comforting.”
She thought the smuggler was watching her but she couldn’t be sure. The silence carried on, as quiet as space was dark.
“Jack Hamilton,” he said.
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
He leant forward. “My name. I thought that might be more comforting than the thought of dying.”
She smiled despite herself. “Thank you, Jack.”
Eve was wrapped in both survival blankets and swallowing the last of the water when Jack powered the ship back up. Paradijs was coming up on them. The rush of fresh warmth from the AHS filled Eve, lifting her spirits. Three days of cold in the dark brought out many fears. But now things were back on track. Always moving, always one step ahead.
The view out the window brightened with flame as they entered Paradijs’ atmosphere. The air thickened and banged and raged at the hull. Jack barely touched the controls, only adjusting to counter turbulence or slow their descent. Then Eve had a bad feeling.
“The altimeter isn’t working. How do you know how high we are?”
“When we hit the ground we’re at zero altitude.” He glanced at her, flashed a smile, but he was concentrating harder on the controls than he wanted to let on. Perhaps this part of the trip wasn’t on the usual smuggling tour.
He seemed to read her mind. “I don’t normally smuggle people toward Paradijs. Usually it’s the other way around, workers wanting to get off Paradijs, either to Eden and the better working conditions or from there out of the Pleiades system altogether. I figured this would buy us a bit of time.” Both his hands were on the controls now, muscles taut, beads of sweat on his forehead. His arms shook as the wheel’s feedback relayed the ship’s desire to flip over and kill them both.
The flames outside burned away and Jack’s body relaxed. He gave the engines a little more boost and the kick of the prime mover transmitted through Eve’s seat. She saw a mountain range in the distance, sharp cliffs and buttes coming into focus as they closed in. A sinking feeling filled her.“That’s our destination, isn’t it?”
“With perception like that it’s no wonder you’re a journalist.”Eve bristled. “Sounds like you need some time out of the shuttle.”Jack smiled big white teeth at her. “Not long now.”
He landed them under an outcropping. He unstrapped and opened a seat compartment out the back. He withdrew a big bore Painter and handed her his own pistol. “You good with this?”
She looked the weapon over, trying to look confident. Trigger for her finger here, the end where the death came out there. How hard could it be? “Point and shoot right?”
He frowned at her. “It has a bit of recoil. Aim for the kneecaps. Should result in a nice juicy stomach shot.”
She shook her head and put the weapon down. “I’m not here to kill anyone, Mr Hamilton. I’m a journalist. I’m here to tell the world the truth about what the Pleiades Corporation have been doing, and what they plan to do to the Imperium!”
He regarded her, pupils dancing back and forth as if he were looking for something, or a lack of something. “Your dad understood how to defend himself.” A pause, then, “And his friends.”
Eve handed the pistol back. “One of the many reasons I don’t talk to my father anymore, Jack.”
He shrugged, stuck the pistol in his belt then hoisted the Painter on his shoulder. “Your call.” He opened the gangplank and slowly stepped out, Painter extended outward, ready to spray the immediate vicinity in destruction.
Eve emerged behind him, coughing immediately. Paradijs was hazy, the horizon and even parts of the rock formation hidden behind a curtain of brownness. The rocks were coated in dust. She coughed again.
Jack had a breathing mask on. He moved away, Painter out horizontal, patrolling the area. Eve went back inside and put on a mask. She returned to find him pulling a camo net from an external compartment.
“Amazing how much people can fuck up a planet when they put their mind to it, huh?” Jack said. She thought he was smiling behind the mask.
“This is pollution?” She’d heard stories of ancient cities – Tokyo, London, Beijing being like this, but they had been inhabited for millennia. Paradijs had only been inhabited for centuries. She’d assumed it had always been borderline inhabitable, not worth the expense of planetary adjustment. Jack nodded. “Could be worse though I guess.” He made a sound like a giggle. “Give them time.”
Together they draped the ship in the camo, designed to confuse heat, metal and visual sensors. Jack assured her that the netting, in combination with the heat soak of the smog would eliminate any eyes from orbit. “What if they come in closer?” she asked.
Jack didn’t answer, instead looking up. Eve followed his gaze and realised the silver dollar in the sky, almost half hidden by haze, was Eden. A small, cruel world whose masters were planning abomination the likes of which humanity had never seen.
Her mission had felt so important a moment ago but now she felt insignificant. No matter what happened, Eden would continue to hang in Paradijs’ sky and vice versa, an endless dance together around their sun, unable to be stopped by anything her, or anyone, could do.
“Time to go,” Jack said, pulling her from the reverie. He holstered the Painter on his back then headed up the mountain along a natural track. Eve caught up to him. The mask made it hard to catch her breath and they walked in silence. She didn’t bother asking where they were going. Jack would reveal it when Jack was ready.
Her mind went back to the trip they had taken so far. A double back from the starport to a repair bay then out to a stepping stone planet. There were many other planets and bodies in the stellar system, lots of places to hide, but there was still only one way in and out of the system. Officially anyway.
“What’s the next step in the railroad?” she asked.
Jack’s head snapped toward her, his expression of surprise only half hidden behind the mask. He turned back to watch his footing. “I don’t remember Nathanial being involved in smuggling quite like this.”Eve smiled. “I’m right then. You do have a railroad. What’s the next station?”
Jack gave a muffled laugh and shook his head. “If you are such a smuggling expert, why aren’t you out there busting smugglers instead of playing with the fire of the PLC?”
Eve didn’t reply. It was a question she had wrestled with many times over the last fifteen years. She always came back to the same answer however. “Just because you don’t want to hide in your father’s shadow doesn’t mean you want to shine a big light on it.”
Jack stopped. He turned, grasped both her shoulders. H stared at her unspeaking. They looked at each other. Then he let go and kept walking. “I think I understand you a bit better now Miss Walters.”
The grade steepened and there was no spare lung capacity for talking. Marbles of rock slipped beneath foot and she had to hold onto pillars of crumbling sedimentary, but she kept up with Jack as they marched ever forward.
The sky darkened and Jack stopped, looking up. Eve followed his gaze. The sun was slipping behind one of the binary pair’s chaotic moons. Jack eased down onto the ground. “Take a break,” he wheezed, the climb clearly affecting him too. “Don’t want to walk up here when we can’t see. Don’t worry it doesn’t last long.”
Eve dropped to the ground and watched behind an outstretched arm. The sky turned a deep brown, edging toward a less irritating black. She could still see her surroundings, but Jack was right, it was best to wait in case there were surprises up ahead.
“It’s not far,” Jack said after a few minutes. “The Tigress is stowed in a cave maybe a kilometre away. Once we’ve got it running we’ll head for Ares. They’re onto the second stage of planetary adjustment so the original base is empty and no one pays it any attention. Except for the science geeks. “We’ll wait for Paradijs to make its closest approach to Ares – which granted won’t save us much distance, but it might cut a day of in-system travel. We’ll skim the sun as best we can to stay hidden.”
“And from there?” Eve asked.
Jack regarded her. “Then the map.”
Eve inhaled sharply. “You have a map?”
“Of course I have a map. How else did you think I was getting you out of here?”
“I, well, I hoped you did, but PLC reports-”
Jack waved at her. “Propaganda. You think they’re going to advertise it?”
Eve didn’t respond. They had a saying back at the office. If the report comes from the PLC then assume it’s wrong until verified by two independent authorities.
She changed the topic. “So, you never told me why you changed your mind and decided to help me.”
Jack kept staring up at the sky. Eve thought maybe he hadn’t heard her and was about to ask again when he said, “It takes one to know one.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s what you said to me when we first met. Your bold approach had me on the defensive. It took me a while to click.”
Eve frowned at him. “You knew my father?”
The world lightened and Jack was already on his feet and pulling her up. “Come on. It’s not far but it does get steeper. And colder.”
They were quickly scrabbling up on all fours. Eve’s breaths were coming hard and fast. She had to force long slow breaths despite her heart’s protests, otherwise she’d asphyxiate. The smog trapped the sun’s muggy heat. Sweat clung to her skin yet did little except dehydrate her. The climb devolved into a simple subroutine of movements. Reach with right hand, grand handhold, move left leg, acquire purchase, reach with left hand. She lost track of time but was aware the sun was setting and they had to get off the rock face before dark otherwise they’d be stuck there until morning. Finally Jack stopped and pointed. “There it is.”
With renewed energy Eve followed Jack toward a patch of darkness and they were into the cave. Moving by touch Jack gingerly stepped to the back of the cave and pressed a button. Compressed air shushed through the cave and a halo of light appeared in the darkness, growing into a full rectangle as the gang plank lowered to the cave floor.
They rushed in and Jack led Eve to the galley and a rack of bottled water. Eve grabbed one, sat down, ripped off the top and glugged it down. It tasted stale, but it was cold and wet and good enough for her.
Someone was shaking her. She flinched, but then breathed deeply. It was Jack. “You fell asleep,” he said, smiling. “It’s almost like you don’t normally spend your days climbing hills.”
“Now who’s the perceptive one?” she said, accepting his offered hand. He pulled her up and they moved to the cockpit.
“Leaving Eden we played it nice and cool, slow and steady. This time we’ll do the opposite. Hit maximum burn until we leave atmos then shut down. If I do the calcs right we should be able to coast to Ares without too many burns in space. Much rather run the engines in atmos where the pollution dims the infra-red.”
Eve just nodded. Jack settled into the pilot’s chair and went through his numbers. He’d probably done it so many times it was automatic – punch in orbital data and out came the time and angle for the burn.
Eve left him to it and explored the ship. It was a decent sized freighter with enough space for a crew of two, three at a pinch and maybe twenty metric cubes of cargo. There were two cargo bays crammed between the fuselage and the nacelles. To an unlearned eye they looked standard, but the container racks had clearly been modified to hold people, rather than cargo in zero-gee. Eve imagined a few cargo containers modified to dispense water and food and the hold would comfortably hold ten to twenty people trying to flee the PLC’s tyranny.
She turned to leave and saw Jack standing in her way. “We’ll stay put for a couple of days,” he said. That way Paradijs itself will be heading toward Ares. Gives us a boost.” He looked over her shoulder. “You like?” She turned and nodded. “You’ve clearly been doing this awhile.”
He gestured inward. “There’s something in here I thought you might be interested in.”
Capital Ship Glory!! MFC Battleships 'Cambridge' & 'Nottingham'
Not one but two huge Capital ships for your perusal today Commander as we test out Steams awesome new Sketchfab 3D model viewer!
These puppies have history, and if you’ve been with the project for a while you’ll notice that the ships bare resemblance to two older Capital vessels that have been in the project since the start. Those old models don’t really fit into the new order, but we just couldn’t leave them out in the cold so we had them reimagined.
After the great voyage, the worldships set the premise for the basic design of the majority of the Human ships. Huge lumbering hulks were produced that were slow and all but useless in conventional combat. The ‘Battle for Pleiades’ saw quick and innovative change to space combat bringing smaller, more agile ships into fashion but there is still call for these big bastions to house the Command staff and support facilities.
The ‘Cambridge’ is a 4th generation mid-range light Battleship, Capital class.
https://sketchfab.com/models/103eb52ee52e4755a466c981016b9e82
Comparatively, it has the stopping power of four Battle Cruisers and is able to provide a healthy firing solution at any arc. The ship has no blind spots and beyond its offensive capacity it is also very practical. It has a large cargo bay, is equipped with the latest technology; inorganic matter transporters, negative space encroachment and all of the turret hardpoints feature PLC’s latest trick; quantum anchoring improving both range and accuracy.
The ‘Nottingham’ is a 4th generation mid-Battleship, Capital class.
When MFC presented the design at the quarterly council of admirals, Highest Honourable James Thorensenan, Field Marshall of the Terran Confederate Navy was pictured with his mouth wide open and noted as uttering only two words; ‘utterly ridiculous’ and the craft is just that.
https://sketchfab.com/models/2f6a4d46e2fc4818aa7ba6b5191751d9
Essentially, it is an upscaled version of the Cambridge and is considered to be its sister ship.
It contains all of the same technology, much of the same internal specification; gyms, training facilities, holo-suites and marine/surplus crew habitation facilities. But when applied at the scale of the Nottingham, which is over a kilometre in length, it allows for the deliberate deployment of a notable task force.
But that’s not all.
Tested on Cruisers, Battlecruisers and even some Capital vessels, a broadside alpha strike from a fully loaded Nottingham can overload most shield generators and cause severe structural damage to the recipient if they are not obliterated entirely. In fact, in combat, it can hold its own against a vastly superior force. It is a ship so undeniably well designed that the Emperor himself is thought to charter its use when travelling between the core worlds. The mere presence of one is enough to route most adversaries.
If you do managed to fight your way through its surplus shield generators, you’ll have to contend with mirrored active armour that in places measures 30 metres thick, offering substantial damage reduction to any and all conventional weapon types rendering them effectively useless.
It is a veritable mobile fortress, susceptible to only the most advanced phasing tactical warheads.
The Cambridge is in the current alpha, we’re sure you’ve been enjoying it already – the Nottingham will be in the Overhaul. Look forward to the next post, which is the next instalment of the tale ‘Paradijs Lost’ landing on Friday. If you’re hungry for more ship designs and turntables check this category on the blog, we have dozens!
Open-world Overhaul: Material Concerns #4
Progress remains strong as we continue the overhaul in earnest and we remain extremely positive about the outcome! All the lessons learnt over the last two years are being rolled in, skills have advanced in all areas; coding, modeling, design but the exciting part is the effect on the overall gameplay experience now; with feedback, animations and consistency from the UI in particular having been massively improved. The graphics also are really quite something now too; with the team working together to bake scenes so rich it’ll cook your eyeballs in their sockets!
The proverbial meat trapped in-between our teeth right now is the physics side of things. I think we’re up to around 20 attributes that need to be meticulously preened, balanced and stashed to make these ships actually look and feel like the lumbering hulks they are, not an easy task but well worth it – a huge timesink though.
All the resources icons have been exposed here but you'll actually have to jump zone-to-zone and scan for your resources to locate them.
Hard to show in the screens but the ‘galaxy’ is coming along quite nicely, we’re learning what makes a good zone and where to put them, salting the permutations of random-ness and weaving it into that perfect and huge play area.
Pretty soon we’ll be ready to start injecting the NPC traffic which will hopefully contribute to the economy. We can’t make any promises there however, because we’re still not convinced that a live economy will actually be fun. Not sure how many of you played X3 and spent 45 minutes trapping across the galaxy to sell your meticulously sourced wares to find the computer has stolen the deal…? No fun.
But it’s that economy that has been the subject of the last two weeks.
We’ve come up with a set of base and refined materials that the player will use to construct ships and stations. Breaking from tradition, ships will be constructed from as many as 3 or 4 different materials that will need to be located, mined and refined from their base materials AND transported to the place that make your ships.
Yes, it sounds a little sadistic granted, but beyond the random occurrence and mission system we need to give the player reasons to look beyond their immediate surroundings. In a 4X colonization would be that thing, but this is an RTS (an open-world one at that) so we have to think outside the box. But you don’t have to produce your own ships if you are economy averse, completing missions and subcontracting production (aka: purchasing) from friendly stations will also be possible, but you’ll need to complete missions to unlock their services.
Even combat ships will be able to haul freight, very important as the logistics of your unit will be half the battle.
Much the same as Eve Online each ship will have a cargo bay and the player can shuffle items between ships (and static cargo containers) to get those resources to where they need to be. It’s important to remember that we are moving away from the standard RTS-fare of player units being disposable entities that you build, CTRL-A, send in. You’ll go through great lengths to acquire the blueprints, materials and crew for these ships and when you loose one, it will hurt.
But we’ll soften that blow of loss by introducing easing mechanics. For example, when ships are destroyed they will leave behind persistent floating wreckages that can be recycled to reclaim X% of the materials. The crew, well some will die (poor souls,) others will make it to lifepods that you’ll have to recover to be able to staff replacement ships. So what we’re trying to do here is create a situation whereby loosing a ship is actually fun as you hastily tractor in your lifepods and what’s left of their cargo and your trashed fleet limps away to get repaired or hide.
It’s not all about the combat either; combat is obviously in because it is undeniably fun. But what is also fun to some people is the simple act of gathering resources, building a commercial empire and finding and locating those special items or blueprints. Provision is in to automate the actions of the ships, repeating a simple queue will be in from the start and further down the line we will introduce programmable AI for more complex queues.
Keep an eye out for those utility drones and boarding Corvettes we mentioned last time, we haven’t forgotten about those! We also have a juicy assortment of Freighters now; an image of one of them is below. Also if you’re sat there sweating in anticipation do checkout the ‘Artwork’ section from time-to-time, we tend to pop WIP stuff up there just to prove that the cogs are still grinding.
Honestly, you don’t need to worry about those cogs continuing to grind. The stuff we’ve fed you is just the tip of the iceberg, we continue to bounce of the walls and run around screaming in-between devtime. We are massively excited and motivated and can’t wait to get it out there!!
Paradijs Lost (Part 2)
The action hots up as Eve makes a break to leave Eden, but with the might of the Pleiades authority against her - will she make it? Not without help that's for sure... This is Part 2 of the latest Shallow Space lore-building tale 'Paradijs Lost,' click here for Part 1.
The shortest route to the starport was through Halifax Square.
She tightened the stolen coat around her shoulders and entered. A huge cobblestoned promenade, brightly lit despite the hour. At its centre astride a pedestal that dwarfed her, was a statue of ‘The Unnamed Captain’, commander of the ancient U.E.S Halifax world ship.
There was some foot traffic, workers in summer jackets, their high ankle boots visible beneath. The square was surrounded by tall imposing buildings, all serving the Corporation in some fashion. They were made from some kind of black glass, like obsidian. She knew the lights built into their facades also doubled as cameras. She kept her walk slow. Not quite aimless, but as if her destination was malleable, her timetable casual rather than life-or-death.
The tallest building on the square was open, even at this hour. Its roof extended toward the clouds, perspective bending spires reaching upward. The front had an arched veranda, crowned by mirrored Nymphs.
Eve didn’t stop to look in. Locals would already know what was in there. They would want to go in or they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t stop to stare. She gave the plaques and other status a wide berth. Every local would have them all memorised.
There was an alley between a billboard, extoling the brilliance of ‘The Seven’ leadership, and what was either a statue making shop or the scene of some important historical event. She gradually turned and escaped the square down the alley.
It turned into a secondary walkway pressed up against a pair of L-rails. There were stairs to a Lev-Stop but she kept walking. On foot she could control where she went. In a Lev she could only go one place: Straight into a trap and into prison.
If she was lucky.
She connected back to the main walkway, a Lev thundering past overhead. The rushing wind whistled against the rail’s support structure. There were more statues and more spires. It was almost like self-advertising. How many fallen heroes could one planet really have?
A couple walked toward her. They wore fedoras and high collared jackets. She’d seen a few locals adopting that trend now. She bunched her own jacket forward to hide any trace of her foreign clothes and forced a casual gait despite the sonorous drumming of her heart.
She kept her head down, kept walking. The couple seemed to sense her, and split apart to let her through. Eve stepped left to go around them.
The couple stepped further apart. Eve took another step sideways, arm brushing the obsidian wall.
The one closest looked up. A man, eyes dark empty pools.
Eve’s heart clenched, panic closing her throat, banging on the back of her head. She turned on a foot, raced back the way she had come.
Her coat jerked her backward. She spun. Two faces were inches from her own. Hot breath. Shadows beneath the fedoras.
Eve swung her hand up, trying to poke out one of those black orbs. Something clenched her wrist. Stabbing pain. Her arm was wrenched down and she was spun again, her face pushed against the obsidian.
She felt breath against her ear. “Where do you think you are going with PLC property Miss Walters?”
Eve bucked her shoulders. She earned a face slam into the obsidian. Supernovas exploded before her. She tasted copper. Dazed, she didn’t reply. She was almost grateful for the men holding her up. She would have fallen otherwise after that blow.
Powerful hands yanked her wrists then she felt Secura bind them together. She was shoved around back to the face the two men.
One leant forward. “Let’s take a walk.”
Then his face exploded.
Eve froze in shock, unable to move or scream, just watch as the pink mist settled and the headless cadaver collapsed at her feet.
The second policemen had already started moving, diving down while he pulled a pistol from under his coat. He fired a shot, the report echoing off the obsidian, the flash blinding Eve’s night vision. A sickening double thud then silence. Eve stared, waiting for her night vision to return. The second agent was lying down. The prone position for a steady aim. But why wasn’t he firing?
Then her vision cleared. He wasn’t firing because his chest was leaking blood. Had been. Past tense. The heart pumping the blood had expired.
That was when Eve noticed her own heart, panicking in her chest, compressing her lungs so all she could inhale were tiny gasps. She felt faint, backing away from the bodies.
Straight into another person. She whirled, arms twitching, gasping, ready to fight.
Arms enveloped her. “Easy, easy.” The smuggler from the tavern. Eve slumped against him in relief, but quickly pulled herself back up. It could still be a trap. She looked past him to an empty walkway. The man himself was cloaked in darkness, only the left side of him visible from distant light from across the tracks. It made him look only half there. Like an apparition.
“What was your last name again?” he asked, his words low, quick.
“Eve Walters,” she said, the words rushing out together at too high a pitch.
“Like Nathaniel Walters?”
“He was my father.”
The arms pulled away. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed. Then his hand was around hers, yanking her forward. “Come on!”
“What are you doing?” Eve cried. “Where are we going?”
“I’m getting you off Eden.”
“I thought you weren’t interested.”
“I changed my mind. Let’s go.”
They ran down the sidewalk. Eve was sure the cameras had targeted them, but the smuggler didn’t slow down, racing past surprised people, turning when strobing lights flashed around street corners. The whine of a turbine came from somewhere overhead. Close or far away, Eve couldn’t tell, the sound reflected off all the sharp edged buildings.
“I don’t. normally take. people across. the surface,” the smuggler said, his words coming between gasps. “But. we don’t. have time. to double back.” Clearly his normal smuggling routine didn’t involve running like crazy. “I have a Tigress light freighter. Pleiades built. Blends in. We’ll be fine.”
The smuggler turned back onto the main thoroughfare, a walkway bracketed by Lev tracks and obsidian walls. The lights of the starport brightened the horizon. Between them however were a string of flashing blue lights.
“We’ll never make it,” Eve said.
“We don’t need to,” the smuggler replied, turning left down an alley.
Eve’s feet were dragging. The smuggler’s grip was strong, pulling her along. Through a door. Down steps, underground around a bend, then finally they stopped to catch their breath.
Eve dropped her hands to her knees and she sucked in oxygen.
Water dripped and echoed beyond the shadows. The air tasted cool, damp, tangy. They were in a subterranean passage way. And a rather poorly built one at that.
The smuggler pulled her up. “We have to keep moving.”
“Where?” Eve asked. “And I don’t even know your name.”
The smuggler looked at her for a second. “Have you ever seen photos of the old earth? Of trains that actually rolled on their rails? How the large stations would be surrounded by miles of tracks into dead ends and maintenance sheds-“
“A shunting yard, sure.”
“That’s where we’re going. But for starships.”
The smuggler led her down the labyrinth tackling intersections clearly memorised. Lefts, rights, lefts again, then finally up a set of metal stairs that banged with each step, through a trap door and up into darkness.
No, not quite darkness. A cavernous space. A hangar. Filled with ships of various sizes hanging from maintenance racks, filling the space. One of the moons shone down through a skylight. Somewhere a ventilator cover banged.
It was a repair bay for Lev trains and interplanetary shuttles, even some VEPSSDs – Vehicle: Extra Planetary and Stellar System Defense. Known as Veeps in the smuggling fraternity. A Pleiades Corporation design that was so successful that the rest of the Imperium decided they weren’t that proud not to copy a PLC design.
“It’s a PLC subsidiary,” the smuggler explained, heading through the maze of ships, a clear destination in mind. “They service shuttles for the interplanetary express between Eden and Paradijs. They just won a contract for the Veep fleet as well.” He stopped before a wrap covering what Eve assumed to be a boxy shaped ship. The smuggler pulled the wrap off revealing a Leopold Mk II shuttle. Outdated but still used due its cheap running costs and possibly some strange romantic notion around its design on behalf of the IPX board.
The shuttle’s cockpit stared back at them, a black window about a metre wide and maybe a foot high. Not ideal. And it looked like it was missing parts – the altimeter assembly was missing, the atmospheric shielding looked ablated and the sensor nodule appeared empty. It could fit forty people out the back in relative comfort however, but such knowledge wasn’t a comfort to Eve at that moment. “We’re going in that thing?”
“Cute.” He stepped around her to the door and pressed his palm to the scanner. The door retracted and a short gang plank extended. He turned and offered her a hand. “You coming?”
Eve took his hand and he yanked her in. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Into orbit.”
The smuggler settled into the pilot’s seat, Eve the co-pilot seat. He flicked switches and set fuel mixtures, warming up the engines, then sent a signal to open the roof doors. He pulled back on the wheel and the shuttle eased off the rack and up through the roof. He spun the ship as it rose, the now distant starport coming into view. The lights seemed even brighter than before, garish against the dark night. But that wasn’t what caught Eve’s attention.
It was the swarm of ships above the starport. She counted at least ten, but they kept moving and she couldn’t keep count. It was clear they were looking for someone. Her.
Her throat clenched – had the commercial pilot she’d flown in with gotten out in time? She’d given him a two hour head-start.
And then the shuttle kept turning and drifted up toward the stars. The smuggler leant over. “This is just a test drive,” he said. “Testing the engines. No need to travel fast.”
Eve watched the Veeps crowding the starport. They were way faster than the shuttle and even one of them would trash the shuttle with a few shots.
The lights of the city and starport shrank with the planet and the stars grew from twinkling blobs to steady focused pinpricks.
Eve watched in silence, waiting for the shoe to drop, for the Veeps to turn and blast after them, their tell-tale exhaust plumes pointing like arrows toward them.
“Won’t they detect it when we start accelerating?” Eve asked.
“Who said anything about accelerating?” The smuggler retorted. I told you, we’re not going anywhere.
“Paradijs is coming to us.”
Open-world Overhaul: Captains Log #3
The overhaul continues at a great pace, the majority of the code has now been sand blasted and rewritten where necessary to optimize in the process. Actually it’s surprising just how much of that old code was redundant as our host game engine progressed in areas in which we previously had to fight for performance. That old code doesn’t clean itself up and removing it potentially would have added bugs so it’s great to have an excuse to clean house and that has a huge overall positive effect on performance and stability.
We're using procedural environments and fractals to make varied and evolving play areas.
Previously we said that there would be fewer ships in play and perhaps that was a little bit of a lie because we think actually there will be a lot more! Once you factor in all the traders doing the rounds, the resource collectors foraging through the zones, patrolling forces, we think you might indeed be treading shallow space as you react to the situations unfolding before you. But it’s making sure our new environment is ready to accept that volume of traffic, in both the shape of the playing field and the forging of effective mechanics to drive it all; and making sure that ‘fleet creep’ doesn’t slap us round the face again, such is the focus of the last couple of weeks.
Shallow Space now features procedurally generated landscapes.
Working well in the existing alpha is using statuses to add positive or negative effects to ships when they were occluded by celestial objects. An example is asteroid clusters adding effects that can help concealment but slow the ship due to care required navigating. We’re extending that interactivity further by adding materials to the thousands of cubic kilometers of rock formations ready for harvest and with that you’ll have further excuse to interact and feed from the landscape thereby anchoring you to it.
But we need to keep the maps fresh. One thing we learned from the current alpha is that isolated clusters of rocks and gas do little to create a juicy landscape (so to speak.) So we’re now using fractal algorithms to forge interesting shapes and obstacles in the new arenas, and have other tricks up our sleeve to ensure the landscape remains fresh and challenging.
Switching between zones is seamless and fluid, actions are progressed in the background in realtime.
Once work is completed there we’ll move onto the resource collecting and trading mechanics that have been patiently waiting to enter the arena. Then we’re back over to combat and integrating it with physics, making sure that impacts affect ship movement as they should. Integrating physics is very exciting actually, especially as testing seems to show that we can leave all the rocks in the physics simulator with little effect on performance (as long as they don't all start moving!) meaning that they too can potentially react to stray blasts that may hit them. All of this further enhancing what is already quite a rich view to behold, with the battles taking on an organic and unpredictable feel.
So once that crazy effort is over with, we’ll wrangle with the procedural parameters some more, add a bit of the grind and flavor that we’ve all come to expect, rewrite the sound delivery system, add the dozens of new soundtracks and voila; one fully 3D, fully customizable, open-world, procedurally generated RTS/4X game, with physics and simulated ballistics, trading, resource collection, unit construction, modular base building and a direct ship controller thrown in for good measure.
Sounds a little crazy listed out like that, but 8 people, 2½ years work, we have all the pieces and it’s just a case of folding them in with all the necessary care and attention. But who are we kidding; we’re just as excited as you! This is our idea of the ultimate space game. But we hear a word whispered by your thousands of voices, hidden away in the dark and that word is.... when?
Soon we’ll canvas for beta testers – everyone who preordered and has access to Shallow Space currently will be invited to switch to a beta build and feast on the new open world glory. We can also expect all the media to be updated and the Roadmap will be revised to align with the new medium to long-term goals, the gallery and Steam page will also be updated with said glory.
Look forward to more fantastic models in the coming week including; boarding pods and repair drones and Part 2 of the new short story ‘Paradijs Lost’ will be hitting your screens early next week too. Cheers for the continued support, it seems the recent news is bringing some long term supporters out of the woodwork and it's great to see.
We REALLY appreciate the comments and likes guys! A lot of the criticism coming in is actively being rolled into the overhaul, so please; keep it coming!
New Ships! Mineral & Fusion Cruisers ‘Hexen’ & ‘Heretic’
New to the line-up this week are the MFC ‘Heretic’ Heavy Cruiser and it’s sister ship, the MFC ‘Hexen’ Medium Cruiser. These ships will be added as part of the ‘Open-world Overhaul’ update.
More of the same from the Mineral and Fusion Corporation as they continue to evolve their Cruiser line-up. These generation 4 ships are designed to be the multifunction foot soldiers of any unit and have a versatile internal and external configuration allowing them to be used in a variety of combat and civilian roles. For example the ‘Hexen’ is often used without weapons as a Civilian personnel transport and the ‘Heretic’ has a number of variants designed for specific combat roles such as escort or assault.
The key to this flexibility is a complex interwoven power distribution lattice printed into the ships armor carapace segments at manufacture. This allows for the versatile location of turret hardpoints anywhere across 75% of the surface of the ship, with energy to power them drawn straight from engines. In contrast, the two other leading ship manufacturers PLC and INC are still using fixed conduits to provide energy to the hardpoints. Configurations are sealed at production, but regardless it allows for the creation of a highly specialized force at a relatively low cost.
Click on the image to view a 3D turntable!
Some of the more advanced tech such as Negative Space Encroachment has been left out of the design of these budget craft, but beyond cost, it seems that MFC believes that efficiency can still be derived from clever tweaks to geometry and do prove that effort in both ships. That same winning geometry and lack of NSE tech letting the design down also however, with minimal support module capacity on either ship.
Click on the image to view a 3D turntable!
The TCN view the craft as a natural evolution of previous MFC Cruiser offerings, but note that next to PLC’s expensive high tech ‘Pegasus’ Cruisers, or the INC’s slightly cheaper and yet more versatile modular Cruiser the ‘Armstrong,’ competition is tough. MFC ships continue to be the designs of choice within both the Navy and the subversive factions.
The artists always leak images ahead of the announcements, we try to stop them, but they just don't listen, can't blame them really it's an exciting business! - anyway follow the twitter to stay ahead of the game @shallowspace1!
The Zone Map is coming along nicely
These clusters of Rock form part of a Space Object. All parts of a Space Object need to be scanned before the contents are revealed...
Anybody coming to or leaving for Zone 24 via this Zone will land here.
Finding a nice little corner here to setup shop - unit construction is in.
Ship Configuration now happens in-game, modules can be hot swapped with a 60 second 'weapons fooked for a bit Captain' cooldown status
But the real heroes (and a large timesink development-wise!) will be the tooltips that really leak those glorious details.
