I'm trying to patch more often instead of focusing only tech. We've patched twice this week. Steam sent an email to devs to patch more often, lets make this fun!
12:30 AM 3/20/2023 Patch notes: Populated more space station adjutants -Command Center -Mining Operation
In the Pipes: Multiplayer is working, is crisper than most multiplayer games I played for now, and may come out this week. It's really cool because it will have fun says of basic attacking enemies. It will have leveling and drop common/uncommon/rare/epic/legendary/UnaLegendary TimeCapsules. A TimeCapsule will let you open it to random treasure from when you found it to the current patch you played. They will be in demand in the future as long as some items become difficult to obtain in future patches.
Next Pipes after that: Collision damage. Specific item pickups. Proceedurally Generated Galaxy (not sure if I want to make 1 mil or 420 billion star systems) AI aliens who will do their daily life around you! This is some next gen AI stuff and seem like real interactable aliens like real life to a larger degree than seen before. The talent tree paths for leveling. Story line! (people looove it when I tell em the story) More random events in MMO and Clash. Conquering and taxing zones... etc.
Hotfix server & Preview
Server hotfix: New players were not being given a ship unless they relog. This is unacceptable and has been fixed.
Preview of things to come: The next patch, I'm looking to have an actual MMO core framework from which to build content from.
Yes, this means the MMO networking is in again and will stay in.
Before I work on the MMO I need to do some boring techs: 1) Write my own version control, GIT/Subversion/Collab, none of them are good for Unity projects.
2) I'm writing an item maker that is crowd sourced! Anyone can make some fun items. I want millions of items and can't make them all myself, but I can review them and put millions in.
I'll let you know when I make IGBH: Starfighter General item makers
Meet the Alien Trash Talk
Here's some fodder aliens aka dumb aliens that trash talk and attack you like most MMORPGS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8UQVVtc9Go& It's fun to watch a bit though to see what is coming. Later trading/hailing/recruiting/quest getting will be added.
MMO hopefully generally in by summer. Multiplayer tech is already in, Log (n) networking instead of traditional n^2 networking, which means we can easily easily blow away Eve Online's World Record of video game players in one zone away, and 30-60 FPS while doing it.
Multi-Core DOTS/ECS tech from Unity means 100x as many things on screen + more complicated AI possible.
Today I'm going to start scanning 40 years of design documents while finalizing the entire MMO design. It's getting exciting.
We have an actually sick space opera AI driven NPC biosphere.
It simulated traditional Sid Mier Pirates/Elite Dangerous trading, but every NPC has it's own shop keeping economy. It won't buy if it doesn't need product. It sells depend on supply and demand as well.
Every single NPC in the game, shop keepers, mercenaries, playboi party cruisers, scavangers, military folk and followers, everyone, literally every NPC and players have 120 personality sliders that influence what they do, and options. These personality sliders are inspired by Sid Mier's Civilization or Micropose's Master of Orion. So you can understand what may transpire...
Story time: A trader might be a successful trader, incorporate/franchise or build foundries and factories to buy and sell more things... Once he has billions of dollars, he might just buy a capital ship fleet, hire mercenaries and try and conquer star sectors.
Capturing Star sectors will be something players can do too, and then you can set the tax rates, set some laws etc. There will be a window for an hour once every few day another player crew could challenge to take the sector off you. This means your team can know when to get on to defend if needed, and afk allies ships can be auto piloted to join the battle.
It's a first person shooter like Xwing vs Tiefighter MMO, with RPG stats, the ability to accrue a large fleet, encourages role play and down the road will have like game master roleplayers who will let you change anything in the game pretty much, omnioptent RP.
Video of first trying to skybox actual real stars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96cIYun83FE Today I'm finalizing the proc gen galaxy designs and the power ramp curves over time, with the milestones you need to get to dive to deeper rings inside the galactic core. I'm a fan of Angband a roguelike,and it had things you needed to acquire to dive deeper or you just got obliterated. There will be a million stars. We could do 400+ billion, but we want players to see each other from time to time. The outer ring is level 1, and radiation zones prohibit warping to the next ring deeper towards the galactic core... You must find transit paths which are normally guarded by big fleets you must destroy or sneak past(sneaking bad laden with loot is tougher). In addition to diving deeper, towards the core, the rings are elementally biased on the degree of a cross section:
So the design I'm finalizing today as I scan 40 years of design documents will be working on the magic systems:
The RPG game mechanics are based on an unreleased gem of an RPG I made tested for 10,000+ man hours and most say it is the most fun RPG they ever played, cultured folk who played D&D, GURPS, Vampire the Masquerade, Paranoia, TMNT, Ghostbusters, etc etc. It has skills like fallout/wasteland and we're adding a talent tree like Path of Exile (this is about 70 screens large):
The highest level of some of these magic systems might be pretty deadly to fleets unless you have specific counter mitigations to em, so they can be part of the Angband Diving requirements deeper. Off the top of my head, I'll try and do free action/elemental resists much higher. I'll have an Angband Diving requirement of missile defense... And I'm proud of my missile defense design: Most xwing games have a thing called missile spam phase and it often happens as soon as you meet another fleet, volleys destroying ships right off the bat and no defense... In Starfighter General, there's a Physical Electronic Counter Measure PECM, which you fire out as a blob and it attracts many missles to it. So in case of missile spam, a PECM launch can stop them from hitting you with dozens of missles at once. However if missiles are fired periodically and not in big clumps, it isn't viable to deal with, but your shields, evasive maneuvers and such can be used. There will even be a shield dump ability to fire your shields away from your ship so things that hit the shield and explode don't localized hurt your hull/armor. So I'm going to kick back for the next 20-60 hours just scanning my design documents and doing a full double check of this ambitious design of Starfighter General Space Opera MMO. The new research level techs work which is a relief, but the implementation of a living and thriving world of NPCs needs a solid double check of the design.
Besides, I've been pushing myself too hard to get this thing done and the stress is killing me working every day... It's good to kick back and do some fun design. If anyone wants on board, we plan on taking a lot of market share away from Eve Online/WOW and Eve makes what 100 mil a month? Rev share will be considerable. We could use social media promoters, organizers of AI art(sort them to bins like planets/items/aliens), coders, musicians, sfx guys, modelers, story line script guys, trash talk makers, alien race designers, planet/star sector theme guys and more. I run this operation like a 1500s guild, I train you for free in ways better than a paid university could do it, and if you can eventually contribute then you get royalty payments for life. I say this because some of you might be so bored there's no MMORPGS out there, you might want to help make one, and that's how I ebb and flow between playing and making games. No skill needed, just a desire to try and skill always comes. If you don't want to waste time working and can fund us, PM me. Otherwise just hang tight or build your Clash base up right now, since it will help you get a jump on the MMO component that's coming soon.
Base Bud 4000 puts the taunt in adjutant: small patch
I always wanted an adjutant but didn't want to do it until I did it right.
Then I remembered I always wanted a robot friend.
BOOM! Base Bud 4000!
Enjoy
The dimensional reality flying might make you die of laughing, be careful, I don't want to lose my user base quite yet. That is only a taste of stuff to come... Also heads up... Lots of inventory/etc not quite functional. I was dropping the adjutant patch asap for new users... But still the dimensional reality flight is more fun than it's ever been, trust.
Merry Christmas! 2022 Starfighter General development status: Year in Review
Hello,
I've been developing at a break neck speed, crunch with a lifestyle of burning down the house to get more development in.
We're nearing a launch of a very very very fun patch.
We'll have random encounters/leveling/items in!
That alone is very exciting and worth playing, but we have a story line that impresses everyone I tell with great awe.
They tell me this story line is better than the best sci fi movies in their prime, and I agree...
At least, the bar is very low for video game story lines in MMOS so you're gonna have a good time.
The patch after next will star phasing in multiplayer. I chose the lore of a background of infinite dimensions in order to do some awesome behind the scenes things. One of which is partial multiplayer, another is a massive amount of more enemies... The entirety of this game has been built around the core foundation of multiplayer.
Hope you have a Merry Christmas. If I wanted, I could have pushed a patch right now, but we've gone through some game dev philosophy phases. Two employees pledged to come on so I upscoped this patch. Then one demanded my attention help his task, and I actually got side tracked helping his compartmentalized task. Then the employees got flighty and didn't contribute. I did have a lady friend, just a friend partially voice track the Generic Anime Girl Master-Ninja Eschelon encounters, but that as well would be rushed as it isn't finished. I don't want to drop a rush patch on the best patch Starfighter General will see. This will be the first patch that gets you really locked in and having some fun. So I'm shifting game dev philosophy.
Personally I clock as many hours as I can every day, it's impacting my health from a stress level, which I must manage as I developed diabetes and kidney issues. This also contributes to my game dev shift, as I get older, and have so much education, experience, background, I really am mortal like all of you. I have a limited lifespan to make video games. So I should pace myself. Kidney failure would result in me making many less games than I would normally. So the game dev philosophy must change.
Instead of burning down the house to get this game out and crunching, I'm going to develop with a health focused mind set. I'm already to the point where I won't need many techs to add into the game. They're mostly all in! My goal will be to build up my house, those around me and save money to help others now instead of trying to finish my game as fast as possible. This more healthy lifestyle will be condusive to a long term development cycle. Trying to launch into space by burning up the launch pad and everything wasn't a bad plan. This one is better.
In early 2023, expect a very fun patches of encounters, story, drops, multiplayer. I'll try and add some more fun stuff every patch, as I want to data base lots of encounters in the game. Then I'll add the galaxy generated and such. I don't want to break my neck developing, but I will try and make chess moves so each patch is optimally more fun for that particular move...
Again Merry Christmas from the Video Game Monastery. Love's the way. When you get old and grey, if you achieved wisdom, you'll be talking about all the friends you met along the way, not the money, fame, or power. Love's the meaning of life. So I wish you love this Christmas Season.
We'll be chillin in space soon.
,Jim
2022 Development Recap:
Wild year!
#1: We got DOTS/ECS done! This unlocks cores like most every game before never did! 100x as many things rendered on screen. Once we get a player base, we can beat the world record of video game players in a single battle easily.
#2: I launched Rano Particulo a way of making particle effects in Unity easy.
#4: Had Dungeon Run Black Roost Keep ready to launch, but the IP holder was too discouraged to launch... This is the weirdest tale ever. A team of 5 spends 5 hard years making a masterpiece only to not be launched, see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpa8C8WuiYw&t=64s
#5: Made half a million pieces of AI art and growing. Starfighter General will have millions.
#6: Added Chat.
#7: Added the Galactic News Network Ticker.
#8: Settings menu wired up.
#9: Got items in.
#10: Crew Creation in.
#11: Random Encounters in
#12: Galaxy Generation pushed forward and warp effects is awesome: https://youtu.be/96cIYun83FE?t=44
#13: 82 screen large talent tree over half way done.
#14: And so much more was done I don't even remember
TL:DR Made 2 games on the side,a major industry impacting particle effect tool, and pushed Starfighter General forward, all while having major health issues, unstable family and living conditions and so broke I could barely afford food at times. 2022 was a phenomenal success and I could not have done it without help from God. So Merry Christmas, and pray I can make 2023 a very fun year where you enjoy Starfighter General the MMORPG in full!
Thank you and God bless, Jim
Next Patch is very Ambitious! Random Encounters/Random Loot/Leveling/etc
Hello,
It's been a bit since last announcement, but I'm working every day on Starfighter General, sometimes 8hrs a day+.
The next patch will be the first confidently very fun patch!
It will have random encounters in space and some of the quest/story line.
It will have random drops that affect your craft and your character.
It will have leveling up.
It's gonna be fun, and the game will only get extra funninated afterwards.
Here's some diveregent tech that's fun to see that won't be in next patch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96cIYun83FE
Hot Patch incoming: Bug Fix + Generic Anime Boy randomized Back Story
Wow, a nasty bug fell in the build along the way. If you try and upgrade your ship's attack, the menu locks up aka have to restart game. This is fixed.
A feature is added: Generic Anime Boy Enterprise Nation now gives random backstories and it is hilarious. Find it under dimensional launch... You gotta restart to get back to normal clash mode, since it is just in development and this is a clash hot patch.
Next Big Patch is supposed to be the first GREAT PATCH that will get players hooked:
2) Randomized loot like ARPGS, aka "Austere Titanic Vestiges of HyperSpace Robe" naming conventions and such.
3) Leveling up
Next next big patch: I have just brought on a reliable coworker who's working on a skybox that renders in the galaxy depending where you are. So we can pro gen a galaxy. Then the Randomized Encounters/Loot Tables could be biased or lock/unlocked depending the type of system you're in.
After systems in,next next next big patch is multiplayer (tech works, it's been used since 2004 in house)
] From there, content, content, content, managing server stability,allowing systems conquering by players/npcs, and then finally Game Masters.
We have a clear road map, all of which is trivial to code. The hard parts have already been coded. It will only take time, but the very next patch will be super engaging to play nonstop...So the fun will just pile on top.
Meet... Generic Anime Boy Enterprise Nation.. The Gaben
So the patch was successful this week. Last week I just did a lot of work behind the scenes without presentables.
When you do puzzles at home, you want to get the frames around it before filling inside.
The majority of the frame is up, and we'll have more interesting encounters than Generic Anime Boy moving forward.
The techs we added: *Ability to use art as portraits to do discussions/hailing.
*Ability to play cutscene like introductions with text / voice.
*Some humor in the fill in of using this, but not long lasting as it will become when AdLib random sentences go in!
*Ability to do battle and skin ships.
*Ability to do multi factioned space battles (more than just player vs all enemies, sometimes random fights between factions unrelated to you can go down).
*Inventory is half way in, but not full, hopefully next Friday.
Coming: Pick up items again. Experience bar/leveling up. Stats seen. Items fawned over in inventory.
Drop rarities: 1) Common 2) Uncommon 3) Rare 4) Epic 5) Legendary 6) Uni-Legendary
Next patches: Non Combat encounters in Random events such as: Space Anomolies to use science skills to investigate.
Asteroids that fly at you. Trade Partners. Criminals who offer trades too good to refuse. and OFFICIAL QUEST LINES OF THE GAME!
Then proceedurally generated 420 billion galaxy patch & multiplayer. We're only a couple hundred hours away from full techs. Then we just fill in the frame with content.
We're at the point where patches start having fun value to look in and see how it goes. We're nearing the point where we're a full fledged MMO and a credible competitor to any MMO out there with techs like 100x-1000x as many players in the same zone. We should be able to break the world record for most players in a space combat system easy. I think the game that holds the world record for most players in space combat is only like 6700 ish. I have done 9000 rendered at 60 FPS, and my networking is O( LOG(N) ) instead of traditional O ( N ^ 2), so networking is no limiter. Lets aim to make a stab at breaking the world record, and not just breaking it, but obliterating it! I'll need people who want to play, so power up your clash base now... It will help you progress in the MMO to have a high level clash base.
Self Imposed Arbitrary Deadline: Too Ambitious
Lets try for next week to get the Random Events in! Turns out other space games are doing random encounters too, and I just learned of it today. That means I'm on the right track! A huge huge huge amount of design happened in the past two weeks. I'll run over it as I explain I needed a bunch of techs to make stuff happen. One of which is Inventory/Character Sheets which are mostly in:
Star is order by rarity.
M is order by mass.
$ is order by value
dm^3 is order by decimetric volume. Volume in your inventory changes depending on temperature and other crazy stuff. I shelved Diablo 2 stacking in 3d because my friend said people like simplicity in some regards. This inventory is high tech under the hood with Entity/DOTS high tech under that!
Other techs I have already put in are:
Spawn enemy monster & wire up damage.
I need to finalize in 'Random drops like Diablo 2 or Path of Exile', Tool tips and power up zones you get by flying through. They're in, just need wired up.
The design is actually AMAZING! Absurdity Trail random events allows for a proc gen galaxy with weights that change depending where you're at. There are alliances of alien races known as factions. You can get in good one with faction and be bad with another. The center of the galaxy lies a mysterious horror, and as monsters/enemy ship fleets/alliances grow stronger as you try and get to it. You can't just warp to the center of the galaxy, you need to find trade paths through radiation zones. Once you find radiation zone paths, you can go from star system to star system. Many paths of non radiated zones have choke points where alliance fleets gate keep with warp interdictor technology. So in order to prove your worth, you must win in fights,be friends with that alliance, pay a toll, have a gem, or just hit pedal to the medal baby and pray as you zip by them.
Check points are of two fashion. The standard check point is dimensional signature target check points. This is where you can restart the game coming from your home base with a limited ship. It is costly to jump via dimensional warp gates so you can't take much with you like a big fleet, but they're common so you can travel light around the galaxy if you want. Then there is a more uncommon warp gate target check point. This you can warp with you and your entire fleet provided you charted a path of non radiated zones to it and provided no warp interdicting pirates are on the path.
That's a long winded way of saying in a game of risk/reward perma loss of huge fleets, one of the soft save roguelite features is information. Information of where to warp to, information where to get good trades, information of resource rich zones, information of what player friends to make, information of what enemy factions to favor or unfavor, and information on how to acquire navigation deep into the galaxy via radiation zone scope pathing. I want the player to feel a sense of more permanence, soft saving, rogue lite features than senses of loss when your entire fleet might get risked in the wrong manner. Starfighter General will have the feeling of a Carebear progression game, while having hardcore perma death in some aspects of losing fleets. Since I dis-incentive bullying and mob rule dystopia play, this is gonna be an experience you never experienced.
I'm happy Unity released some sort of basic 4 player multiplayer. That way I don't have to rush mine to market and I can do these more fun techs which will play like a roguelike. The ground up of the design of the game is multiplayer so it won't be tacked on though it is added later. My multiplayer breaks so many rules you're used to. Traditional Client<>Server is O(n^2), mine is sub O(n), yes less than n bandwith,close to O(logn) aka near infinite networked players same zone. I say this with a grain of salt for there will be a limited number of fleet that can come with, but that's down the road. Just happy Unity released multi so I don't have to force it out and present it to Unity. I assure you my networking is far superior to Unity's at this juncture. I typically pioneer algorithms the gaming industry independently discovers later.
So design solidifying on the universe power progression, gates between star systems so going deep is risky and hull/armor/shields of your fleet are at risk if you have to retreat through hostile radiation zone choke point gates. That's a reason you'd want to power up combat ships in itself and level and all that jazz. Last week we put wandering monsters in with the dragon. This week I made the dragon sound and particle effect when spawning. It's a matter of whales and bistles (bells and whistles), pacing it. And to conclude, I have health conditions with stress and am just barely food secure, so I'm limiting my bust tail crunch mentality... I just enjoy this so I code basically all day when I am not keeping the house hold in order.
Next 100-300 hours we should have a ROCKING fun Starfighter Game. I missed a self imposed micro deadline, but life isn't easy when you barely have enough for food. I look at Star Citizen and wonder if God will let me shame their massively funded and large team with a superior product by basically one guy without much help and dealing with malnutrition occasionally living in a place without water. I'm not poor mouthing, so much as starting to enjoy the challenge since I'm up trending.
Other techs upcoming Proc-Gen Universe, with star field truly generated where are positionally. Different star types/nebula/Anomoly/factional controlled space/black hole horizons/etc will clue you know from afar what types of encounters/drops/adventures you might get into. We operate on a "diminishing returns" system that means your most optimal encounters/drops occur when you do not always camp a single star system. It's space, it's meant to be explored. Yay. A related tech is when you go warp, the stars/nebula/etc will shoot past you relative to where they truly are in space,not some generic yellow star dots passing by you like a screen saver. This is even important because if you subtly remember where Warp Interdictor alliances could ambush you from and visually recognize it while in warp, you can drop out of warp to recalibrate, or prepare your warp paths ahead of time.
Another tech I need to add is boring, a way of simulating 64 bit+ space in 32 bit, a 3d Engine limitation. I have a few options.
The game is a dumb state in a funny way. You can fight dragons, while drones fight a war against an opposing armada... If you drag dragons close to your turret ships, they blow up the dragons. There is nothing to gain by blowing up dragons right now, it's just chaotic so you get a taste of what is to come when experience/loot/etc are in. I think it's funny at least and it's very vapid now:
You literally have no clue how fun this is about to get... Like even before the MMORPG opposing players are in, this will blow away many single player space sims. Give me a week, and I'll blow away your biggest hype expectations. Right now it's literally dumb... Dumb to the extent that it is funny. Pertinent upgrades: music/sound slider work now, you can see how much health you have in DOTS/ECS mode, a few other fixes.
