My friend Louie Hlad has a fun new blog – Time is Broken. Fun musings on time, art and sports. Tell him I said hi.
FSNA: Realistic Movement in Space!
Developer Diary 4
How do you have realistic movement in a space combat game? Well, unless we have actual battles between the planets, we really won’t know. Until that time comes (and let’s hope it is long after we actually start regular trips between worlds), we can make some suppositions.
Since there is almost no friction in space, ships cannot stop on a dime (or a Firebird). Instead, they must fire their thrusters to move in a certain direction. When they want to change their direction, even the slightest amount, they must apply thrust in a new direction that takes into account their current velocity.
In the Fading Suns universe, most human ships have rear thrusters. When they need to change direction, they use maneuver jets to change their facing, and then apply thrust in that direction.
In FSNA, we simulate this by allowing you to change facing freely, but your rear thrusters take time to replenish before they can use full thrust again. Thus players have to take care to use just the right amount of thrust to reach their goal. Too much, and they may drastically overshoot. Too little, and they may suffer several broadsides while getting into position.
In our next Developer Diary, we will cover the thinking behind our user interface.
What game have you played that handled player maneuvering in an innovative way?
Daddy-Daughter Moments
We have had a lot of teaching moments, with the education going back and forth.
Today, she taught me a new song – “The Bear Science of the Day” song.
I taught her how to spit.
Kickstarting the Suns
Developer Diary 3
Using the FSNA Campaign Editor
We are debating running a Kickstarter for Fading Suns: Noble Armada. While we self-funded the game (read: I worked on it in my spare time rather than pay myself), there are a few things that would benefit from funding. These include:
- Hiring a programmer to port it to other platforms (right now it is only set for PC).
- Hiring an artist to make any necessary UI adjustments for those platforms.
- Developing and testing a campaign editor that is usable by anyone, and not just the game developers.
- Hiring both a programmer and artist to implement more spaceships and factions.
There are other things we could do with more financing, but those are the main ones. The main goal of the Kickstarter would be to finance those ports, so the game is playable on other platforms. That probably would not require much money. I am thinking it would run around $3,000. The secondary goal would be to create a user-friendly campaign editor, so players can create and share their own campaigns. You can follow me on Kickstarter as HDIAndrew, https://www.kickstarter.com//profile/hdiandrew
What do you think of Kickstarter campaigns? Is this something you might support?
Exercise for Life
Children need little encouragement to exercise. RPGBaby runs hither, thither, yon and then hither again whenever possible. When she is not running, she is dancing. I, on the other hand, have been very bad about exercising for the past 2.5 years. I finally made it back into the gym this week, where I encountered a friend who is also a personal trainer. We discussed the difficulty many people have (okay, that I have) getting into the gym. The main reason I had returned was that my back was hurting, and exercise is the best remedy for back pain. My comment?
“When we start working out, it is so we look good in bed. As we age, we keep working out so we can keep getting OUT of bed.”