Discuss game development here, from a distinct game project to an accessible third-party mutator, down to the interaction and design of individual units if you like.
shnorb wrote:.. there is a max of 20 users playing spring ...
Yesterday, at peak hour, i saw the maximum, so far, of 50 people logged into #Main with 12 open game rooms.
I still remember when it was young (0.4), when i saw frequently 7~12 people at peak times... Then it started to grow, slowly but steadily, to easily seeing 20, 30 people and recently, 40+ people became very common. Although in the old lobby, most people wouldn't join the channel #Main...
Spring is growing, no doubt, and it's growth is beeing quite nice.
Masters of Orion 3
I also love the game. It took a while to get used to it. Alot of learning, alot of reading. Sometimes, i felt like i needed to take a course to learn how to play it.
But once you know how to handle it, you can never go back. MOO2 just looks poorer.
And, the tactical combat, sucks...
They would've might as well make something more abstract.
The EF had blended together each race trying to keep the massive World-Ship├óÔé¼Ôäós from failing, and the FTL Engine├óÔé¼Ôäós working at a constant pace. Once they cleared the official ├óÔé¼┼ôdeath zone├óÔé¼┬Ø where the gamma radiation had lowered to a acceptable limit. The EF kept going though, fore they had already reached the great gull between the Galaxy├óÔé¼Ôäós. It was a feeling that the older race├óÔé¼Ôäós and there eldest could describe well. A feeling of deep chill.
No star├óÔé¼Ôäós, no nearby planets, black hole├óÔé¼Ôäós, quasars, pulsars or neutron star├óÔé¼Ôäós.. Nothing but a massive empty, filled only with clouds of gas├óÔé¼Ôäós and partials. The World-Ship├óÔé¼Ôäós plowed on, towards the bright promise land of Andromeda. The most sophisticate instruments the EF used showed that the Andromeda galaxy was not exploding, and had not done so in the past million years.
Once the EF reached the edge of Andromeda, a massive celebration occurred. The three largest World-Ships, called the Ark├óÔé¼Ôäós by the more poetic humans where literally lashed together and everyone, even the sullen outcast├óÔé¼Ôäós where gathered together. The Outcast├óÔé¼Ôäós had actually forgotten that their ships were ships, and where shocked when they where taken outside in large shuttles. Even so, the Outsider├óÔé¼Ôäós didn├óÔé¼Ôäót dull the party.
The corpse of the many hero├óÔé¼Ôäós of the EF, ranging from the inventor of FTL, the First Leader and the hero of the tenth war, Ke<click>Jaw<snap>. He was called Key by most none insectoid race├óÔé¼Ôäós. The party ended after a couple month├óÔé¼Ôäós, and the EF started to search for habitably planet├óÔé¼Ôäós in the outer rim of the Galaxy. For some reason no one thought that anyone would dispute the EF. The universe is too massive to fight over land? Right├óÔé¼┬ª
The EF is more mobile then the Xeno├óÔé¼Ôäós, and there unit├óÔé¼Ôäós generally are weaker in the amour but stronger in the speed. They also have a huge verity of traps, mine├óÔé¼Ôäós and tricks up there oddly shaped sleeves. The many race├óÔé¼Ôäós of the EF make there units have many different styles, but fortunately for model designers only the more barbaric races fight. The rest think and run the logistics. These races are the Insectoids, Humanoids and Reptilians. The weapon├óÔé¼Ôäós are SinbadEV├óÔé¼Ôäós excellent designs!
EF Building├óÔé¼Ôäós Lvl 1
Mine: used to├óÔé¼┬ª mine minerals
Wind Power: the EF has long known the best way├óÔé¼Ôäós of getting every last bit of energy out of every last source possible. They leave NO source untapped, and so the Shofixti built theses oversized windmills.
Solar Power: A twenty sided die, stuck on a stick with a hole under the ground, as one Gary Gigax said. He had recently (re)invented a popular board game, saying that he had found it in his great to the tenth power grandfather suitcase. The power generator drops into the hole when coming under fire, like an Ambusher.
GeoPowerplant: This massive cylinder houses hyper advanced fan├óÔé¼Ôäós, spun by the gasses coming out of the planet. Creates power, and comes with a small capacitors to hold some extra energy.
Aircraft Plant: builds aircraft manned by the Insectoids that have far far FAR better reactions then most race├óÔé¼Ôäós, making them perfect for fast paced air combat
TX-99 Sneak: ├óÔé¼┼ôAdorable├óÔé¼┬Ø is another name for this sickeningly cute plane. Fortunately, only the pilots, the Insectoids, call these plans as such. Looks like a small hexagon with multiple hover generators stuck on landing gear that looks like spider legs.
TX-100 Bulldog: The best bet for early air combat. Equipped with a simple laser and two gavetic missiles (really just a cool name for a regular missile that implode rather then explode)
TY-Con Builder Plane: Using a mico-nanolather to construct buildings, this plane can reach had to reach place├óÔé¼Ôäós of the map and builds.
TX-990 Thumper: A minelayer plane. Insane? NO! Drops modified Thwumper bombs. They explode in the air, spraying light laser fire all over the area. Weakens and destroys enemy building and units.
Infantry Beamer: Using a slow motion transporter (Fast one├óÔé¼Ôäós cause deadly radiation to flood the area) the Beamer plants infantry on the ground from the orbiting World-Ship. The infantry comes from the Sjakar and the Humans, both fast breeding, violent and good at infantry combat. A old human with a perchance for ancient military organizations brought the term ├óÔé¼┼ôMarine├óÔé¼┬Ø back into use.
M.I: The M.I├óÔé¼Ôäós (Mobile Infantry) are power armored troops, each equipped with a small laser, micro com unit and a huge amount of guts. Basic trooper, with a small laser
Marauder: This lizardman is capable of handling the increased work lode that comes with the Marauder suits. With extra speed, maneuverability and some odd seat designs, the Marauder is the speedy scout of the EF. Comes with a large sight range and a light laser.
A.T.I: Slower then the other infantry suits, the ATI is a Anti Tank Infantry unit capable of firing a sonic warhead. The warhead price├óÔé¼Ôäós the inner part of the tank then blasts a sonic warhead inside the confined space of the tank. Unfortunately, the warhead has yet to be modified to fit the biology of the Xeno├óÔé¼Ôäós, and is not a one hit kill.
ConBot: The ConBot is a endearing, if slow, weak and dumb robot. Every one at the base always likes to see theses bot├óÔé¼Ôäós trundle around building and repairing. Can build buildings, go all over most terrain├óÔé¼Ôäós but it├óÔé¼Ôäós not as speedy as the other builder units.
A.I: The first ever Artificial Intelligence infantry. Dirt cheap, equipped with weak A.A missiles and fast, the A.I bot├óÔé¼Ôäós are useful for early raids and air protection.
Thumper: Firing light mortars, this antique was used only one before, in the conquest of earth. Many humans drive theses, because after San Diego was leveled by them, the hairless apes gained a grudging respect for theses light artillery units. Equipped with a plasma gun.
Tank Factory: Building tank├óÔé¼Ôäós on planet is easer then beaming them from World-Ships. So this is ACTUALLY a factory, building with advanced nanolathers. All EF tank├óÔé¼Ôäós are hovers, because A: Its cooler and B: They are more flexible
GV-90 ├óÔé¼┼ôPod├óÔé¼┬Ø: This small converted hover car literally has a light laser strapped to the front. Its best use is in scouting and mass raids.
GV-892 ├óÔé¼┼ôZippy├óÔé¼┬Ø: This hover bike has two riders and a missile launcher on the back. The missile├óÔé¼Ôäós are automated, and the second driver fire├óÔé¼Ôäós two pitifully weak laser pistols. Zippys serve better as AA platforms then anti tank├óÔé¼Ôäós, but the pistols do look cool! .The Zippers are often considered insane by most males of most races. The females however├óÔé¼┬ª
GV-920 ├óÔé¼┼ôBulldozer├óÔé¼┬Ø: This hover tank has some medium amour and a Kinetic wave gun. Great tank of the line, but will not stand up to more deadly Xeno weapons.
CV-1.0 ├óÔé¼┼ôHover Con├óÔé¼┬Ø: This tanks has a advanced nanolather, and a insanely brave pilot. Most CV├óÔé¼Ôäós have pilots that will willingly drive into heavy laser fire just reclaim some smoldering wreckage, so maybe its just idiocy rather bravery.
Laser Tower: A Tower with a laser hooked to a continuous power source.
Wall: A nice wall to protect your towers. Doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót look like crystals though├óÔé¼┬ª
Laser Wall: A better wall that unfortunately sucks up more power then the other verity, making it more expensive. It can├óÔé¼Ôäót be run over by larger tank├óÔé¼Ôäós, and is harder to damage.
The EF and there units are considerably faster then the Xenos. They are more specialized, meaning there army needs more units but can hammer the weakest links in the Xeno army. They can move around, over and some time├óÔé¼Ôäós under (just kidding) the enemy, meaning a EF commander will need to think a bit faster then the Xeno commander.
It would be cool if there was a solar collecting, geothermally powered, wind turbine... it would fit the idea of using all the energy they can find idea... be a mid-level power suply/storage stop-gap built by level 1 cons.
Also, Solar Powered Mines, produce as much metal as normal mines, but produce there own power (take longer to build or a level 2 building, or could be an upgrade)
Wind Powered Energy to Metal Converter, acts as metal storage, but has turbines to produce metal if their is wind.
Those are good ideas. Also I├óÔé¼Ôäóm starting up a Wiki for this. I don├óÔé¼Ôäót know what to call it, or even if its a very good idea. But it sounds like a good place for a hypothetical plotline and manual for EVAMP, whatever that stands for. Note the Hypothetical. I assume you guys like it or some one would of stood up and said "That├óÔé¼Ôäós Dumb!"
Well, actually I don't know if I'd consider it dumb or not. Your posts were big, and my attention span wasn't ready for it, so I skipped past them (once I figured they just consisted of a storyline composed for EVAMP). sorry 'bout that.
Well the dumbed down version of the story line goes as such.
The Galactic core of our galaxy is exploding, sending a wave of deadly gamma radiation across pretty much every habitable star in several million light years. So a collation of race's builds a bunch of hyper drive ships and heads towards Andromeda (our neighboring galaxy). Fortunately for us, the Exodus Fleet or EF finds multiple races on the way and picks them up, including humankind. So once the EF fled to Andromeda they begin to set up colonies on a few good planets. A unfortunate cultural misunderstanding sparks a war between the EF and the local Xeno's (a silicon based life form) The game is basically a series of settler disputes, starting with a commander equivalent and building an army and trashing the enemy so your side can take and/or hold onto the planet in question.
Check the Wiki im STILL makeing for more info and a deeper plot line explanation. read the unit descriptions for what they should look like, and blancers can PM me and we can discuse how to arrange balace between the slow strong Xeno's and the limber EF.
I have no experience actually making units move or show up in game, but I'd be happy to slip you the thing in a .obj format when I get home from work if you'd like... I think it needs armor and/or weapons still though... maybe it could breath fire, then I wouldn't have to do any more work I made it while I couldn't sleep last night. Technically it was supposed to be a "Lizard Man"
