AI War II - Far Zoom First Look

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.com/5905-2/

Lots of stuff has been happening on the AI War II forums in general, and a lot of news in the dev diary section in particular.  Once the kickstarter for the game launches -- later this week -- we'll be sharing more through our blog and social media.  It's been an intensive process so far in the forums, though, with folks contributing 2,470 post on 180 topics in a matter of just a couple of weeks.

Here's the first video of the game:



The kickstarter for AI War II is coming up in the next week! If you want to be notified of it by email, please send a note to arcengames at gmail dot com and we'll be happy to.

Our forums have a ton of information about what's going on and how you can contribute (non-financially) prior to the kickstarter if you wish to.

And our public design document is huge and still growing.  The latter will be finished up (for purposes of v1.0 specs) within the next 3 days.

I'll be around on the forums plenty in the coming days, or I'll hopefully catch you later this week when we launch the Kickstarter!

-Chris

[Mad Rubicant]

Looks great!

The capital ship animation looks a little cartoony though. They should probably stray way less from their center, or perhaps just turn in place. Also, maybe have a setting where small ship animations are turned off but your single-unit squads aren't, because they're cool.

[x4000]

Cheers!  And yep, I imagine we'll do one or both (improve it and/or have an option to disable it), and it will be moddable between some various animations in general, anyway.  I made it wander that far because it felt odd having it just run in a circle like a dog chasing its tail, heh.  A lot of the larger ships will clearly need to just be motionless, or drift slightly, when they are idle.

[Mánagarmr]

Worst timing ever for the Kickstarter. I had one car burning and the other vandalized, so I'm down about $1000. Yeaah, hoping I can back anyway.

[Vyndicu]

Sorry to hear the timing is terrible. Story of our lives eh? Mánagarmr

I would not put the asteroid belt on the planet's edge border. It would look "weird" to see a ring of object breaking Newton's gravity laws.

Otherwise the zoom itself looks good.

[mrhanman]

This is really looking awesome, guys!  I can't wait to break my PC with it! 

[PokerChen]

*chuckles* It certainly looks nice - although considering the economy of movement aspects of present RL, the idling animation are somewhat jarring. The bombers behave like a school of fish (who must move around to breathe), while the fighters are swarming in a slow-motion feeding frenzy.

 If it's possible to procedurally vary holding flight patterns, this may be useful to break the large-scale idling synchronisation that creep up in the final product.

[Stormking]

The map certainly reminds me a lot of Sins of a Solar Empire. Hope that will yet change!
Units are looking good, no concerns there, except if the squads would now create an opportunity for micro-management. Because that would be the anti-thesis of what AIWC was to me.

[kasnavada]

The planet being a background is so strange.

[Yavaun]

Gotta say the new AI War looks an awful lot like SINS (except more fluid).
It's not a bad thing, just my first thought.

[Draco18s]

Delicious

[x4000]

Glad the general thoughts are positive!

Worst timing ever for the Kickstarter. I had one car burning and the other vandalized, so I'm down about $1000.

Oh man, I'm so sorry to hear about that!

I would not put the asteroid belt on the planet's edge border. It would look "weird" to see a ring of object breaking Newton's gravity laws.

I can always change that, or make it something you can turn off.  It makes the border easy to see from a side-on view, though, at any rate.  Presuming that these have sufficient lateral velocity, I'm not sure why these couldn't be in a stable orbit in general, though?

*chuckles* It certainly looks nice - although considering the economy of movement aspects of present RL, the idling animation are somewhat jarring. The bombers behave like a school of fish (who must move around to breathe), while the fighters are swarming in a slow-motion feeding frenzy.

If it's possible to procedurally vary holding flight patterns, this may be useful to break the large-scale idling synchronisation that creep up in the final product.

An absolutely enormous set of potential options for ways ships can idle, or travel, are quite possible.  None of it affects the sim, so the flexibility there is pretty insane as to what's possible.

The map certainly reminds me a lot of Sins of a Solar Empire. Hope that will yet change!

What do you mean in terms of that?  You want it to change in what way?  I haven't played Sins since literally 2008 or so, and I didn't particularly care for it, so I'm very out of date with it.

except if the squads would now create an opportunity for micro-management. Because that would be the anti-thesis of what AIWC was to me.

It would be the antithesis of that to me, too.  Definitely see the design document for notes on how squads work; should set your mind at ease some.

The planet being a background is so strange.

Do you mean being below the playfield plane?  That's how it was in AI War Classic as well.  Actually, I guess this could be what is violating newtonian physics in terms of where the asteroids are orbiting (they don't have an equatorial orbit).  I don't feel like having the planet as something that blocks the battlefield would be a positive thing for gameplay, honestly.

[kasnavada]

Quote
    The planet being a background is so strange.
Do you mean being below the playfield plane?  That's how it was in AI War Classic as well.  Actually, I guess this could be what is violating newtonian physics in terms of where the asteroids are orbiting (they don't have an equatorial orbit).  I don't feel like having the planet as something that blocks the battlefield would be a positive thing for gameplay, honestly.

Yes, well, game-play wise you're more than probably right. Thing is it looks like sins does (which is good) but with no center. It probably can still change a bit after the KS if needed - not important to focus on now I think.

[Vyndicu]

I would not put the asteroid belt on the planet's edge border. It would look "weird" to see a ring of object breaking Newton's gravity laws.

I can always change that, or make it something you can turn off.  It makes the border easy to see from a side-on view, though, at any rate.  Presuming that these have sufficient lateral velocity, I'm not sure why these couldn't be in a stable orbit in general, though?

By looking weird is that even if they do start with "enough lateral velocity"; the gravity alone is enough to make them change into a "two perpendicular ring" configuration orbit given enough time. Although there are other worse outcome like Kessler Syndrome. The Kessler Syndrome is actually a real headache/problem in real life by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

I don't have any problem specifically with making border look nice. I would suggest either a wider simple white solid perimeter as GUI like what you have in video but make it bigger or come up with something else that doesn't violate astrophysics principles. We can always revisit this at a later date and I think the quickest way for now is to go with GUI approach.

If you still want asteroid belt somewhere, you can create "dwarf planets similar to Ceres" with asteroid field through the entire planet zone and beyond. It will not matter that much where the asteroid are because they will never have enough gravity to pull other asteroid orbit (especially Ceres-isque dwarf planet). This will look much better and can be revisit later after 1.0 if not enough time.

[x4000]

Got it.  I'm running ten million miles a minute for now, but those are certainly things I'm open to tuning as time goes on into the alpha and so on (and even during the kickstarter).