About mechs (dev notes).

[Pepisolo]

1. "Late switch" is kind of an interesting concept, because this game has only been in true development for like 8 weeks or something along those lines.  And during all that time it controlled like the mech except for part of a week.  But the switch to a visual mech instead of a visual ship is a pretty minor cosmetic thing, compared to the truly late switch of making the ship controls be nutsy floaty compared to the way it controlled all the rest of the time.

Those nutsy floaty controls were eventually refined into something actually better than the original method, though. The ship to me also seemed to be on this trajectory of being refined and refined until it was working great. I'm not going to go arguing strongly because I pretty much consider the issue closed at this point, but I think the whole "this doesn't feel like a ship........waaaaaaa....this game sucks" thing has been overblown a bit. Originally things felt a bit off, so the knee-jerk reaction by people (myself included) was to ask for some momentum, which was added and when tuned down a bit, actually worked fine. Ship hover and shadows helped a lot and at the point of the second round of momentum tweaks things were working pretty well. No real complaints.

Even if the game is only 8 weeks old, at the pace you guys work, that's a lot of hours put into a different concept to the one it now is. Just look at the art. You've probably got hundreds of ships and not a single mech up until probably a few days ago. Also....bah.....just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one, I think!

[x4000]

Sure, that all makes sense.  I suppose what I said about the survival genre kind of holds true here: "just because there are a lot of survival games doesn't mean there isn't interest in more -- because a lot of the survival games out there aren't good ones."  I feel like the same is true of space games in some respects.  I made AI War specifically because I disliked all other space strategy games prior to it.

[Pepisolo]

I will say one extra thing, though. Knowing that you do actually plan to have outer space sections of the game in the future does make me feel a little better about the situation. Then you could pretty much just take all the flying stuff and move it outside where it'd make more sense and just design completely new things intended for the indoor areas and there'd be a clearer separation.

[x4000]

I will say one extra thing, though. Knowing that you do actually plan to have outer space sections of the game in the future does make me feel a little better about the situation. Then you could pretty much just take all the flying stuff and move it outside where it'd make more sense and just design completely new things intended for the indoor areas and there'd be a clearer separation.

Exactly.  I want entirely other enemies out there, no walls, and so on and so forth.  Ultimately why the game evolved into the in-dungeon roguelike direction is because I didn't feel that sort of only-in-space combat was interesting enough to make for an entire game.  But as part of a larger whole it could be really brilliant.  I was tempted to try for that prior to 1.0, but Keith talked me out of that insanity.  If folks like the core of this game enough, then we might do an expansion that uses that as an anchor feature or something.

[Pepisolo]

Exactly.  I want entirely other enemies out there, no walls, and so on and so forth.  Ultimately why the game evolved into the in-dungeon roguelike direction is because I didn't feel that sort of only-in-space combat was interesting enough to make for an entire game.  But as part of a larger whole it could be really brilliant.  I was tempted to try for that prior to 1.0, but Keith talked me out of that insanity.  If folks like the core of this game enough, then we might do an expansion that uses that as an anchor feature or something.

Alright. I'm still worried about the change, but it makes a bit more sense given the potential grand design of the game. I just hope the game does well enough to get to that future evolution.

[crazyroosterman]

just one more question have you ever reused any of that stored old art in any of your games?.

[Mánagarmr]

I will say one extra thing, though. Knowing that you do actually plan to have outer space sections of the game in the future does make me feel a little better about the situation. Then you could pretty much just take all the flying stuff and move it outside where it'd make more sense and just design completely new things intended for the indoor areas and there'd be a clearer separation.

Exactly.  I want entirely other enemies out there, no walls, and so on and so forth.  Ultimately why the game evolved into the in-dungeon roguelike direction is because I didn't feel that sort of only-in-space combat was interesting enough to make for an entire game.  But as part of a larger whole it could be really brilliant.  I was tempted to try for that prior to 1.0, but Keith talked me out of that insanity.  If folks like the core of this game enough, then we might do an expansion that uses that as an anchor feature or something.

So...does this mean the mech transforms back into a spaceship for those sections? ^^

[crazyroosterman]

I will say one extra thing, though. Knowing that you do actually plan to have outer space sections of the game in the future does make me feel a little better about the situation. Then you could pretty much just take all the flying stuff and move it outside where it'd make more sense and just design completely new things intended for the indoor areas and there'd be a clearer separation.

Exactly.  I want entirely other enemies out there, no walls, and so on and so forth.  Ultimately why the game evolved into the in-dungeon roguelike direction is because I didn't feel that sort of only-in-space combat was interesting enough to make for an entire game.  But as part of a larger whole it could be really brilliant.  I was tempted to try for that prior to 1.0, but Keith talked me out of that insanity.  If folks like the core of this game enough, then we might do an expansion that uses that as an anchor feature or something.

So...does this mean the mech transforms back into a spaceship for those sections? ^^

hopefully then nobody will have anything left to complain about in that regard and we can all be happy as Larry. ps am I the only who wonders who the original Larry that saying is named was?

[x4000]

just one more question have you ever reused any of that stored old art in any of your games?.

Absolutely!

So...does this mean the mech transforms back into a spaceship for those sections? ^^

Kinda.  The legs would fold away and wings would pop out.  It would still have the tank-like turret on top.  So it wouldn't change the whole mech per se, but the overall profile of it would be very very different.

[Mánagarmr]

So...does this mean the mech transforms back into a spaceship for those sections? ^^

Kinda.  The legs would fold away and wings would pop out.  It would still have the tank-like turret on top.  So it wouldn't change the whole mech per se, but the overall profile of it would be very very different.

Well, that's good enough for me, and I think that'll be just fine for the vast majority of people as well.

[Captain Jack]

just one more question have you ever reused any of that stored old art in any of your games?.

Absolutely!

So...does this mean the mech transforms back into a spaceship for those sections? ^^

Kinda.  The legs would fold away and wings would pop out.  It would still have the tank-like turret on top.  So it wouldn't change the whole mech per se, but the overall profile of it would be very very different.

I think I remember seeing that anime.  Nice to see the change works out.