Author Topic: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)  (Read 21998 times)

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #15 on: November 01, 2015, 12:41:04 pm »
Sounds about right.
I spent about 9 months or so developing my Reasonable Realism mod for Minecraft, mostly in a "I am doing something radically different and need to learn new systems" state of mind, but I've spent at least that much time fixing bugs and tweaking things (with the occasional feature). But if I'd had to build Minecraft too, I'd never finish.

Speaking of, I've been working on a project that is ground up and is got quite a ways to go before it could really being a game.

Offline x4000

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #16 on: November 01, 2015, 04:00:44 pm »
Speaking of, I've been working on a project that is ground up and is got quite a ways to go before it could really being a game.

Sounds intriguing!
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #17 on: November 02, 2015, 12:40:11 am »
Speaking of, I've been working on a project that is ground up and is got quite a ways to go before it could really being a game.
Sounds intriguing!

Mind, I'm having to pick up a huge amount of knowledge.  I think I spent three days just on stencil masks.  And it wasn't even that important, I was just super annoyed that edge highlighting is typically a post-processing effect and didn't want to and that the standard methods (scaling the model up) were imprecise.  None the less I found a solution.  A 165 line, two-pass, stenciled geometry fragment shader (posted over here, as it was the top google result for that particular question).  There's an example in the comment reply stack.

All I've got at the moment is about a fifth of a half-decent map generator.  It's missing a ton of small detail work and actual scenario elements, and its not hugely varied (how many rectangular rooms connected by fixed-width hallways can you really traverse before growing bored).  Soooo...I've kind of got some impetus to scrap it and start over.  On the upside, its better than my prior attempt, which ended up feeling cramped and overly large at the same time (no room to maneuver with really long travel times).

I'm also not as thrilled with my combat model (damage and weapons, actually) due to a conceptual mismatch between planned effects and mechanical and fluff description.  E.g. 6 stats which can all be independently damaged with a variety of effects from turning the smartest robot guards into mindless imbeciles incapable of tracking you (as they keep forgetting you're a threat) to restricting vision range, movement speed, or damage output.  Buuuut....I don't have good names for the damage types that make sense to effect enemies in these ways that also make for good mechanics that allow for a diversity of weapon types.

The goal was to make "raw damage" not a truly viable choice ("sure, you can, and it'll work, but it's not that interesting") and instead give alternatives that let the stealth aspect work.  Bean the guard over the head and he forgets about you as you melt back into the shadows (hooray, concussion!).  Blind the watcher, sure he might raise an alarm, but he doesn't know where you are so it doesn't do a whole lot of good.  That kind of thing instead of just "kill everyone."  Plus, I'm very much a fan of stealth games where getting spotted and having to get into combat isn't an instant-loss scenario.  Deus Ex: Human Revolution felt like this most of the time.  Styx Master of Shadows has its moments, but I feel that the combat is too brutal to warrant doing often (you can take one guy and get away with no damage about a third of the time, another third you just die; if you get two guys on you you're just dead, you can't parry both of their attacks and parries are the only option unless you get the slip on a guy: you parry and get an opportunity to counter-attack, hug it up and you get stabbed for a good 40% of your hit points).  Which means that you're either killing everyone (if you have the opportunity to sneak up and insta-dead a guy, you take it, because that means he can sneak up on you while you're trying to get around the next guard).  I'm still kind of annoyed that the only way I got past one room of guards I had to use my 6 second-invisibility skill and run like hell and climb a wall where they couldn't follow.  I tried so hard to sneak in and kill them one by one and it never worked.

...that ended up being a longer post that went into more detail than I'd originally intended.  TL;DR I'm disappointed in parts of my original design or implementation and have a lot of things I need to still figure out and/or learn, but I've had a blast doing it.

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #18 on: November 02, 2015, 11:03:11 am »
Speaking of, I've been working on a project that is ground up and is got quite a ways to go before it could really being a game.
Sounds intriguing!

Mind, I'm having to pick up a huge amount of knowledge.  I think I spent three days just on stencil masks.  And it wasn't even that important, I was just super annoyed that edge highlighting is typically a post-processing effect and didn't want to and that the standard methods (scaling the model up) were imprecise.  None the less I found a solution.  A 165 line, two-pass, stenciled geometry fragment shader (posted over here, as it was the top google result for that particular question).  There's an example in the comment reply stack.

All I've got at the moment is about a fifth of a half-decent map generator.  It's missing a ton of small detail work and actual scenario elements, and its not hugely varied (how many rectangular rooms connected by fixed-width hallways can you really traverse before growing bored).  Soooo...I've kind of got some impetus to scrap it and start over.  On the upside, its better than my prior attempt, which ended up feeling cramped and overly large at the same time (no room to maneuver with really long travel times).

I'm also not as thrilled with my combat model (damage and weapons, actually) due to a conceptual mismatch between planned effects and mechanical and fluff description.  E.g. 6 stats which can all be independently damaged with a variety of effects from turning the smartest robot guards into mindless imbeciles incapable of tracking you (as they keep forgetting you're a threat) to restricting vision range, movement speed, or damage output.  Buuuut....I don't have good names for the damage types that make sense to effect enemies in these ways that also make for good mechanics that allow for a diversity of weapon types.

The goal was to make "raw damage" not a truly viable choice ("sure, you can, and it'll work, but it's not that interesting") and instead give alternatives that let the stealth aspect work.  Bean the guard over the head and he forgets about you as you melt back into the shadows (hooray, concussion!).  Blind the watcher, sure he might raise an alarm, but he doesn't know where you are so it doesn't do a whole lot of good.  That kind of thing instead of just "kill everyone."  Plus, I'm very much a fan of stealth games where getting spotted and having to get into combat isn't an instant-loss scenario.  Deus Ex: Human Revolution felt like this most of the time.  Styx Master of Shadows has its moments, but I feel that the combat is too brutal to warrant doing often (you can take one guy and get away with no damage about a third of the time, another third you just die; if you get two guys on you you're just dead, you can't parry both of their attacks and parries are the only option unless you get the slip on a guy: you parry and get an opportunity to counter-attack, hug it up and you get stabbed for a good 40% of your hit points).  Which means that you're either killing everyone (if you have the opportunity to sneak up and insta-dead a guy, you take it, because that means he can sneak up on you while you're trying to get around the next guard).  I'm still kind of annoyed that the only way I got past one room of guards I had to use my 6 second-invisibility skill and run like hell and climb a wall where they couldn't follow.  I tried so hard to sneak in and kill them one by one and it never worked.

...that ended up being a longer post that went into more detail than I'd originally intended.  TL;DR I'm disappointed in parts of my original design or implementation and have a lot of things I need to still figure out and/or learn, but I've had a blast doing it.
wait its a stealth game your making? now I'm really rather interested.
c.r

Offline x4000

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #19 on: November 02, 2015, 11:41:21 am »
That does sound really cool!  This is a FPS, then?
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #20 on: November 02, 2015, 01:53:49 pm »
wait its a stealth game your making? now I'm really rather interested.
That does sound really cool!  This is a FPS, then?

Yes to both questions.

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #21 on: November 02, 2015, 02:28:00 pm »
wait its a stealth game your making? now I'm really rather interested.
That does sound really cool!  This is a FPS, then?

Yes to both questions.
its  an fps as well? sounds neat not that Ill really look into it when its out since my laptop doesn't surely take kindly fps games.
c.r

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #22 on: November 02, 2015, 02:56:39 pm »
its  an fps as well? sounds neat not that Ill really look into it when its out since my laptop doesn't surely take kindly fps games.

"Out" hahaha XD

Offline Professor Paul1290

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #23 on: November 03, 2015, 08:02:21 pm »
I don't mean to pry, but out of curiosity how well did the last expansion do?

I don't remember hearing all that much about it so I got the impression it went like the Skyward Collapse expansion, but I guess maybe not.

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #24 on: November 03, 2015, 08:08:25 pm »
I don't mean to pry, but out of curiosity how well did the last expansion do?

I don't remember hearing all that much about it so I got the impression it went like the Skyward Collapse expansion, but I guess maybe not.
that game had an expansion? I genuinely had no idea.
c.r

Offline x4000

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #25 on: November 03, 2015, 08:10:54 pm »
I don't have offhand numbers on the TLF expansion, but it was in the ballpark of AI War expansions in terms of the effect it had on its own sales plus main game sales.  TLF overall still accounts for something like 40% of our monthly income, with AI War down to maybe 50%.  Ish.
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Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #26 on: November 03, 2015, 08:29:13 pm »
I don't have offhand numbers on the TLF expansion, but it was in the ballpark of AI War expansions in terms of the effect it had on its own sales plus main game sales.  TLF overall still accounts for something like 40% of our monthly income, with AI War down to maybe 50%.  Ish.
Hu I didn't think tlf was still that popular glad to see that tlfs dope.
c.r

Offline chemical_art

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #27 on: November 03, 2015, 08:40:43 pm »
Grand strategy is a fairly niche market, but they are dedicated. Grand strategy + tactic mixes are rarer still. So a game that scratches that niche effectively can have lasting staying power.
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Offline Professor Paul1290

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #28 on: November 03, 2015, 09:10:26 pm »
I don't have offhand numbers on the TLF expansion, but it was in the ballpark of AI War expansions in terms of the effect it had on its own sales plus main game sales.  TLF overall still accounts for something like 40% of our monthly income, with AI War down to maybe 50%.  Ish.

That's quite a bit more than I thought. Nice to see TLF has been doing well.

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)
« Reply #29 on: November 04, 2015, 02:12:55 am »
Never thought I'd see that happen.



Thoraxian/Skylaxian alliance via utopia (fabled medical) and ending a war.  Came about in observer mode, so I had no hand (claw? fin?) in it.  Other than going back to the code and having to tweak the checks so that it actually happened (as I'd intended for it to).

Looks like if I let the game keep going, the two roboraces might end up in it too (via econ, which are currently at ~600), which would be hilarious.

 

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