Battleships Forever V0.90b|igf Finalist| 11 Feb, [Strategy] Tactical RTS | 9999+ Downloads Options

[th15]

Battleships Forever
Download it here: http://www.wyrdysm.com/bfdownload.php

Introduction
Battleships Forever is a tactical RTS that put's you in command of a small fleet of warships. Combat and damage mechanics are extremely detailed. Everything is simluated in game if possible. There are no abitrary "to hit chance" values in Battleships Forever. The game also features many innovative mechanics that you've never seen before. For example, the Cronus Battleship sports a Flux Shield generator that allows you to construct a draw a defensive force shield around your ships in any shape you want. Another example are the Deflector modules that are used extensively through the game. These modules make a single section of a ship totally invulnerable to fire. This means that you will have to manoeuvre your ships to attack sections of the enemy ships not protected by Deflectors while keeping your own protected sections facing the enemy. Position is paramount!

Players will command picked fleets made up of Battleships, Destroyers and Patrol Craft. The completed game will include ten campaign missions and multiple skirmish modes.


Battleships Forever is inspired by and loosely based on Warning Forever by Hikoza.T.Ohkubo

Screenshots

A formation of ships


Pew pew laser beams!

About The Ships
Each warship is modeled to meticulous detail. Your ships can be controlled to drift in one direction while facing another direction for strafing attacks. Each section of your ship is an object on it's own. If a section is destroyed, any child sections that were connected to the core of your ship through that section will also be destroyed.

This section-based modular ship system makes positioning very important. Take the Hestia-Class Assault Destroyer for example; It's sections and weapons are swept forward allowing it to concentrate it's fire to the front. At the same time, the Hestia is vulnerable to rear attacks which can destroy it's wing's connection strut, thus destroying the entire wing in one blow.

There are 17 playable ships available:
-Cronus Battleship
-Peitho
-Hecate Dreadnought
-Athena
-Arcas Carrier

-Hestia Assault Destroyer
-Hestia Alpha
-Enyo Cruiser
-Oenone Laser Destroyer
-Oenone Delta
-Helios Defence Destroyer
-Tmolus
-Moira Torpedo Destroyer
-Moira X

-Proteus Gunship
-Zelus Attack Boat
-Thetis Drone Carrier
-Aedon Gunboat
-Charybdis Monitor

In the campaign and skirmish modes, you will face more than fifty types of enemy craft!

About The Weapons
Each turret is individually articulated and has its own firing arc, range, turning speed and health. Turrets can be individually destroyed in order to de-tooth an enemy. Beams will even rake across the enemy ship's hull, tracing out a trail of destruction.

The Hestia in particular is vulnerable to having it's forward blaster turrets blown off, greatly reducing it's efficiency.

Active defences are also a major part of your tactics in Battleships Forever. Many ships are equipped with interceptor turrets that shoot down incoming projectiles. Maximizing your interceptor coverage to nullify enemy firepower is the key the victory.

Project Status
BETA TESTING/DEVELOPMENT (Tech and Engine)

Title: Battleships Forever
Genre/Category: Tactical Real Time Strategy
File Size: ~7.9mb
Game File-Type: Installer
Change Resolution: Yes(Can be changed in options or with alt-enter)
Full Screen: Yes(Can be changed in options or with alt-enter)
Game Resolution: 1024x768

Recommended System Requirements
Win98 or later
128mb Graphics Card
1gb of RAM
Intel Pentium 3ghz and equivalent

Minimum System Requirements (No surfaces mode)
Win98 or later
128mb Graphics Card
512mb of RAM
Intel Pentium 1.5ghz and equivalent

Other Stuff
Press reviews of Battleships Forever

Code for the Battleships Forever banner:

CODE

[url=http://forums.gamemaker.nl/index.php?showtopic=139677]
[img]http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/6344/bfbanner2vy5.gif[/img][/url]
[url=http://forums.gamemaker.nl/index.php?showtopic=139677][size=1]Battleships Forever: Fully-Featured Tactical Space Real Time Strategy Game[/size][/url]

Custom Ship database: http://www.wyrdysm.com/battleshipsforever/...base/upload.htm
Provides a place for you to upload your ships made in Shipmaker so you can share them with others.

Share ships here.

Battleships Forever Forums

This post has been edited by th15: Feb 12 2009, 02:37 AM

[Tarik]

That was amazing, great work. I'm really exited about this project, if you can keep this up it'll be one heck of a strategy game. It would be sweet if you could build your own ships, and even program them.

Weaker but faster and in larger number fighters programmed to take out certain parts of a ship would just rock. You could also give power to either offensive or defensive parts of the ship and be able to withstand enemy lasers just long enough to take out their turrets. That would be really nice.


Anyway, best of luck with this game. I'm not bothered by the graphics, only stunned by the concept and the way you made it. But it would also be nice if you could have some smaller ships, and maybe even add textures to the ship-parts. I'll be checking this topic frequently in the future!

-Tarik

This post has been edited by Tarik: Jul 14 2005, 08:13 AM

[Osprey]

Just downloaded and i liked it alot! I think it would be better if when you started in the demo the enemy ships were a little further away, but thats a minor detail

The way the ships move is fantastic, though a little frustrating when they don't turn in time i wouldn't want it any different

Love the way you can destroy different sections of the ships.

Fantastic.

Osprey.

[th15]

Thanks for the encouragement guys

Version 0.03 uploaded. Big changes in this version.

I made all the ships smaller so that you can see more on the screen at once. I also shortened the range of weapons somewhat so that you actually have to be on the same screen before you can fire.

Fixed a bunch of small bugs and redid the way collisions were detected too.

The biggest difference in this version is the addition of Interceptor turrets. Interceptors are active defence systems that work by shooting down incoming projectiles. Unfortunately the code for them can be rather heavy. Please post if you're getting sub-par FPS (less than 30) because of those interceptors opening up. They are currently only on your ships. You can see how they work by setting all your other turrets to Hold Fire.

Enjoy

Now a request: Does anyone have any good ideas for special weapons and abilities? I plan to have each ship have two special abilities.

One of the abilities I have planned is a force shield that makes one section on the ship temporarily invulnerable. This would be excellent for frontal assaults or as a response to a surprise attack.

This post has been edited by th15: Jul 14 2005, 02:20 PM

[Osprey]

Now a request: Does anyone have any good ideas for special weapons and abilities? I plan to have each ship have two special abilities.

One of the abilities I have planned is a force shield that makes one section on the ship temporarily invulnerable. This would be excellent for frontal assaults or as a response to a surprise attack.

Laying Mines
Perhaps these could either be invisible, semi visible, or they could be pulsing, as in invlsible for 5 seconds, then a sudden glimse and gone again. Perhaps there could be different tyes of mines, some invisible, some pulsing.

Mine Dececting
When activated you can either see all the mines on screen, or all the mines near the ship, or there could be a "firing cone" ? So the ship can only see any mines directly infront

-Ship Repair
Basically just repairing areas of the ship, most damaged or whatever.

-Rocket Boosters
Temporary Speed increase

-Self Destruct
If your ship was being destroyed you could hit self destruct and as the timer counts down rush towards the enemys ship?


Force Shields sounds great, i'm assuming you've decided it makes only one part of the ship temporarily Invulnerable because otherwise the enemy ship would be kinda stuck once the shields were activated? even if only for a short time. Perhaps it could protect all of the ship except one weak point - Just an idea.

Downloading the new version now. I'll edit more when done.

- Osprey.

EDIT1: Download link doesn't seem to work for me?

EDIT2: Got it now, just slow to respond

EDIT3: Nice, i like the view change, much easier to navigate I did however get an error:



If i clicked ignore maybe 10-15 times it let me continue playing Also something else i like is how you can select different weapons on a ship to attack different targets

- Osprey.

This post has been edited by Osprey: Jul 14 2005, 03:10 PM

[Tarik]

Cool cool, I'm gonna download the new version in a few min.
Really happy about the smaller ships.

::: Suggestions
- Textures on ship parts... Not needed, but it would make the game much better looking. Something for the final game maybe?
- Programming ships. You could program your fighters in a certain way, it really adds to the strategy aspect in this game.
- Being able to give power to certain parts of the ship. For example put 75% of the ship's power in the front shields for a Tanker-Battleship. And have other ships behind that with 75% to their weapons shoot the enemy. The weak ships do alot of damage, and are protected by the strong Tank-Ship. You could also program this.

Note: might be repeating suggestions, but I'll just make a big list in every post
-Tarik *Downloading V0.03*

-------------------------------------------------------
::: Edit

The new version was nice. You could oversee space quite well.

Interceptors, the new weapons are nice. They look good, and work really well. It didn't lag for me, but it might for others. The thing that was bothering me though, was that they are way too good. I recall them cancelling every attempt by the enemy on damaging me apart from the lasers. Maybe you could make them use some kind of energy, and a button. All of your weapons would take energy, and have a button to turn them on or off in the interface. You will be able to get more energy from the sun using solar panels (built-in every ship) but you won't charge as much as your weapons take meaning you can't just hit the weapon-on button and watch the show but you must carefully time it and use your energy right....

This post has been edited by Tarik: Jul 14 2005, 03:49 PM

[th15]

The original plan was to do a very detailed ship sim where you could control every niggling function of the ship and allocate energy as you please.

However, when I actually got down to making the engine I realised that it's hard for players to pick up on things that aren't immediately visible to them. If i hid all sorts of settings and tweaks inside some GUI menu, most players would never even notice them. On top of that, it isn't very fun to spend your time clicking buttons (try playing Nexus: The Jupiter Incident to see what I mean) So I decided to go with the philosophy that everything must be represented. Each weapon is represented, each section is actually there, each turret individually articulated.

I've come to the conclusion that simulating the entire ship from the outside has far more impact than representing stuff with obscure numbers.

That said, one of the ship systems that I plan to add on the bigger ships is a kinda booster module. This booster would be a system that is on the hull of the ship, like a weapon turret but it's purpose is to "buff" up the performance of other systems. It can be linked to a weapon turret of your choice to increase that weapon's firing speed. Other possibilities are repair modules, deflector modules and whatnot.

The objective of all this is to have each ship system as significant as a unit would be in a RTS like Warcraft 3. The analogy I'm going for is that a Pulse Turret is the equivalent of a grunt unit.

Anyways, just a bit more about what I have planned in terms of units. I'm planning to make around 3 player capital ships, 3 frigate-sized ships and maybe 4 types of fighters. Capital ships are the flagships of your fleet and they will carry at least 2 flights of fighters. Frigates like the Hestia in this demo are your bread and butter combat vessels. Fighters will come in squadrons. I'm hoping that the game can handle squadrons of 12 fighters each but if that proves too much for the engine to process then I'll knock it down to 6 fighters per flight.

Special abilities will be an important part of each unit. For example, flights of Bombers will only have a middle-long range gun that does only a little bit more damage than the normal fighter guns. However, the Bomber's firepower comes in the form of a powerful special attack that launches torpedoes at the target.

About that Force Shield special that I mentioned, I want to make it only 1 section to emphasise the uniqueness of the game's section-based damage model. At the same time, making it shield only one section makes it easier for the AI to respond to it.

Regarding the Interceptors, they are -like everything else right now- unbalanced. I deliberately pushed the interceptor's stats off the board so that I could test how much stress the engine can handle. When the engine is fully completed and I beging working on pure game content, be assured that I'll tweak all the values again.

This post has been edited by th15: Jul 14 2005, 04:49 PM

[Qwertyman]

Great so far! New concept ive never seen before. a ship editor would be great!

[Yosh66]

This game was cool other than the diffculty




heres something that i had in one of my space games that a few thought was cool and original (but i stopped on the project so itl be cool to see it implemented into another guys game)

A 'Reflectivity Engine', (Beware of the scientific mumbojumbo ahead):

Since the hulls of ships are made primarily of metals, and metal usually reflects light why not make it like that in ur game, (this is easy for plasma, instant lasers are a different story.)

the code would go a bit like this (this is in 5.3a so u may need to convert it)

in the create event of the projectile add the variable 'hit'.

in the collision event with an eneemy craft just add this lil peice of code.

CODE

hit=random(other.reflect/2)

if(hit <= 1){
direction=direction+150+random(50)
image_single=direction/10
sound_play(//whatever sound u want it to sound like)
}

All of the ships (there parts) need the variable 'reflect' in there create events. the lower the variable to the HIGHER the chance of reflecting the laser will be.

(if u need any help with that just ask)

[gamer101]

I was thinking that this game could be made into more of a action game where the player controls only one ship but to an exqusite amout of detail. To move you would diret power from the weapons to the boosters. Also with the force field generator you could have some sort of moudule that would reqire energy to protect one part.

EDIT: One more idea: a custimisations bay would be a dock like station where the player could custimize and repair there ships during play.

ANOTHER EDIT: Make the core of the ships easier to destroy. BYW you should base a unit's health on the percentige of sections left.

This post has been edited by gamer101: Jul 14 2005, 09:33 PM

[th15]

Deflector modules would essentially bounce projectiles back.

The scale that I'm building for would have the player in command of a capital ship (and its fighters) and one or two frigates in a typical mission. Essentially, 5 units.

*EDIT: Just uploaded a new version, v0.04. Lots of UI and GUI improvements in this version. Do me a favour and try out all of the selection features (control groups, dragbox select etc) and see if you can find any bugs.*

This post has been edited by th15: Jul 15 2005, 04:41 AM

[th15]

Apologies for the double post, but it's been a long time since the last post.

I've just uploaded v0.05. This version adds a whole load of new stuff. There's an entire front menu now. The Hestia has been changed a fair bit to place more weapons on the core of the ship. That way you see less "de-toothed" ships floating about. Weapon and object HP balance has been drastically redone to make for longer, more tactical battles.

This version should give you a better idea of how I intend the game to turn out.

You can test out the combat system by clicking Career>Career (the only lighted one)>Done>Choose Hestia>Done

Comments, ideas and suggestions please.

This post has been edited by th15: Jul 20 2005, 04:47 PM

[ashst0rm]

Nice game tho i think it was a bit hard to get the hang of it.

(ps we miss u on wc lol)

edit btw i had an idea for sumthin like a bigger ship could let out a smaller ship iunno what u call it lol but it sounds cool

This post has been edited by ashst0rm: Jul 25 2005, 12:33 PM

[Thendash]

I wish I could try it but for some reason the mouse object is placed like 2 inches to the left of the real mouse and a bit up too. I can't get to the done buttons 'cause my mouse hits the bottom of my screen and the mouse object isn't on the button. Hope it can be fixed but it seems I'm the only one with this problem.

[3D2DGAMES]

nice work... i give it a 10/10 . keep up the good work

[th15]

thendash: Sounds like your desktop res is too small for the game

I've got a boxful of new features in my current version. I'll post it up when I find a way to compress the music files.

I've added stuff like mouse wheel zooming, a boxful of new ships, better explosion sprites, better AI. The new version also improved the functionality of the main menu and the combat GUI.

I'm currently debating on how to implement small craft like fighters, corvettes and bombers.

My original intention was to make them so small that they'd be very hard to hit but with the sheer amount of crap the current weapons throw out, that's very hard.

I'm leaning towards reducing the arcs and turn rate of most turrets and have small craft be fast enough to get around ships where the ship can't hit them. This would make small crafter good at picking off lone ships without backup but vulnerable in a large firegiht.

If I go with that route, small craft would come in squadrons of about 3 ships and they would be gunboat-sized.

This post has been edited by th15: Jul 26 2005, 02:23 PM

[krstjern]

Darn good game. One prob: After i have been inside the career thingie and battled the first ship for about 5 min, the whole game hangs up, with no reason.

This post has been edited by krstjern: Jul 27 2005, 01:20 PM

[th15]

Any idea what happened at the point it hung?

I've come across a few infinite loops in my own testing, I haven't really been able to nail all of them down.

[krstjern]

I dunno, i was shooting at him, he had lost, about 3 weapons/parts. Everything stopped, bullets was in the air(or space)

[Thendash]

I changed my resolution and it worked thanks. But now the same thing happenes to me. The game just freezes.