316 replies to this topic

[booyaw007]

nice game! i could lose a couple hours here.

only thing that really killed me was no mouse pan.

[skull13]

Oi. If the ship is only movingfrom one point to another, have it turn, then accelerate, rather than accelerate and turn at the same time. It makes things MUCH easier.

[masterofhisowndomain]

Very decent game and a solid experience. I found it very enjoyable and absent of any bugs or glitches. Glad to see that you made use of my fighter sprite, and I appreciate the credit. If you need any graphics, even if it's just replacing that ore graphic, then I'll be more than happy to help!

[Fiender]

New Demo up today!

the mining ore sprite. Its from a game i havent played in forever... umm... shoot whats it called.. .hold on i have to look it up lol....

Okay its been 5 minutes and I found it... Runescape lol... I swear I even played it to check, that is the sprite from one of their Ores... they are the exact same I love the game though. one glitch I found: if u move ur space station, it makes new buttons to make cargo bays, but the old ones stay there, so i had 4 buttons to make a ship bay Other than that the game is freakin amazing.

I've changes all of the resource Icons,

Another complaint: The research funding can go into the negatives, meaning that you can get 5 money a second if its set to -5. This also lowers the research gauge. This is probably considered an exploit. A final note: After building the ultramassive human ship out of heavy drydock, I had to press the arrow keys multiple times to make the camera go anywhere that mattered. This would not be a problem, but as I said, I have no middle mouse button, so I have to scroll to the target with the arrow keys.

I tried to fix it, it shouldn't happen anymore.

Oi. If the ship is only movingfrom one point to another, have it turn, then accelerate, rather than accelerate and turn at the same time. It makes things MUCH easier.

It works like that because I wanted the motion to be as realistic as possible, make the physics as if the ships were actually in space. I'll admit it is tiresome though, I'll speed up the turning for the next demo.

[skull13]

Much improved. Please remove the middle mouse button requrement. PLEASE! OR ADD AN ALTERNATIVE!

[Fiender]

Just posted a new demo! Check the first post for details.

[dimitri]

Awesome game. Seriously, I haven't had this much fun with a GM game for ages.

Some bad stuff I picked up on:

- Some of the ships don't shoot exactly at their targets - specifically the smaller fighter units - even after a substantial amount of shots have been fired.
- To get a decent economy going, you need a LOT of cargo ships. This causes a considerable amount of lag.
- The AI at the moment isn't really smart.
- Some of the buttons 'overlap' each other. They are also drawn under units sometimes making them hard to see.
- The units' firing range is much too big. Often I had to scroll across the map to see what my units were actually shooting at.
- You can't set a cargo ship to collect ore/humans from a specific planet.
- The bullets look a little bad. Use .PNGs if you don't want to use blending modes to make them look a little more like lasers/bullets.
- There should be a different way to make money other than to spam right click on the 'sell ore for money' icon. Perhaps a seperate slot type for doing so?
- The minimap doesn't show uncolonized planets.
- The bigger units were bumping off of little units.

Some good stuff I picked up on:
- The economy system is a good idea.
- The colonization of planets and 'slots' is also pretty cool.
- The orbitial defenses look awesome.
- The UI while a little buggy, is a great concept.
- The ship sprites look fantastic.
- Lots of pew pew laz0rs.

[Fiender]

Awesome game. Seriously, I haven't had this much fun with a GM game for ages.

Some bad stuff I picked up on:

- Some of the ships don't shoot exactly at their targets - specifically the smaller fighter units - even after a substantial amount of shots have been fired.
- To get a decent economy going, you need a LOT of cargo ships. This causes a considerable amount of lag.
- The AI at the moment isn't really smart.
- Some of the buttons 'overlap' each other. They are also drawn under units sometimes making them hard to see.
- The units' firing range is much too big. Often I had to scroll across the map to see what my units were actually shooting at.
- You can't set a cargo ship to collect ore/humans from a specific planet.
- The bullets look a little bad. Use .PNGs if you don't want to use blending modes to make them look a little more like lasers/bullets.
- There should be a different way to make money other than to spam right click on the 'sell ore for money' icon. Perhaps a seperate slot type for doing so?
- The minimap doesn't show uncolonized planets.
- The bigger units were bumping off of little units.

Some good stuff I picked up on:
- The economy system is a good idea.
- The colonization of planets and 'slots' is also pretty cool.
- The orbitial defenses look awesome.
- The UI while a little buggy, is a great concept.
- The ship sprites look fantastic.
- Lots of pew pew laz0rs.

Thanks for your input. Um, you made a lot of good points, and I'm making changes you suggested, and will be in the next demo like: More efficient cargo ships which you can send to specific planets, Minimap showing planets, Better looking bullets, more direct aiming of weapons, and the moving system's more efficient.

[WillShattuck]

Hi Fiender. Good work so far. I'm going to first list the things I noticed and offer suggestions, and then end with what I liked about the 12-19-08 demo.

Here are some things I noticed in the tutorial:

• Possibly mention in the first page of the tutorial that you use the arrow keys to move around the map.
• tessertrial should be terrestrial
• In the planet tutorial, the NEW SLOT button is actually on the RIGHT SIDE, but the tutorial mentions the left side. The left side is the mining button
• In the cargo runs section the last paragraph says "To send the on Cargo Runs,...". The "the" should probably be "them" if I am reading this correctly
• On the BUILD A CITY section, the Icon to click on doesn't say CITY it says POPULATION CENTER. So, either the tutorial or the icon should change so they are both the same.

Here are the good things I noticed:

• Escape is captured. Thank You!

EDIT: I'm still going through the game. I'll let you know when I have gone through the entire game. --Will

Edited by WillShattuck, 22 December 2008 - 01:11 AM.

[Fiender]

Hi Fiender. Good work so far. I'm going to first list the things I noticed and offer suggestions, and then end with what I liked about the 12-19-08 demo.

Here are some things I noticed in the tutorial:

• Possibly mention in the first page of the tutorial that you use the arrow keys to move around the map.
• tessertrial should be terrestrial
• In the planet tutorial, the NEW SLOT button is actually on the RIGHT SIDE, but the tutorial mentions the left side. The left side is the mining button
• In the cargo runs section the last paragraph says "To send the on Cargo Runs,...". The "the" should probably be "them" if I am reading this correctly
• On the BUILD A CITY section, the Icon to click on doesn't say CITY it says POPULATION CENTER. So, either the tutorial or the icon should change so they are both the same.

Here are the good things I noticed:

• Escape is captured. Thank You!

EDIT: I'm still going through the game. I'll let you know when I have gone through the entire game. --Will

Wow, I never noticed those. Thanks for the help, and don't forget to let me know how you feel with the whole game when your done

[Fiender]

Just added a new demo. The enemies can now build up their forces, and will not wait for you to attack.

[Fiender]

Here are some things that seem like good ideas for the game, but we could use some opinions on them:

"The Alliance" to do list:

*Rotatable View
*Zooming in and out
*Add 'retreat' to the enemy A.I.
*Customizable Starbases
*Single Player Campaign, Multiplayer, and Custom Skirmishes
*RPG leveling-up system
*Explosion Sequences
*Planet Reclamation replacing 'Barren' Worlds system
*Add Planet turrets to enemy A.I.
*Make building Icons not appear, if the player lacks the necessary resources


Neat Ideas:
*Ships requiring Ammo and Fuel
*Adding Ammo and Fuel efficieny slots to research
*Supply-docks that restore Ammo and Fuel
*Ammo as a resource that needs to be bought with either it's own station, through the market, a new thing for planets, or AOTA
*Fuel as a resource that needs to be gathered, bought through the market, a new thing for planets, or AOTA

[skull13]

Isn't there anything you can do about the middle mouse issue? I know its a bit selfish, but really! I can't enjoy the game, fully, unless I get a new mouse!

EDIT: After playing a Human skirmish, I noticed several improvements. The beep was less headache inducing, the menu was fixed, and there was music. The turning issue is fixed, good for you (Note, the last build I played was build 12) There were some flaws

As a human, the game required no margin for error at the start. If you spent too much ore to get the mine, thats it! Its over! HQ should send some ore, as they do money, but only until you have a mine.

Furthermore, the game shifted from very difficult to too easy. The tiny clicking area for attacking stuff is very difficult to work with. On the other hand, if you don't build up a fighting force, you will be killed by only a few fighters. Arm the space station, lightly.

This last one seems inexcusable. After destroying the enemy space station, all enemy cargo ships went to 0,0. This implies that you set all unininitialized variables to zero. Have the enemy station set a global variable to one on creation, and zero right before death. If the variable is zero, tell the enemy not to even bother checking. Setting that checkbox is an accident waiting to happen. Believe me, its a big mistake that causes you to not be able to find your errors.

Other than that, great progress! Keep it up!

Edited by skull13, 02 January 2009 - 11:01 PM.

[skull13]

What the heck happened? Where are more updates? This game is teh uber-awesome!

[cata]

Believe me, its a big mistake that causes you to not be able to find your errors.

That's why the second line in my signature is what it is. Just don't use it.

[Fiender]

I just added the new demo, as well as some links to the older ones so people can check out the progression of the game, and signatures people can use to support the game.

[Kajio]

Since you played my game, I figured I'd return the favor

I only played the skirmish, but I did so for a while there, so I think I played the game for a considerable amount of time.

Pretty good, though it seemed rather slow paced. Increased money flow, but occasional assaults from the enemy would be good. I seemed to spend a lot of time building up money and then waiting for my fleet to be built, then waiting for it to reach the enemy. There was little time that I actually spent in battle.

I would've kept playing, but there didn't seem to be a save feature, and it was getting late. Then, all of a sudden, I see this little red dot wizzing across the map and heading for my base! I thought my light cruiser (which was inbound for the enemy) took care of it, so I watched the cruiser get crushed in its little suicide mission, and then I returned the view to my base. It was destroyed! All my defenses, including 5 interceptors and several planetary defences were destroyed. What did it? A single enemy fighter, which was now stuck in the top-left corner and labeled as a research factory.

That was one weird-ass bug!

Some suggestions for speeding up the fps:

• Make the planet a single object, instead of many for each building slot. I'd use arrays for the variables
• Deactivate enemies that aren't close to any of the player's ships, except for a few key ones
• If you need them to be active, you can try changing them to much simpler objects that don't have AI

Graphic suggestions:

• The fighter and interceptor graphics aren't like the one on the buttons
• The view can be knocked out of the room by the shaking, and when you click on the mini-map
• The menus and backgrounds need sprucing up. Multiple layers for the background would be nice.

Other suggestions:

• I couldn't figure out a way to use the minimap to click where to look, and have units selected at the same time
• WASD key movement would be a nice option
• The tutorial's personality was nice, but it made the tutorial rather long-winded. I personally think it should be stream-lined.

I'll EDIT if I can think of anything else.

Edited by Kajio, 12 January 2009 - 01:22 AM.

[Fiender]

Those are some really good suggestions, Kaijo. I'll see what I can do about the planets but I'm not certain I can pull it off.

[king_of_llamas]

How is this topic not flooded with comments? this game is really good and more people should try it. Probably one of the best gamemaker games around.

[skull13]

Please give an option to turn off middle mouse button controls?

Other than that, great job.