Would like to make an updated Solar Winds type game...

Joe_Oh · Post by **Joe_Oh** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:29 pm

Here's a screen shot link to the game in play. Not much, but it's kinda pretty

Oh, and soon as I have some reliable web space, I'll post the proper link. I'll try to find one asap. It's still a very 'alpha' state type of game, but still playable for just flying around a hard-coded scripted "universe".

Joe-

Post by **Dogbreath** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:27 pm

Have you e-mailed emmzee yet?

Post by **emmzee** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:57 pm

Yea you can email me if you want and I'll be glad to set up an account for you on dosgames.com to host this.

Joe_Oh · Post by **Joe_Oh** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 5:57 pm

http://www.dosgames.com/distantempires/

Look in the root folder for the .zip file named Distant Empires [Alpha].zip

Whatcha think of the celestial objects graphics? I did them myself in Gimp 2.2. I am getting better by the bmp...

Cheers!

Post by **dosraider** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:53 pm

Oh Joe_Oh oh man ..... This ship needs an emergency break system !
A power cut or such ... a space anchor so you can do a violent stop !

Man man, once you're launched and keep hitting the up cursor key ..... the speed kills people you know.
Good thing you can switch the sensor screens, or you would never find the solar system back lolz.

Layout and 'feels' :

Post by **Dogbreath** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:37 pm

dosraider: Just hit spacebar. =P

Joe_Oh: Nice! It has a good "feel" to it as dosraider said, very smooth. Graphics are very appropriate. Do you have a listing for keyboard commands? Dunno if there're features I'm missing or not.

Do you want any help as far as writing/voice acting for game campaigns in the future? I already write 4 or 5 pages a day (journals, short stories, freewriting, ideas, etc.) so it wouldn't be a problem to do plot development. I have a good quality mic/stereo headphone set, as do several other members here, so we could do vocals for you. (Or other sound effects)

Very impressive.

Post by **dosraider** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:39 am

Dogbreath wrote:dosraider: Just hit spacebar. =P

I've found t'll now:

Intel on map: (mapview:1)
Q (or A for you)
S

1-2-3 changing mapview / sensor range

Cursor keys- movement

And euuuurh:
space

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:38 am

Oooh, so nice, ver' good, ver' good!

Just imagine how this baby would feel on a gamepad(if it is based on DirectInput, that is

)!

But since I'm a picky bastard, meh thinks the emergency break shouldn't stop you instantly... this way you might actually hit a runaway ufo!

Post by **dosraider** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:13 am

Emergency break means emergency break. Period.
Haven't you ever watched StarTrek, Larry?

Have to say it really feels good, flew around a bit more, just to ..... now yeah, fly around, not much to do further for now, fly around and feel this game.

It's excellent.

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:08 am

Ok, then I'm sure you won't mind if you won't get to play the beta, seeing how pleased you are with this version, and all...!

And this ain't Star Trek, jacko, it's Distant Empires, lol!

Post by **Dogbreath** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:06 pm

I agree, it's fun just to fly the ship, that's definitely a good thing, since you don't want a game where the most basic task is boring.

Now, add weaponry, enemy ships, nebulae, asteroid fields, planets you can fly into (and orbit), gravity, a ramscoop, a cloaking device, fuel, multiple ships, and hyperspace travel (put a speed cap for crying out loud!), I'll be hooked.

Add communications, quests, a planet lander ability (a la Starflight), mining, trade, upgrades and evil villains, and you'll have yourself a game.

Oh, yeah, time dilation and realistic acceleration. Firstly, the faster any mass travels relative to another mass, the slower the atoms of the first mass will rotate relative to the second mass, therefore making movement slower, or effectively, slowing time. So if you have mass1 (your starship) and mass2 (a star), and you set the star as the control mass, with a relative velocity of 0, then the faster your starship approaches that star, the slower time will pass relative to the star. (And, actually, relative to most of the stars in a galaxy, since they all have the same velocity as they circle the galactic core, more or less)

This means 4 years could pass in "real" time (there's no such thing, but for "real" say "galactic standard" or something), and only 2 days on board the ship, due to the difference in relative velocity if mass1 is traveling at something like 99.994% the speed of light relatively.

Just something to consider if you decide not to cap sub-light travel. (Hyperspace and other such pseudo-science devices completely ignore this)

The second thing is acceleration. In your game, you can keep accelerating at a constant rate. In reality, this couldn't happen. Again, going by the standard of light, if you identify one velocity as being A, the speed of light being C, and a velocity directly in between a and c as being b like such:

a ------------------------------------ b ------------------------------------ c
..................x..................................................4x

Let's say a = 0. Therefore, b = 0.5c. In a vacuum (like space), the amount of effort to go from acceleration b to acceleration c is FOUR TIMES the amount required to go from a to b. In fact, this is applicable no matter what values you use. The amount of effort to go from 99.994c to 99.995c is 4x going from 99.993% c to 99.994% c. This happens because as you gain velocity, you gain mass. Actually, it'd be impossible to reach 1c because you'd obtain infinite mass, and therefore it'd require infinite energy.

All that said, sub light acceleration should either slow down the faster you travel, or it should require more fuel. =P (This is just a game mechanics thing, actually... going insanely fast and not paying any penalty for it is just... off)

Joe_Oh · Post by **Joe_Oh** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:39 pm

Yea, I will put a cap on the speed at a later release, but I figure it'd be a gas to have no limit for this alpha version.

I will have a subspace generator that will allow for the unbalancing of einstien's equation to allow faster travel through space on the same amount of energy used. The idea is to 'thin' out the surrounding space-time so a ship can go faster. it's like moving higher into our atmosphere and then being allowed to go 5-10x the speed of sound with out being ship being torn apart by the stresses at lower altitudes.

All the things such as visible nebula particles, cloaking devies, real-time chat hubs for talking smack to the other players will be worked eventually. Soon I will download Yahoo! instant messenger on the computer I am programming the game to allow for chat with everyone interested in this project.

My YIM nick is CrookedScepter07. Let me know what your YIM nick is so I recognize you to allow the invite. Thanx!

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:44 pm

I'm gociu[los underscores goez here]cristy, hopefully you got my ehm, message

Or you could use a multitude of other messenger systems. Such as the overly worked up msn(which most of the sane people around here use)

edit: even though nowadays you can communicate with MSN contacts using Yahoo! Messenger and vice versa!

Just take a look at the buttons under our posts. They should be self explanatory!

Joe_Oh · Post by **Joe_Oh** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:01 pm

More notes on the game. The current starting speed limit is 10 pixels per main program loop. Fast enough not to get bored to death, not fast enough to get to another star system before several dinners

.

The amount of virtual space I have tested the game to have, (and plenty more space apparently) (from the center mind you) is 10 million pixels up, down, left, right. negitive numbers as well. 10 million pixels from max (+) right, to (-) max left is 25,000 screens at the current resolution of 800x600. That size is 273, 500 inches, 19, 792 feet, 3.748 miles (6.032 km). Up and down that's 2.811 miles (4.524 km) and the total virtual square mileage = 10.54 square miles, or 16.96 sq km.

Anyhoo, would that be enough room people??

I'm not so sure about real-time voice chatting, or using voice acting at
all.maybe streaming a small 25x40 pixel image of someone's webcam (at the chat-hubs only of course. as far as taking it to the level of MMORPG's like online Warcraft, gonna have to think on that one.

Later~

Post by **Dogbreath** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:13 pm

Keep in mind messenger services like MSN have free chat programs attached, and there are plenty of freeware standalone voice programs you could use... I want to hear my enemies scream in frustration as I utterly destroy them with the super nanite virus fired from my cloaked star destroyer.

Post by **dosraider** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:18 pm

One little sideways remark:
Most games that becomes really popular and stay long time high in the rankings have an editor.
It's probably not your first priority, but maybe think about it.
A basic editor, so gamers can create/share their own solar systems ..... civilisations, race, whatnots, eventually.

Just a thought.

Joe_Oh · Post by **Joe_Oh** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:17 pm

Does Dosgames.com Have a chat server on mIRC? if so what server, port, and room name. My install of yahoo isn't working out too well, I'd like to chat to a few folks to keep the momentum going.

Joe-

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 12:59 am

Server? No, but there's a [url=irc://irc.p2p-network.net/DOSgames]channel[/url] on p2p-network.net. You could always create a separate channel, there, or on any other IRC server!

But I never completely understood why some people can't install YIM, which has a painfully easy click-twice-and-wait-for-it install!

Oh, and there's always msn, the multitude of online clients(such as yahoo's online messenger, or that ebuddy crap) or multiprotocol clients, such as gaim, that incorporate yahoo, msn, aim and IRC(as far as I know, that is) in a single program!

Joe_Oh · Post by **Joe_Oh** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 6:52 pm

Ok, I'm gonna be using MSN Instant Messenger as my chat-client. My Email ID is:

quixtar_joe{at goes here}yahoo.com

I'll use this board's personal info to get each persons MSN ID (if you have one.) If you are gonna sign up, just contact me with a simple message like (I'm 'insert name here' from dosgames.com wanting to talk about your game) or something like that.

See ya's

Post by **Larry Laffer** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:43 am

Erm, I wasn't aware you could log into MSNM with a Yahoo! account! Oh well, as long as it works for ya!

Oh, and yea, I've edited your email address, I doubt you'd enjoy it being collected by some spam bot or anything