DOS Games Discussion

I'm wondering if another programmer on this board or another is working on a much updated version of the type of game that Solar Winds is. I've played this game years ago and just now again. Love the atmosphere and gameplay.

I am well versed in C++ and am using DevCPP 4.9.9.2. for WinXP. I also know quite a bit about Basic/QBasic programming. I will have to do a refresher on the assembler that I use to know though. Right now I'm also using ALLEGRO gaming library for all the graphics and I/O stuff so I won't need to re-invent the wheel.

If there isnt a known person working on this type of project, I would like to get togeather with other interested people on this board and do a think tank for a game like this.

I would also like to add LAN/IP support for real-time interaction across the world and all that jazz.

So, whats the word??

No takers? No opinions? Don't even know what kind game Solar Winds is?

*sigh*......

I and the rest of the forum don't know what Solar Winds is.
Never heard of it till now.

tinman47 wrote:I and the rest of the forum don't know what Solar Winds is.
Never heard of it till now.

Don't listen to him, he has yet to understand his opinion is not the forum's opinion!

Dunno, I guess it would be a nice idea, however, I for one don't have the time it would take! But if you[and someone else] made it, you'd be a nice guy, in my book!

Hey,Im special too...

Yeah I know I don't represent the forum.

tinman47 wrote:I and the rest of the forum don't know what Solar Winds is.
Never heard of it till now.

Talk for yourself, not for us.

Sorry Joe_Oh, not enough time to engage myself in your project.
Nice idea BTW.

I'm not nessesarily looking for those who will program along with me side-by-side like a huge project collab.

Rather more like a 'think-tank' for a game like this. I'm sure there are people out there who love the type of game that Solar Winds is and will want to contribute an idea or 2 to the project. I'm open to hear all ideas (as long as they are within programming reason) from those who are interested.

Right now, I'm working on designing the GUI in the famous art program The GIMP.
This game needs lots of eye-candy, but not so much that you cant focus on the tasks and action at hand in the game. Definatly want some "Ooooooh" factor though.

I'll post the .jpeg of the GUI when I get it done to a decent amount.

Let the think-tank begin! (I hope)

Falling stuff behind you, just missing you, rocks, meteorites, dogs, cats, trees, household furniture crashing...
Little cracks appearing in the roads in the front of you, breaking the road when you pass over them....

Noise, much noise from those crashing things.....

Nicer music, Aerosmith, KISS, ACDC, Motorhead, Steppenwolf ......

Standing in the middle of the road somewhere my ex-wife, extra bonus when I can smear her allover the road. That may be repeated a lot, of course.

*Edit
Damn, I have a complete other game in my head.
It ain't solar roads but .... Aaaaaargh forgot the name.
Will remember sooner or later, simply ignore this post. LOL.

*Edit²
Skyroads, don't know how I associated that with solar winds.
No, I'm NOT drunk.

Heh, Solar Winds was one of my favorite games as a kid, and I've thought a lot about what it'd look like remade. I'm definately supporting your project here, though I don't have the time/skillz to help you with it. It was an amazing concept, but Solar Winds 2: Universe fell incredibly short.

Sorry I didn't reply earlier, as I said, I'm usually pretty busy. Have you ever played The Ur-Quan Masters before? A bit of the same concept...

I think for now I will focus on the GUI design and the properties of the space ships as follows:

#define LEVEL_ZERO 0
#define TRUE 1
#define FALSE 0

struct Space_Vessel
{
char Name[25],
PilotName[25],

PilotRace[25];

float Sector_PositionX,
Sector_PositionY,
Local_SectorX,
Local_SectorY,
Sublight_Velocity,

FTL_Velocity;

int Spawned, //Spawned = TRUE
Cloak_State,
FTL_State, //FTL_State = LEVEL_ZERO
Missle_Count,
Targeted_Missle_Count,
Laser_Power,

Energy_Stored;

} Space_Vessel[1000];

I'll edit this variable structure as I go along in this post. Until next time-

At one point I was working on a "space adventure" type of game using Game Maker. It was going to be similar to Solar Winds, but with elements of other games like Starflight and Spacewar. I never really got anywhere with it, as my knowledge of Game Maker's code language was sparse at the time. However, I do have pages of ideas. I'd be glad to throw some your way.

Swiftcutter, I'd be glad to hear any ideas you have and change them just enough not to give you credit......J/K

But seriously, if someone like yourself that has attempted to make a similar game I'd definatly like to have some ideas as well as pointers on how to construct certain aspects of the program.

So with that said, whatcha got??

Here's what I have so far as the design for the GUI. I'm also wanting to find artists to come up with 24 or 32-bit images for spaceships. The spaceship size will be about the 50x50 pixel size range.

Let's get this thing rolling!!

What do you think of the current GUI design?

Here's the KEY for what you see on the big viewport:

Orange Object, Star
Teal Object, Planet
Grey Object, Moon
X Object, SpaceCraft
Blue Object, SpaceStation/Observation
White Dot in Center, You (Duh)

of course the Star will be a larger object in the viewport to give a more plausable scale. But of course this game will NOT be ANYWHERE near true scale for obvious reasons. But Still, I like a *bit* more realism when it comes to the things I create.

The rest of the GUI is pretty much self-explanitory and needs much work before I'll be satisfied with the final layout. If anyone has ideas on what should be in the GUI and where, please feel free to help out.



**Image updated July 11, 2007 @ 1:12am
**Image updated July 12, 2007 @ 1:52am ...lookin' good huh?

never heard of the game before but that is one nice gui. That is very good work. I would get rid of the important information at the top as their is one on the bottom. Move the part with the main and tactical to the right and move the guages more to the right and make the screen with the planets wider. Their should be a few pics to choose from for the game and they don't have to be very real and they shouold be put in the avatar box and you should have the option to change your avatatr by clicking on the pic and a list of characters will show up and you just choose the one you want. The problem is i think what i just said would take a long time but it would make fo a much more appealing game.

For this GUI design, the blank area to the right of the tab-able sections will be a quick stats section for energy levels, missle count, and all that jazz.

I also plan to add the following features to this game. BTW this won't be some 500kb .exe using 1mb of space. The requirements wont be too rediculous, along the lines of 64mb of ram at the most. This game will have a LOT of stuff like this:

LAN/IP Support (One game server, many clients/ships).
Tractor beams fro towing other ships and asteroids with valuable minerals.
Mining lasers.
Various sensors to detect different things like ion trails.
chat hubs for trading stats and talking sh1t.
aquiring planets by trade or hosite takeover.

This is all I can think of off the top of my head for now. Until next time-

Would be nice if the mining lasers could also be used to make holes in other ships (when needed).

No fights, no fun.

It's true that you could use mining lasers to damage other space vessels, but the damage would be minimal cause of the laser/tractor beam would vaporize any valuable minerals/material if it were powerfull enough to damage a re-enforced tri-tanium alloy (or whatever fancy strong sounding metal you want) it'll be enough to destroy raw material effortlessly.

Joe_Oh wrote:...
aquiring planets by trade or hostile takeover....

Would be nice if you can leave some auto defense systems on the aquired planets or mining fields.
Of course, you should have to buy them, how more $$$$ how better the defenses you can afford, shields for them, energy reserves etcetera ....
And rent some cargo to transport them...
Of course you must defend your cargo against those nasty space pirates.

Hmmm, maybe I'm getting a bit carried away here, probably played too much WingCommander.

Joe_Oh wrote:...a re-enforced tri-tanium alloy ...

I don't do if less than quad_layer-high_compressed-titanium.
Hey, that's cold vacuum out there mister!

auto defense for planets are not out of the question. And in addition to having cold hard space-cash, many planets will want to trade Gigawatts of power for items and minerals. Esspecially newer colonies with limited power producing infrostructure. Other forms of compensation can be programmed as well. let's not get too corny and have a ship be destroyed and a golden "+32 gold peices" text appears in it's place for a second and fades out. I'd kill myself if I let this game come to that.

Oh yea, just had a thought. You can purchase nanabots (very expensive I'm sure) that can upgrade your hull armor to a better alloy.

Different alloys have different properties, such as better weapons deflection, and sensor dampening features too...

Update: I just now uploaded the updated GUI design image for the game. The picture is located on the first page of this post near the middle of the page.

You like? I *Really* like!