IronDuke's Space Game

-I've improved the lighting, shadows, and extended the camera range by 100 times.
-Created a custom script for localized gravity. (The only gravity Unity has by default affects the whole scene.)
-Orbital mechanics are next on the list!
-I'm also working on a very preliminary cockpit/bridge for the Phoenix.
-I've also been tinkering with concepts and trying to figure out how the heck the mesh of a model can be modified at runtime. I know you can simply set the vertex positions, but I can't figure out which vertices belong to which tris. The tris are just an array of ints... Once I figure it out you'll be able to carve your name on another ship's hull, and if you use a strong enough beam, you can look at the other side and see it backwards 'cause the beam went through...

I just wish I knew of a good way to reduce shadow z-fighting. It's chronic.

Development is not going very quickly, because I'm a crazy multi-tasker, so I've got three other projects in Unity that are seeing the same level of progress. I've also got school, The Expanse book series to work through, Babylon5, and latest, Elite: Dangerous. Just got it Sunday. But, I promise that this game, if any, will reach a playable state. When I look at what I've envisioned for it, I like it way too much to let up.

--IronDuke

IronDuke wrote: ...you'll be able to carve your name on another ship's hull...

This is shaping up to be the best space game of the last decade. Maybe some day, you'll reuse these mechanics to give us an unofficial sequel to I-War 2! I can only hope. Either way, I for one am rooting for you.

Considering the startling activity here over the last week, I though it best to put my oar in as well an give everyone an update.

I mentioned Elite: Dangerous, right? Good. Because I think what we will have to do is assume that the last two months of accumulating 300 hours of E:D was me "gathering ideas," and therefore part of development. :blush:

Seriously though, I have gotten some really good ideas from that game, and even while playing it, have been planning and scheming about things to have in my space game. I have a surprisingly cool plot line for one thing, which also allows for a prequel and a sequel.

About that: I have decided that, to make testing stuff easier, I am going to make a much smaller space game first. I was actually already working on it, and in fact the screenshots are from it. It's working title was "The Flying Bedstead," after a rocket-powered frame used to test VTOL aircraft. It is going to be in the same universe ( prequel in the best sense of the word), the main ship the player flies is the Phoenix (brand new at that time) and I already whipped up a story line. (No, I'm not saying what it is. Rest assured, much fighting against tyranny. )

And I finally thought of an embarrassingly excellent name for the whole shebang.
Prequel: The Interstellar War for Colonial Independence
Main Game: The Galactic War for Colonial Independence
Sequel: The Intergalactic War for Colonial Independence
Figured the "Colonial Independence" part would really be cool, and attract old I-War players. In fact, part of the game lore will be that the wars are called the "Independence Wars." Unofficially, of course. Just soldier nicknames. :whistle:

As regards the damage model, I will not use PhysX Flex in the prequel, since it is not fully developed, but it will be used in the main game if I have to integrate it into Unity myself. What I will use in the prequel is an idea I've been thinking about for over a year.
Accessing the UVs of a mesh, textures can be used for more than color. I was thinking of a grayscale texture, completely invisible, to hold damage data. 255 is top health, 0 is minimum health. This way, the hull can be damaged all over by different amounts. Using the same system, textures could be used to indicate hull thickness, affecting the damage received there, or even hull temperature. If any area of the hull exceed a certain temperature, it could start taking damage there, so you can melt you ship on one side only. This would also make lasers very realistic, since they melt stuff. Another advantage is that you can have localized damage effects. As the damage texture gradually goes from 255 to 0 in one spot, the actual ship color texture/material there can lose shinyness, start to turn black, even be made transparent when health reaches 0 to show a beautiful hole with nice ragged, black edges. Or even make the hull area glow when it's hot.
I don't know for sure if this whole idea can be done, but it seems like it can, and it's on the list for right after flight mechanics are completed.

Unfortunately, with the return of the school year, my time for developing has gone down, and parental control has limited my computer time to two days a week. Plus, E:D has a funny habit of punishing the player for not playing at least once a week, so... The good news is, I finished watching B5, so that's off the table now. Great show though.
I will work on The game as much as I can though. Many's the time I've been sitting, doing school or eating or failing to go to sleep while simultaneously thinking about what my space game will be like finished and moaning to myself, "I want my space game!!!" It's coming... very slowly, but with the inevitability of a [insert inevitable action here].

I'm probably kind of vague on some of the stuff here, so any questions you have, fire at will. I've got a battery of guns to answer with...

--IronDuke

The idea of using textures to store hull values and armor is very interesting, and I think it would work very well. Some of the mechWarrior games have darkened hulls and armour values, but this is for each section, not each pixel of texture.

Yeah, I've got school starting too. However, my third lesson of trigonometry used a 2-d space game as an example of using trigonometry, so that was cool.

A wee update...

For September, I've been working on the Unofficial Unity Community Art Challenge. The them was "The Ship," so naturally I made a spaceship. But I decided to be evil and make one that can also be used in my space game.
Here's a link to the Unity forum thread, with embedded Sketchfab: forum.unity3d.com/threads/unofficial-uni...nge-sep-2015.351437/

This morning I finally stopped doing research (aka Unity manual perusing :blush: ) and started coding on the texture-based damage model. It looks like it can be accomplished, and I've only hit one problem. How do I take a three-dimensional position in the scene and find the closest spot to it on the UV map? I shall find out! NO ONE CAN STOP ME!! :evil:

I'm hoping that by the end of the month I'll have some form of pewpew set up for the game, but I'm not counting on it for several reasons:
1. Elite: Dangerous 1.4 is scheduled for October 6th.
2. My parents take a several day trip next week, and bought quite a few new games, movies, and books to keep myself and my siblings busy so we don't annihilate each other. :whistle:
3. Life.

A little candy for the greedy: I'm thinking I may release a build of the aforementioned pewpew once it's done, just for our loyal I-War2 fans here. It won't be much, but appetizers have a funny habit of making one really REALLY hungry. The basic purpose of the release would be similar to the E: D combat alpha. Testing, testing... is this thing on?

--IronDuke

Perhaps hou could make the textures themselves 3d, the way 3d Perlin noise is used to texture 3d objects? Picture the texture having the same shape as the object, so it can slip right over the model. Implementing this in Unity might be hard, though.