Star Nomad 2, Updated Trailer!

Update 7/9/2015:

It's about 90% done, I've made a trailer here:

Steam Greenlight http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =513945382

If you like it, please help out with a Yes vote. Thank you! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_mrgreen.gif" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">

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Star Nomad II (PC) can be quickly summed up as a Squad-RTS (Real Time Strategy)/RPG (Role Playing Game) Spacesim.

A combination of some of my favourite games & mechanics from FTL (Faster Than Light), Mount & Blade, XCOM, Shadowrun & many Spacesims (Privateer, Escape Velocity, Freelancer) that I grew up with.

At its core, it encompasses several major gameplay elements:

Space Trader: Full dynamic chain of supply, affected by events, piracy etc.

Tactical Squad Combat: Real-time, WSAD + mouse weapons control with pause/command mode.

RPG Progression: NPCs & Player Progression via XP/skill tree as well as ships & modules.

Complex Faction Dynamics: AI dynamically conquer & defend systems. Your actions, big or small, have a major effect.

Mining: Resource gathering to acquire elite ships & modules.

Random Encounter Driven: FTL-esque, everytime you enter a system, there’s a random chance at a branching event based on your decisions!

Dynamic Sandbox: Player can side with a major faction to conquer the Sector or go Rebel-mode & liberate the systems!

Sidequests: Each recruited NPC has a backstory & goals which you can unravel & resolve.

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Dynamic Conquest, where AI Factions lay siege and move fleets against each other:

Epic-Scale Battles:

Unique Faction Fleets & Tech:

More Info My Devblog:

https://halfgeekstudios.wordpress.com/star-nomad-ii/

Mate, this looks incredible so far. I was working on something very similar before my current project and eventually packed it in, but this is streets ahead of what I had. Keep on pushing on and don't worry about biting too much off!

That looks fantastic.

I glanced at the video from oktober too, but this is way way better already.

Nice work so far

And keep on biting I guess, you seem to be able to chew it ;P

lennaert

Thanks. That other video is from Star Nomad. I aimed very low with that one because 1) starting out so wanted to make a simplistic spacesim to learn gamedev & 2) wanted a game that runs smooth on mobiles. I've learnt so much making it though! C2 is a damn amazing piece of engineering marvel, the more you use it, the deeper it gets. Seeing The Next Penelope (@Aurel) inspired me to bite a massive chunk first and learn to chew it later... or aim to the moon, make it or crash & burn trying.

lolpaca

Your dungeon crawl Greed is looking fantastic too!

Just wondering, how will the combat play out? Will the player be able to switch between control of individual ships on their side, or have one ship that they control and the rest are AI?

Just wondering, how will the combat play out? Will the player be able to switch between control of individual ships on their side, or have one ship that they control and the rest are AI?

The plan is to have the player in the main ship (fully customizable) and up to 4 recruitable NPCS (out of a bigger pool) with their own vessels. They have their toggle-able AI modes as well as obeying orders such as "Focus this target" or "Move to/Defend this location" besides the standard "Guard me" default mode.

NPCs differ in their ship, modules as well as a full perk tree which is unlocked via XP. I plan to have them fulfill classic RPG roles, such as Tank, DPS, AoE DPS & Support.

A 5th squad member will also be recruitable, its a retro-fitted mining barge that serves as a resource gathering/production/combat "mothership" which can be upgraded, but is not flexible or potent in combat as the others.

A 6th NPC slot is reserved for temporary hired mercenaries (hired at planets or stations). It could be a big ship, or a squadron of smaller ships.

Vision is normally restricted to the player, but you can deploy recon drones to scout around the system very fast, or change the camera to be the PoV of a targeted NPC ship.

I like squad combat found in games like Fallout, where the NPCs have their own AI (based on their personality & weapon ability), but the player is able to toggle within their range. I prefer to focus on my own ship and you'll have to, due to the WSAD piloting as well as manual aim of turrets (which offers more range than leaving it on auto-AI aiming).

All right! You've really thought everything through I love that sort of squad combat too, and it's a cool idea to do it in this context. I really like the idea of building up a party of ships and tweaking them as you bop around the galaxy, and each ship kind of being a 'character' in its own right too.

Since you asked for cool space weapon suggestions, one idea could be a computer virus that puts an enemy ship under your control for a period of time, and has a chance to spread to other enemy ships within its range. Space-hacks!

..Since you asked for cool space weapon suggestions..

Temporal Displacement Canon: Canon shooting a single shot flash with wormhole properties.

Upon impact, the target is randomly moved out of range.

Magna Canon: Canon firing a pulsating beam.

While the target is being hit, it becomes increasingly magnetic.

Nearby ships will be attracted with a chance of crashing in to the target, your own ships may suffer from this as well.

EMP wave: Conical expanding electric magnetic pulse.

Those hit by the wave will be temporarily disabled, your own ships as well.

The closer you are to the source, the longer the effect lasts.

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> ..Since you asked for cool space weapon suggestions..

>

Temporal Displacement Canon: Canon shooting a single shot flash with wormhole properties.

Upon impact, the target is randomly moved out of range.

Magna Canon: Canon firing a pulsating beam.

While the target is being hit, it becomes increasingly magnetic.

Nearby ships will be attracted with a chance of crashing in to the target, your own ships may suffer from this as well.

EMP wave: Conical expanding electric magnetic pulse.

Those hit by the wave will be temporarily disabled, your own ships as well.

The closer you are to the source, the longer the effect lasts.

I already have the temporal gravity cannon. :p It crushes armor with a side effect of slowing down ships within the AoE.

Magnetic effect sounds like a cool active module.

EMP wave also would be a good active module.

Thanks!

I've got plans to have ships with 1-3 active module slots where they can select from a wide range of abilities, draining energy (shared pool with weapons firing & shields regen) on use.

More screenshots, of two major factions (Empire vs Starborn) in a fleet battle:

In a typical engagements, individual AI have priorities that best suit their weapons or speed/agility, ships with anti-fighter or drone weapons will disperse and chase those targets. Likewise, bigger ships will prioritize engaging other big ships where their guns can penetrate high armor better than smaller weapons.

There's a few different damage types, ie. Energy (bonus vs shields, penalty vs armor), Kinetic (neutral) and Plasma (penalty vs shields, bonus vs armor). Armor has innate Armor Ratings that reduces incoming damage by a flat amount (as in Starcraft), so smaller fast firing weapons barely scratch heavy ship armor.

I plan to have ships leave behind a wreck after destruction, player will able to loot it for cargo, credits or rare modified modules (to reverse engineer for a blueprint to craft).

Also, as any experienced gamer knows in these sort of games, a major balance issue is thus:

One of the problems with smaller ship classes is they fail hard in a blob fest engagement, often instant death due to the mass incoming fire. I’ve balanced this by giving ship classes an innate evasion, with a big bonus for fast Corvettes (smallest pilot-able ships), whilst drones have a very high evasion.

This evasion only triggers against weapons which are not designed to engage these targets, so an all-rounder fleet is required, else a few big ships with massive guns might face a bunch of smaller threats which they a) can't track the fast moving ships as they weave & orbit and b) even when they fire, the target has a high evade chance to take zero damage!

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This is looking really good, a massive improvement on the first game and I loved playing that

Looks great man!

Looks great man!

Thanks, I had a few feedback so far in that line of thought.

The BG and planet sprites are actually place holders. Lots of things need to be improved yet!

I had a friend point out my Beams end abruptly and they were right, so I fixed it with a gradient and it looks heaps better in action.

Lots of progress on the faction AI.

Also made a ship damaged effect system, smoke, fires & sparks.

Time to work on the merchant trading & combat AI!

That looks really good. Reminds me of Homeworld series, which is really nice.

There is one thing that bothers me though. I am not sure why, but some of your background elements have a washed out, grey look to them. Maybe it has to do with the filter that you use or it can be in your source files, but the colors looked washed out to me. If you are going for a nebula look, then I guess it will be better if you add more colors and go for overlay.