finished the bars..

what is the animation speed you gave the brute? i found that it looks best at about 6-7 frames per second.

btw - i think that it takes too long for the info screens to get closed.

Hmmm, well these are too fat and too short to fit all of the icons in a line. I can try to work on lengthening the real estate I need, but the end parts will be warped a bit.

The best pixel size to make things fit are:

build: 150 x 615

research: 840 x 150

Thanks again!

Oh, love the tubes! I'll be back when I get this worked in.

i think it looks good... we need extra opinions though.

after playing again, i notice that the spaces from the bars to the edge of the screen are abit unneccecary. i'll edit the bars and move the text parts to the their other sides...

another thing is that i think the bars are abit darker than what i painted, not that important.

lets try something here: try to erase all the texts from the build and research options, leave just the icons. i believe it will make things look much simple and less clustered. this way you could also avoid some of the icons to overlap the bars. if you agree, tell me what are the pixel dimensions required because of this change.

funny thing is, i wanted to try the laser, but i somehow cant.... i have an american keyboard, yet, the / does nothing..

ill get working on the bars.

done. what should i work on now?

how about introducing another set of aliens with diffrent themes? another purchesable ship?

btw - if anyone is reading this. oh please give us feedback, i think i crossed the point where its hard for me to judge the artwork because i got used to it. so i dont know if it is good, or just looks good to me.

burningpet, I think it looks great! As far as what's next, you can do what you've been doing and work on stuff that you think doesn't fit. I could use a circular Formation Editor screen otherwise it will be a plain blue circle. I like the idea of more fleet and alien variations.

I had the idea today of giving the player a choice of ships on the preferences screen at the start of the game: (1) less nimble & armored style (strafing turned off, 1 extra weapon) or (2) more nimble, less armor. Probably the current ship is type 2. What do you think?

My son, Luke, had the idea of a Wraith alien that would take shots and disappear randomly.

Btw, does the laser not work even after you found the tech for it?

I like it! This is really getting exciting! This guy will have 1 engine to explain the lack of maneuverability.

Starting Health = 200

Cannon and missile launcher?

Btw, its possible to finish the game with Survey and not find the laser. I changed the name of the sector 4 alien to Juggernaut (the png file still says wraith).

did you get my PM?

Oh yeah, cool! Imagine entering a sector and a mob of these come at you with their hybrid technology, fire off a round and then disappear. Then they reappear and take more shots. The laser might be the only way to defeat these guys.

the new ships plays nicely, it really does feel like steering an heavier mean bastard ship around.

got the laser going. well, against the wraith its ok, against the brute its strong, maybe even a little bit too strong, and because you still mainly get attacked by the lower tier ships after you get it, it does make it abit overpowered.

i think that the buildings has too much health. right now, once you build something, you can expect it to last the entire game, even with only one def drone guarding it.

not sure i am keen for the elf barbarian titles.. i think that other sci fi related titles should be considered.

i think that the UI reached a good place, i am thinking maybe adding some more tubes, but this is not necessary. one thing is important though - the info screens once you rollover an icon should have the title of the icon. the description isnt enough to quickly convey a new player what he is hovering.

the secotr map could contain connecting lines, so you could know which sector you can reach from each sector. also, indicate what kind of weapons and upgrades you currently have, could be done by adding really small icons to the center bar around the main ship.

the frame rate drops significally for me once the brutes are introduced. everytime one pops out with addition of regular ships around, no matter the sector, it gets really really slow. if he is byhimself the frame rate stays normal.

i will start working on a third purchasable ship, a tank ship that should withstand a kamikazi attack and live through it. a low damage high health type ship.

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i think its time to think about higher game concepts, things that will keep players coming back to the game, things that will add depth, things that will cause every exprience to be a little diffrent.

on the top of my head - enemy that expands - it build buildings and not just pops out, but moves toward you from its bases through the sectos, therefore making control of certain sectors more important. diffrent tech upgrades that cant overlap thus requiering a choice to be made, something along the lines of - homing missiles, repel shield, "slow" beam, temporal speed boost, braincontrol beam, stun grenades, temporal stealth, stealth detection. do i go the tank build, speed build, damage build, utility build.. things like that.

intorducing other rts features like trade among colonies using automated low health trade vessels that are being targeted first and that without them, the sectors does not deliver the resources, adding to this, maybe make a limit for power plants and miners for each sector, i am thinking that miners could only be built on small sparse astroids floating around the sectors, neutral aliens that can be contacted for tech or even ships, that maybe can give something along the lines of quests - ie - go kill the wraith in sector 4 before it kills his other space station and come back for a tech reward. this can be a great method of delivering a story and pupolating the universe. 

make colonization not a linear path, thus making the metagame more of a risk style game. this will introduce the question of which sector should i proceed too, am i going to go straight for the enemy sectors while he is still abit weak because i really want one of his mineral rich sector, or should i expand away from him and get the chance to get a little stronger first, thus giving the enemy the chance of expanding aswell. can i flank the enemy and damage its income or do i just try to brutally advance through his sectors.. features that will raise strategic questions.