Here is the game I've been working on since the beginning of April: Fangorodrim.zip (13 megs) This is a real-time strategy game inspired by Sins of a Solar Empire. I'm looking for feedback on where to go next with this. All of my original goals have been met. Its difficult to know if the game play is balanced. After 1000 games I have no idea if this is too easy or impossible to win or simply no fun to play. My perspective is shot. Notes: 1. You win by colonizing all of the sectors. 2. Should take about an hour to win.3. Freeware game made using Torque Game Builder4. Looking for feedback and bug reports.5. This is a simplistic game made by 1 programmer and 1 artist.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Fangorodrim.zip (v1.48)
1. The FE has a minor bug where after you use it, all future ships purchased try to hide under the mothership. One trip to the FE corrects that behavior. When all the slots are filled you can stack ships in order to move them around.
2. The EMP is a lot of fun! I don't think its overpowered.
3. The sectors are 30% bigger. I hesitate to make them too big because then its a long trip to engage warp.
Thanks for the link! I'll check out these pictures tomorrow. I don't mind using them as long as they are not copyrighted.
this is great! the EMP has a great effect to it and i too dont think its that too strong, only that the dreadnought got both canon and missile, which does render it abit strong. is it possible to convey a cooldown bar or an icon for it somewhere?
the Formation editor could use an interface icon, no need to search the factory for it. there is this thing where you cant place a ship on a diffrent type existing ship slot, not that important, but having the ships swap when doing so can be nice.
now that the sectors are large, which is great btw, the enemies seem much slower. you can now anticipate them in a much longer due time. this is specially hurting the kamikazi. i think turning their speed up abit could prove usefull.
had this idea - is it doable to make the interface represention of the main ship match the ship's rotation? make it rotate along the real ship?
the Formation editor needs a tooltip and a short explanation. also, maybe a better screen for it.
I haven't played the game (sorry!) But from what I've read, I've got a pretty good idea about the game, and have a suggestion as to how to improve the waiting game, before colonizing new sectors:
Make a probing/exploring mechanic, in which you have to send out probes in order to find resource nodes. You could have the choice to automate them (less reward/greater risk), or to control them yourself. Essentially, my idea would be to send these probes to another sector, steering them around and avoiding hostile detection, whilst stealth mining asteroids, and hiking back with the loot.
This would create a passtime (so to speak) that could fill out (and speed up) the void between colonizing sectors.
Good idea, Aseir. Thanks!
@burningpet: yeah, I forgot about the emp icon. I like the idea for a cooldown bar for it also.
Fangorodrim.zip (v1.49)
I implemented your change requests. The dreadnaut has a lot of weapons, but the Mako's strafing ability is still extremely powerful. You can fly circles around the aliens and never get touched. Anyway, I hope the aliens aren't too fast now. The tank ship (aka "Defiant") is unlocked when you find the laser. This will be tied to the neutral alien in a later version, but I wanted you to get a chance to play with it. The neutral alien and resource zones are not trivial changes. Hopefully, I'll have something by the weekend.
those updates are great. the defiant is good, maybe just alittle too strong as its only 1 damage point below the escort and 250 health points more.
a few things - sometimes, have no idea when or why, the ships formations get scrambeled, meaning, i ordered the defiance to go front and after a few battles it set to the back.
as of now, the ships move along an invisible circle around the ship as i understand, but what happens is that when you move forward, they move in almost as the same line as you. maybe they should move forward as you move forward? this way they could keep their formations intact.
had this idea about a 4th ship type. the repair ship slowly repairs the ships and buildings around it, however, it is very weak and cannot fire.
Great idea! Nothing like awesome art to bring an idea to life. How would you prioritize these goals:
1. resource zones
2. neutral alien
3. repair ship?
I haven't seen the reordering of the formation. Try to reproduce it and pay attention if it comes after loading, warping, or some event like that.
We have some new features:
1. Repair ships
2. Neutral alien encounter (Captain Neutronus!). Watch for him 4 minutes after the game starts.
3. A reason to explore the edges of the sectors
Fangorodrim.zip (v1.52)
Todo:
Ghost AlienTrade ShipsResource zones
uhhhh the repair ship! this is really wasent what i had in mind, but its good non the less, even better.
i thought the repair ship will cruise along with you and slowly repair the ships next to it, like at 2 health per second, but this way its really nice to leave something back "home". will it be possible to make it constantly patrol the buildings and get to hide at sight of an enemy?
as i saw that repair ship that stayed back home, a thought came to my mind, a 5th ship - a sector defence ship that will patrol around and aim to intercept enemy ships in the sector, it will be much weaker than the def drone, but its mobility will make it maybe more plausable if buildings will get spread out.
did you change the defiance? it feels much more balanced - minor glitch - when you hover it, it says repair ship in the title.
about the encounter - it starts really great. the first contact is perfect. but i kinda missed them on sector 4, would have been nice to see a battle between 4 of those against the wraith and its companions and you comes along and save the day.
as for priorities, my personal preference is to finish the peacefull aliens, then get to the invis ships. i am eager to fight against an alien who would do more than just go straight at you and die to my all mighty defiance/cruiser combo.
i also think the formation editor should have a bigger icon, seperate from the build menu.
btw - if you agree on the sector defence ship, heres the painting i just did for it. if you dont like the concept, save the ship, we might find something usefull to do with it.
multiple fail
multifail
multifail - if any mod see this, would appreciate those deleted.
seems like something is buggy here, the last posts i made doesnt show on the forum, i can see them here, just wondering if anyone can also see them. (its a bunch of double posts and the original one featuring feedback and another painting.)
It almost does this now since its always within the building its fixing. When there's nothing to repair it goes into the colony. The building always take damage before the ship within it. But yes, it would be nice if it reacted to the alien presence by going back to the colony despite repairs needed elsewhere.
Agreed!
You didn't miss the sector 4 encounter because there's isn't one yet. I wasn't sure about the best way to handle it. Having a "Frenlees" fleet there is a good start. Should there also be a base? Not in the gravity well, but off to the side and the trigger for success of the mission is when all aliens are wiped out and the base is still intact.
Another awesome ship! If not a sector defense ship then definitely the trade ship. It will not go to waste.
Fangorodrim.zip (v1.54)
-You can now complete the Frenlees mission in sector 4.-Ghost alien (aka Wraith) found in sectors 6 and 9.
With all of these complicated changes, it takes me longer and longer to playtest each version. Several days in fact as I have to test each ship type, before & after save/load, at different phases of the process (e.g. Frenlees mission). I'm not complaining, I'm just trying to explain why these versions are taking longer to publish. I think I need a QA department...
ok, just tested it. this is weird, in the first run, easy mode, there wasent any aliens in sector 4, not enemies nor frenlees.
the second run, there wasent much i could do. i spawned 4 def drones, bombed the shit out of the wraths and shot them rapidly, but still, they managed to kill the frenlees. now, i think its ok to make it abit hard and keep the option of failing, but i was cheating and still managed to fail that.
ghost aliens are god damn annoying, which i love. one minor thing tho, correct me if i am wrong but i think they get themselves to the edges of the screen and stay there while shooting out of your ships range, so its much easier to kill them while zoomed in because the edges come in the ships range. does the cruise ship see them all the time? if it doesnt suppose, then i had a case where they could shoot them while they were invis.
i think that fade out frame when they goes invis could be much better than them just disappearing.
strafing while moving doesnt work.
i almost finished with the end term projects, so i have much more free time now. do you need any graphic?
I'll do some more testing in easy mode and see if I can reproduce your observation. However, you should never see the frenlees on the small map, just not enough sectors to make it work. As far as difficulty, sometimes I lose the mission in sector 4, especially when 2 Juggernauts show up. That's why I always save the game right before a battle like that. The next time, maybe only 1 Juggernaut shows up and all Frenlees survive. Btw, the EMP works great in sector 4!
Your fleet can track the Ghost, but their ammo should never hit him while he's in stealth. Killing the ghost is easy. You lay some bombs in his path and pop, pop he's gone.
Strafing is disabled on the Dreadnaut. Are you sure you were using Mako?
I can't think of any graphics we need now, but I'll let you know.
oh, ok, they didnt show in the small map. btw, if they doesnt show, maybe make the defiant available from start in the small map? oh, they still contacted me in sector 1.
i was using the mako.
I just tested the Mako and strafing seems to work. I can fire all guns, strafe in an arc at the same time. I changed the strafe keys from CTRL to Q/E a few versions ago.
The speed at which you two work is simply amazing
Thanks louist! I give burningpet all the credit because players haven't complained about the graphics for a long time.
The next version will give you Defiant automatically on the small map (great idea!).
thank you louist!
ok, after testing again, heres what i found.
strafing and rotating does work and result in an arc movement. i actually looked at it the wrong way as i tried to move forward and strafe to from a diagonal movement, which fails.
btw, hitting ctrl while rotating will stick the rotation order even long after you left the key. infact, the only way to retain control of the ship is to hit the same direction key again, is that intentional?
i am going to remake a few ships, especially the early enemy ships and maybe even the mako.
the new kamikazi ship
the old one
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