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Main News about StarLife

KickAss

Augur
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Jul 23, 2009
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rpgcodex.net
why is it so silent here?
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
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Brazil
We finished our first economic model for the game on paper, with all the rules, I'm translating it to english and also implementing it on the prototype.
I will see if I can post it here when I finish translating.

Until we launch the KS campaign we will be on slow mode since we have to do it on our spare time and we decided that we can't run a KS campaign without a pretty solid prototype, so yeah..
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
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Thanks.
I had some improvements on compiling the prototype on os x as well as linux and got some strange news regarding windows.

On windows I can offer 32 and 64 bits build, but 64 is kind of difficult still as Digia and Qt-Project only offer official 32 bits builds and building Qt can get quite complex if you want to maintain all those little plugins it currently has. So for windows 32 bits builds are in for sure and maybe 64 builds in the future.
Still on windows I can choose to build using mingw with opengl or with msvc2010 or msvc2012 using angle (directx).
So for Windows XP only the mingw with opengl works (angle doesn't like xp). The problem is that Qt uses at least opengl es 2.0 with is a problem for opengl 1.0 drivers which is what exists on most XP, so I have been looking into how to use llvmpipe (raster renderer) from mesa to use opengl on the cpu rather than on the gpu.
So with this we will be able to offer Raster, OpenGL and DirectX builds for windows.

On Linux I can build it on 32 or 64 bits, put into a deb or rpm package and it will use OpenGL, linux have mesa natively so they can use the raster renderer if they want but I don't know exactly how or if I need to provide the llvmpipe like the windows build. I will probably build StarLife on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Steam OS. If you guys have suggestions about it let me know.

On OS X I can build only on 64 bits, I would have to compile Qt if I wanted a 32 bits build which I did for testing the other day but I don't know if it will be necessary.
I wanted to target OS X 10.5.8 but then I discovered that Qt 5 only works on 10.6 onwards, I would have to use Qt 4.8.5 which means QtQuick 1 instead of QtQuick 2.
PPC builds are also out of question as they end on Tiger (10.4) I think.
(I do have a Intel Tiger DVD which I tried to install back on my old macbook which was running 10.6, but I think it died on me)

I'm still thinking about going back to Qt 4.8.5 too, maybe after the prototype is finished I could try to maintain both builds (5 and 4) since the source code will be available for free as LGPL. People then could build it for PPC, 32, 64 or however they wanted.

The good part of all this experimentation is that I found this: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks...-pro-ultimate-sony-vpc-se-customac-build.html
And now I have been using Mavericks as my main os and I installed XP using Parallels and the coherence mode is quite good.
So I'm almost finished with the process of providing an working environment which I can produce a Windows/Linux/OS X installer at the same time.

EDIT: About the link above, I have a Brazilian version of the notebook shown there, it's almost the same configuration so I was able to follow the guide and have everything working except for bluetooth and the VGA connector.
I got this notebook for a third of it's price because the screen turns green from time to time (black becomes green) which is probably a motherboard issue since the guy who sold it to me already tried fixing it which probably resumed to change the lcd screen. When I use an external monitor the green also doesn't appear.
Sorry this is so off topic. :oops:
 
Last edited:

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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Terra da Garoa
Is the game so resource intensive to justify a 64 bits build?

Also, if you need help with anything on the KS campaign, just ask. :)
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
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Brazil
A game like this can get very resource hungry if you go from 100 stars to 10.000 or even 1.000.000, not that I might require this much on the base game but since the game can be modded, I'm sure people would hit the 32 memory limit on windows very quickly.

Compiling for 64 bits is becoming easier as well since the folks at digia and qt-project are planning on supporting official 64 builds on windows on Qt 5.3.


Thanks felipe! I'm pretty sure I will end up annoying you to help me when I get to the video again =D
 

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Remember the application limit for 32bits is only 2gb in most cases.
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
2,056
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Brazil
We have commissioned a new combat screen and new ships.

Commissioned Combat Screen:
InterfaceB.png

Modified Combat Screen to fit the game theme:
InterfaceC.png

New Ships (Color altered from original):
ModifiedShips.png

New ships 2X:
ModifiedShips2X.png
 
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tiagocc0

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ops, that must be because of cloudfare, I changed to the real address now, does it work?
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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ops, that must be because of cloudfare, I changed to the real address now, does it work?
It works, but I just notices that now no other screenshot you posted on the thread works anymore...

Also, I like the ships, but the combat screen is weird... I'm not really understanding it.
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
Messages
2,056
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Brazil
Dang, I will deactivate cloudfare.

The combat screen is still mostly the same as before.
The upper left corner shows the captain of a ship, if present.
The upper right corner shows an ordered list of ships, the leftmost ship is the current ship, the one to the left is going to act on the next turn and so on.
On the middle left side you can see the current ship modules.
The bottom left corner shows the current commands as move, info, run, attack, then health and armor/shield and the last button is end turn.
The bottom right corner shows the log.
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
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Brazil
Nice =D
I'm finishing up the start screen of the game, it's our first organised sprint so far.
We are already planning the next sprint, each should take 2-3 weeks.
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
2,056
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Brazil
Redid the website for an upcoming version of StarLife:
purpleorangegames.com

I hope this one looks better, I really enjoyed making it, I will update the news more often as well.
If I find the time I will try to keep a developer diary too.
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
Messages
2,056
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Brazil
Yes, from the rules perspective for now.

If you look at the screenshots the new version will look like it has less things going on, but that's because most of the previous version screenshots were mockup screens that I did directly in the code.
With a bit more time we will be able to add all the stuff that we wanted to show at first.
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
Messages
2,056
Location
Brazil
Just to let you guys know that we are still working on StarField, here are some screenshots, I finished a lot of fleet movement code which was kind of problematic. Had lots of memory errors with it because of some joining and separating fleets as well as how to update in screen objects given the custom render code that I made for qml.

One the major issues is that fleets could only move to stars but one of the design choices Diego made for StarField is that it should be allowed to move a fleet anywhere.
What I made for now is dividing the map into squares (different from StarLife where stars are inside polygonal regions) so while you can move fleets outside stars you are limited to the grid.

I plan on developing several graphical options for the player, later I could set one graphical mode for each race or a group of races while still having the option to change it while playing.

StarField_16_03_2015_1.png

StarField_16_03_2015_2.png

StarField_16_03_2015_3.png

StarField_16_03_2015_4.png
 

tiagocc0

Arcane
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Jun 29, 2007
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Brazil
Thiago, can you detect fleets and ships outside star systems? I think it would be a nice touch of realism if one could hide ships one or two light-years from a star system. That is, until FTL sensors are developed. A possible counter would be setting up ship patrols to these areas, but that would depend on your FTL method. Also, how much real-time every turn is? Because say, if one turn = 1 year, or six months or something, it also creates a possible and realistic nerf to this tactic (can't hide forever).

(I think that the light arrives to your planet, then you should be able to know a fleet was there, even if it vanished beore, due to all the IR emissions of engines, machines, etc standing out on the void)

Thiago, can you do KS? I thought KS could only be done if one is American or Canadian. I may be out of date.

For StarLife and StarField, out of radar ships and unknown information exists and plays a big role.
In StarLife for example the place where you put your ships like colonies and outposts will generate an area where they may pick up incoming ships or ships stationed in nearby colonies and outposts from other players.
Since in StarLife you need to make an attack plan to attack means that the size of your fleet, it's engines, stealth tech and also other factors will count towards if you will be able to sneak up and attack or if the other player will be able to detect your attack and choose to retreat, reinforce or just wait for it.
Then come spies which may discover attack plans and show incoming enemy fleets even if you didn't detect then.
An attack plan consists of three phases: grouping your fleet, moving to attack and returning to a previously selected colony (or go back to their initial position).
So in the second phase which is moving to attack it may like say it will take 5 turns, so there is 5 turns in which your fleet can be detected by other ships/colonies/outposts/spies.

Initially I just want to call it a turn because giving it a time scale may feel out of place in several situations, like if it means a year, 5 turns to attack could mean 5 years for your ships to get there, even if we scale it to a day then things that could happen on one turn like making a building would also feel unrealistic.

If I did KS right now I would have to rely on people outside Brazil to receive the money. They accept payments in Australia as well and my plan was to do it there when it happens.
 

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