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Startropy - A Space Faring Sci-Fi Adventure/RPG

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,941
Giving me both Star Flight vibes as well as ones from TNG Echoes from the Past.
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Not without a death certificate of the developper in that case.
Nah I'm still alive.

With the steam stuff out of the way I've been mostly working on rewriting the code so it's less bug-prone and modular.

In slightly sexier news I've been working on a system to make reasonably accurate star systems to populate the main game. It's a bit more techy than what SC2 did I believe, but hopefully if there are any astronomy nuts that play the game they may appreciate it.

I've been slacking off on the news update and maybe producing a YT vid was something I've been thinking about. I'm sure peeps will love to hear about stuff like design philosophies, why I chose this or that in my game when game X was so much better, though I think there's only so much of that stuff to fill, especially when some of the design aspects of the game are still subject to change. Or do you think you'll still be interested in the more mundane stuff, like "month 12, let me tell you how I spent 3 days fixing on a bug, which may or may not be fixed. Also, I just decided 800x600 sux so will be redoing art in all game to be 1280x300 for maximum cinematic experience."

Anyway I'm glad to hear you are still enjoying the demo CryptRat ! It means a lot to me. :)

While people are still snooping on this thread, what do you guys think about the graphic adventure aspects, where you are able to control the captain moving about the ship and on planets? It was something I thought would be neat, especially the zero g stuff since I feel it's a bit of a copout when space games implement ST style artificial gravity when you don't have the restrictions of being a TV show. On the other hand I've recently played Realms of Arkania 1 which describes most of these kind of actions via a CYOA format like how the away team stuff is handled in my game, and it seemed nice and cosy. Let me know if you guys feel the graphic adventure style really adds to the atmosphere, or if you're okay if the game went full CYOA for these type of scenes.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Don't worry, knowing that you are not dead and neither is the game is all I need to know, there's nothing wrong with using your time allocated to the game actually working on the game instead of communicating.

To answer your question, in my own opinion the best part of the demo is the last puzzle to save the alien, it uses the mechanisms of the game and you still kinda have to think around the corners. Presenting situations which are not more than a couple of dialogs through CYOA is fine I guess, but as soon as it's getting elaborate I think it's better to generally let the player be able to freely use items and skills one way of another instead of directly choosing from a given list of choice.
 

Iznaliu

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 28, 2016
Messages
3,686
there's nothing wrong with using your time allocated to the game actually working on the game instead of communicating.

The issue with that is that communication leads to increased sales, otherwise nobody knows your game exists.
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Don't worry, knowing that you are not dead and neither is the game is all I need to know, there's nothing wrong with using your time allocated to the game actually working on the game instead of communicating.

To answer your question, in my own opinion the best part of the demo is the last puzzle to save the alien, it uses the mechanisms of the game and you still kinda have to think around the corners. Presenting situations which are not more than a couple of dialogs through CYOA is fine I guess, but as soon as it's getting elaborate I think it's better to generally let the player be able to freely use items and skills one way of another instead of directly choosing from a given list of choice.
Noted thanks.

there's nothing wrong with using your time allocated to the game actually working on the game instead of communicating.

The issue with that is that communication leads to increased sales, otherwise nobody knows your game exists.
Oh, I'm aware. I'll think I'll post progress updates when I've got more tangible stuff to show. For example the last post I mentioned I was talking about the star system generation stuff when it came to producing the game's star map. So that could be the first topic I will elaborate more on when I have sizable star map created.
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
As mentioned last time, I'm gonna start posting about what I've been doing in designing the game's star map.

Initially the idea was to base the map on an actual face-on map reproduction of the Milky Way. The game's premise will have mankind moving on from the sector of space that contains our solar system, further outwards on our local arm.

Researching into the matter, I found out that nobody has an accurate idea what our galaxy really looks like, and that reproductions using the best estimates creates an almost scattershot map, where stars are either evenly spaced out across large distances, or many are packed in as clusters.

After some internal debate and looking into how other games and properties have approached map creation, I've decided on creating a starmap similar in style to SC2, which sets star systems out in constellation style groupings. SC2 smartly got around this by calling it a “hyperspace” map and therefore not subject to how stars would be set if we got a tape measure out.

Grouping them as constellations is great from a game perspective, as you get that feeling of risking an unknown voyage across large distances of empty void so you can go explore that “island chain” of stars, and the groupings are more human friendly for our brains.

So that's the plan for Startropy, and the authenticity of the star arrangements is getting hand-waved away as it being a new and uncharted sector of space.

The other hefty task was in the system of generating the planets that would orbit a star. The star systems are randomly pre-generated and I then go in to hand tweak some variables if needed to provide a better play experience, though not much tweaking is really needed so far as the system has created some pretty interesting arrangements (plenty of relatively pleasant planets that players can explore, as well as resource rich hell-worlds that players will be praying to the RNG-gods for protection if they dare risk it). For plot planets like the ones used in the demo, those are crafted by hand and then placed in a system where it makes sense.

There's fair bit of number crunching behind the scenes to determine what planet types or other objects are likely to appear given various factors within the star system (though not quite as hardcore as what the Starflight programmers created). These variables then get simplified to more game-relevant details which are presented to the player:

Typical planet report (gameplay effects are subject to change):
- Average temperature: Frozen worlds may add a fuel tax to keep the away team alive. Hell worlds are suicidal without special gear and only somewhat suicidal with it.
- Volcanic activity: The higher the level, the more resource rich the planet is but also more dangerous.
- Tectonic activity: Higher it is the more dangerous.
- Atmosphere: Toxic atmospheres will increase the likelihood of the away team dying if injured (to simulate their environment suits getting breached).
-Gravity: Affects fuel consumption.
- Resource value: The main reason for your expeditions! Precious metals, radioactives, etc are abstracted into resource units which acts as a universal currency amongst the races.

Life on other planets:
There will also be other details which may or may not be explicitly outlined in the report like alien life. You stand a good chance of finding life on a garden world (though garden worlds are uncommon) but you may find it in other exotic locations too.

This post ended up being a bit longer than I thought it would, though I hope you found it interesting!
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Update: Been working on the structure of the main quest and various sidequests. I'm pretty happy with the plan laid out for the main quest, and think I would like to make a separate post about quest structures after playing around with it some more and can talk about some various and definite examples. For now I'll say that the main quest is left open in that you must collect X amount of macguffins through various means available to you (mine, trade, plunder, etc) which will be the hook for you to meet the various races in the game and engage in the sidequests.

Instead this will be a lore update on some of the races you'll meet in Startropy. So far I've written out 9 races you'll meet in the game, and various interactions and quests involved with them. At the moment I'm thinking of rounding it up to about 12 different races/factions when I'm done.

Race: Glutonians
A savage race that fanatically worship a chaos god of gluttony and excess. This race is a relative newcomer to the space-age, when an unfortunate scouting ship crash landed on their homeplanet. Perceived as a divine miracle when the race was close to extinction from famine, the Glutonians devoured the ship's crew before slowly exploring the rest of the ship, catapulting this once primitive race to an advance one in an incredibly short amount of time.

The Glutonians are mostly an unknown to the other advance races, but they know enough to avoid their region of space as ships passing through have a tendency of never returning. Unfortunately for Humans, nobody gave them the memo. Mankind has taken up residence in what seemed like a cozy and undisturbed sector of space, in close vicinity to them.

Race: Tradashi
Most humans agree that this somewhat shadey race bears an uncanny resemblance to the raccoon in old Earth records. They are one of the most prolific races due to their natural affinity for trade, get rich quick schemes, and scavenging junk (anything that isn't bolted down and guarded by kill-drones is considered “junk” to the Tradashi).

With that said, the Tradashi are a good source of information for the location of any sites rich in resources or salvage, or information on any of the other space-faring races they have had dealings with. You can always count on a Tradashi when you need to trade for goods on your journey. Just be sure to check the quality, and the legality too if you care for that sort of thing.
 

Iznaliu

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 28, 2016
Messages
3,686
Race: Glutonians
A savage race that fanatically worship a chaos god of gluttony and excess. This race is a relative newcomer to the space-age, when an unfortunate scouting ship crash landed on their homeplanet. Perceived as a divine miracle when the race was close to extinction from famine, the Glutonians devoured the ship's crew before slowly exploring the rest of the ship, catapulting this once primitive race to an advance one in an incredibly short amount of time.

This seems like a very interesting and delicious idea.
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Hey all, an update on the game:

Been working on rewriting the code and fine tuning some of the mechanics for the game's starmap, away team, and space combat systems.

The starmap work was basically to try and ensure I can support the number of star systems I want for the game, and UI stuff to support visiting a planet's moon(s).

Related to that was some rework on the away team mechanics. I'm planning to add a bunch of scenarios you may randomly encounter when you away team explores to break up the monotony of players harvesting every planet they come across. They're CYOA style, where you'll be presented with situations with multiple choice, and your success is decided with a roll against your team's stats.

Also, I'm planning to remove the injury timer that was in the demo: You'll basically just have to roll once to see how unscathed your team is during a bad situation, with an extra save chance when you bring along a medic.

The final and big update is space combat: I took the opportunity during the code rewrite to play around and redesign the combat to be turn based(!)

If you played the demo you'd have seen that space combat was originally real time, but slowed down a bit to allow some deliberate, but pressured decision making, as part of my goal to recreate battleship style scenes in sci-fi.

I've had some posters like epeli ask me why not just make it TB then, which was a fair point. It also felt slightly strange that space combat is RT while the away team stuff which also has combat was TB. So I played around with trying to reproduce my above goal, and to preserve the spirit of the advantage system which I quite like, into a TB format.

So this is how spacecombat currently works in Startropy:
  • Participants regenerate energy at the end of every turn. Most ships will not be able regenerate enough energy to attack on every turn, but I am considering to allow players to be able to build their ship to do that at the expense of other stats.
  • Previously, the advantage mechanic was a resource that quickly reset itself to equilibrium in RT. It gave you advantages to hit and increased your crit chance, and you got it for doing “good things” (hitting the enemy, dodging an attack, etc.) and lost it for doing the opposite.
  • In TB, it will now slowly move towards equilibrium at the end of the turn. In the old RT version advantage gave you a flat bonus to hit and to crit, with the benefit of having a larger advantage was just the increased time you spent in the state. In TB you will gain escalating to-hit/crit bonuses or penalties depending on the size of the advantage, until you hit a cap.
  • A new ability called Manoeuvre has been added to shake up the TB combat. This is a low cost option to gain 1 point of advantage.

Right now, space combat feels similar to a tug-of-war, where both sides are splitting their choices between blasting each other, or gaining more advantage so they can more efficiently blast each other. The fights are interesting, and I think I have retained the tense deliberation I wanted players to have. More work needs to be done to balance it, but overall I'm very pleased with how it has turned out.

I'm gonna be away from my computer for a few weeks, so expect my next update maybe late Dec/Jan. :)
 
Last edited:

Iznaliu

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 28, 2016
Messages
3,686
Also, I'm planning to remove the injury timer that was in the demo: You'll basically just have to roll once to see how unscathed your team is during a bad situation, with an extra save chance when you bring along a medic.

I'm interested to know why you decided to do it.
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Also, I'm planning to remove the injury timer that was in the demo: You'll basically just have to roll once to see how unscathed your team is during a bad situation, with an extra save chance when you bring along a medic.

I'm interested to know why you decided to do it.
Hey, sorry for the super late response:

Basically there are some planets that say are of the tiny category where you won't spend a whole lot of turns exploring. For those, having injuries on a countdown seemed non-threatening as players may just rush there way to the end without worrying about injured crew.

That, and overall I felt the countdown over-complicated this sub-system without adding too much, and didn't make much sense given how abstract time was in the away team system (a turn could be anything from exploring a section of the planet surface which could be hours, or a dungeon space and combat which could be seconds).
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Hey all, hope everyone had a pleasant time over the holidays.

An update of what's been happening on Startropy:

Away Team changes:

  • Technicians have been renamed to scientists, they still serve the same purpose as before but the term is probably better for the wider range of skills they cover.
  • Added different scenarios when an earthquake occurs. Previously, triggering an earthquake would just directly harm your away team. It was a bit vague why they were getting injured during the earthquake before, but since SC2 did it similarly I hand-waved back in the demo build. Now an earthquake will produce various dilemmas that depending on your team's skills (and some luck), you may escape with zero or minimal loss. Some examples:
    • Earthquake causes a nearby landslide, you need to make a roll using the combined skills of your explorers to avoid being crushed.
    • Your vehicle gets damaged during the quake. Make a roll using your scientists' skills to see how long it will take to repair it.
  • The chance of an earthquake occurring is tied to the planet's tectonic activity score.
  • Volcanic disasters will work similar to earthquakes, but these are tied to the planet's volcanic activity score.
  • Also since I already go to the trouble of noting how much of a planet's surface is covered in liquids, I've added a feature so that there's a chance for an earthquake to trigger a tsunami, with the chance of encountering a tsunami being greater the more the planet's surface is liquid.
  • There is a small chance whenever you explore a planet that you will trigger a special encounter. These range from anything like trying to survive a passing storm, to stumbling on an alien artefact.
  • TLDR: Hope you guys brought a medic on the team.

Speaking of medics, their function has been reworked:
  • The injury timer mechanic from the demo build is gone. Injured crewman will no longer slowly “bleed” to death until they get back to the ship. Instead they will either be injured (alive, but cannot aid in any tasks until they receive proper treatment back at the ship) or simply drop dead.
  • The reason why the timer mechanic was dropped was that it was kind of messy in practice, and I felt the timer provided limited urgency when it will be possible to explore tiny-sized planets in a few turns.
  • On the plus side medics have now been made to be a more useful part of the team composition: Whenever a team member receives damage, they will automatically treat them on the same turn. If successful they can revert an injury to a fully functional crewmember, or prevent someone from being killed on the spot.
Scientists will now provide a bonus to the loot you collect when gathering resources or collecting scientific data.

Explorers will now improve your odds of your team running away from an encounter (if the lifeform is inclined to give chase).

Security can now also defend the party from the attacks of hostile lifeforms. Allowing you to avoid damage altogether.

The "stun" setting on your away team's weapons have mysteriously disappeared into the ether. If you feel inclined to play pacifist, you will now have to try and run away from any hostiles instead (the reason why this was removed, was that the whole thing seemed a bit *too* Star Trek, and I want pacifist gameplay to feel different and less straight-forward than the plain shooty option).

Added a Science Scan option for the away team. This will allow you to collect scientific data (which can be used as a form of currency) when scanning native lifeforms or anything else that's applicable. You also gain additional data when you defeat a lifeform. So for those that want to maximise profit, you will want to scan first (while being attacked if the creature is hostile) before taking down any lifeforms.

The party order of the away team is set so that the “hardier” crewman will automatically take damage before the more vulnerable members. The order goes security > explorers > scientists > medics.

The idea of the away team re-balancing was to give players the option to arrange the team to however they feel will maximise their chances for a particular expedition, given the known variables of the trip, but also give the sense that every class can meaningfully contribute in some way, especially when you never completely know what they may come across. Having security is a no-brainer when you are expecting a fight, but they will also sacrifice themselves to protect others during non-combat disasters too. Explorers will provide the biggest benefit navigating hostile environments, but they can also help you to avoid combat situations. Scientists will maximise your loot-gain, and their skills will frequently get brought up when your team faces a situation that requires technical expertise. Medics give you a second chance where your explorers and security fail you, and their medical knowledge may be called upon on occasion.

So that's it for this update. The away team was the last big overhaul I wanted to do on the game system. I'll be having a think on what's next to work on.
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Hey everyone,

Just finished adding all the stats for the game's star systems last night. This update took a fair bit longer than I anticipated, as I went about generating these details via random values and then prodding some aspects by hand, and I also wanted to expand upon the astronomical features player can find which took some time to implement.

So right now there are 83 explorable star systems in the game with features like resource-rich asteroid belts (already seen in the demo) plus the addition of giant stars, white drawfs, binary, and trinary star systems.
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Hey guys,

Been working on quest ideas and fleshing out the aliens since the last update. On the side I've also been making some reusable sprites to build the star systems with.

As an example, I've created the player's home system from a set of planets and asteroid tiles:

star-bg-2.png
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Game looks really good. When it's finished, please consider selling it on GOG.
We desperately need more "Star-Treky" RPGs.
Thanks karnak. GoG distribution is something I'd be interested in. I'd like to do a submission when the game is closer to release and see what they say, but I am happy to say I have the okay from Steam.

Bookmarked Planet's Edge too, I'm always intrigued in seeing how similar games handle the genre. :)
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Hey, I'm just done with the artwork for the game's starmap. Went through a few different styles before finally this one, lemme know if you guys approve.

starmap.png
 

Startropy

Startropy Games
Developer
Joined
May 19, 2017
Messages
33
Here's the second alien done. Started to add idle animations to the portraits now, I'll come back to the first alien to add some there too. This creature is from a certain race of gluttony worshippers I posted a while back.

Alien-2.gif


HD variant:
Alien-2-HD.gif
 

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