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Eta Carinae - Space Combat, Trading and Exploration (If you like WC: Privateer or Escape Velocity)

knightley

Educated
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
104
Hi, Guys. I have always enjoyed criticizing other people's games on codex. Now it is time for me to be on the receiving end of random compulsive bashings and perma-declines. :fight:


So... I have been working on my game, Eta Carinae, for quite some time. It is a space combat/trading/exploration game very much inspired by WC: Privateer, Escape Veloctiy and Sundog: Frozen Legacy.


eta_carinae_01.png



As the captain of a starship you can:
- Explore the galaxy
- Trade commodities for profit
- Complete randomly generated missions, e.g. cargo transport, taxi service, bounty hunting, combat patrol
- Hire and command a small crew (Crew members can be gunners, navigators, mechanics, fighter pilots etc.)
- Customize your starship with different weapons, scanners, reactors, hangar bays etc.
- Take manual control of any weapon you have on your starship


eta_carinae_03.png



I have also added some features I often missed in similar games

- Launchable spacecarft

If you have a crew member who is a skilled pilot and happen to have a spacecraft in the hangar bay, you can launch the spacecraft. It will help defending your starship, either by destroying enemy bombers or blocking enemy bullets, a Win-Win scenario.


eta_carinae_04.png



- Shooting down enemy missiles

Other than basic attributes like damage, fire rate etc., some weapon type do more damage to hull, some only effect shield, some can be fired in the radar screen, some can automatically track target and some are designed to shoot down missiles

I am pretty sure it is possible in the wing commander series and definitely in xwing/tie fighter series. But it is not a regularly used tactic. I enjoyed it a lot, much more than doing defensive counter measures. So I added weapons which specialize in missile/point defense. They don't need to have a high damage value but rather the ability to fire a large amount of bullets very quickly, making an area very hard for missiles to pass through.


eta_carinae_06.png



- Bomber formations

Enemy bombers can attack in different formations. The whole formation will concentrate their fire power on a single part
of your starship and increase the chance to knock that part off line. A heavily armored fighter can cover several smaller bombers which have weaker armor and shield but more powerful weapons until they reach their effective weapon range.
On the other hand, if you manage to identify and destroy the formation leader, the whole formation will fall apart and the surviving members will become disoriented for a while.


eta_carinae_05.png


So basically Eta Carinae is a space themed game with many familiar elements but also some extra features I have always wished for in other similar games.

It is about 85% feature complete. But lots of contents are still missing, graphics, sound, story etc. If you want to see the game in action, here is some gameplay footages, Have fun :D





eta_carinae_07.png



eta_carinae_02.png
 

m_s0

Arcane
Joined
Jun 18, 2009
Messages
1,289
Looks pretty neat so far. Any way to try it out?
 

WhiskeyWolf

RPG Codex Polish Car Thief
Staff Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
14,756
My boner has been roused.

Can you capture beautiful lady pirates and make sweet, sweet (lesbian) love to them?
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
Patron
Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
20,317
Location
DiNMRK
Faces look like something out of a weaboo game. Otherwise it looks 'k. (For a given value of 'k. Getting hold of a graphics/ui designer couldn't hurt. For starters, make the stars not white blobs + gaussian blur).

Getting a definite FTL vibe, which is a good thing.

Will it have multiplayer? Will there be a demo?

I know that GG sees more traffic, but if you're looking for constructive feedback on an in-progress product, you may be better off with a thread in the workshop.
 

Indranys

Savant
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Messages
486
Location
Illepsum
Why did you edit the mobile bullshit mang??
Please tell us it's for the PC too.
And oh daaamn it looks amazing!!

:thumbsup:

I want to play it nao!!

Please don't let it die man, we don't need another vaporware around here.
 

m_s0

Arcane
Joined
Jun 18, 2009
Messages
1,289
Eta Carinae is our upcoming mobile game. It is a space game about trade, exploration, crew/ship management and space combat

:rage:

shit, i didn't notice that.
well, damn, no fun for me either.
Yup, I missed that as well, though it does make sense when I'm looking at the interface now. Doesn't change the way I feel about the project so far, because it looks quite promising, but I won't be playing this anytime in the near future if this is mobile-only.
 

WhiskeyWolf

RPG Codex Polish Car Thief
Staff Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
14,756
Why did you edit the mobile bullshit mang??
Please tell us it's for the PC too.
It's in the youtube description - apparently he somehow forgot to mention it here - so he didn't edit it out from the op, if he did, there would be hell to pay.

Now, will this be for PC, Mr. knightley, or should I appropriately edit the title?
 

knightley

Educated
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
104
Lots of my friends did not realize right away that the trailer is from a mobile version. I think the main reasons are: First the features don't have the casual feel which is so epidemic among mobile games; Second the UI is often hidden when not needed; Third on a fundamental level the game is designed as a PC game and it shows.

- So will there be a PC version

Yes. Actually I have a small feature list which is for desktop version only, here some highlights:


- Moddable Ship Layout

The interior layout of the starship is designed with ascii text (hey, I am old school), so anybody can modify it to change the ships layout. The
game will load it at runtime, generated the rooms, doors, tiles and some pathfind stuff etc.

This feature is already done and in use, but obviously only interesting when the game is on desktop, here is how it looks now:


eta_carinae_08.png



- Direct control of crew members and more control over the starship components

On desktop, it is much more efficient to control and move crew members directly with mouse. And I would love to add more depths to each components.
E.g.:
Reactor: shifting power between shield and energy weapon
Scanner: setting scanning priority, range and accuracy
etc.

I did some prototype, in which I gave each reactor a characteristic line, a correlation between power output and how damaged it is. Some reactors perform great in pristine condition but its power output drops exponentially once damaged; Some reactors have average power output but is less sensitive to minor damages.

I loved it, but thought it too nerdy for others so probably not going to fully implement it, here is a screenshot from that prototype:


eta_carinae_09.png



- Boarding and tactical combat inside the ship

This is the only feature I mentioned so far I have not done any testing.

Imagine an assault transporter filled with pirates, escorted by a bunch of heavily armored gunboats, slowly but relentlessly moving towards your hangar bay. You throw everything you have at it but fail to destroy it. The transporter reaches its destination, successfully breach the hangar bay, alarm starts to sound and then total chaos...

Every time I think about it I get excited. But the problem is that it might add too much dynamic to the game and make the game loose its focus. Maybe beaming instead of transporter as in FTL would be a compromise. Not sure yet. It is definitely major work though.


- Demo?
The game has no demo yet, as I briefly mentioned in my initial post, though most features are in, the content is missing. E.g. I have the starmap editor and star systems done, but no graphics for each star system. I have all weapon and bullet mechanisms in, but not enough weapon images etc. I am talking with some artists and musicians with who I have worked before and some new ones too. All are interested but I still need to pay them upfront, everyone needs to eat I certainly understand and respect that.

Regardless of the money issue, Eta Carinae is no different than any other project, the last 10% is gonna be an endurance round, not necessarily technically challenging, but definitely gonna take some concentrated firepower.

So the plan is show the game to other people to get some feedback, good or bad. Keep working on the game. Do some smaller projects to get some money to pay the others. It is an indie game, so it is a bit more forgiving for me to compromise, within reason, on none essential stuff, maybe low res image for planet view and commodity etc. Have a look at Desura, Indiegogo, GoG or what ever is out there.
 

knightley

Educated
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
104
Ohh forget one. Sorry, no Multiplayer planned. I often do not know what to do with Multiplayer, both as a dev and a player.
 

knightley

Educated
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
104
Obligatory question: Will there be romances?

In an age of suffocating political correctness, I guess I need to ask this. Does the "romances" involve people with opposite sex only?

P.S. Never thought about it. I did play with the idea that certain crew members know each other and work more efficiently together. Enjoyed it very much in Jagged Alliance.
 

knightley

Educated
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
104
A long long time ago, somebody wrote a story with a similar idea: The Ship Who Sang
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Looks smexy. Especially with the PC version and all.
A more in-depth FTL is what I'd totally play and gib monies to.

Just a few questions:
How far are you planning to go with customization - will there be other types o hulls for the main ship?
Will there be an active pause for those who use dexterity as their dump stat?
How deep will the character stats and development be?

Imagine an assault transporter filled with pirates, escorted by a bunch of heavily armored gunboats, slowly but relentlessly moving towards your hangar bay. You throw everything you have at it but fail to destroy it. The transporter reaches its destination, successfully breach the hangar bay, alarm starts to sound and then total chaos...
I think this feature is only worth it if boarding would work both ways, and in such a way that does not detract from the main gameplay.

P.S. Never thought about it. I did play with the idea that certain crew members know each other and work more efficiently together. Enjoyed it very much in Jagged Alliance.
Some sort of banter among the crew would be great indeed. Not deluding myself that you can pull a JA2 here, but every little bit helps.
 

GreyViper

Prophet
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
1,523
Location
Estonia
Combine this with TITS and youl be set for life.
It does look interesting and should offer nice competition to FTL and if you can get Sword of the Stars The pit like planet exploration in, it would be Legendary.

PS. Care only for PC version no interest what so ever in mobile.
 

knightley

Educated
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
104
Just a few questions:
How far are you planning to go with customization - will there be other types o hulls for the main ship?
Will there be an active pause for those who use dexterity as their dump stat?
How deep will the character stats and development be?

- How far are you planning to go with customization - will there be other types o hulls for the main ship?

Yes, different hulls, each with its own unique layout. Each layout has a fixed number of slots(rooms). E.g. 1 slot for Reactor, 1 for primary weapon, 2 for supporting weapon, 3 for auxiliaries. ( Auxiliaries are components like shield booster, extra ammo for kinetics weapons, passenger module etc.)

I am trying to make the ship's configuration very flexible and also naturally fit into the game's mechanism. (no adding complexity in the sake of complexity) I think the game already has enough variables to make everything interesting, so the challenge is rather in keeping things from getting out of hand.

- Will there be an active pause for those who use dexterity as their dump stat?

You mean given command while the game is paused? Sure, assigning the crew to different rooms while the game is paused seems like a logic choice. I don't plan to add anything which needs quick reflex or high dexterity. But the game will be more fun if you enjoy aiming and shooting. Not that you have to, the crews can operate most of the weapons.

- How deep will the character stats and development be?

I want each character to be unique individuals who come with different skill sets and can only be trained till a certain point. It is not possible to turn a crew member who like to use his dexterity as his dump stat into a sleight of hand artist or a reactor engineer into a pilot The crew members will have some basic skills, computing, mechanics, gunnery, pilot etc. These will govern how good they are at certain tasks. And then each of them will have a several unlockable traits. (through training or experience) E.g. trigger happy, sniper, quick reflex, scanner expert etc.

In the NPC department, I am leaning more towards JA/Wizardry than FTL/Star Command.
 

knightley

Educated
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
104
Combine this with TITS and youl be set for life.
It does look interesting and should offer nice competition to FTL and if you can get Sword of the Stars The pit like planet exploration in, it would be Legendary.

PS. Care only for PC version no interest what so ever in mobile.

A mini game with exploration and tactical combat is a bit too much for the initial version. I do have it on my nice to have list though, so I definitely will explore that idea when resources allow it. And other than that, combining two games into one often cause problems for the game as a whole, so we need to be extra cautious.

P.S. Just in case you want to have a look at similar games. Off the top of my head, [Sundog:Frozen Legacy], [Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday], [Whales Voyage] and [Ascii Sector] all offer space combat AND tactical ground combat. With Sundog being the oldest and Ascii Sector the newest. (3 decades of space gaming :yeah:)
 

GreyViper

Prophet
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
1,523
Location
Estonia
knightley Yes Ascii Sector is known to me some other others to, but haven played them.
Good luck and let us know when PC demo is out, will comment then again.
 

Volrath

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 21, 2007
Messages
4,297
Too bad that this will never be released.
 

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