Space Engineers

[masterofra]

And finally version 3.7 is out.

changelog

- hull intact bug finally fixed
- selection redirect
- loading fixed
- asteroid collision. Use -ph for physics test menu

yes, Yes, YES!!!!!!!!

 

[M0RT]

I just found critical bug, missiles won't hit the ship anymore for some reason. Will fix as soon as possible (lasers are still useable though)
EDIT: stupid mistake, In the euphoria when I figured out how to get locust to work after show/hide, I added it to missiles, which then won't be picked in (Units in range).

 

[masterofra]

I would request that you remove my flagship, because It isnt realy that good, and add these two,

Death Satellite (80)

k+_ug(+Ip.JDJ)AYeoIkdX(y)+Ip.J/npu

Small Death Satellite (39)

k+_/+IdthqdrIbJdIb_PR)A

EDIT:

I have discovered that any ship with red lasers in it, (and perhaps other devices) will not save correctly, resulting in a corrupted save code
That means that the size 80 ship will not work

 

[M0RT]

Hmm, maybe device save slots have run out... will go check it out. Also the ships will be included in next version, I just released 0.3.7b, that has the missiles system corrected.
Also I will not be able to work on SE for about the next 2 weeks (I am writing math and czech final exams next week)
Btw. the version contains beginning of the ship-asteroid interaction, however it 1) doesn't have effect on ship rotation and 1) collision detection is not yet perfect.

 

[The World Is Flat]

Good luck with the Studies!

 

[M0RT]

Thanks

Just a last update before pause: I replaced the flagship with the small sattelite, laser issue is going to be fixed later.
What is more interesting is that I completed ship to asteroid physics. Now only the last thing to add is ship to ship collisions.

 

[masterofra]

The autokey binding stoped working, Now, it only binds the keys to what they would do on their own, in the case of you having three engines on one side, that before would all be bound to up arrow, the left one to the right arrow, and the right one to the left arrow, it now only binds the middle to the up arrow.

 

[M0RT]

Yeah I noticed that already, I reworked the rotation calculations. Basically the rotation speed change of the engines went up, and so did the loss of precicion, therefore now a pair of engines has will not be correctly paired.
Anyone tried the physics engine already? What do you think?

 

[Calciumcarbonat]

I played this map and I realy like it. Here are some ideas:
1. It would be very cool when if you can see the devices from outside.
2. The number of options you can get very little when you checked the game. The players should get more options during the game like upgrades or sth. like this.
3. You could make the terrain a little bit more interesting. For example with asteroids you have to evade or planets in the background would be nice.
4. A little bit more action by the fights (Maybe some active abilities for the ship or shield you can activate like in this si-fi films.) Explosions or a shaking cam when the ship gots damaged whould be cool, too.

 

[Tleno]

Errr...most of these things are already planned but not immplemented...
But shaking camera might be a good idea.

 

[M0RT]

Indeed, graphics is going to be improved (and sound too) a lot. Explosions are possible, shaking camera is pretty easy (I already have a camera system).
To n. 2: that is true, when we test the game we tend to restart it after like 10 minutes, since you can't change anything on your ship anymore. So there is the question whether to allow players to rebuild their ships or include some power-up system.
Terrain: I just did the physics engine, before that asteroids made the game look worse (since they passed through ships). Now that they work (almost, they don't damage yet) I can start adding them to some maps. Some planets/galaxies in the background belong to graphics, will be worked on someday.

 

[Calciumcarbonat]

I have still many other ideas. If you want to hear them just say it.

 

[M0RT]

Sure, go ahead, the game still needs a lot of improvement.

 

[Calciumcarbonat]

Ok
1.Interceptors
If you ever have played starcraft you will know what I mean. Per mousclick your ship sends out many little hunters which are flying arround you and attack nearby enemies. This looks a little bit like the lucust-swarm of the crypt lord. If you want to want to save your Interceptors let them retreating into your ship.
(I think they would cause really epic space-battles)
2.Turrets
This are little towers which attack automatically enemies. The are usefull to repel interceptors but are not so effective against big spaceships.
3.Abilities
Your ship could be able to use some active abilities when you research them.
The player can activate them per the inventory of the control unit. here some examples:
-Lightning speed
Boosts one engine that the ship gets fast as the light. Its like a blink into the direction of the targeted engine. It makes the player able to get in or out battles.
-Frost Cannon
Ok maybe thats an silly idea but i think it would be very cool if you can freeze some devices of a enemy ship and make the owner so unable to use them for a duration.
-Reflector Shield
A shield which surrounds your ship and reflects enemy missiles.
-Ion cannon
After charging a time your ship sends out a mighty beam which destroys everything in the targeted dirction. Enemys should fly fast to avoid it.
-Magic-cap
Makes your ship invisible.
4.Probe
Sends aout a little flying robot which collects things in space near to you. This is probably a way to earn money i this game.
5.Rocket Launchers
A new weapon which needs long time to reload but is very fast and deals high damage. Can be upgradet to heat searching rockets or to plasma-torpedos.
6.Weak Points
When a ship gets hidden at an important device (like the bridge) it gats additional damage.
7.Crew
Maybe thats not so an good idea: the player could be able to modifier his crew (anyhow someone has to fly the ship).

I hope some of this ideas will help you (and sorry for my bad english)

 

[Tleno]

Well idea 2,3,5 are already planned, there is also going to be an item collecting system, but not a probe, but a ship module. Weak points and crew don't seem to be a good idea, interceptors... Hmmm... that would be nice but that would cause a crapload of lag.

 

[M0RT]

Interceptors: There was a simillar idea here already, I am a little afraid of AI for those (one that follows all the physics laws and still could fly), however I am making AI for the convoy scenario, which I really want there, so maybe if it works there, this could be added.

2,3,5: As tleno said, all of these are planned, there are actually going to be 3 weapon types (projectile, laser and missile) and all of them in turret versions. Abilities are going to be gained through upgrade a of the bridge (so you can have only one). Shield however is going to be a device (with some limited range).

4: I am already planning 2 devices which could collect things, a crane and gravity beam. (I am planning scenarios that are going to be about collecting things). A probe would also require the AI.

6: Well there is already a huge weak point, if your bridge is destroyed, the ship is completelly destroyed.

7: How exactly do you imagine that? There is not going to be boarding enemy ships, so the only way a crew could affect the ships is through some passive bonus. This would allow for some interesting effect that could be needed in some scenarios (such as repairing damaged tiles). However I don't like it being a crew. It could better be a set of devices with passive bonuses (like "Nanorobot set" for repairs, "Power distribution center" for +10% energy regen, ...)

Thanks for ideas

 

[Tleno]

Thats a great idea... like Nanobot module can repair all tiles near it in small radius!

 

[Gallin]

I am not entirely sure if this has been suggested before but do you happen to have shields?

These would need to be places on a few places on your ship. You connect two and they send out a laser web between those twos that vaporize anything that passes it. These can be destroyed rather easily if they hit one of the weak point of the shield (where one end)

These would require a lot of energy but would protect your ship for short periods of time.

 

[M0RT]

Well I was originally planning a classical shield, that would protect nearby tiles. This kind of shield is surely interesting, however I can't imagine how to detect collisions with something like this. Already there are performace problems with collision detection, that's what I will be working on for some time now.

 

[Gallin]

Ya the other way is probably easier these just seems more realistic.

It could add some cool weapons tho where you deploy a few and they make like a box

 

[Insk]

I got to say this is a great map, MORT, though there is one thing that is very anoying. You can't see the edge of the map! I suggest you put something that looks like the shimmering wall doodad along the edges or something simmilar. Other than that the map is totaly awesome

 

[The World Is Flat]

For a shield system, you could make a transparent version of the block model, and have it act as an extra layer of protection, that is only affected by incoming objects... each block that takes damage distributes the damage along the whole shield. you coudl also make two or thre different types. "Particle Shields" (defends against energy) "force Shields" (defends against physical force) ...

 

[masterofra]

You could make the shields cover a circle (circle being easiest to detect collisions of) of some size, that you can scale in the construction area. the shield does not belong to the shield projectors . A shield projector, when on, uses its energy to add health to the shield, It would take x power per second, and supply y health to the shield when on (increases power usage when larger). the shield health decays over time always (x% of health is lost per second), so it would have a maximum capacity. When hit by something that would damage the ship, it would lose health dependent on the damage of the attack. When the shield health gets to 0 or lower(0.5 or lower perhaps because of percent decay will not drop the shield), the shield goes offline, and will stay offline until z power is sent to the projectors, at which point, the shield will have 0 health, and be online again, so it can recharge.

This is one idea. Here is what I think about it

- would be easy to detect collision, due to circle collision
- has a shield capacity, due to the decay. capacity can be increased with more shield projectors or stronger shield projectors
- Shields would only be able to be on for short periods of time, and have to charge up before combat.
- they would have to be maintained, which would drain energy.
- you would have to trade off shield projectors and generators like everything else

One shield projector would give x health to the shield per second, say, 10 per second, and the shield would decay 10% per second. the shield health would, like with all decay equations, move closer and closer to the point
when decay(10%) is equal to input (10), but never get there. so would cap at 100 capacity. with two shield projectors, the input is 20, though would use twice as much power, and would double capacity, and increase rate. 10 projectors would be possible, being 100 input, and 1000 capacity, but it would use a lot of energy, and ship space, and be a bad idea to use.

That is my opinion on the subject. XD

Semi related:

One of the things I find interesting is exponential decay, which can be used in a lot of interesting things. In this map for instance, when you use arcade mode, which has friction, you might notice how your ship has a max speed it can obtain with all engines on, which is using the acceleration rate as the input, and the friction as the decay. The thing about these is how it causes a maximum on how high the value can go, but not hard coding it, since you could have more/less engines and more/less mass.

oh, and would you please add the level 2 ion engine, takes 1.166 power per second, for 0.6 thrust, same ratio as the level 2 rocket engine.

 

[The World Is Flat]

I like your idea moar, but that is kinda what i had in mind.

 

[Gallin]

I dont think that shields should be that good. They should only be able to use for a few tens of seconds at a time for a quick defense.

 

[M0RT]

About shields: They are actually supposed to be good, but rather expensive. The idea is for them to keep the most important parts of the ship intact (like your weapons, since they are in front, they allways take the first hit, so the battle often depends on who strikes first and disables the opponent's weapons).
Creating another collision system for shields seems unnecessary, I thought it would be easier if they just protected certain tiles (meaning that I will just flag nearby tiles as protected and put all incoming damage to shields instead of the tile itself).
The system seems good though, except I think it would be better to bound the shield with it's projector, that way the ship can have more separate shields (that will imho bring more interesting and tactical game situations). Anyway that would provide 3 possible attributes for shield generators (maximum capacity, replenishment rate and energy/hp ration). Also I am not sure whether the shields should "power down". If the replenisment rate wasn't too big, the difference between powered down shield and shield that was recharging since last hit (~3 seconds) will be virtually none.

Ion engines: I will add them asap.

 

[M0RT]

New version up, I tweaked collision detection and laser detection a bit, hopefully for the better.

Also I added Microwave engine and Nuclear reactor.

Last thing, I invented a whole new concept I would like to add to the game, tell me what you think of it: Ship temparature. Energy generators will increase ship temperature, however it will decrease over time by thermal emission. It will have two consequences: Energy generators work with less efficiency in higher temperatures. The other thing is that thermal emission would be detectable (meaning that if the ships temperature exceeds cerain level, the ship will become visible to everyone). That would provide another method of ship detection. (I will rework radars to take this into account, there is going to be a selection of active/passive/thermal/radiation radars) Also I have a couple of ideas about the more advanced reactors (for example nuclear reactor could be overloaded, becoming detectable with radiation radars, but also producing more energy, and possibly melting down, if you choose to disable security circuits )

 

[The World Is Flat]

You. Are. Brilliant.

 

[grygon]

Double that

 

[masterofra]

In the newest version, you still have the key bind not working correctly, Please fix that as a priority.

Engines and weapons (I think) can store power/fuel. Was this intentional? because that seems unrealistic.

Some of the modules are missing tool tips.

Player colors when someone leaves seem to have been wrong last time I checked.

IMPORTANT: Red lasers, and perhaps other modules, Save wrong, and give invalid codes, You may have had a overflow on the number of modules to the number allowed, or something like that.

 

[M0RT]

The World Is Flat, grygon: Thanks

I wanted to fix it in this version already, I just forgot. It's done now.
Indeed, they store a small amount, so the ship can work without larger containers. This is mainly for fighter-class ships, they just won't fit 2 additional devices (energy and fuel storage) on the ship.
Player colors should have been fixed now, I used 1-12 player indexing instead of 0-11 for this trigger

Saving problems: Exactly, it is overflow, the code is now able to save 32 different devices. There are only 16 at time, however, for simplicity, I just take the unitTypeId and save it, so non-device units are taking up slots right now. I needed a little help here: is there some utility program, that would change the ID's of units for me, or do I have to do it manually? It's one thing to edit the unit file, but I also need to change all references in the scripts...
EDIT: already done it manually, I am now testing whether I did it right. Unfortunatelly that means that old save codes propably won't work (I changed ID's of about 1/2 of the devices)

 

[M0RT]

Version 0.4.0 out.

- selection circles and life bars for devices
- auto-bind fix
- reworked device ID's - old codes may fail
- increased ship sizes to multiples of 25
- ship shields

As you can see, I finally implemented shields. They needed to be tested for functionality (however there shouldn't be problem) and mostly for balance, I have no idea how they will affect gameplay. Auto-bind was fixed, however broken again, since it doesn't support shield generators

 

[The World Is Flat]

well, with SC2 coming out, do you have lans to switch?


on TOPIC: Great! i would test but my comps in the shop

 

[M0RT]

SC2 will definetelly provide better resources to develop space engineers, on the other hand, it would take some time to convert the game to starcraft (since 95% of SE is the script, maybe a syntax converter would be enough )
The thing I dislike about warcraft is that already it can't handle the performance requirements SE have. It will not be different in SC, all the game features will have to be scripted too, but I hope the scripts will run faster there. I will definetelly buy Starcraft, play with the editor a bit, and see if there is point switching to SC2. However, I think I will first add most of the elements I want in the game, and then eventually convert the map to starcraft, using the experience to create cleaner, more optimized code.

 

[The World Is Flat]

Great! but sc2 code is written in a version of C called galaxy, i don't know if it will be that easy to swtich around... but good luck! it would also be cool to se a sc2 version of dungeon lords around.

 

[masterofra]

Version 0.4.0 out.

- selection circles and life bars for devices
- auto-bind fix
- reworked device ID's - old codes may fail
- increased ship sizes to multiples of 25
- ship shields

As you can see, I finally implemented shields. They needed to be tested for functionality (however there shouldn't be problem) and mostly for balance, I have no idea how they will affect gameplay. Auto-bind was fixed, however broken again, since it doesn't support shield generators

What do you mean by selection circles and life bars? and what do you mean by the ship sizes?

EDIT: The food costs for microwave engines are the same as for ion engines, and they do not give off a .. Oh wait, They wouldn't, would they? They wouldn't exactly give off exhaust, so that makes sense. Though, Giving off a tiny sparkle effect for them to display them working, would be a good idea i think

 

[M0RT]

I removed life bars for devices (they weer only getting in way), you can see selection circles on devices you have selected (just like in regular warcraft)

Microwave engines don't have sparkling graphic because I tried to create some blue particle emmitor for ion and microwave engines, but the model doesn't work The food cost is bug, they should cost 5 points.

For the next version, I will prepare a step-by-step guide through creation of a ship, I played 3 games with about 20 players in total, not a single one was able to play the game (though the most intelligent ones were able to type "-use 2" and tap right arrow three times)

 

[M0RT]

I am currently working on a new ship design, see screenshot, hope you like it.

(You can see that lighting is not finished yet, I am working on that right now. (I have no 3D editor, so I am currently using notepad + calculator to input coordinates manually. Real fun )

 

[Tleno]

Cool, maths... So how did you made these... cubes?

 

[M0RT]

Well I started with the cube from vertexModifier, then I realized you can't type in exact values, so I switched to notepad
There are a couple of models, each with ~6 polygons, and each tile consists of 9 models (4 sides, 4 corners and 1 top). They look like this:

Ship parts

They have the grass texture because I have the space ship texture imported as "Cliff1", and I wasn't able to force War3ModelEditor to load custom cliff file.

I am planning to add some decoration (like wires, sattelite dish,...) to the top, so it won't be so flat. Already you can see some "wires" when you destroy a tile (however the effects are not yet removed correctly, current system supports one special effect per tile and I have 9, so they prevent you from seeing anything "underneath")

 

[masterofra]

Now that is Realy cool. XD
I like the new look. It looks more, um.. 3D? It was pretty flat before, but this makes it smoother and otherwise, Nice idea. Cant wait till release.

Ill give you codes for my new ships as soon as I get a chance to get on.

 

[M0RT]

Well the new version is up now. I am afraid I forget to edit some normals, so the lighting can display wrong on some models, but most of it is done now. Also I removed player coloring for the moment, I am not sure whether it's coming back. I am planning a new system, connected with the temperature system, when players can change the painting of the ship, to alter emmision intensity and spectrums, so the ship color is going to be affected by that.

 

[masterofra]

I tested quickly, And the new hull stuff looks cool. Nice job!
The shield pulse animation's location is not being set correctly, It is displaying at, I think, the center of the map.
Also, for shields, how much do they cover? is it like this?
Question, How do I know which shields are where, which shields are which on the multiboard?
And I Didn't think you could team-color special effects. (paint idea)

Add info to shield tooltip, how much it costs while on, how much it generates, what it's range is, and what rate it decays.

EDIT:

From what I can tell, shields protect tiles that share a face with them. I think that shields should protect tiles sharing a face or a corner. But thats me. Question, Does a shield generator protect itself? if a tile is protected by two shields, what happens? do they both take damage? does one take priority? if so, when that one fails, does the other one start taking damage?

 

[M0RT]

Oh.. the shields. Yeah I changed the grid attachment model (now it has 330 attachments ) and forgot to change it for shields
The shields cover only adjent tiles (= 3x3 area)
Well the shields are placed in order of their tile ID, which goes from bottom left corner up and right (up +1, right +9) there is going to be a way to tell them apart, some sort of auto-naming script will name them starboard shield, portside shield, front shield.... I need to create such system first.
Team color special effects: they are not team color, I use vertex coloring. The only thing is that it doesn't work correctly, the color needs to be reset to 255/255/255 on ship despawn and set again to appropriate colors when the model is spawned. That can ofc be used, I didn't try exactly how it works (which event causes them to become "stuck" with the color), but it should be possible to color each attached special effect differently.

Well the shield tooltip is incomplete because it's stats are not final, (actually I just put in some random numbers for start, and didn't get to change them since then ) they are way too weak now.

 

[masterofra]

I just got a fatal crash from testing with the latest version. I build a ship that could kill itself with a weapon, and I did so, twice, leaving a bunch of blocks behind, which BTW still have old look. And I then used -use 0, and turned the ship into the field of blocks, and after about 2 seconds, it fatal ed

 

[M0RT]

Yeah I saw that happen before, that is some bug with the physics engine, under certain circumstances it results in ship moving so fast that it leaves map instantly, causing the game to crash. I didn't figure out why it can happen.
(My guess is division by some near-zero value in some specific case)

 

[masterofra]

Ah, I see. Why not check for it leaving map BEFORE you move the unit? XD

Also, The laser lightning fx is now very low down, due to, me thinks the new model stuff. and I think the lightning effect, (not the damage calc tho) should start touching the tile that spawns it.

What else? hm. Making the tiles for ship health include shield protection, so that they have a blue border if they are shielded.

Edit:

Game mode idea, for when you get to it.

One player is selected (either player red chooses a player, it is random, or something else) to be the (mother-ship? alien? something). They are on their own against all the other players. They get somewhere around ~200 ship points to build with. The rest of the players get less, ~50. The objective for the mother-ship is to destroy all of the other players, the other players need to destroy the mother-ship. This would be a game where one player can have a huge ship, and the rest have smaller ships, and have to work together to destroy the bigger ship. I think that it would be a fun mode, since there is normally a limit of 100 points.

Edit2:

Asteroids from ships falling apart seems to be a major source of lag. Here is a suggestion, that may or may not work. When a ship falls apart now, each tile is separate. Instead, would it be possible to make tiles that are still touching, be attached together, via using one model per chunk, and using attachments to the model like you do for the ship? This would drasticly reduce the number of units, and result in less objects to move. A bonus is that the tiles will not have to change looks, and can remain looking like the ship does now. What do you think?

Edit3:

The shields need to be fixed. First of all, they cover a plus, rather than a square like I would expect. Secondly, they are too weak. They should charge at least twice as fast, or use half as much energy, or both. Thirdly, they use 2 points, but say they use 1.

Edit:
The tooltips for several objects are wrong. The production of the two energy generators are ",5" and "1,5" While I would expect them to be "0.5" and "1.5"
Also, the energy costs for the ion and micro engines are "2" and "5" while they should be "0.2" and "0.5" respectively.

Also, expected value for points of the two energy generators are identical, except for the thermonuclear using up more space.

Edit:

The shield display only displays the value for player red.

 

[M0RT]

Wow, thanks for this extensive bug report.
I like the mothership idea, however there are some issues. First, it would be very short game, even with reasonable number of rounds (three or so). Second, it would be useable only if shields would be useful, otherwise mothership will quickly lose all engines and weapons. More on that later...

Asteroids: I am not sure they are that problematic, I run test commands during the game and even at peaks there seems to be around 50 asteroid, which should be fine.
Letting the separated ship tiles sticked together was my original plan, I almost got it to work, however it broke op limit. Also, collision finding for complex shapes would be rather difficult.
I found another solution, I will let most of them explode as they fall off the ship (like 2/3 will explode, the rest will stay).

Shields: I agree, I hopefully fixed the "plus" issue, but the effectivity is terrible. I am certainly going to reduce energy consumption, but would still prefer them to be slower than weapons, in terms of DPS.

Tooltips: Ion engine cost is correct, it consumes 2 energy per second, not 0.2. I will look on the generators.

And what exactly do you mean by the pont cost of energy generators?

Multiboard: noted

 

[masterofra]

Ok, about the engines costs, I Realized that in arcade mode, engines costs are 1/10th normal. that explains it. As for the generators,
-thermonuclear
- two point cost (+1 for tile)
- 0.5 generation

-nuclear
- 8 point cost (+1 for tile)
- 1.5 generation

they have the same stats, except that thermonuclear uses two extra tiles. This seems odd to me.

Oh, and for testing, make ships spawn farther apart, so that they do not have the problem of having to separate initial.

The auto-bind should clear hot-keys first.

Edit
New code for my small death satellite, " k_(+-idh<edshqd-tDza "
code for medium death satellite, "kRZgAn:zqbPRcbPKkai?Dq"

Oh, and for planet mode, can you make it so that the starting velocity is exactly enough to keep you in a circular orbit?
Idea for another bind hotkey
Fire: Would activate the device for a second, then deactivate it. this would be used for rail-guns and plasma guns, it would allow you to fire exactly one shot with one key. I would at least, find it useful.

 

[M0RT]

Right, I forgot to count in the cost of the tile, I'll change it to 0.5/1 point and 2/9 points.

planet: I tried that, couldn't get it just right. The problem is that you can't really see whether you are on stable orbit, since 99% of time the ship will be on eliptic orbit, so I'll need to create some sort of "unstable orbit" warning.

hotkey: can be done easily, I just wanted to simplify the hotkeys, so I removed everything that wasn't totally necessary (but I guess 1-shot binding is pretty clear)

And lastly, I just created a new model, a sattelite dish that will be placed over the tile with bridge.

Sattelite dish

It also revolves around! (It took me about an hour to figure out how to attach vertexes to bones)