Spacenoth: New Year's Alpha released!

ILikeProgramming · Post by **ILikeProgramming** » January 6th, 2007, 5:36 am

If we have a third "scope" for large ships, than those would deserve names.

As for small ships, it's usually the pilot that's important.

Post by **irrevenant** » January 6th, 2007, 6:01 am

Maeglin Dubh wrote:Let me throw this out for consideration....
Should Terran units be named for the pilot, the callsign, or the craft?

For Spacenoth, it feels more appropriate to use name+callsign regardless of what craft is being piloted (even if the same pilot swaps ships throughout levels).

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » January 6th, 2007, 6:24 am

Sounds right to me. I actually preferred the Callsign approach anyways.... I wanted to reserve names for Capships, when that's ready.

catwhowalksbyhimself · January 6th, 2007, 7:15 am

I like the idea of the outer part of a planet being a separate terrain. Call it "atmospheric." This could be difficult to move through, as most space vehicles would not be designed for atmospheric flight.

This would add a whole new wrinkle to capturing resources, but I think it would make it interesting.

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » January 6th, 2007, 7:34 am

We thought of that before, but we thought it would overcomplicate/overpower planetary positions....

It would depend on exactly how it affected certain ships.

Post by **SkeletonCrew** » January 6th, 2007, 10:23 am

ILikeProgramming wrote:Your terrain system will be in 1.3 !

That's good

Yep the goal is to get it in 1.3.1

Post by **irrevenant** » January 6th, 2007, 11:22 am

Maeglin Dubh wrote:We thought of that before, but we thought it would overcomplicate/overpower planetary positions....

It would definitely change gameplay from standard Wesnoth, but that needn't be a bad thing - just different.

It should be balanced so long as it applies equally to your planets and his.

Perhaps make entering orbit (and moving from orbit to a planet) movetype 3 for all ships. There'd be some dramatic 'races to the centre' that way.

Defence could be kept as it is now, though if you wanted to spice things up a bit you could put one of those scrambler satellites I mentioned earlier in one or two of the hexes to boost the defence...

Ragwortshire · Post by **Ragwortshire** » January 6th, 2007, 9:48 pm

In addition, if you did make capital ships, it would make sense for them not to be able to land. So atmosphere/planets could be impassable to them (that'd really spice things up).

On the flip side, you could have ground assault craft etc. that worked especially well in taking planets.

(Just an idea

.)

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » January 6th, 2007, 11:31 pm

If we did that, in capital scale, it would be impossible to take villages without said Ground Attack craft, since there are no fighters as such in that scale. (Closest thing would be attack drones or fighters as a "Squad" (swarm) unit)

Which may or may not be a bad thing.

catwhowalksbyhimself · January 7th, 2007, 7:04 pm

It would make perfect sense for some fighter class ships to double as atmospheric fighters. Several sci-fi universes have such vehicles. These should get normal movement in the atmosphere and some defensive bonuses. Or give all other ships some slight penalties.

Landed ships, however, should get normal, or every higher than normal, defenses, regardless of ship type.

I do, however, think that ALL ships should be able to land and claim planets. This may not be strictly realistic, but I think its best for balancing purposes. They may have to limp through the atmosphere, but they can claim the planet and land for repairs/defense.

I've also noticed that there are relatively few planets, compared to villages. If you make sure the planets have a larger income to make up for that (they might, but I think it could be increase slightly) this would make battles for the planets a major focus of Wesnoth--and I think that is how a space-based game should be.

Post by **irrevenant** » January 7th, 2007, 7:59 pm

Ragwortshire wrote:In addition, if you did make capital ships, it would make sense for them not to be able to land. So atmosphere/planets could be impassable to them (that'd really spice things up).

Presumably just the planet itself should be impassable - it's hard to imagine a capital ship that couldn't bombard from orbit. It does add an interesting element if it can't then seize the planet, though.

catwhowalksbyhimself wrote:I do, however, think that ALL ships should be able to land and claim planets. This may not be strictly realistic, but I think its best for balancing purposes. They may have to limp through the atmosphere, but they can claim the planet and land for repairs/defense.

I forgot about healing. Some sort of repair ship would definitely have to be included.

catwhowalksbyhimself wrote:It would make perfect sense for some fighter class ships to double as atmospheric fighters. Several sci-fi universes have such vehicles.

Agreed. Given that the atmosphere consists of 6 hexes around a planet, pure atmospheric fighters are pointless so space-to-surface fighters are a must.

(Unless Spacenoth included the ability to transport ships - then you could have a couple of dedicated atmospheric fighters on board the Capital ship. Hmm....)

Midoron · Post by **Midoron** » January 7th, 2007, 9:13 pm

I just had a look at the spacenoth demo campaign.
Really nice so far. Will Spacenoth remain a pure Wesnoth campaign or will you fork the whole project later on? I was really amazed, it's also a good demonstration for how far you can tweek/customize the Wesnoth "engine".
I just didn't like the keep and castle art, they look ugly, too simple. Get rid of these full circles, replace them with some cool LED grid or something like that.
And a bit weird at the beginning: planets hanging around arbitrary in space. In most sci-fi themes planets are part of a solar system circling around a star. They look a bit "lost" here ...

ILikeProgramming · Post by **ILikeProgramming** » January 7th, 2007, 9:42 pm

Midoron wrote:Will Spacenoth remain a pure Wesnoth campaign or will you fork the whole project later on?

The people working on it planned to make a seperate program from the start, but it's not easy to distibute a new program, so we ended up with a campaign instead.

Midoron wrote:And a bit weird at the beginning: planets hanging around arbitrary in space. In most sci-fi themes planets are part of a solar system circling around a star. They look a bit "lost" here ...

That's only because of the way maps are made. You're welcome to create your own maps, the files needed are here

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » January 8th, 2007, 12:38 am

Planetary location is a factor of Gameplay taking precedence over Realism.

catwhowalksbyhimself · January 8th, 2007, 3:14 am

(Unless Spacenoth included the ability to transport ships - then you could have a couple of dedicated atmospheric fighters on board the Capital ship. Hmm....)

I think that's getting too different and too complicated. Space to atmosphere fighters should work just as well. Most Sci-universes don't even have dedicated atmospheric fighters, as space fighters can fulfill both needs, and can defend the planet from space-born threats.

I still think it best to allow ALL ships to land, but not necessarily very quickly or very fast.