Starfighter General News

Hello,


I've been developing at a break neck speed, crunch with a lifestyle of burning down the house to get more development in.

We're nearing a launch of a very very very fun patch.

We'll have random encounters/leveling/items in!

That alone is very exciting and worth playing, but we have a story line that impresses everyone I tell with great awe.

They tell me this story line is better than the best sci fi movies in their prime, and I agree...

At least, the bar is very low for video game story lines in MMOS so you're gonna have a good time.




The patch after next will star phasing in multiplayer. I chose the lore of a background of infinite dimensions in order to do some awesome behind the scenes things. One of which is partial multiplayer, another is a massive amount of more enemies... The entirety of this game has been built around the core foundation of multiplayer.




Hope you have a Merry Christmas. If I wanted, I could have pushed a patch right now, but we've gone through some game dev philosophy phases. Two employees pledged to come on so I upscoped this patch. Then one demanded my attention help his task, and I actually got side tracked helping his compartmentalized task. Then the employees got flighty and didn't contribute. I did have a lady friend, just a friend partially voice track the Generic Anime Girl Master-Ninja Eschelon encounters, but that as well would be rushed as it isn't finished. I don't want to drop a rush patch on the best patch Starfighter General will see. This will be the first patch that gets you really locked in and having some fun. So I'm shifting game dev philosophy.

Personally I clock as many hours as I can every day, it's impacting my health from a stress level, which I must manage as I developed diabetes and kidney issues. This also contributes to my game dev shift, as I get older, and have so much education, experience, background, I really am mortal like all of you. I have a limited lifespan to make video games. So I should pace myself. Kidney failure would result in me making many less games than I would normally. So the game dev philosophy must change.

Instead of burning down the house to get this game out and crunching, I'm going to develop with a health focused mind set. I'm already to the point where I won't need many techs to add into the game. They're mostly all in! My goal will be to build up my house, those around me and save money to help others now instead of trying to finish my game as fast as possible. This more healthy lifestyle will be condusive to a long term development cycle. Trying to launch into space by burning up the launch pad and everything wasn't a bad plan. This one is better.

In early 2023, expect a very fun patches of encounters, story, drops, multiplayer. I'll try and add some more fun stuff every patch, as I want to data base lots of encounters in the game. Then I'll add the galaxy generated and such. I don't want to break my neck developing, but I will try and make chess moves so each patch is optimally more fun for that particular move...

Again Merry Christmas from the Video Game Monastery. Love's the way. When you get old and grey, if you achieved wisdom, you'll be talking about all the friends you met along the way, not the money, fame, or power. Love's the meaning of life. So I wish you love this Christmas Season.

We'll be chillin in space soon.

,Jim


2022 Development Recap:

Wild year!

#1: We got DOTS/ECS done! This unlocks cores like most every game before never did! 100x as many things rendered on screen. Once we get a player base, we can beat the world record of video game players in a single battle easily.

#2: I launched Rano Particulo a way of making particle effects in Unity easy.

#3: Launched Throne and Crown a Christian game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1811780/Throne_And_Crown/

#4: Had Dungeon Run Black Roost Keep ready to launch, but the IP holder was too discouraged to launch... This is the weirdest tale ever. A team of 5 spends 5 hard years making a masterpiece only to not be launched, see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpa8C8WuiYw&t=64s

#5: Made half a million pieces of AI art and growing. Starfighter General will have millions.

#6: Added Chat.

#7: Added the Galactic News Network Ticker.

#8: Settings menu wired up.

#9: Got items in.

#10: Crew Creation in.

#11: Random Encounters in

#12: Galaxy Generation pushed forward and warp effects is awesome: https://youtu.be/96cIYun83FE?t=44

#13: 82 screen large talent tree over half way done.

#14: And so much more was done I don't even remember


TL:DR Made 2 games on the side,a major industry impacting particle effect tool, and pushed Starfighter General forward, all while having major health issues, unstable family and living conditions and so broke I could barely afford food at times. 2022 was a phenomenal success and I could not have done it without help from God. So Merry Christmas, and pray I can make 2023 a very fun year where you enjoy Starfighter General the MMORPG in full!

Thank you and God bless,
Jim

Hello,

It's been a bit since last announcement, but I'm working every day on Starfighter General, sometimes 8hrs a day+.

The best place to follow along is www.starfightergeneral.com

The next patch will be the first confidently very fun patch!

It will have random encounters in space and some of the quest/story line.

It will have random drops that affect your craft and your character.

It will have leveling up.

It's gonna be fun, and the game will only get extra funninated afterwards.

Here's some diveregent tech that's fun to see that won't be in next patch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96cIYun83FE

Wow, a nasty bug fell in the build along the way. If you try and upgrade your ship's attack, the menu locks up aka have to restart game. This is fixed.

A feature is added: Generic Anime Boy Enterprise Nation now gives random backstories and it is hilarious. Find it under dimensional launch... You gotta restart to get back to normal clash mode, since it is just in development and this is a clash hot patch.

Next Big Patch is supposed to be the first GREAT PATCH that will get players hooked:

1) Randomized encounters aka monsters, ships, pirates, loot, anomalies, treasure maps, story missions!

2) Randomized loot like ARPGS, aka "Austere Titanic Vestiges of HyperSpace Robe" naming conventions and such.

3) Leveling up



Next next big patch:
I have just brought on a reliable coworker who's working on a skybox that renders in the galaxy depending where you are. So we can pro gen a galaxy. Then the Randomized Encounters/Loot Tables could be biased or lock/unlocked depending the type of system you're in.


After systems in,next next next big patch is multiplayer (tech works, it's been used since 2004 in house)

]
From there, content, content, content, managing server stability,allowing systems conquering by players/npcs, and then finally Game Masters.

We have a clear road map, all of which is trivial to code. The hard parts have already been coded. It will only take time, but the very next patch will be super engaging to play nonstop...So the fun will just pile on top.

So the patch was successful this week. Last week I just did a lot of work behind the scenes without presentables.



When you do puzzles at home, you want to get the frames around it before filling inside.

The majority of the frame is up, and we'll have more interesting encounters than Generic Anime Boy moving forward.



The techs we added:
*Ability to use art as portraits to do discussions/hailing.

*Ability to play cutscene like introductions with text / voice.

*Some humor in the fill in of using this, but not long lasting as it will become when AdLib random sentences go in!

*Ability to do battle and skin ships.

*Ability to do multi factioned space battles (more than just player vs all enemies, sometimes random fights between factions unrelated to you can go down).

*Inventory is half way in, but not full, hopefully next Friday.


Coming:
Pick up items again.
Experience bar/leveling up.
Stats seen.
Items fawned over in inventory.

Drop rarities:
1) Common
2) Uncommon
3) Rare
4) Epic
5) Legendary
6) Uni-Legendary



Next patches:
Non Combat encounters in Random events such as:
Space Anomolies to use science skills to investigate.


Asteroids that fly at you.
Trade Partners.
Criminals who offer trades too good to refuse.
and
OFFICIAL QUEST LINES OF THE GAME!



Then proceedurally generated 420 billion galaxy patch & multiplayer. We're only a couple hundred hours away from full techs. Then we just fill in the frame with content.



We're at the point where patches start having fun value to look in and see how it goes. We're nearing the point where we're a full fledged MMO and a credible competitor to any MMO out there with techs like 100x-1000x as many players in the same zone. We should be able to break the world record for most players in a space combat system easy. I think the game that holds the world record for most players in space combat is only like 6700 ish. I have done 9000 rendered at 60 FPS, and my networking is O( LOG(N) ) instead of traditional O ( N ^ 2), so networking is no limiter. Lets aim to make a stab at breaking the world record, and not just breaking it, but obliterating it! I'll need people who want to play, so power up your clash base now... It will help you progress in the MMO to have a high level clash base.

Lets try for next week to get the Random Events in! Turns out other space games are doing random encounters too, and I just learned of it today. That means I'm on the right track!

A huge huge huge amount of design happened in the past two weeks. I'll run over it as I explain I needed a bunch of techs to make stuff happen. One of which is Inventory/Character Sheets which are mostly in:


Star is order by rarity.

M is order by mass.

$ is order by value

dm^3 is order by decimetric volume. Volume in your inventory changes depending on temperature and other crazy stuff. I shelved Diablo 2 stacking in 3d because my friend said people like simplicity in some regards. This inventory is high tech under the hood with Entity/DOTS high tech under that!


Other techs I have already put in are:

Spawn enemy monster & wire up damage.


I need to finalize in 'Random drops like Diablo 2 or Path of Exile', Tool tips and power up zones you get by flying through. They're in, just need wired up.



The design is actually AMAZING! Absurdity Trail random events allows for a proc gen galaxy with weights that change depending where you're at. There are alliances of alien races known as factions. You can get in good one with faction and be bad with another. The center of the galaxy lies a mysterious horror, and as monsters/enemy ship fleets/alliances grow stronger as you try and get to it. You can't just warp to the center of the galaxy, you need to find trade paths through radiation zones. Once you find radiation zone paths, you can go from star system to star system. Many paths of non radiated zones have choke points where alliance fleets gate keep with warp interdictor technology. So in order to prove your worth, you must win in fights,be friends with that alliance, pay a toll, have a gem, or just hit pedal to the medal baby and pray as you zip by them.

Check points are of two fashion. The standard check point is dimensional signature target check points. This is where you can restart the game coming from your home base with a limited ship. It is costly to jump via dimensional warp gates so you can't take much with you like a big fleet, but they're common so you can travel light around the galaxy if you want. Then there is a more uncommon warp gate target check point. This you can warp with you and your entire fleet provided you charted a path of non radiated zones to it and provided no warp interdicting pirates are on the path.

That's a long winded way of saying in a game of risk/reward perma loss of huge fleets, one of the soft save roguelite features is information. Information of where to warp to, information where to get good trades, information of resource rich zones, information of what player friends to make, information of what enemy factions to favor or unfavor, and information on how to acquire navigation deep into the galaxy via radiation zone scope pathing. I want the player to feel a sense of more permanence, soft saving, rogue lite features than senses of loss when your entire fleet might get risked in the wrong manner. Starfighter General will have the feeling of a Carebear progression game, while having hardcore perma death in some aspects of losing fleets. Since I dis-incentive bullying and mob rule dystopia play, this is gonna be an experience you never experienced.

I'm happy Unity released some sort of basic 4 player multiplayer. That way I don't have to rush mine to market and I can do these more fun techs which will play like a roguelike. The ground up of the design of the game is multiplayer so it won't be tacked on though it is added later. My multiplayer breaks so many rules you're used to. Traditional Client<>Server is O(n^2), mine is sub O(n), yes less than n bandwith,close to O(logn) aka near infinite networked players same zone. I say this with a grain of salt for there will be a limited number of fleet that can come with, but that's down the road. Just happy Unity released multi so I don't have to force it out and present it to Unity. I assure you my networking is far superior to Unity's at this juncture. I typically pioneer algorithms the gaming industry independently discovers later.

So design solidifying on the universe power progression, gates between star systems so going deep is risky and hull/armor/shields of your fleet are at risk if you have to retreat through hostile radiation zone choke point gates. That's a reason you'd want to power up combat ships in itself and level and all that jazz. Last week we put wandering monsters in with the dragon. This week I made the dragon sound and particle effect when spawning. It's a matter of whales and bistles (bells and whistles), pacing it. And to conclude, I have health conditions with stress and am just barely food secure, so I'm limiting my bust tail crunch mentality... I just enjoy this so I code basically all day when I am not keeping the house hold in order.

Next 100-300 hours we should have a ROCKING fun Starfighter Game. I missed a self imposed micro deadline, but life isn't easy when you barely have enough for food. I look at Star Citizen and wonder if God will let me shame their massively funded and large team with a superior product by basically one guy without much help and dealing with malnutrition occasionally living in a place without water. I'm not poor mouthing, so much as starting to enjoy the challenge since I'm up trending.

Other techs upcoming Proc-Gen Universe, with star field truly generated where are positionally. Different star types/nebula/Anomoly/factional controlled space/black hole horizons/etc will clue you know from afar what types of encounters/drops/adventures you might get into. We operate on a "diminishing returns" system that means your most optimal encounters/drops occur when you do not always camp a single star system. It's space, it's meant to be explored. Yay. A related tech is when you go warp, the stars/nebula/etc will shoot past you relative to where they truly are in space,not some generic yellow star dots passing by you like a screen saver. This is even important because if you subtly remember where Warp Interdictor alliances could ambush you from and visually recognize it while in warp, you can drop out of warp to recalibrate, or prepare your warp paths ahead of time.

Another tech I need to add is boring, a way of simulating 64 bit+ space in 32 bit, a 3d Engine limitation. I have a few options.