Information

[Siretu]

This begs the question... Are you just talking about it and dreaming about how fun it can be? Or are you actually working on it now? That might sound mean. Another way I can word it is this way, and this is solely because I actually want to see this happen:

Have you gotten a team set up to handle everything that would be needed for a game of this scale? Server-side code, dedicated server host, client-side code, art assets (side note, I truly hope you're going at this in 2D and not 3D, since CC is played in a 2D world). Do you have a code and document repository that will house every idea and concept that's going to be in the game and those that have already been mentioned? It's easy to think about making a video game, I do it *all the time*. I can guarantee you it's much, much harder to start making one and actually continue through with it. Showcasing it at indie game festivals, holding a developer blog, paying employees (or splitting gains from the release), it's hard.

Again, I ask this because I want to see this happen, and it's implied (and I have mentioned) that I want to help. A lot of others on here would want to help, too.

This is definitely a good question, and something I'm aware of. It's why I didn't want to talk about this for a long time, since for a very long time it was just: "Oh, it would be so cool to remake this outside the SC2 editor"

The truth is that I had a pretty tough winter with 10 hours / work per day at my university and other things taking up my time. I had no possibility to really start working hard on the standalone. Now after Christmas eve, I've been working 2-5 hours most days. The progress is a bit slow, and I have nothing amazing to show so far, but that is to be expected while I learn the ropes of Unreal Engine 4.

Have I gotten a team set up? Not really. I know a couple of programmers in the CC community who have expressed willingness to help. I also have 1-2 friends who I know want to help me on the programming side. Art is a pretty big part of course, and I don't a complete solution for it, but I do have some friends who're pretty good at modelling. UE4 does a pretty good job at simplifying the network programming to make it easier to implement. The network architecture is one of the things I've thought the most about and I think I have a decent model in mind.

Code repository? Yes, of course. Version control is pretty important, even at this stage. I'm pushing into a github repo right now. I can have private repositories so I think GitHub works well enough for now.

Document repository? Less so. I use google drive with a separate folder inside the normal CC folder. It has the small amount of documents I've written.

I truly understand your concern, it's one I have as well. I've been dreaming up computer games since I was very young. There's one important part that I want to point out. I did start making a game and I continued through with it for over three years and it's now at a point where several people enjoy it and some people *cough* Degra *cough* have played for thousands of hours. It's far from perfect and the Starcraft 2 editor helped a ton of course, but there's still 20,000 rows of MY code going into that game, not to mention the data part.

Of course I didn't have to worry about most of the things you mentioned like showcasing it at indie festivals, paying employees or managing network code (although I did have a developer blog for a year or so ). There's a ton of new stuff I'll have to think about, but I think I can do it.

[Siretu]

Also, when it comes to helping out with the programming:

I feel like it would just be detrimental to let in more programmers right now since we'd be walking on each other's toes since the base is pretty small. It's not really possible to say: "Zak, can you implement ship energy and then start working on a power console for the Battlecruiser?", because it's all like a pyramid where we have to get a few base things working first.

So what do I have so far? I have working pathfinding for multiple units on a moving ship in a multiplayer environment over the network. Next I'm looking to fix some kind of basics of ship movement and probably some kind of abstract console class. Hopefully that shouldn't take long.

With that out of the way, I'd like to use Trello to put up a bunch of basically scrum tasks (although I'm not really going to do any scrum sprints, maybe later on if we get a couple of dedicated programmers and we all have enough time to put in). Because now that the base is done, we can start going in different directions, like: implementing a user interface, fixing power, implementing damage (or whatever, I'm just picking random things). A person then assigns himself to a task, starts working on it and commits it. When he's done you switch it over in trello to done or something and someone (probably me) verifies and merges it in.

[Siretu]

I also noticed I forgot to address 2D vs 3D. My plan is to do the same thing as in SC2. Use 3D models in a 3D engine but keep gameplay 2D. This shouldn't be a problem since UE 4 supports locking physics to different axes. So I can lock collision and such to only to push in the horizontal plane and not up and down.

[DinoChicken]

glad to hear progress on the standalone

[slapshot]

over the network

kind of curious as to how you did the networking - since if you are using UE4, doesn't that mean that your no longer using unity's built-in networking? or does it have basically equivalent RPC calls and stuff?

[Siretu]

I found that Unity's built-in networking was kind of lackluster and from the research I did, few people actually use it in serious games and most use third party libraries although they also have limitations and extra costs.

UE4's networking feels much more... functional. It feels like the engine was written with multiplayer games in mind, while Unity's feel like it was just tacked on at the end.

"How you did the networking" is still not a great question since I've barely started doing anything network related. There's only one RPC right now, to handle the player movement.

Generally, UE4 seems to have easy replication of objects and attributes. Powerful RPC functionality and checks to just run code on the server. Easy support for authoritative and dedicated servers and easy debugging of networked games (this is the biggest one for me, I think. Being able to run X clients + server by changing settings in the editor instead of having to build it and open the .exe several times is super useful).

[Dreadnought]

So anything new to talk about? its been since September that you announced that you would be designing a standalone version.

Have you figured out the basic MAIN mode and how large each teams are? and any additional modes you plan for later, from the current 6v6, *8v8, 10v10, 20v20... (*recommend for basic mode)

Also Battlecruiser Layouts, how do you plan to do the hangar system, and have ship size work relative to BC size? I mean we can say that in SC2 it is quite abnormal in the size comparisons (destroyers were just as large as BCs and you could fit 8 of them in one BC), like will it be the one large hangar or smaller components as discussed in here http://www.cruisercommand.com/forum/vie ... f=41&t=875

How much work has been done on the project? Im completely fine with barely any work done on it, as its a large undertaking and you have a very busy schedule. I just want to know what you have done so far.

And lastly...will there be DLC? If there is ima punch my monitor right now, because im pissed off at destiny and pretty much all DLC practices (besides large scale expansions) at the moment >.O

[Siretu]

Not much new to talk about. I'm working full-time and it's taking up more time than earlier summers, for some reason. I've also, believe it or not, been working on SC2 CC a reasonable amount which takes time away from standalone development.

Most recent thing that happened is that I got stuck with some core stuff and didn't get any support on the UE forums.

As for your questions about specifics. I think it's way too early for me to have a definite answer. I can say what I am planning and then we'll see where we go from there.

I plan on working on normal 6v6 as the standard game mode. I wont aim to make it higher because I want to make sure the core gameplay is accessible for the likely case of low amount of players. Support for more than 12 players will of course be included and I will make sure there's no hard-code limits blocking me from expanding in the future. More players will mostly work by adding different ships with different size. This ideally means that your team can pick a 10v10 ship if they want, or a 4v4 ship, depending on the match they want to play.

I plan on having one big hangar, possibly with hangar bays, but it's too early to tell. That's my initial idea though.

I'm working on refactoring some stupid code to make marine movement less ugly in the code. I would prefer to not end up in a situation like ship navigation in SC2. For those of you who don't know, ship navigation is done by a marine standing on a pillar, which meant making an API around going between the ship and navigator, and also introduced a lot of bugs and extra steps to the entire code. It was added because unit turning used to be a bit bugged and we wanted the fixed turning rate to be enforced without being able to turn 180 degrees almost instantly (like you are/were in e.g Starbattle). It's probably the most coupled system in CC atm, and there's no way I'm ever remaking that.

Anyway, back to what's done: I basically got unit navigation to work on a moving ship. I got ships moving and a template for consoles. This all works in multiplayer, which is an accomplishment in itself. The next step is a bit blurry.

I'm not completely sure where to go from here. I am considering working towards a MVP (minimum viable product), which for me means implementing some kind of team/player mechanic, add two BCs with weapon and health and make killing each other possible. After that, I'll probably get some mining going and some purchasing and from there the sky's the limit.

I have no plans for DLC. I'd plan to work on it pretty much the same way I worked on the SC2 version, although hopefully a bit more structured with the updates, instead of throwing them in haphazardly. I definitely think all potential DLC should be free though. I'm more for just continuously updating CC for as long as it's needed, for no cost. Just as I've done with SC2 CC for... four years now?

[Puppetbones]

It's hard to write games like this...
But I think as long as you take breaks when needed you'll be fine. Sometimes it's also nice to just run the unfinished game with no particular intention (ie, not testing new code). I find it motivating, and I almost always see things I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.