Hi everyone, it has been quite a while since I last made the statement that we would begin developing for Space Crusade once again. Well I am happy to say that they train has finally landed. Due to tons of reasons, namely time constraints, I have been unable to work on it. But I have begun piecing together a development plan that I will uploading sometime this month for everyone to look at, I will put a few excerpts here just so that you can get a sense of the direction that the game is moving in right now.
We have fixed the loading bug in a rather interesting way, I will not bore with details right now, I will leave that for the change log I will also be starting up this month, probably toward the end. It will include all past changes we have made as well (I had been keeping record of them when we were still heavily working on it for a forum post at a programming institute website).
Now some of this you may not understand for several reasons: 1. I sometimes talk about various functions in the game and 2. I make references to an ASCII console RPG I was working on as a test bed for the ASCII version of this game (more GUI oriented with ability to color text but still have it in a console window).
From Main Objective:
The main objectives for this document are to detail out and plan effectively the production plan for the continued, and redevelopment, of Space Crusade. As it stand the game is very inefficient with its code and needs a massive overhauling of most classes and areas. At all times code should either be compacted or functionalized to promote neat and efficient code.
Within this redesign many changes must be made. Pretty much every class needs to be optimized and we need to think about subclasses as well. We need to recode each class so that it is streamlined, can be easily added to, and make sure to include ample commentary on everything.
The weapons equip and buying system should be a major focus, we must get this into a manageable form somehow and not just a huge switch and hundreds of if statements. Creating a weapons class should be examined, while the struct works, we could use the class for the actual weapon attributes instead of those if statements. Another way might be with a matrix using numbered id system similar to how I did the item database in the ASCII RPG.
From Station:
The Station class is another area that will need to be hit very hard come recoding time. The entire way the storefront operates will need to change drastically. Either way we choose to go with the item system we will call all of the information from the itemSystem class, there will be no actual information hard coded into the store functions. We also need to examine the Clone function, as I mentioned before, because it is not properly functioning. We might also want to rethink how we get to the stations, how the ranks will effect the various station related prices, and adding in a few new functions.
New Function: Bounty Hunting
Idea:
The basic idea of this function is that outlaws will be randomly posted to a bounty list at a station. Their offenses and reward will be posted along with where they were last seen or have been known to haunt. Players can then travel to these areas, facing unique enemies possibly, and find and duke it out with these wanted persons. We would need to make a Bounty class, subclass of Alien would probably be best, and include the various things we would need.
From Storyline Progression:
This has got to be one of the main focuses while we are recoding the game. We need to make a more linear and cohesive plot through out the game in the form of special missions that will progress the story. We basically need to shoot for a sandbox style game that has a story connecting everything under the surface, like Just Cause 2 or Prototype. These missions need to serve the story, they can not just be like MMO style missions of go get this, go kill this, etc.
An example could be if a high-ranking official from what is left of the EASOM contacts the player and asks them to under take a mission, maybe something like a scouting mission into enemy territory or a hit and run style attack on a small enemy fleet, the player can either accept or decline the request.
If they player accepts a new menu option will be added to the main menu selection to begin the mission. The player will then be taken to the sector the mission will take place in and must find the system. Once the mission is completed they will get some kind of reward, resources most likely or maybe even weapons or ships for more difficult ones. If they refuse there should be a down side for doing so, maybe a drop in Earth Alliance Rank points.
From Ships:
We should come up with some more ships to further diversify game play. We could also add in some new ship types, maybe something like Interceptors or Heavy Frigates.
Interceptors
- Lightly armored and standard armaments
- Can move very quickly, twice the speed of normal ships
- Can not travel through worm holes due to weak structural armor
- Can switch out hard points for armor plates or heavier weaponry hard points. If armor is added speed is decreased slightly.
Heavy Frigates
- More armor then normal frigates and move slower, but have heavy weapon hard points and can equip modest weaponry.
- Weak shielding due to having to remove the hardware to make room for weapons hard points and mechanics.
- Move at half speed of most frigates.
So far the document is 16 pages long and is still not completed yet. These were small sections from the indicated chapters of the development plan just to give you a taste of which direction we are headed towards (more of a free roam with linear-rpg style aspects).
We might have a new alpha version up for download in July or August which would include some of the bug fixes and possibly some of these newer ideas.
Thanks for following us, be sure to leave comments on what you think of the current alpha, what you liked or didn't like about it or what you think is missing etc and we will see if we can improve the game based on your suggestions.
-Space Crusade Development Group
