Empyrean Frontier is a traditional RTS in development featuring massive space fleets, base building, and resource collection. Empyrean Frontier is built on a custom game engine, and aims to create an innovative strategy game that is still familiar to veterans of the genre.
My main focus since the last article here has been adding new missions to the campaign. Each time the player moves to a new node in the campaign map, you will encounter a random event, which might lead to a tactical fleet battle or a more heavily scripted objectives-based mission. In the video below, you can see a few of the different events that you can encounter in the latest build of the game.
In addition to the changes to the campaign, there is also now a unit veterancy system, similar to the systems found in Command and Conquer and other RTS games. Whenever units deal the killing blow to an enemy, they gain experience, and as they level up, they become significantly more powerful.
The veterancy system ties in nicely with the campaign because it allows the player to level up their ships from mission to mission, adding an additional form of progression and further encouraging the player to preserve their existing units.
As before, the game is still in alpha on Itch.io As for the full steam release, I've opted to stay on smaller sites for now until I can finish the campaign. I'll also be showing the game at MAGFest in January, so expect more news about the final release before then.
Update adding the campaign in Empyrean Frontier, an RTS campaign inspired by FTL.
Empyrean Frontier has finally made its way onto Steam Greenlight. The game has come a long way since the previous pre-alpha demos and I'm glad to announce...
This update introduces the Interstellar Union's superweapon: a gigantic missile with 2 different attack modes.
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when it will be full play?
Hi
I think i'm gonna love this game
It seems wow ! and finally base building , so many titles without base building Empyrean Frontier might quench my thirst to build
I'm following this , i'll vote you max and cannot wait to play it and all i hope is that is gonna have a ton of races , at least 3 :D
Thanks!
As for the number of races, there are unfortunately only going to be 2, it takes a lot of time to add another, especially one that's significantly different from the others. Hopefully 2 is enough for now, though I haven't entirely ruled out a 3rd for a post-launch update or expansion.
You are welcome
2 is fine
If things are really deep detailed and they are unique one to another and there's a lot to progress in their tech trees aside from a catchy gameplay , the number matters little
I hope i'll get the time to play it
What remains memorable at Empyrean for me is what that animated screenshot shows - ships being attacked with a magnetic gun - this is something i can say i don't remember having met in other games and i played quite many.So , it seems Empyrean Frontier has an unique physix-like system.I like this and it's old school , i like old school
You're doing fine with it , Galdor
Homeworld 2 anyone?
Still pretty good uwu
No worries; I've been watching the updates since I heard about this game. Jesus christ that superweapon is epic. And I like the music I hear while it charges up and fires!
Just wondering if you have been using music from machinimasound.com?
how goes it?
Hey, just checked out today's update. But I have been wondering if you have been considering adding fitting music to the Empryean Frontier game. I know a site that has some pretty decent music as well:
Machinimasound.com
Royalty free for use. Just a suggestion
Yeah, music is something I’m still not entirely decided on. There’s a chance I might get some original compositions, but if that doesn’t work out I’ll use some kind of royalty free music. Thanks for the link, I hadn’t heard of that site before.
Loving the new systems (Formations, fighters moving in place etc)
you should try making the bigger units move around a bit, just much slower though.
:D
Thanks for the kind words!
That’s a good point, and I really appreciate the input. After reading this I actually made a few quick changes so that all the larger ships will now individually change direction when moving and face whatever their current target is, rather than the whole group always having the same direction. As a result, that seems to make the larger ships look a little more natural in their movements and at least they move a little when they’re in combat. As for always moving like the fighters, I’ve considered having the frigates move around in some way, but they tend to look more awkward when they’re circling like the fighters or even just moving back and forth. The size makes it difficult to make them move too much without clipping into each other, and I don’t really want to increase the spacing between the ships in the same group by too much. I'm leaning towards keeping things roughly the way they are now, but I’ll keep trying a few different things to see if I can make them move around above/beneath each other in some interesting way. I want to at least change the way they line up in their groups since the front 3 always look like they would be blocking line of sight for the back 3, and the game does technically support full 3d movement.
One thing that will really help you in development is to draw inspiration from other RTS games. Getting that mixture from many types of ship and structure designs can really flood you with some ideas.
Just be sure not to count star wars and star trek because... its just way too obvious xD
Hey, even the functions in other games may give you gameplay ideas!
- Different types of ships maybe? (tier system or ships with specific roles)
*something like broadside cruisers, electronic warfare, or just those ships with gigantic cannons that run straight through smaller ships xD
Yeah, that’s definitely something I’ve been doing. Check out some of the older updates and videos, the first update especially shows a good number of the ships and their combat roles. (a few things have changed since then, but not too much) The next update I’m working on is going to be mainly about weapons, so I’ll be writing about the ships as well in a bit more detail than before.