Wing Commander Flat Universe

Thanks! I was playing the latest demo, can't wait for the next release. also, I really like the Destiny's Way Magazine on Solsector, very cool and well done. Fiction like that has always been part of the universe and I'm happy to see the tradition continue. .
 
DefianceIndustries said:
Thanks! I was playing the latest demo, can't wait for the next release...
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Hold your breath and count to ten, my friend.

DefianceIndustries said:
...also, I really like the Destiny's Way Magazine on Solsector, very cool and well done. Fiction like that has always been part of the universe and I'm happy to see the tradition continue. .
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The idea of Destiny's Way was something secondary inside the sphere of out project development and we really love to keep and maintain it but every month falls back for the projects greater good. Personally, every D'sW issue we have created makes me feel nostalgic of the days where you didn't just buy (download) a software distribution copy but a piece of art. Days of WC1 and Claw Marks.

Thank you for your kind words.
 
Hey everyone,

I thought I would just pop in and share a bunch of screenshots. You know to get an idea of what is coming.... ;)

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cap20150729211037.png cap20150729220826.png cap20150729221410.png cap20150729221921.png

PS: All images are in game grabs
 
Getting better and better....

Thank you so much for keeping us updated with new screenshots!

Way to go Masalas and Kyrgiannis! (by the way, I can barely believe it's only you two guys working on all this! :eek:)
 
Salk said:
Getting better and better....

Thank you so much for keeping us updated with new screenshots!

Way to go Masalas and Kyrgiannis!
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Glad to know that you liked them and thank you for your kind words. You know what? I've been saying a lot since we started this development that your (the community's) interest and kind words is the fuel of our production engines and I've been wondering if I have overdone it up to the state of boredom. But when something is not for sale, the only payment the creator can get is recognition.

Salk said:
...(by the way, I can barely believe it's only you two guys working on all this! :eek:)
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A building is not build only by the builders. Someone must pay for the estate, someone else must design the building, someone else must provide the tools needed, someone must put everything together (build it) and finally someone must organize all of the above. Software development is no different from construction. But consider the following and you will see that we are not only the two of us.
a. Although our game play is not the same as the original Wing Commander Title, our goals were pretty clear from the beginning.
b. We are not building our own game engine to build this project. We selected the tool that fitted our needs and we are extending and build upon it.
c. We have been given the right to use the 3d spaceship models from Klavs. We have gladly accepted them and we are working to implement them to our engine. But by no means we did any concept for them. We are not the Artists nor the creators.
d. CIC has given us the space to host our page and forum to speak about it.
e. We never had to compose music for this project. Plus that most of the sound effects are given from the community handsomely.
f. Due to our profession we have an experience in organizing the development of a project. Although FlatUniverse is a fan project, we consider it and organize it just like any other professional job that we undertook; minus the time limit.

All the above and still this project is big!:eek:
 
The fact you acknowledge the work made by others as essential goes to your credit, guys!

You are absolutely right. This is going to be a community project and it's going to be great! :)
 
Oooh, nice.

Edit: Just skimmed through it, you're really good in catching the WC universe feeling I think. I really enjoyed reading it (as before) and I never had a problem imagining it to be an official product. Also, your covers are all really really good.
 
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Dear Wingnuts,

It's been long time since we last gave you an update of our progress. The CIC birthday came just in time to give you a good taste of our development so far.
So as you already know 0.8.5 is available for download in all kinds of flavours (windows, linux, mac).
But let me tell you in further detail what this version is all about.
1. Graphics
As you might already know the whole graphics part of our game engine has been upgraded, plus the game performance is more balanced than ever.
2. Barracks - Load/Save
In the previous release the player could access only the hangar deck, the control room and the officers lounge. In this release the barracks is also ONLINE. The game starts from there (just like in WC1) and as you can imagine you can register and select your pilot from there. In addition to that the Save/Load module of the project is also working.
3. Additional Cutscenes - Animated Charachters
The hangar deck and control room of Daedalus is no more an empty space there animated characters around. New take off and landing cutscenes have been added.
4. Features
Now I am getting to the more interesting of all! 14 new unique systems have been created and added to the gameplay. NavMap, Nav system and Autopilot are fully functional, the player is no more lost in space with best addition of all... Jump drive. Now you can take the transport for a free flight and explore the world of FlatUniverse, jumping from system to system just like in Privateer. Of course there is no friendly traffic in the systems nor pirates to fight with but still the player can enjoy the graphics and have an extended taste of the gameplay. Additionally, 8 new training missions have been added with a performance report in the end of every mission. Last but not least there is an in-flight screenshot function. Now, you can grab the moment of your flight experience by hitting F12 and the screenshot will be saved into your flatuniverse home folder.
5. Bugs
We could say with confidence that in this release there has been an extensive effort in debugging and it is confidently one of our most stable distributions so far. However, there was one draw back to one of the features that we included on our previous release. That is, the automatic patching system. From now and on we will continue our distribution with the old favourite, download the whole package. We are very sorry for the inconvenience if we have brought any to you but it seems that this feature will have to wait for the time being.

Feel free to tell us what is on your mind and remember that we are counting on your feedback. It is for you, the community, that this project is created for and you will have to enjoy it along with us.
Have fun!

the MaslasBros
 
Hi guys! Got a chance to play through some of the latest release. Overall its great, the polish on this release really shows. I noticed the lighting on the models was alot smoother, especially on the Exeter, which had some odd lighting artifacts around the wings, and the addition of the animated characters on the flight deck and ops centers are starting to make the station feel lived in. I liked the group doing PT around the flight deck.

A couple things that struck me as I played through it:

  • The new frosted glass in the barracks and lounge windows, its fine in the barracks, it adds a nice touch but overhead in the lounge it kind of ruined it a bit. The lounge to me is a place to show off a grand view and the texture blurred out the stars and planets. IMHO I'd revert the lounge windows back if possible.
  • The fleshed out nav system is cool. The slow zoom on the map is a nice touch.
  • When I autopilot, I always got an unlighted underside view of the fighter. Is there a way to alter the lighting on the underside for the animation to bring out the model more? It could just be the map I'm on also.
  • It might just be my lack of flat piloting skills, but I thought the laser mines were a bit over powered. One volley usually torched my shields and armor, or if I was turning to avoid fire, it'd melt my side armor off. Since the game forces you to turn instead of loop away, I often got mauled on a pass.
Overall great release! Aces, honestly. Keep it up!
 
DefianceIndustries said:
Hi guys! Got a chance to play through some of the latest release. Overall its great, the polish on this release really shows. I noticed the
  • It might just be my lack of flat piloting skills, but I thought the laser mines were a bit over powered. One volley usually torched my shields and armor, or if I was turning to avoid fire, it'd melt my side armor off. Since the game forces you to turn instead of loop away, I often got mauled on a pass.
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Currently, the best way to defeat the turrets is to evade them and destroy them from a blind spot or destroy them from around 3000 to 5000 klicks. The best way to do it is to use the Hornet.
But I agree that they're still overpowered.
 
DefianceIndustries said:
Hi guys! Got a chance to play through some of the latest release. Overall its great, the polish on this release really shows. I noticed the lighting on the models was alot smoother, especially on the Exeter, which had some odd lighting artifacts around the wings, and the addition of the animated characters on the flight deck and ops centers are starting to make the station feel lived in. I liked the group doing PT around the flight deck.

A couple things that struck me as I played through it:

  • The new frosted glass in the barracks and lounge windows, its fine in the barracks, it adds a nice touch but overhead in the lounge it kind of ruined it a bit. The lounge to me is a place to show off a grand view and the texture blurred out the stars and planets. IMHO I'd revert the lounge windows back if possible.
  • The fleshed out nav system is cool. The slow zoom on the map is a nice touch.
  • When I autopilot, I always got an unlighted underside view of the fighter. Is there a way to alter the lighting on the underside for the animation to bring out the model more? It could just be the map I'm on also.
  • It might just be my lack of flat piloting skills, but I thought the laser mines were a bit over powered. One volley usually torched my shields and armor, or if I was turning to avoid fire, it'd melt my side armor off. Since the game forces you to turn instead of loop away, I often got mauled on a pass.
Overall great release! Aces, honestly. Keep it up!
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Hey Defiance,

Thank you for your kind words and your quick response.
  • Can you believe it? I agree with you. We did have a little debate about the window material. Now that we are the two of us I guess I could pull that matter to the surface again!;)
  • The autopilot lighting matter has to do with the system's global lighting source. In most systems the light is positioned over the ships. We could experiment with the lights and I have a small theory on why the camera comes randomly more often under the ship than over it.
FekLeyrTarg said:
Currently, the best way to defeat the turrets is to evade them and destroy them from a blind spot or destroy them from around 3000 to 5000 klicks. The best way to do it is to use the Hornet.
But I agree that they're still overpowered.
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  • Right now, the turrets can be as easy and as hard we tell them to be. The information that you feed me both you and Fek is that they are over powered, since they are laser turrets and their laser bolts have the same specs with what your Hornet is equipped then I could guess that the shields might be underpowered. We thank both of you about this matter. A little more feedback from other WingNuts would give us a better image on the weapon vs shield balance.

Thank you too Fek.

the MaslasBros
 
Maslas said:
Right now, the turrets can be as easy and as hard we tell them to be. The information that you feed me both you and Fek is that they are over powered, since they are laser turrets and their laser bolts have the same specs with what your Hornet is equipped then I could guess that the shields might be underpowered. We thank both of you about this matter. A little more feedback from other WingNuts would give us a better image on the weapon vs shield balance.
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Alternatively if you gave the player the option of some kind of evasive maneuver like a snap roll or loop that would allow the player's ship to avoid fire (something like the loop in that old top-down shooter '1943', or the snap roll in Arena) you could probably keep the turrets at the same power level. Of course, rebalancing the turrets is probably much easier. :)
 
Shields being underpowered is also a possibility. I haven't thought about that.
You're welcome. If I find anything else, I'll let you know. :)
 
DefianceIndustries said:
Alternatively if you gave the player the option of some kind of evasive maneuver like a snap roll or loop that would allow the player's ship to avoid fire ...
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I've got you on that one Defiance. There is a flight module in my development schedule which I call it "Advanced Flight Controls". I let you guess what it might be.;)

DefianceIndustries said:
...(something like the loop in that old top-down shooter '1943', or the snap roll in Arena) you could probably keep the turrets at the same power level. Of course, rebalancing the turrets is probably much easier. :)
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No no, guns vs shields balancing is something totally different and it's a usual conversation in this forum after a version release of FlatUniverse. My true opinion is that the game will really become more balanced from the feedback we will get during the multiplayer matches.

FekLeyrTarg said:
If I find anything else, I'll let you know
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Appreciate!
 
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