This is the last update to the demo for quite a while as I am going back to the writing of the more complex features (as explained in the previous development logs). Anyway, this new version implements animations, new weapon behaviors (AoE, mines), quite a lot of graphical improvements and fixes several issues found in previous releases. The full changelog is available at the end of the article, but here are the main points:

• Added animations (explosions, weapon hits,…)
• New weapon behaviors (mines, area of effect, …)
• New ‘pause’ and ‘comms’ menus
• Several UI improvements
• Improved graphics (nebulas, planets, stations)

The new version is available for download here.

For a more in depth look …

Animations

The most visible addition to this release is probably the new explosions and weapon hit impacts. Now, any game object can be linked to an animation, either for display or for special cases like dying. This is not necessarily something I will do, lacking the art assets, but the ability is here for the engine. There’s still some improvements to be made as I can’t set specific animations speed or looping in my editor yet, but that’s something I can implement later without too much hassle.

Weapon Abilities

That’s another of the big improvements. I added a new general weapon behavior: homing mines that activate when an enemy ship is near enough. I also added area of effect damage support for any weapon. Finally, the ability for bullets to spawn more bullets on death has been added (it is used for flak missiles). I can also prevent NPC ships from using specific weapons, which will be useful to an extend to prevent them from using items they can’t understand. However, It may be somewhat hard to try out the various changes to weaponry as only a few new weapons have been added to the game (homing mines, and the new flak missiles).

User Interface

Most of the menus have been made transparent. I also added a “pause” menu which can be accessed via the [pause] key on the keyboard, from there you can also change the controls and quit the game (later on, you’ll be allowed to save/load the game here too). The very first basic stage of the ship-to-ship communication window has been implemented. So far you can only ask another pilot what he is doing, but much more will be implemented later on. There’s also a bunch of minor changes and fixes regarding the UI: some fonts have been made bigger, the game window will ignore player inputs if it’s minimized, and so on..

Graphics

I added several new planets, suns and nebulas types. Also by playing with nebulas transparency the same way I do for background stars, I managed to make the sectors look a little bit more alive. I also changed the graphics for all the trading stations (each faction get an unique one) and some of the other stations. The Drath Alliance gets a few unique buildings, the pirates gets a new pirate base, and the Sirak Empire has a new battleship, to complete their unique ship list.

Other Changes and Fixes

I fixed several multithread related crashes. Those are issues that as a player you don’t see because the game automatically restart any crashed thread, but it still make the game more stable in general. I also fixed a few cases where factions would ignore the cap put on how many stations or ships they could build per sector. That should fix issues with very long games on large maps. On the other hand, due to the major additions to the graphic engine without much time spent on optimization, FPS may drop slightly on lower end machines. That will be fixed in time.

Full Changelog

Features & Changes

• Most game windows made transparent
• Ship to ship communication dialog added
• Added database support for animations
• Added AnimObject used to display animations
• Added explosions for dying ships and stations (in sector only)
• Marginally faster DB load time
• Added explosions for missile hits
• Ship Info window cosmetic changes
• Nebulas change opacity slowly
• Limited sector takeovers to cardinal directions
• Factions will use all their shipyards to build military fleets
• Factions will replace destroyed constructor ships
• Added Homing mines to weapon types (doesn’t work very well against playership)
• Added new weapon settings to database
• All weapons can show death animations
• Flag to prevent NPC from using specific weapons
• Area of Effect damages possible for any weapon
• Ability for a bullet to spawn more bullets on death
• Made selected object font bigger
• Added base for different faction AI
• Added ability to pause the game
• Added pause menu (allow to quit the game directly too)
• Keys are customizable in the pause menu

Game Data

• Added several nebulas types
• Added several planets and suns types
• New trading stations for all races
• Added Independent Sector Alliance faction
• Added new ships, modified existing ones
• Drath Alliance gets personalized stations
• Some new weapons to test new engine capabilities

Fixes

• Fixed: No transparency for shipyard and ship scan images
• Fixed: outdated code in background thread removed
• Fixed: Map thread not stopped if using hotkeys
• Fixed: AttackSame wasn’t using pointer reference counters
• Fixed: Military ships spawning at coord (0,0)
• Fixed: More AI exception crashes (maybe the last of them)
• Fixed: very rare factory production cycle error
• Fixed: Minimized game window still receiving keyboard input
• Fixed: Military ship building ignoring cap
• Fixed: Some building functions ignoring AI dock cap
• Fixed: Building constructor can crash faction thread if no shipyard avail