InfiniteSpace-online

[technomage]

Hi People

I am reluctant to announce this but I'm afraid I need your help.

I have been thinking of doing this project for about 8 years now, and early this year I decided to make a start. The goal is so huge that it could take years to accomplish.

So what is this idea, well it's a MMOG. A Space epic for want of a better term called

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/isbanner_2.png

InfiniteSpace-online (http://www.infinitespace-online.net)

So what do I need. Well I'm currently looking for help in the following areas.

:arrow: Concept Art
:arrow: High Quality 3D modelling (with low poly versions)
:arrow: Texture artists
:arrow: Music

I am also looking for help with the development of the InfintEngine

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/g1895.png

Which is a complete game engine using SDL, Indy, opengl (v 2.0) and openal for sound. All of which will be coded in Delphi/Free Pascal and should be able to run on Windows, Linux and MacOSX

One of the main reasons for startng the Freespace 2 Pascal (http://fs2pascal.infinitespace-online.net) project is to learn more about professional 3d space combat engines and put that knowledge into practice. Also a test version of the InfinitEngine can see seen over on the Alert Fighter (http://alertfighter.mirthmedia.co.uk) project site.

Not much code has been done so far on the client side of things, but I have started coding the game services and web site support. These services include

:arrow: Connection Service
:arrow: Chat Service
:arrow: System Service
:arrow: Remote Admin Service

I did an Alpha Test of the Connection and Chat services about a month ago with some success but a few problems found that need to be corrected. All the services use Indy and work under linux and Windows.

So basically this is a call to arms. I don't plan to sell this game at the moment, but that might change.

If you want to see the competition head over to Infinty (http://www.fl-tw.com), what this guy has done on his own is fantastic.

Can the Pascal Game community rise to the challenge :?: I think we can.

If you are intested in helping out register on the Forum (http://forum.infinitespace-online.net)

I look forward to seeing you there.

Dean

[Robert Kosek]

Dean,

I am extremely interested in this project, and you have caught my attention rather firmly. I have a few problems in that I'm moving after next week, and don't really have any professional skills, or even moderate skills, outside of programming.

However once I can get back online I am very curious to see if I can assist you with the InfinitEngine. This may take a few months though, unless we miraculously find a reliable 'net connection.

[technomage]

Hi Robert

Great news :) When you're back "online" join the forum and we can chat more there. :D

In the mean time if anyone has any questions about this project fire away :-)

Dean

[savage]

I'm subversioned up and have got a cut of the code. Will re-sync next weeked and hopefully pump out come conversions.

[technomage]

I realised that there is very little information about what InfiniteSpace-online is. So I added a new About (http://www.infinitespace-online.net) menu item which has basic details on what the client should be able to do.

[technomage]

I managed to get some concept work done over the last few days. I posted some renders from blender on one of the ships that you will see in the game

Here is a sample (sorry about the quality, I'm still learning how to do materials in blender)

There are a couple of other images of this ship on the site (http://www.infinitespace-online.net)

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/screenshots/magellan3.png (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/screenshots/magellan3.png)

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/screenshots/athena2.png

[technomage]

I've been playing with the rendering settings in Blender and this is the latest of the magellan. If you look there is also a fighter in the picture for a rough idea of the scale.

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/screenshots/magellan4.png

[savage]

Hi Dean, these are some very cool renderings. Any animated versions?

[technomage]

Not yet, I haven't got that far in Blender yet. I'm working on it. :)

[marmin]

I don't want to discourage you, but of course you know there are *lot* of massive space exploration games around. I've tried a lot, and most are pretty the same. Only a few developers actually finish, and those are pretty bad or boring. Making artwork for that is also difficult, almost every form of a ship has already been done. Look at 'Oolite' , there are dozens of ship packs that can be downloaded, or easily be made.

[technomage]

Fair point :think:, but I'm not doing this for fame or fortune, I'm doing it because this is something I have had in my head for about 8-9 years now, and I personally want to be able to fly around in the world I created and expore it. If others want to join me in my exploration then that is fantastic, if not that is fine too.

You are right there are allot of space games about. I personally am very excited about the following

Infinity (http://www.fl-tw.com)
Battle Star Galactica Beyond the Red Line (http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/)

Both of which are in development, Infinity in particular has a very active Community and the developer is very tallented and I will be playing that game when it's released. :D

Now if all the people who wanted to write a game took the atitude that if that style of game (e.g. space exploration) had been done before don't do it, then there probably wouldn't have been games like Eve, Xwing, FreeSpace 1 & 2, WingCommander, X 1-3, Frontier Elite because Elite is pretty much is the best Space exploration game ever built.

You are right allot of games of this style and they are the same, allot are very boring, but each of the games listed above pushed the evelope in some way, be it in graphics, gameplay or something else.

Like I said I'm not trying to build a huge game to make loads of money, this project is mainly for me. That said I welcome any help/feedback I can on game play, models, physics, design even coding. So people can either stay on the sidelines and say when I finally release game that it is boring or step up to the plate and help me to make a game that is ground breaking in some way.
:P

BTW - OOlite is an excelent re-creation of Elite, I have it installed on my linux box (haven't made it to Elite status yet though :( )

[marmin]

Well.. a thing that I always like is a realistic stock market system. I always hated the limited trading features of Frontier.
I've tried Oolite but it was buggy and I got extremely slow performance..

[technomage]

Funny enough, a stock market trade system is on the cards. I just need to figure out how to implement it (I'm not sure I understand the real world stock market :wink: )

[savage]

(I'm not sure I understand the real world stock market :wink: )

Watch the movie Trading Places, Wall Street and most importantly a documentary about the fall of Enron called "The smartest guys in the room".

[WILL]

Stock Market trading huh? :lol:

Don't get me wrong, it's a really cool idea. I'm all for it, but what are you basing the trends off of? A company's stock value will rise and fall (fluctuate) based on world events. You'd have to have enough companies with bases, goods, etc and keep a running tally of it all. Not impossible, but you really have to plan it out well with the rest of the game's sales, purchases, etc...

In this you may want to have every product (weapon, shield generator, ship make/model) not only have a cost, but also have a manufacturer or company behind it. So that way you can record the company's profit value as each item is sold. And also record the losses from attacked/destroyed convoy's, etc. Just remember that profits only count towards the company when the items are sold from actual 'accredited' company dealers. ;)

Warning, Rant: You know the best example of a space game with a 'real world' type economy was Freelancer. It had a ton of factions that you could build up a rep with or against each. So there was active politics throughout the game. And goods cost more at some bases/planets and less at others so you could do cargo runs as a means to build earn cash. Plus of course the 'Jobs'! :) Take out X-Y-Z, get X item, capture X guy, etc... There was even a great news system that you could read and it would tell about whats going on in diferent areas of the game world! :D The one downfall to the game though (besides the ultra short story mode) was that you quickly found less satisfaction in doing jobs as they started to appear very similar with each other, just different names AND once you completed the story you get the best ship in the game wit hthe best weapons so there really isn't much modivation to earn cash and upgrade. :? (ok thats not true there are a few ships at higher levels but it's so far away and the missions are just so darn boring now... :P)

What you could do is at the beginning (probably in development) start everything in the world as baseline... ($500,000,000) and just keep a consistant tally of whos items are sold and whos cargo ships are attacked/destroyed add/subtract the totals and keep track of each company's net worth. just be sure that if you make a news network system in your game that you ROUND the number of 'the company's reported net worth.' ;)

I think that might be a great place to start off before doing the actual trading with shares, etc...


Oh... and you can include major factions like governments and militaries into these stats too. Like the fortune 500s govs and mils have budgets too. ;) So if a Carrier/Destroyer or a base go kaboom... ;) $50,000,000 go bye bye. :P

[technomage]

Thanks for that WILL, some good ideas there.

The game design puts a Solar System in the Hands on a Player (the Base Solar systems will be run by Me or somoeone on the dev team), so each solar system will be responsible for generating goods to trade depending on the reources available in that system. If for example one system has loads of iron ore it would need to trade that ore to get food etc. I was planning on the prices being set by the system administrators, they would pay more for stuff they want and see goods they have loads of cheaply.

So companies would really be at the solar system level, one system would do better than others. If you manage your system correctly you will make money if not you'll go bust (not sure what will happen then). So If I mnaged to get 500 solar systems then a Fortune 100 or something. :D

I'm still working out the design, but that is a rough idea on how it would work.

[WILL]

Hmm... so you're saying that it will be an Empire-scale game rather than a Privateer-scale game? I was under the impression that you'd be able to play a single character and pilot yourself through the world as an individual. :P

Oh! :idea: :D

I just had a great idea... what if you after completing 'Infinite Space - Online' left the game client open for expansion (can be offered as an expansion pack) and you expanded the servers to support a seperate edition of the game where individuals can take part on a person to person scale trading goods, etc...

You could call this game 'Infinite Space - Privateer' and all it would use the same online real-time world runing on the 'ISO' servers but feature different aspects of gameplay. All the while, the players of the original will get to see unique individual players of 'ISP' growing and becoming greater influences on their empires.

This would then add a 3rd aspect of gameplay where these powerful individuals would then effect the Solar system 'Lords & Leaders' (players of the original ISO game) to have to either protect or 'go against' these privateers (players of the new ISP game).

This would be an amazing way to play off the relationship that in a RTS(like Homeworld, etc) game you would deal with individual units OR in a Space Sim where you would go and do jobs and have a rep with the different factions in the game.


Here is how I think this expansion might work: Lets say you have two Solar systems...

Ansari Prime & Sol (2 players of ISO)

...now you have a privateer who interacts on a smaller scale with all the factions doing business to earn cash, buy better ships, weapons + systems and so on and build up a good rep. with governments and businesses to do better business, etc...

...now the System leaders of both Sol and Ansari see what commodities they are selling and not selling. As they put a price on their goods they offer competative pricing with other systems this creates a business relationship between privateer and system depandancy. But the buying of goods is based on a set price by the system leader so there is no real direct interaction between these individuals. (at least not yet)

Also, the system leaders will obviously have problems with NCP controlled bandits and pirates, etc... they will need to have a strong capability to defend and police themselves. Well... maybe by lack of man-power, they need to hire privateers to investigate / take out key enemy installations, escort important cargo convoys or just hire a private militia and pay out credits on commision for each enemy ship destoryed.

So lets say the privateer in this example starts working for Sol and gains a great rep with them. Well... Sol and Ansari Prime become enemies. So... in our example the privateer would rapidly lose any rep points and eventually become an enemy of 'Ansari Prime' as he performed jobs for Sol against Ansari Prime. You can try to 'walk the line' and be on neutral terms with both, but like the markets for goods and trading, the more that Sol and Ansari Prime war, the more jobs that the privateer can take up between the two will be geared towards fighting each another.

There are soo many things that can be done with this concept! :) Once you build up a steady amount of system lords you can make this a reality, but it would be awesome and be able to bring in 2 kinds of interested types of gamers to your concept! (I don't think this has ever been done before...)

Whaddaya think? :D

[technomage]

There is a concept entry over on the "ISO" forum (http://forum.infinitespace-online.net) outlining the ideas' behind it. (you need to be registered to get to it.)

but here are the basics

There will be a client app which will be like privateer , eve etc where you fly between systems trading goods,fighting etc.

But there will also be a Solar System hosting kit, in which you get the servers you need to run a solar system. clients will connect to the solar system you are running. the current design allows parts of the solar to be hosted on various machines (the chat server and the system server can be on different machines). So there will not be any "servers" as such as it is a distributed system. You will need a good PC and broadband, but I think it will work.

The solar system admin(s) will manage the police force, trade prices and contacts for mining (and NPC mining etc) as well as building space stations etc. The privateer style clients will visit these systems and buy/ sell goods etc. Currently the Soalr system admin screens are web based , but a nice RTS style gui is on the cards for the future (I still have allong way to go for that).

I do have some of the solar system services like chat and the connection service running already though :D

In short the basic concept you outlined is correct. you can probably see why I was asking for help with this project, it could take years and years otherwise :cylon:

[WILL]

Ah... ok I think I understand the concept better now. 8)

I would however suggest that before you enlist too much help, get a full design document written up. At least outline all your major design concepts so that everyone participating will know exactly what is involved right from the word 'go'.

Such important things I'd love to read is all the ways a client player can earn cash and update/upgrade his player/ship or whatever equates his status in the game. I assume cash and his ship cost would be the biggest factors in this? (as with most space games)

The other things that would be of great value is what exactly is all the things a server player or 'solar admin' can do... create a new base, etc...

Beyond this... all the little things... what is auto generated in each solar system (created by the 'solar admins') and what is user created? how do the solar systems connect with each other? Are there trade routes like in Freelancer? Besides the solar system police and structure, what other factions are there in the game, etc... What happens when a server player turns off his app? ...and so on.

Doing this may be the boring part for you, but I think it'll give them something to dive into the inner workings of the game and get creative about. (It's kind of like involving your artist or musician into the workings of the game engine and coming up with a greater idea with their help. I find great benefit in this myself. Well... most of the time. ;))


BTW: As you can tell I'm quite the busy brain guy, sooo... if you give me instructions for how I can write up descriptions or do little bits of generated story/text or news items, I'd love to lend a hand there.

Perhaps, if I had a string format to work with, I could do all kinds of short descriptions that can be used in generated news articles and tickers throughout the news menus in the game. (You are planning to have a news broadcast system in the game right?)

Examples:

"%A earnings are through the roof! Strong trend indications expect that further growth is yet to come. %B however is not looking so good. If they expect to make it as a major competitor in the galactic market, they'll have to increase earnings."

and

"NEWS FLASH: %A has just declaired war on %B! With the fighting breaking out in the %C region, civilian and merchant ships are warned to take alternate routes to prevent becoming a casualties themselves. More to come as things progress..."

and

"The kind an generous president of %A has lowered the cost of %B to %C today. Steady availibility of %B there is expected throughout the coming week."

The basic idea being that you'd come up with a statistic that you want to create an auto generated news item about and you randomly pick from a series of stored templates in the engine.

[technomage]

A design document is a good idea. I was hoping to get some more members on the ISO forum to talk over various ideas so I canwrite up ideas.

I also need to do a ship/asset design document for anyone wanting to help out onthe modelling side.

[WILL]

Ok, well I'm availible to do as I posted above.

The design doc, might just help kick-start what you're mentioning there. I mean, if you really only make lists of what you plan you put into the game engine as features (in both client and server versions) and lists of what you may need. I'm sure you're used to writting up lists by now as it seems that you are at least waist deep in the project. :)

For my part, just let me know if I can help in what I'm offering and of course what specifics you'll need. Everyone knows I can be quite wordy, so it's sort of right up my alley. ;) And I think that technically speaking it may save you loads of time having to write up all kinds of phrase and generic article and peice templates for the game.


As a side, one of the most interesting things I found about some of the games, is the content that allows you to emmerse yourself into the world you're playing in a bit. Great games that had these kinds of news, books and articles way of adding content, off the top of my head were Deus-Ex and Freelancer. I'd recommend checking either of these out just for that if you haven't already. I can post screenshots of Freelancer if you'd like to see how they implimented their interface?

[Rahakasvi]

I like the concept of this game.

"Ability to move around the ship

I have always wanted to have a wonder around the ship I'm flying, Visit the engine room, cargo hold etc. One of the ideas a friend of mine had was that if your ship was damaged, you actually had to go to the effected area to fix it." Purely awsome idea. It would be superb if you could assembly your ship from scratch. Like you have basic platform (the basic shape of the ship) and then you could add corridors, engines, weapons, consoles etc. where you want. Like SimShip :P And for instance for working weapon you must add weapon outside a hull and link it to some user interface console. You could then when enemy encounters simply walk to your user interface and blast that enemy! (careful not to shoot your ship).

Ideas what you could add and how they would affect your ship.

Ship hull:
Buy different sized hulls to add your stuff.

Corridors: You can add stuff inside corridors as well. You can add two corridors aside so you have a room.

Doors: In case of hull leak ability to keep air not loose?

Stairs: Build two layer hull ships!

Stock area: Area reserved to stock trading materials.

User interface consoles: You can link different items to these. So you can remote control weapons, shields, engines etc. Better interfaces gives you more linkconnections to one display.

Shield generators: Generates invisible shield that blocks weapon hits. Comes more compact sizes and more effective ones.

Weapons: Blast your enemy. Can have automatic shooting system (varies from bad to excellent) or manual.

Cameras! Place a surveillance camera outside or inside ship to see where that bloody pirate went.

Life support system. Must have, but doesn't run down. Takes only space.

Beds, tables, flowers etc. To please your passengers.

Et cetera.

Even if the game is 3D this simship could be for instance 2D? Keep it simple.

Hulls have different blocked spaces where you can add stuff (both outside and inside). Different items takes different spaces. Like engine would take 5x10 blocks.

Then there is a sprite which represents the item when you look at it.
Also there is a lowpoly 3d model of item when other players look at it (or you look at enemy ship).

Of course it would be awsome if you could (after taking over enemys ship, is it a teleport or hatchdoor, you decide) take his precious items and upgrade your ship.

Robots! Add a fixing robot inside your ship. Fixes damages automatically (and gives annoying beep-sounds ;)

And space stations? Forget it! Every ship is a space station. Trading will happen on board. Players can visit other players ships and see what material they have. They can trade items or just have a cup of coffee and chat.

How about my idea? Is it reasonable? :P Hope so. It would be cool as hell!

[technomage]

All good ideas. Certainly food for thought. I had thought that the interior of ships would be like a Quake level or something similar. I do like the idea of docking with other ships for trade .. I like that idea alot :)

I was planning that normal players would just buy the ships, but editors would be available for people for contribute a ship design that would be included in the game. So you could design your own ship, just not within the game. :) Allots of the interior would be pre fabricated, so there would be a number of Bridge / cocpit meshes as well as different engine rooms etc. All of which would need to fit inside the hull design.

That is a idea that Iwould like to put in but it would be after much of the frame work has been written.

Like I said , lots of work to do :wink:

[Rahakasvi]

Thanks for the fast reply.

Wouldn't the amount of data transferred between client increase a lot if you generate the ships off-game?

In to order to see other ships they would need to download whole mesh instead of just data how the pieces you have in your game are aligned.

Well good luck with your project...

[technomage]

The new ships would be deployed as a patch to the existing assets. they could still be made up of prefabricated parts, and as you say just have the conectivity details. But the prefabricated parts could be added to and downloaded as well. :D

Like WILL said , I need to get all of this stuff down in a document so if other people decide to help out , it's clear what the goals are.

Keep those ideas comming :D

[WILL]

You know... combining your 2 ideas here kind of makes me think of Han Solo's Millenium Falcon. You know how he had to leave one guy to pilot the ship while he and Luke ran and manned the guns to defend the ship long enough to get away.

Also, the ship was used to transport and smuggle goods he was hired to move around. When docking with another ship to trade, you could consider that the ships don't have to be very big to dock with each other, just millenium falcon sized, unless your in a fighter then it's not doable. But walking around doesn't mean you have to be in these large Enterprise sized ships though. Just more brain fodder for the fire. ;)

My thinking is have both the fighters and small cargo vessles AND the huge capital ships and carriers. Just make sure taht when your walking around the ship that you listen to the hostile alert warnings in case you have to go somewhere... like the pilot seat or maybe the ships manual turrets...

[Rahakasvi]

Yeah.. Millenium Falcon..

What do you like about this idea.

When all the mmorpg games have superior characters dominating newcomers, in Infinite Space all players would have same skills but the co-operative is only way to survive! Some rich, longer played player who have big ship would hire newcomer as (lowpaid) repairer or navigator etc..

When you are rich enough you can buy your own ship hull etc.

The better you are in the game the more you have knowledge of (ie.) radar system, what different symbols mean, where you should fire your weapons in order to hit, how to design your ship that weapons have full scale of shooting range (don't shoot your own ship! ;) How to balance fuel-shield-weapon energy.

So the game isn't about making the most of money to get a biggest, meaniest, most expensive starcraft there is, but to learn how to use it. That way a little millenium falcon would survive battle with huge star destroyer.

The game would be more an strategy game than a shooting game.
There are not many of this kind of games ;)

[WILL]

Well here's the thing... if you are going to encorporate a co-op system... where lets say one flies and the other does other things... you really have to make it evenly interesting...

Just a little background of what I mean in a story of my own experiences. If anyone has played Ultima Online you may know that there are small communities that are trying to keep the game alive via their own 'shards' or private servers. Well there way this one that a friend from work wanted me to join... so being totally inexperienced in MMOGs I decided, sure... why not, I'll try this online gaming thing out for once.

Oh man... :? Lets forget about the annoying hacking and rickittey state of the menues of the UO modded game that took ages and would not be a factor here, but instead of what I was expcted to do in the game.

First I find out that he's a lord of a farming race... :shock: Yeah... I know... and you have to pick a trade, soldier, farmer, merchant, etc, etc... obviously there was a bit of an unballanced set of gameplay interest here. I was expected to farm... and sell what I grew and gathered at the shops... meanwhile there was fighting going on, etc... *yawn*


Noone wants to go around just clicking on buttons and knobs while there is stuff flying around and blasting and smashing objects around... so you have to find a way to involve EVERYONE equally in the outside the ship action. What you could do though is have say 1 pilot + 1-2 crewman... the pilot would basically fly, while the crewman could A fix the hyperdrive (absolutely NOOooo popular reference there ;)) or man one of the gun turrets and fight off enemy ships in the ship's blind archs...

This sort of co-operative gameplay would allow both player to fully enjoy not only the interactivity, but also two totally different game genres in one. ;) One would be playing a traditional space sim, the other a sort of cool full 3D arcade clone. Plus should one have to leave the turret or pilot seat to go fix or do something, they can co-ordinate between them.

Maybe on the bigger ships (and eventhe smaller ones) if there is a hostile docking or boarding then you can fight it out in the ships themselves... all the while other ships can attack with them inside, etc...


It's a crazy idea, but wow would that make for a totally new experience...

Dean, think you can make that idea (pardon the pun) fly?

[Rahakasvi]

You are absolutely true about that. Every player should have enjoyable gaming experience.

If somebody actually want to do just repairment (there should be little minigame in that :)) then fine, but nobody forces it. There should be enough alternatives for flying and weapon targeting. Any player could do those, but you can't be in two places at the same time. For instance if something goes broken it is better to have another players on board to fix it while you shoot the enemys (or vice versa)

And I'm thinking Enterprise sized superships wouldn't work. The Millenium falcon sized ships would be the largest. There would also be ability to build fighters where player put only a chair where to sit. (or two for another player ;)) And weapons etc. If it is broken.

All features normal space ship would have, must be bought. Scanner can't scan enemy ships field status if you don't have that program in your scanner. You can't chat with other ships unless you have phone system. If you press "jump hyperspace" before your navigation computer finishes it's calculations.. two trillion miles away from target.. ;) You can't dock to space station unless you buy docking portal (which you use to dock other ships). Or you will use docking hangars of space stations (often reserved by other players)

Of course I'm just brainstorming.. none of these ideas or all will work

[jasonf]

A long time ago.. in a town far far away.. after many beers..

Dean and I had a chat :D

It's funny, 'cos some of these discussions were thrashed around a couple of years ago, but back then there wasn't the technology available to make them happen.. I think things have changed now.. Broadband has exploded beyond our wildest dreams so a reasonable amount of information can be sent between the clients.

The idea of having a navigator, a gunner, an engineer, a pilot, soldiers. mechanics, fighter pilots all in the same ship seemed like a flight of fantasy.

Imagine the situation..

You're flying the ship from A to B taking a platoon of soldiers to war. They're all pumped up smack talkin' each other in the hold.. perhaps playing a quick game of football or something, or Non-Fatal CTF
Meanwhile there's a problem in the engine room, someone's planted a bomb. So the engineer is hunting around with a couple of mechanics to find it and attempt to diffuse it. The bomb would be possible due to the modular and physics based nature of the game engine. They find the bomb but have to think about how to diffuse it, it's wired into the main core ... cue a serious logic problem to isolate and diffuse the bomb including rerouting of core systems.. something which would take someone who really knows how the ship works.. one of the grunts in the hold couldn't do it.

Then there's the pilot, he's trying to navigate whis way through an asteroid belt, he needs all the power he can get to power the main shields or one of those bad boys is going to rip the ship apart killing everyone on board. The Navigator is fiercely trying to plot the best way through the field, but secretly it's his fault for getting them there in the first place because unbeknown to the pilot, he's the one responsible for the bomb and he's leading them into a trap. Inside the belt is a ship with a massive EMP weapon ready to pounce, it's crew in league with the navigator plans to board the ship and steal the cargo (A precious mineral which is very difficult to come by) unfortunately for the would be pirates, they didn't figure on the ship carrying a full complement of fully armed and very bored soldiers. The navigator wouldn't know this, only the captain knows and secretly he suspects the navigator is a spy, which is why he took on the consignment of soldiers in the first place...

It could get very instersting indeed...

[Rahakasvi]

"The idea of having a navigator, a gunner, an engineer, a pilot, soldiers. mechanics, fighter pilots all in the same ship seemed like a flight of fantasy."

I would be imaging rather this: :P

Group of 3 players has just left planet Alayon in case of transferring medicine to another system. Just after they enter the open space, two pirate clan fighters enter the system. To reach the hyper jump area (out of planetary gravitation) they need to wait for at least 2,5 min. Navigator chats over text chat: "Pirates!!! Come quickly" Other 2 players, who have been playing some minigame runs quickly to weapons, other back, other up. Navigator screams: "Fighter ahead!", Upper gun man responses: "I see it!" And fires.. Intensive battle starts. Navigator tries to dodge enemys fire and upper gunman (who see only up and front) and back gunman (who see only to the back and down) tries to disable enemy attack. Pirate missile hits engine and navigator screams: "OMG, the hyperspace engine has been broken.. Leeroy! Go and fix it!!" and back gunman runs quickly stairs down to the engine room and another missile hits. Player can actually feel this shaking in his foots while he tries to get in to the engine room. He starts to fix it and some wires has been melted and he must remember what did go where when he connects them. Upper gunman manages to destroy one of the ships but lose the other. The pirate player understand that there are no firing from the back of ship, so there is a safe place to be. Upper gunman asks navigator "Where the he** is that ship?!?" Navigator screams. "It's behind us" While back gunman is fixing the engine, upper gunman must run to the back of ship. Then he waits until back pirate ship is locked to missile and FIRES! It misses, but navigator has reached the point where one can enter hyperspace and engine is already working. Whoooozzh.. They flies to the safety.

Other pirate ship didn't have tracking computer so it can't track the transporter and has to satisfy to collect another pirate player from floating around empty space and remaining of the other ship (after heavy repairment most of the parts can be used again ;)

[jasonf]

A medium range scan has picked up an object, it's not moved for the last hour or so, it may be a dead vessel or a trap.

A salvage captain sends one of his crew in a short range pod to investigate. It turns out that the ship is a medium cruiser, armed to the teeth but it's hull is ruptured and its crew are either dead or escaped. The scavanger signals his captain. An hour later the scavenger ship arrives. This derelict ship is top of the range cruiser, "This must have been one hell of a fire fight, but I think we can repair her.. seems a shame to tear her to pieces".

The group of engineers board the distressed vessel and set about repairing the hull so it can be repressurise. After much welding and mauling and with visible scarring, the ships hull is repaired. The ships core is not leaking so it's possible to run a diagnostics to determine the extent of the damage. There's still power in the batteries and the ships mainframe comes up without too many complaints, attaching a hacking module makes this job so much easier.

"I do love it when we bring home a live one" remarks the captain.. they fly the ship back to their base via the back routes just in case the original owners signalled for help or their successors come to claim the salvage.

The rest of the repairs are completed while the ship is in transit, the backlanes are always quiet so they can travel in relative peace.

"She'll never be pretty, but she flies.. we should be able to sell her to someone"

A hidden figure emerges from a space suit, arms a weapon and hides.. ready to strike "This is my ship!" he mutters

[Rahakasvi]

Situation 1:

Larger pirate ship docks smaller ship. Three pirates comes with weapons to kill players and take all the goods. Player has hidden in to the secret room near the docking bay and when pirates are entered, he runs to the pirate ship and closes the docking hatch. Then he runs to the cockpit and kills a pilot. Then he hyperjumps away..

Situation 2:

Large space race is about to begin. Player has bought four cheap ships and created one fast ship (4 engines in a small hull) and tries to win the champion..

[WILL]

Hey you know what else I'm reminded of... :P Firefly! :lol: Or Serenity the movie, if you've not seen the TV show. I'd advize all of you just to check it out so you know what I mean.

Basically it's kinda like the ship-for-hire thing in star wars, but a little more western in nature. Mel, the captian and main character is an ex-soldier who was fighting on the losing side of a big civil war. (turns out they where actually the good guys... or so we seem to think in the show) But after the war he buys himself an old firefly class cargo vessle and he and his old comrad hire a crew and do 'jobs' and hire out their services. Great premise for a show, I'll admit too bad about the network execs though. :p


But yeah, the whole privateering and piracy, etc... it's reminecent mix of these cowboy/pirate cultures... And I personally have only seen too few renditions of it in games. It would be very exciting to see these sorts of stories play out in a MMO world. :)

[technomage]

Ah, I remember that beer session Jason. When we were both young and could cope with hangovers :D

these are all great ideas guys.

I do agree any co-op play mode would need to be well balanced. One of my favourite ideas is as follow.


The UTS Magellan moves silently though an asteroid belt esorting a few mining transports. A Fold point opens a few thousand kilometers away and a large battle cruiser enters the system.

On the Magellan the capitain orders flighter to scramble. Fighter pilots run down the corridors to the flight deck to man the ships, meanwhile NPC deck crew are fueling the fighters and loading weapons. Each fighter launches out of the flight deck. The capitain tells the flight leader to engage the enemy but to also protect the transports. The flight leader then give his wing there orders, "alpha team take on the enemy fighters punch me a hole in their defenses, beta team protect the transports ,gamma team follow me in and take out the cruisers main guns".

meanwhile the capitain brings the Magellan's main guns to bear on the enemy cruiser.....

It's a dream, but I might be able to do it. Getting that kind of communication ad syncronisation would be very difficult. But will help I think it could be done. :D

[marmin]

So if this project would succeed there would be a lot of programmers and artists involved. Would they be payed? Have you any idea of the scale of it
i could help you with 3D model artwork and music, i've years of exp and could deliver solid work. But.. the main -but- is that I wouldn't do it for free, and that the project would be very, very reasonable to come to full fruitation. Most projects like this, honestly, are never finished like 10 % at all. They stick to wonderful ideas.
How are you gonna finance it?

[technomage]

Financing is a concern, considering this is not a full time project for me (I like may others have to attend my day job). And I think we are talking years before this project is finished.

That said I would be willing to pay for 3D models to be done. But I have no idea what rates would be charged, there is some quality work that I have considered using over at http://www.3drt.com/. But I guess it all depends on the conplexity of the models.

I have been thinking about wether I should sell the game or give it away for free. One option is an Eve like subscription which should bring in a monthly revenue, another would be payment for premium account which have more content. The other option I am interested in would be to allow players for play for free, but people wanting to host a solar system would have to pay for the SDK and support. There is also the posibily of in game advertising (something like Ad Boards on the side of space stations for things like Coke or Tesco's etc).

Any developers/artists could be paid a percentage of any profits made. That could mean that is the project is a complete failure no one gets paid.

I think I'll start a poll on this subject over on the ISO site. If people have any opinions on this please vote and post comments on the forum.

[technomage]

I'm just reminding people that this project still needs help.

I've sorted out a source control system which the dev team can use as well as a project management site. I need help to develop not only the Game/Assets/Music but also the InfinitEngine the 3D engine for the client.

the InfinitEngine is cross platform and supports Windows, Linux and almost MacOSX. The asset sytem has been tested under all three major platforms and is 100% working (it was used in CrashBlock (http://www.crashblock.com)) It also supports OpenGL 2 and DirectX9 (directx is one of the areas I need help with). There are also plans to add XNA support which will allow people to write apps to the XBox 360 using Chrome.

In the mean time here are a few new designs for one of the ships, this one
is a carrier and is being modeled in sketchup :)

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/screenshots/magellan6.png
http://www.infinitespace-online.net/images/screenshots/magellan5.png

Note that currently the project is closed source, I may open source the engine at a later date.

I will also be looking for a list of alpha testers to test the engine of various platforms.

So if anyone is interested please PM me.