Author Topic: Open Outpost (Read 47916 times)

croxis · « **Reply #25 on:** March 20, 2009, 05:47:29 PM »

Slow right now. I'm prototyping the star selection screen. Currently it reads from an external text file which will make adding new stars a snap. All what is needed is the name, star class, distance, right assertion and declination and bam, a clickable star. The gui is currently giving me headache. After I get all that figured out it just leaves packing up for the journey and the landers and alpha 1 is out the door.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #26 on:** March 20, 2009, 06:26:13 PM »

Oooh, I like the sound of that.

Speaking of customization (sorta), how are you planning on dealing with planets? I can think of a few ways to handle terrain:

1) Terrain is (more or less) random.
2) Each planet type shares a pre-set terrain (I think this is what OP1 does).
3) Every planet is unique.

Also, do you plan on using the three unused planet types from OP1 (Earth* and two others) or adding any new planet types of your own?

* The problem with adding an Earth-like world is that it would be like playing an entirely different game. Tubes and the Underground section would serve no purpose (there's no need for a self-contained colony if the atmosphere is breathable and the planet is habitable), as would several of the structures. Disasters would be different (though not drastically - you could probably get away with different names for the same things), and surface water would most definitely affect gameplay.

Anyways, it's probably too early in development to even consider most of this stuff. Sorry for bothering you, but if you're serious about going through with this I wanted to talk about a few points I'd like to see addressed.

croxis · « **Reply #27 on:** March 20, 2009, 10:56:21 PM »

No it is a good think to talk about, at the very least I can put in some ground work. But yah, to your earlyer post it would be silly to outright clone Outpost. I'd really like to more about the origional vision they had, trying to get a copy of that infamous PC Gamer review. I did find this though: http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/flooks/outpost.html Based on that screenshot I really like that kind of idea for mining.

I'm a big fan of the civilization series, so I am taking customization to heart. Like outpost 1 there are planet types, but the values will be ranges instead of absolute. Type and age of the star and distance will also affect stuff. So a building on a big planet will need more resources to build cuz of the structural support, and a planet close tot he sun those buildings will need more resources for the shielding, so on and so on.

Terrain is generated from a randomly generated heightmap, opens up the possibility for importing heightmaps. Terrain type is interpreted from that. In the config file the user says what graphic to use for what kind of tile. Planet types can be dropped in and I plan for the client to download any assets it doesn't have from the server in mp games.

I plan on having most the types in the manual, and adding some like Titan.

I am not going to add earth type planets as it would be a very different game. Here is my idea for winning the game. Game is about making the human race survive, so each player(s) will get points for their population and health. The game will end when a player's starship reaches Earth first (civ 2 style), or when a planet is terriformed, the person with the highest score wins. Some planets will be impossible to terraform so you can only win by launching a spaceship.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #28 on:** March 21, 2009, 07:21:20 AM »

Quote

The game will end when a player's starship reaches Earth first (civ 2 style)

Earth is totally destroyed. There's no point in going back there. You just "launch" the new starship at the end of OP1, but they never tell you where it's going (to the best of my knowledge).

croxis · « **Reply #29 on:** March 21, 2009, 06:26:38 PM »

For earth to be destroyed would require a massive object, mars size or bigger, at high speeds. What is much more likely, and reasonable, is a "smaller" asteroid causing a mass extinction event which would kill off the human race but the surface will still be habitable, especially after a few hundred years.

Sirbomber · « **Reply #30 on:** March 21, 2009, 07:15:43 PM »

Quote

...a mass extinction event which would kill off the human race but the surface will still be habitable, especially after a few hundred years.

No, that's what I meant by destroyed; while the planet is still there it's not really "Earth" anymore and there's no point in going back.

ducktape · « **Reply #31 on:** March 31, 2009, 09:10:50 PM »

Regarding the tubes... If you haven't gotten too solid of an implementation for them yet, I don't see why you WOULDN'T use them. View them as a path for people. For example, when trucking is implemented, how do things get from the truck unload point to somewhere else, like a storage tank? Surely you wouldn't carry things through an agridome, smelter, CHAP facility, and then get to your storage tank or warehouse. It'd disrupt the happenings inside the structure used in the route to the destination. (at least practically speaking) They seem to be more of a dedicated way to move people, goods, and materials, without disrupting colony operations too much.

croxis · « **Reply #32 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:13:37 PM »

That is a very fair point. One of the long term goals is changing how tubes and structures connect by giving them bandwidth for power, life support, etc, with tubes offering the most. This will require a bit of pathfinding for a lot of aspects which is a bit beyond my programming abilities at this point.

ducktape · « **Reply #33 on:** April 02, 2009, 08:26:30 PM »

I like the idea of there being 'bandwidth' so to speak for power. If you're going to write that, you could even go as far as to consider foot traffic in tubes since it'd use a similar system, just from different starting/ending points. Also opens up making monorails more useful to haul people, as no one is going to want to walk 100 tiles to some outskirt area or fledgling colony.

The power generation could see something similar to a communications tower be researched, but wirelessly transmit power. Of course, these should be expensive and not be able to directly supply a structure, only send power over a vast distance so you don't have to use as many tubes and block all that space that trucks or monorails could be using (or structures).

croxis · « **Reply #34 on:** April 04, 2009, 04:02:22 PM »

Update:

The initial game progression is in place. Main menu to introducing yourself to the ai to selecting the star system, to packing bags, to picking the planet, and then the terrain.

All that is left is putting in the landers and a save/load system. When implementing the landers I discovered problem with how I implemented the UI. The quick fix would be passing the entire gamestate to the menu generator which is a bit excessive, and breaks the MVC model (which I've already violated more than once, but shhh).

Leviathan · « **Reply #35 on:** April 05, 2009, 03:57:29 PM »

Thanks for the update. Its sounding good. Great work

croxis · « **Reply #36 on:** April 16, 2009, 11:47:18 PM »

Seed lander and associated functions now in place:

Hidiot · « **Reply #37 on:** April 17, 2009, 01:40:56 AM »

Getting somewhere.

Um.. Keep up the good work?

Sirbomber · « **Reply #38 on:** April 17, 2009, 06:07:21 AM »

I deem this BLARYEUGH (which is a good thing and is not to be confused BLARUGH, which is bad).

omagaalpha · « **Reply #39 on:** April 17, 2009, 04:25:55 PM »

Cool picture, show getting somewhere.

DeathSquire36 · « **Reply #40 on:** April 17, 2009, 07:31:28 PM »

I gotta say, I'm really looking forward to this. I've always liked Outpost 1.5, but knew it was incomplete and could have been much better. But I've always enjoyed the core gameplay and idea of it.

So I joined up here just to tell you to keep up the good work, and I'll definitely be getting this when it's complete! Good job man.

croxis · « **Reply #41 on:** April 20, 2009, 07:59:26 PM »

This is a test windows 32 build of what may be alpha 1. It works for me, but I also have a development environment set up so I don't know how well it will work on "normal" systems.

http://croxis.net/OpenOutpost/

Sirbomber · « **Reply #42 on:** April 20, 2009, 09:27:17 PM »

When I click "New Game" it unleashes an infinite loop of doom upon me and spams zeroes to the console until I stop it.

Edit: It's also very big... You might want to do something about the size (at the very least shove the installer into a RAR or something).

omagaalpha · « **Reply #43 on:** April 21, 2009, 06:55:24 AM »

On my Machine I notice when do new game it issues zeros of death too. Also notice that you don't logger(output information of run into file) instaled on this version maybe want implement so it easier for you figure out goes wrong on other machines?

croxis · « **Reply #44 on:** April 21, 2009, 11:05:15 AM »

Well bugger. I made a new install of windows in a virtual machine (you would think I would of thought of this sooner). The problem is in this bit of code

Code: [Select]

    def launchSPServer(self):
        #self.singlePlayer = True
        if os.name == 'posix':
            self.server = subprocess.Popen('python' +' ./Server.py', shell=True)
            #self.server = subprocess.Popen('panda' +' ./Server.py', shell=True)
            self.server = True
        else:
            self.server = subprocess.Popen('..\\python\\ppython.exe' +' Server.py')
            self.server = True
        import socket
        x = True
        serverSocket = socket.socket()
        serverSocket.settimeout(0.25)
        while x:
            try:
                #print 0
                serverSocket.connect(('127.0.0.1', 1999))
                x = False
                #print 1
            except socket.error:
                pass
        messenger.send('login')
        print 'Server launched'

which launches the server, checks that it is listening and ready to go (the while loop) before the client attempts to log in. It works fine in linux. Under windows the server launches properly, but the port check constantly returns a socket error.

croxis · « **Reply #45 on:** May 06, 2009, 08:11:33 PM »

There are some bugs in the end user packing software. As soon as I get the fixes from upstream I'll have an alpha release for you guys!

Hidiot · « **Reply #46 on:** May 07, 2009, 05:45:06 AM »

Maybe, just maybe, this is another project worthy of its own forum and sub-forums?

croxis · « **Reply #47 on:** May 08, 2009, 03:50:33 PM »

Eh, I see no need as long as everything is self contained in this thread

croxis · « **Reply #48 on:** May 14, 2009, 08:06:08 PM »

Alpha prototype. Feel free to post bugs in this thread or on the sites bug tracker.

Notes:
* Gliese is the only star system with planets.
* I'm working on the UI code to give it the classic outpost look
* Colony reports are currently being piped to the command prompt window. This will obviously change as soon as I get the UI system going.
* Windows users must extract the two files in the patch to either C:\Windows\System32. If it asks to overwrite, say no.

Downloads:
Windows
Windows Patch
Ubuntu/Debian 64

*crosses fingers*

WooJoo · « **Reply #49 on:** May 15, 2009, 02:51:26 AM »

im on my windows machine and i cant seem to find the exe to run the game give me hint on that pls ^^

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Author Topic: Open Outpost (Read 47916 times)