UNION Spaceship Command

Terran Stellar Navy Forums (OOC) The Mess Hall UNION Spaceship Command

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 64 total)
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  • #1138
    Aramond
    Participant

    As a person who usually runs both Science and Communications simultaneously (hurrah for dual-monitors) I’m very excited to see how SciComms will look and work incorporated into a single station.

    As for our duty shifts, we meet every Saturday on Teamspeak at 20:00 UTC, and usually have around 20+ awesome people on the server. We’d love to see you there.

    Address: comms.terranstellarnavy.community
    Password: [None Required]

    #1139
    Solari
    Participant

    Mark (and heck anybody),

    If that’s my single gripe with Artemis, it’s that to play from home…you pretty much need more than one monitor and/or computer for half stuff. At least, to be ‘effective’.
    Take Engineering: No situational awareness about what is going on if that’s your only screen. You have to hope people are talking to prepare. Which, in a group like this, they readily do.
    Sci-Comms: I love Science myself. But I can’t play with communications because of my lack of um…tech. And comms by itself is horrible, as you also have no situational awareness, a half-arsed screen of blocks that just pop in and out, and no one usually calls out anything relevant for you (or are forgotten?). Basically it’s the step-child of the positions. So, combining them is a good thing for your game.

    One positive thought for Union (or even Artemis?): Electronic warfare! Imagine what sci/comms could do with jamming, ecm/eccm, etc. Expanding the roles might be possible for almost anything, if they feel short on usefulness.

    Technical concern: You’ve got poor buggers like myself on a hanging-by-a-thread laptop that can only handle one instance of the game, let alone attempting windowed mode or split-screen. Heck I can’t even host a game on this thing, meaning I’m reliant on someone else.
    (What, I live off of $950 US a month!) I hope sometime next year I’ll have enough saved up to get a new laptop…but still won’t have these multi-moitor/cpu gadgets that my betters have.
    That’s probably the physical ‘niche’ about this type of game, beyond the abstract liking a space crew setting. I feel like a lower-class player online because of my lack of uber-versatility and hardware at home.
    Still love doing this though, don’t get me wrong. (Not a gripe to TSN! You all are patient and brilliant.)

    Mind you, I’ve never played at a convention, (no one does this in Seattle!) and I hear those are much better, with a large main screen for everyone to sit in front of, and be hands-on like a crew. That’s an excellent way to present your game to people, when you’re able to. I’d love to see videos of UNION with a group gaming together on it.

    #1140
    Faerdan
    Participant

    Cool. I will probably have to join you for the duty shift at 21:00 UTC if that’s ok?

    Science/Comms will have a large 3D radar, so situational awareness there will not be an issue. The only role without a large 3D radar is Engineering, and I am looking at including a small version there. It is good for the engineer to have an idea of which direction enemy fire is coming from.

    We are planning to add electronic warfare to UNION, but probably post-launch (we are a small team and avoiding feature creep is very important). We are considering adding it to Tactical instead of Science, giving Tactical more options than simply shooting things.


    @Solari
    : Sorry to hear about your hardware problems. We are dedicated to making UNION as scalable as possible, having it run well on on low and high spec machines, but there are limits to that as well.

    #1144
    Nox Bestia
    Participant

    Hey Faerdan

    A) Thanks for dropping in personally and give what I believe is a core set of gamers for your game type updates – That is awesome and a good start to building a loyal player base

    B) I am currently half way through studying Interactive Media and Design (Focus on Game Dev) – so if you need some additional help drop me a message ( I am also a qualified sound engineer and have some original scores that might be a good sound drop)
    PS – I am in Australia …:P

    C) How far away from Alpha Testing are you guys, is it possible that the TSN could be your closed alpha testers for you?

    Thanks again, and sorry for the longh post

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Nox Bestia.
    #1146
    Fulvus
    Participant

    One solution to the lack of multiple monitors/rigs might be an optional picture-in-picture feature, either as an addition to or replacement of the 3D-map, where you can select what to see (e.g. front/side/rear view or captain’s map). Though it would probably be more demanding on system requirements when active.

    #1147
    Faerdan
    Participant

    @Nox Bestia:

    A) Thanks! It really is a pleasure to be here. You are my kind people people, your input is invaluable, and I really believe you will love UNION.

    B) We’re not looking for anyone right now, but please do email me (mark <at> wiredgames.eu) with samples of your work.

    c) I would say it will be late this year before we begin the alpha. We are really pushing ourselves to create the best UIs we can, not just visually but in terms of accessibility and depth as well, and all of that is very time consuming.


    @Fulvus
    : We have discussed using an optional picture-in-picture setup, but nothing has been decided yet. The big issue is screen space really.

    Thanks guys.

    #1148
    Faerdan
    Participant

    Oh and in relation to alpha access, we will announce details closer to the date. I would love you guys to be involved, but we simply haven’t decided on the structure of the closed alpha process yet so I can’t make any promises on a large scale.

    #1149
    Faerdan
    Participant

    And just to be clear, the reason we are being so cautious with alpha access is that we are such a small team (Dave, PΓ‘draig and I). If we’re swamped during the alpha it will kill the project’s momentum.

    #1150
    Fish Evans
    Moderator

    Maintaining momentum can be a hard thing to do with a small group, Wish you all the best, and we would be very happy to have you with us next shift. We run with a slightly Modifed version of Artemis with a bunch of additional ships to play, and play against. it can be found here we are also using version 2.1.1 of artemis Version 2.2.0 has a few annoying bugs that have forced us to rollback to have a consistant game. not that there are not plenty of annoying bugs in 2.1.1 as well!

    the roll back can be found here

    on setting up to play with us

    1) Downgrade to 2.1.1 if you are on a higher version

    2) copy and paste the contents of the TSN Expansion into the artemis directory, there are a couple of batch files inside that will disable/enable the mod contents. but it will install “active”.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Fish Evans.
    #1151
    Faerdan
    Participant

    Great thanks, I’ll get your modified Artemis set up before Saturday.

    I’m working on the Tactical UI now, I hope to have some WIP images to show within the week.

    #1153
    Fish Evans
    Moderator

    Oh congratulations on getting Greenlit by the way πŸ™‚

    #1154
    Faerdan
    Participant

    Thanks! πŸ™‚

    #1155
    Faerdan
    Participant

    Hey all,

    As I said earlier I am working on the UI for Tactical. I have started with the radar and contacts, and am hoping to get some early feedback from you: http://i.imgur.com/oAjBWGk.jpg

    #1156
    Faerdan
    Participant

    Oh, I forgot, I better explain some things!

    UNION Tactical UI WIP

    Under contacts are your contact filters, which allow you to toggle contacts (on the radar and in the list) of a certain type. At the moment, in the mockup, all are enabled.

    The filters are: Text Labels, Neutrals, Allies, Enemies, Small Ships (Corvettes), Medium Ships (Destroyers), Large/Capitol Ships (Battleships), Stations/Structures, Other, and Unknown.

    Below that are the sort buttons, for arranging the order in which contacts are listed.

    And below that is the contacts list itself.

    Any feedback and/or suggestions are very welcome.

    The iconography is inspired by Homeworld. πŸ™‚

    #1157
    Solari
    Participant

    Hmm.
    I’ve only played Artemis as far as this genre goes, and weapons is my primary station. But I did do the old Star Trek Bridge Commander, and Starfleet Academy games. (Well and the whole range of Wing Commander, X-wing and TIE Fighter games. But that’s a flight sim. Not really close.) And of course I only play this with a single screen.
    Anyways that’s what I’m going to compare with as my basis. Not looking for copy and paste though, as you’ve got a very different look and feel. Just inputting some play experience information, that may or may not be relevant to the UI display.

    Just from your visual alone, I’m seeing empty space along the top left and bottom right of the image. Planning on putting information there? I could see the screen objects being slid down to the bottom right, and doing something with the left corner.

    Distance and bearings to targets (updated from science?) might be useful, or firing arcs; though big lines can clutter up the targeting as happens in Artemis. Very annoying when I can’t lock on a called out target if they are cluttered in 6 ships sharing almost the same space. Nothing but firing arc lines covering targets, even when I zoom in the display a little. Thin is good.
    Maybe ‘ light bubble arcs’ (Think of Star Trek shields, or even just simple Star Wars shield colours.) might do, for defence displays on our ship and/or the target (if applicable, or vitals if it’s a life form)?

    I’ve heard some of the players here use touch screens, and pretty much all of the weapons/ordinance and auto/manual firing can be done via a mouse on the screen in Artemis. Someone correct me, but I reckon there’s also keyboard keys? I’ve never seen the game manual, and never touch my keyboard save to talk on TeamSpeak, lol. Just a thought really, but we’d need to see what the keyboard does to relate to what I’m seeing at the tactical screen.
    Will the ‘radar’ be zoomed in and out, or is it set in one range increment?

    What’s my scan and/or weapons range? The Weapons station in Artemis has a lower field of view and distance than Science or the Captain. Players call out targets I never see until Helm gets us closer, and that usually makes my job harder, having a ‘delay’ because I’m two steps behind from not having any visual to click on my screen, until the weapon was supposed to be fired a minute ago. πŸ˜›

    Back to the image: I take it the lower left corner is a display of the enemy ship if selected, or our own ship? (Like seeing either or both, if that’s so.) Will we have the ability to target it via that, manually, or set auto firing to certain locations of the ship, like engines, weapon emitters, power plant, etc?

    One thing with Artemis and ship combat, is that I can never tell when a ship is destroyed, or has cloaked/stealthed. There’s (mostly) no wrecks or debris on the tactical screen. Also, I never get an indication that my munitions (torps, mines etc) actually hit, or miss the intended target. And if it hits another, I have to make an educated guess, like if a drone/fighter flew into it instead of the targeted ship.
    Heck, maybe even something as simple as a specific sound(s), could indicate these things, since display space is a premium and clutter can happen. Clean Homeworld/Battlestar Galactica visuals are striking. Artemis does the BSG style of having my dradis ‘shake and stutter’ when we’re getting hit, so I can get the visual cue that way. (Also makes targeting harder, but in a good way, and adds some depth.)

    I’d better stop for now. I’m sure heaps of the more experienced players can comment better.

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