I’m overlaying the magic styles:

Over top the Elemental cross sections of galactic cores:

I’m heading deep into design phases now.

I warn you when videos are boring or fun, this one is fun all the way through,2 hours long.

It teaches the creative process of how you make modern parody, and how I add fodder aliens to Starfighter General. I did this process when I made the Space Porcs. You can learn a lot about creativity by watching this. Highly recommend it for everyone:

Yo, aggressive aliens going in. I have a process. Got one in today, maybe 3-5 in tomorrow.

These guys just attack you, no diplomacy, no trading, no livin their own life, they want to fight. It’s core before I get deeper.

I have sections with bold so you can read or skip them to get to the good parts of interest to you.

[Establishing credibility/experience] I’ve been gaming non stop since Pacman in 1980, and when I say nonstop, I mean non stop. [I eat, breathe and live for my next video game session](www.crystalfighter.com/a.html) even old boring Atari2600 I forced myself to push beyond the boredom and practice hours every day I could. Video games are my life’s passion and they use every art form man has known and some man hasn’t discovered yet so they are a very noble pursuit. When someone tells you video game design/coding is for children, they have no clue what they’re talking about. Video game development is harder than business software development and business software development is often vastly harder than rocket science. So hats off to my fellow game designers/coders, you endure disrespect from society while doing something more intellectually demanding than anything but enduring pain, which frankly, we sometimes experience mentally as we languish getting things done. This concludes the preface.

[Not dissing Skyrim/Oblivion for attention] I open with a bit of background because it sounds pretentious to say,”I don’t like a design in one of the most popular games ever known to man.”. In Pittsburgh where I live, there’s always sports fans who will trash talk players and coaches if they slip up just a bit even if they’re a legend like Ben Roethlisberger. There’s a contrarian who will hot take dissing popular things just because it attracts attention. I’m not being a Pittsburgh jag contrarian, and why I established credibility before beginning this long odd odyssey into game design about a journey in space MMO who’s seeks to capture and take hold of players’s live path for a long time and keep with them something that goes on into the sojourn of eternity. Long>Long>Long>Long>Longcat

[Why I was off put by Oblivion monsters getting stronger by players leveling] The classic RPG we were trained since Ultima 1, Final Fantasy 1, Pool of Radiance Boxed sets, Legacy of the Ancients, Act Raiser, you name it, is to grind to win. If things get tough, just level your character, get more equipment, and you can take on the big bosses.

The idea that monsters leveled at a rate along side the player meant the certainty of powering past their strength is not there.

Is it even worth leveling? I play RPGS in part to get powerful and come beat up the monsters who bullied my hero earlier. *“Remember me? I’m not the one you thought you knew back in high school.”***

And what about game design laziness? Are there harder dungeon levels, or did the game designers just make the whole world with the same monsters and it becomes challenging because of number/positioning of them?”*

In the end, I didn’t give these games a chance. I should have seen for myself, but I was involved in my own projects at the time(you know the drill, no time for my stuff, so I have less time for your stuff).

[A joke and one thing I liked about Oblivion’s leveling system] A few years ago, I saw comedic genius in Oblivion tho. My aunt had it on Xbox and I’m there waiting for New Years with nothing to do so I reluctantly start it. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but it seemed if I leveled jump, it counted as powering up the monsters. As a player, I see that I level up a skill by using it and I like that. It reminices of Wasteland and I have an RPG I never published that friends love that uses leveling up skill on use. It’s a surprise grind and players love it. I love it as a player at least.

So I see myself leveling by jumping… So I do the natural thing and start bunny hopping around the world like The Flying Wallendas. I think,”Man how high can I jump? I wonder if it gets ridiculous like Asheron’s Call 1 and I can jump over mountains.” I started getting stoked about my jump leveling. And again, I’m not sure if this happened or I just thought it happened, but by leveling jump, I feel like the monsters started curb stomping me and killing me faster. At first I thought it was unfair, then I realized I was hopping around the game like The Easter Bunny and decided I deserved to get wacked for it and laughed and started a new character.

[Why I think my hand was forced to monsters getting stronger along side players] Why do I think I must use this system to some degree? Now you must know my game’s backstory.

My game is an open ended space trading game like Elite Dangerous.

Space is boring. And I mean really really boring. Unless you spice it with aliens and anomalies and other weird stuff, it’s just rocks, gas and waiting to get to more rocks and gas.

I added random events to unborify space. Some aliens attack. Some trade. Some just shoot the breeze. Some offer quests like mail delivery… But some random events are actually… The core story missions. I found it a good idea to put core story missions and quests in random events, instead of on a static location in a million star galaxy… For the odds of finding a quest giver in a million stars with many planets with many meters of exploration… Well you have a better chance of finding a needle in a haystack in that one King’s Quest game. I say this story line/quest progression INSIDE random events happening every 30-120seconds is one of the core things that leads me to my hand being forced.

So your random events happen anywhere in space, outer space, aeronebula, aquanebula, populated zones, desolate zones,asteroid fields, orbits of planets, different star ages, doesn’t matter where you’re at, you get events. Now events will be biased on where you’re at. You will get attacked by more space whales or sharks with laser beams on their heads in aquanebula. There’s more chance for herbs to be harvested in aeronebula where there’s plants growing in space. Newer stars are larger more mineral rich for drops like Master of Orion did. Older Stars have more native civilization encounters. The events happen everywhere, but where you’re at determines the rolls.

I have some linear progression towards tougher zones and tougher enemies, but lets design as if I didn’t: I’d fall into the trap of having to gauge my player’s power for the encounter, right? I think my hand was forced but maybe not.

[Discussion on how to go about implementing monsters getting stronger along side players or not at all] My game is soft perma death so you’ll be in the starter zone from time to time after your gigundous fleet got destroyed as it failed to conquer the galaxy and crush it under your will by a bunch of yahoo resistance fighters who teamed up. Jerks. Why can’t people just let people rule galaxies with a tyrannical grip in peace?

Players can start the game with quite the more power than your average level 1.

So lets examine ways of making things challenging with enemies:

1) Power them up like Oblivion, but not oppressive, so the player’s rate of power out strips the enemy so you feel progression… Yet as you get higher level, random chance opens the bell curve of difficulty so you might face overwhelming odds to avoid or overcome… Aka level 1 you’re 1v1 ships… Level 30, your fleet of 40 ships might smoke a lot of encounters 40v1 or 40v20… But the bell curve may open up to face 100 ships + a few capital ships in which case you gotta book it or be very tactical in your orders to your fleet to take the interceptors safely before deciding how to bombard the capital ships. So actually that seems like a conclusion I’m satisfied with just thinking on it… Low level is more predicable,but higher level opens up the bell curve of unpredictability in both ways… And you can still have bully monsters go,”OH NO! NOT YOU! Forget everything I said to you when you were weak. I mean, didn’t mean to call you weak. Pleaaasse don’t shoot me!” because their rate of powering up is less along side a low bell curve roll.

2) Another way to make things challenging with enemies is just have the bell curve and NO powering up of low level monsters. NO Oblivion/Skyrim, just an ever increasing roll table accessible by your player’s level and fleet power. I still don’t like it because it is hackneyed that they can get more exotic encounters by level/number of ships alone… So maybe I want it so you have things like Magic/Item find in diablo2, but are encounter finds…. Like a rock that attracts a certain alien, or maybe artifacts to peer deeper into the abyss and it peers back at you(harder encounters), hmm, actually its nice to talk about that, I like that. I don’t like hackneyed stuff,”OH I HAVE 50 ships in my fleet, now I can encounter Cerebrus to get fire elemental drops!” I like my fantasy magic worlds where anything can happen to make sense, dammit. Ok, so I’m settling on some “encounter find” items,which is awesome since its one more thing too aspire to. Always want to give players to aspire to(rule #1 of very long epic games, look at Archmages in Bard’s Tale1, Rings of Jordan in D2, Jedis in Starwars Galaxy, Level max in mmos, housing in mmos, let players know what they want to achieve earlier, and make em chase it, they like this.) Encounter find items, that’s a solid conclusion + Bell curved encounters based on level (natural find trouble.. Heck find trouble could be a skill). Good game design session. I hope some of you guys have something to add.

[Super conclusion:satisfaction]

Just talking through the game design, I settled on a few solutions.

1) Encounter Find: Items/skills/talents that help you get better or worse encounters depending on type of encounter find it is. Find Trouble, Find Trades, Find Quests, etc,or Find all. Find Trouble might not always be a curse as we know where there is big trouble, sometimes there is big l3vvt.

2) If using Oblivion mobs level up with player level, only scale it slightly so the player feels progression.

3) The Bell Curve is the key… Low level players need the ropes and consistency. High level players love freaky unexpected things happening in space they have to deal with. As players level, have more rare things start to be possible.

My game will have classic linearly increasing difficulty power zones as you head towards the Galactic Core. Each concentric ring of the sphere gets harder. There are radiation zones so you can’t warp right to the middle, and there are only certain paths to get into the next zone so you have to find them… They’re normally embargoed with a big fleet demanding tribute or will just blast you,so you gotta pay, blow up the boss fight as a sign you’re ready or sneak past. If you sneak past it’s tricky though because if you get laden with loot, you’ll fly slower and might not be able to get your loot home to secure in a stash.

I think those three concepts, combined with some classic linear power zones this is satisfactory. I wrote this for conversation though. Anyone else have an idea for a game about acquiring a huge fleet in space, and how to make challenges that would just get blasted by your 100 ships as you laugh or they die too fast for you to notice?

Thank you, and I’m glad to be a part of /r/gamedesign. I find the moderators here know what they’re doing and have great respect for the art which is uncommon so hats off guys, you do respect the indie, unlike lip service other places give.

,GoodNewsJim

Upcoming patch soon:

Enemies that trash talk you then attack and drop items [Cannon Fodder]

Basic Inventory management

Leveling up.

Patch 2 after that:

Tech attempts: targetting arrow clash/mmo, radar,collision damage

Trade

Hail

Busy World of ships doing their day to day around you [System tracks their progress]

Patch 3:

Star system

Wire in multiplayer that already has been tested, but needs specifics to the new features

Content content content

Come ride with me, I’m always having fun. One of the secrets to life they don’t tell you is… Happiness more or less is something in your liberty. Choose to be happy, train it like a skill, don’t take criticism hard,lots of people are jerks, lol, enjoy life, you’re allowed. When you level up choosing to be happy, you can get stupid happy, especially if you pray about happiness, joy, pleasure and all that jazz. Secrets to life they don’t tell you.

In the Original Matrix, two ‘mistakes’ happen.

One, the claim that humans generated electric with no input energy is impossible.

The other, Neo used magic powers on squids outside the Matrix.

IF THEY MADE THE NEW MATRIX SEQUEL RIGHT IT WOULD HAVE OPENED:

-Running and stumbling scene of a bunch of Matrix people, doing a tactical retreat, behind garbage and pillars down a subway, as chased by only slightly overwhelming forces of squids-

Neo’s inner voice Narrator,”We should have known.”

Narrator,”We knew, but we should have known.”

Narrator,”Humans don’t make energy without an energy input. I can’t use powers in true Earth. We just in another layer of the Matrix! “

cut to:

-Some shouting commands for tactics,shooting, people making fun choreographed hits or tuck and rolls-*

-A tech type character notices on local radar, “yo something big’s coming! I think we should book it”-

Neo replies,”Yo,we’re already booking it. What is it, how big?”

-Tech starts scootching back slightly advancing his pace in the tactical retreat,”I don’t know what it is, but it’s big, and there’s a LOT of them. I really think we should book it!

Neo shouts,”EVERYONE, WE GOTTA BOOK IT!“

A girl or tank character goes,”We already booking it!”

Neo shouts really LOUD,”BOOK IT AS HARD AS YOU CAN!!!“

-Then the whole crew starts running full retreat from a tactical retreat-

-Whatever big threat busts through the walls of subways, crushing through the debris and stuff they were hiding in, accelerating at them, just obliterating the walls and ceiling-

Just as the threat is about to get them, they get to the end of the subway tunnel, which leads to a huuuuge fall down a collossal tech shaft with lights, auras and other techno dazzle.

-Everyone stops at the edge, some wavering to induce vertigo in some theatre viewers not seeing the bottom of the shaft, others showing visible concern ‘not quite fear’-

-just before the big threats carving up pavement,walls,ceiling and all the garbage,pillars and lights in between the tunnel certainly grind them up-

Narrator,”If only we would have known what we already knew, things wouldn’t have gotten this far out of control. Dammit why don’t we think!”

-Everyone jumps down –

That’s how it should have been done, Fix the plot errors of the first Matrix, and open freaking bad ass, but we live in Cancel culture era, it’d probably be changed on the cutting floor to foreign countries.

Why do I post this? This is the type of writing you should be expecting in Starfighter General come February. We’re still on pace for a patch this week or next And February towards the end, we should have some plots in. I study story writing and movie making, thank you MST3K, and I have so much creativity welled up in me, I can’t wait to release. Software architecture is very logical and takes a lot of time. You cannot express your creativity until you do thousands or tens of thousands of hours of work… It’s an incredible frustrating, yet passionate experience. People have told me my current storyline is better than most every sci fi even better than Starwars and Startrek in their peak… I’m not too sure, but I have a HARD hitting storyline, better than 99.995% of video games, easy. Lets go, power your base up, be ready!

Hello,

Space is boring. This is why we have random encounters every 45-180seconds to deal with. On top of this, around you the population of the galaxy is flying their ships, living their lives. They’re not just background noise though. Their 120 personality traits have them making decisions, gaining, losing and changing the galaxy around you just like a player. A merchant can get so much power that he starts trying to take over the galaxy by force. Another might just try and make a lot of stores. Another might make forts and attack places. Most will do their daily business, making decisions… The server keeps track of em permanently until destroyed. Tune in to the video about this grand design:

Hello,

Today I got the last annoying tech for a long while done… I knew it would be a mountain top of experience of relief… What I didn’t know was that God would drag me to despair just before getting it.. It dragged on for days, and what I thought would be the final 5 minutes ended up being hours and hours of tech wall nightmares. I pleaded with God because I was brought to a huuuge low… And then an hour or so later I beat it… The relief felt magnified because it wasn’t like I just took one more step… It was like I erupted from below the mountain to flying above it… God used the dichotomy of despair and success today to show me the exhilaration of it, and I’m relaxed now after a few hours at the gym.

The patch with immediate encounters/items/leveling is quite close, maybe within a week or so. But on the mountain top almost immediately after I finished, I realized I could use random encounters to simulate a living/breathing galaxy of other NPC ships all doing their thing. It might end up being like the Busy world of Richard Scarry, in space,lolololol. It’s quite exciting since each npc has 160 personality traits bell curved to make their decisions… They could literally start weak, amass a fleet by mining/defending and then want to take over the universe like a 4X alien leader on Master of Orion. This is all way easier done than said/designed. So I gotta design it up and it will go in the next couple patches.

After the Populance, I’ll add the stars and proceedurally generated galaxy. Multiplayer will just naturally slowly condense as the patches happen and the dimensions align. We’re looking good, actually we’re looking Stellar.

Server issue where people did not get the proper buildings to upgrade is fixed. Pretty major, fixed minutes ago.

Check out new Steam Trailers with basebud 4000, and tool tips explaining the Intergalactic Bounty Hunter Anthology races: https://store.steampowered.com/app/658480/Starfighter_General/

New small patch. Base Bud 4000 is a character and a trip, enjoy.

But even funnier is the dimensional flights… Command Center->Fly mission->Last Option

I won’t spoil it!

Play here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/658480/Starfighter_General/

Play here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/658480/Starfighter_General/

Some players could not make buildings due to a regenatory cycle. I pulled the regen cycle out and can do it manually if needed. Enjoy.