Splash and Dash!

Say ooh, la la, c'est something, come on!

Been beavering away over the last few days, as has my good lady wifey wife Charlotta. She's been working on icons and onion-skin alien characters, and I've been working on setting up multiple star systems and the navigation screen. Now what I've got so far is a procedural system generation engine, and I can build as many systems as will fit into memory. Right now I'm running with 3,000 systems, all with unique names and characteristics.

You can zoom and move a pointer around, and the system info below the map is updated to show the info for the system cloest to the pointer. I had a bit of a turn when coding the goverment types, and we've ended up with "Jelly Republic", "Rock-paper-scissors", "Cage Fighting" and "Shouting" on the list. It's nice to be able to start adding the real fun stuff in now ;0) I just have a few more little info items to code in, then we'll be good to allow the user to select a system, fuel up and hyperspace out. I'm paricularly looking forward to writing the shader for the hyperspace transitions - it's going to be very cool indeed. Should be glued in for next week. Once the multisystem code is in place, it'll be time to work on the mission engine. Given how well all the other engines are going, I don't think it'll be too tough.

Races are completed, and have been pretty well tested. This led to an enemy AI tweak which has really brought them in to the game more, and they're pretty much ready to be allowed to dock and trade in their own right. That'll be fun, to see the market volumes change when someone else docks.

Char's icons are now also in the shipyard menu, and they add real character to the game. I've seen the alien stuff she's working on and it's absolutely perfect for the feel I'm going for. I've been thinking about new ship designs, leaning more towards Loonie Tunes and Futurama than 2001, Alien or Star Wars - much more slapstick, cartoony and "fun" than lumps of shiny metal. Char's icon for the fuel tank extension - a ship flying atop a huge SRB-like rocket - really clicked all this into place for me. Anyway better post off and go now, got to go play poker with the boyos. When I get back tonight I'll post some images and tell you about the plans for the first gameplay trailer...