Foxpaw/Cosmic Fury

I don't like that name anymore, but I'll come up with a better one eventually.

Overview

The game is a space-sim primarily. Ships can be designed with extreme flexibility, much like the game Roboforge. (Which, by the way, I would highly recommend to anyone interested in programming or engineering.) The ship code would also allow for ground based vehicles with ease. Ships are made up of their components, so pieces can break off realistically if your design is prone to this. Parts that are "severed" in this manner can often continue to function if they are severed with sufficient relevant components intact. For instance, if a large section of a capital ship was severed, that piece may contain enough generators, weapons, etcetera, to still be of some use to any players or bots left on board. Players can also leave their ships to allow for dynamic boarding actions.

Gametypes

I've been reconsidering some of the gametypes and have come up with a new set that seema bit more suited to this mod, while keeping most of the "feel" of tried and true gametypes like deathmatch and capture the flag.

Dogfight

Score points by damaging other ships, or by being deemed responsible for damage caused to them. (eg ramming another player into an asteroid) The points scored are a fraction of the value of the component damaged determined by the amount of damage caused. So, for instance, if you inflicted half of a components total health in damage, you would score half that component's value in points.

Squad Showdown

Similar to Dogfight, this one is team based. Potentially lose points for friendly fire and maybe (big maybe) get bonus points for cooperation.

Capture the Flag

Steal an object of some significance from the enemy and return in to your base. You will of course need a means of transporting it, so ships that are not equipped with a tractor beam or something similar will have difficulty moving the "flag."

Zone Control

A series of space stations are scattered around the map. Each begins as neutral to begin with and will attack both teams. When one team destroys all of a station's garrison and/or gun emplacements, that team will take control of the station. The station will repair itself and build new armament and fighter garrisons as long as it is protected. (though the garrison will reach a maximum size) The game is over when one team controls all the stations on the map.

Carrier Assault

Two carriers face off in deep space. Each team has a carrier from which they can respawn. The carrier will also build and spawn some AI pilots. The objective is to destroy the enemies carrier whilst protecting your own. The carriers may also exchange heavy weapons fire and/or be equipped with their own anti-fighter weaponry to reduce or prolong the game time as desired by the mapper.

Red Rover

Each team has an indestructable space station from which they respawn. It will draw in rubble and crippled craft from nearby and convert them into friendly ships, both for AI pilots and respawning players. The winner is the team that collects almost all of the total "ship mass" on the map. (Not all of it is required, otherwise one team would be completely out of the running and have to sit and wait while the wininng team harvested all the discrete scraps of metal floating around.)

Assault/Deep Strike

This is basically what's explained below. It's like assault, only simultaneous... both teams have a list of objectives, whoever completes their objectives first is the winner. Each team would have to allocate some players to prevent the enemy achieving their objectives while sending some out to achieve their own...

Single Player

I'm hoping to have a fancy single player campaign with a good story. The single player game will of course be strongly encouraged to new players, as a player will need to make some ship designs before they will be able to play online and the single player campaign would be an ideal way to introduce a player to all the different types of weapon, etc.

I've got a pretty decent story for the single player game (at least, I think it's prety good ) but I haven't really filled in all the little details yet. I want to continue refining the story until it's really good. I've noticed a trend in many types of game that's somewhat unfortunate: at some point, the story tends to break down and your attachment to the story shrivels.

For instance, Half-Life had a pretty good story until about 1/3 of the way through, at which point it became mindless "I'm gonna go that way because there's no other way I CAN go." I was supposed to go to that lab.. I forget which one, but even when I was right next to it, oh boy, it's blocked off by a tiny rockslide, better walk around the facility and fight mosnsters for another 4 hours instead of spending that time with my crowbar and/or the pile of explosives I had at that point to make my way through the minor rockslide.

The sequel, Opposing Force, was also bad in that respect. (Not that I'm picking on the half-life series specifically, I thought Blue Shift was pretty true to the story) In the beginning, you were a marine trying to get your butt out of the facility before you got it shot off by special forces or eaten by an alien. If you're lucky, blow away Gordon Freeman while you're at it. (Which, by the way, gives you a "game over" if you do it, for allegedly "attemping to create a temporal anomaly") However, when I was in the railway station, wouldn't it be pretty easy for me to just go to the controls, open one of the railway doors, and waltz right out of there? If I couldn't find the controls, I was carrying about 20 pounds of high explosives, so I'm sure that could open the wooden railway door, but noooo. I have to march around for hours blowing away monsters for no apparent reason.

Eventually I get captured by that guy (I forget his name) and he abandoned me in some other dimension or something. Wooo, now that's an ending. I much preferred Blue Shift where you spend a few hours trying to find a way out, and eventually you hop in an SUV with a bunch of scientists and high-tail it outta there. I found that far more satisfying than some "deep" ending with that guy with the bad haircut. Just running away like a scared rat was a far more satisfying ending because that's exactly what I'd do. I mean, I'm no coward, I'll fight a few aliens, especially if I have a healthy selection of firepower, and if they were real pushovers like they were made out of Jello or something, then maybe I'd stick around and get some target practice.. but come on, four-armed aliens that shoot lightning bolts and can still charge after me after taking a close ranged shot from a 44 magnum, not to mention inside a research facility that apparently hasn't passed a safety inspection in the last decade? SUV, please.

Now, that was a bit of a rant in itself, but the point is, I want to make the story really good so when people finish it, they'll lean back and sigh in satisfaction, instead of sighing and mumbling, "It's about time." Alternatively they can just be surprised by the ending so they can't get into the "it's about time" mindset. The last level of the Terran single player campaign is going to be very easy and end seemingly abruptly. Just like in real life, it's not going to come up to a dramatic conclusion, instead a diplomatic mission is going to go FUBAR and end up in the immolation of 15 billion civilians. How's THAT for people who were expecting to fight some tough "end boss?" The Terrans are going to absolutely walk over the enemy in the last mission, which may not seem like a satisfying final level, but it's going to make whatever race they immolated understandably upset, leading perfectly into the next race's campaign. Either the player will revel in the genocide and shout "Take that, scaly muthas!" Or they'll be so outraged by the cruelty displayed by the Terrans that they'll be determined to give some back in the next campaign. Everybody wins!

Screenshots

MythOpus: His name is The G-Man

Mosquito: this is simular to one of my concepts, It nicknamed it "Captians of Honour" pretty much big ship combat (I mean juggernaughts and destroyer sizes) that are controlled simular to BF1942 but with z axis action, the idea was that there would be 1 flag ship, controlled by a Captian, and another player would control the bridge crew (assitance to the captian), then there would be smaller destroyers controlled by single players. The main flag ship would have a flight deck and any left over players would control the fighters, all ships are highly complex, with different systems and such that would need to be maintained by the captian or his crew, all ships are divided into 4 sections that have each there own health and systems assigned to them, the Commanders would have to not just kill the enemy ships, but keep theres flying by rerouting power, assigning repair teams and prioritizing things, the ex:

The shields are divided onto 4 sides, each with individual hitpoints that can be distibuted across the board, the forward shields are almost down and the enemy flagship is charging dead head, the commanding staff reroute power from navagation to shields, then forward all availible power to forward shields, another destroyer flanks the ship and takes out the port shield, if one shield fails, the whole grid shutdown, all shields need to be reset (takes about 20 seconds) so the enemy fleet bombards the ship with full fire power, the captian takes all power from shields to weapons and thrusters (since they're not gonna last the 20 seconds or so for the shield to reset) the more power systems have, the more effective they are, so weapons with only 20% power will do 20% damage, navagation with only 30% will be only 30% effective range of target finding, repairing staff with 70% power can repair things at 70% of maxium rate, etc. The ship loses its front section completely and navagation and forward shield generator is gone, two systems unoperatible, usually the ship has 400% power to distribute to systems, but with 3/4 sections operative, they have only 300% to give around, and any % used in the lost systems are frozen until its repaired... which can't be done in the field, so boom, those % points in Nav and forward shields are dead, now the enemy flag ship sends fighters to strafe the flight deck, now the ship cannot launch fighters anymore, and once all the deloyed fighters run out of ammo they can't resupply. One of the enemy destroyers get behind the ship and fires a tompedo into the number 2 engine, and causing an explosion and the whole rear of the ship goes to 30% health and is smoking badly, the Captian, with the last of the dying ship puts full power to number 1 engine and charges the enemy flagship... smashing into it and blowing away the shield, losting the center section and finally MASSIVE EXPLOSION, The ship is gone and the enemy flagship is dead in the water.

Those 2 players players that died now must way until renforcments before they can get there own destroyers, but once the flag ship is destroyed by an enemy, it doesn't respawn.

Thats just the idea, seems really confusing, I guess all systems would be controlled by window tabs, each system page shows where it is on the ship, its status, and would have a bar graph that you can drag right to increase power, which takes from your reserves, or drag left to decrease power, which goes to power reserves that you can give to different systems, critial systems have backups or more then one, so on shields tab, you have subtabs that include forward, left, right, rear and backup shields, or weapons tab includes all the different weapons on the ship, so you would give power to the weapons tab, then give that power to the different weapons onboard.

If you have 2 people controlling, then one is the captian and the other is the commander, the captian can control the movement of the ship, all its systems and weapons, were the commander can only control systems, if the captian is an idiot, the team can call a vote to kick him off, then the commander takes his place, if the captian feels the commander is a idiot, he can just boot him and fiend for himself.

With the smaller destroyers, there is only a captian but the systems are less complex. This is just some ideas, sorry to hijack your page, if you want I'll move this to my page.

GRAF1K: Yipee! Screenshots! Nice screenies, Foxpaw. I'd have to play it, though... *HINT* *HINT*

MythOpus: I am speechless. I want to play this Fox. I need to, I have to, You must let me play this

Foxpaw: Well, I don't think it's really ready for an alpha test just yet. Theres a couple of issues I need to resolve, plus a pile of polishing that needs to be done so it at least looks halfway professional before I want to release it to anybody.

Mosquito: this game needs more sex.

NickR: I'm so tempted to ask if I can help you with this, because I have similar plans for a Space Combat mod. But then I think I really want to work on my mod by myself and use the space dynamics that will come with UT2004.

Sobiwan: Cool! You wanted models of the ships?

Foxpaw: Sort of - you can't really see it that well in the picture, (which was the idea ) but each part of the ship is a separate actor and they work in concert. So, each part needs to be modelled separately. However, you can of course just model one ship and then break it up into pieces, like I did in this example.

Basically, there is a set of "parts" which include things like thrusters, weapons, generators, etc. as well as superstructure pieces and armour plating. These pieces have a number of mounting points whereby they can be affixed to other parts. For instance, the fighter in the screenshots has the cockpit portion, with a superstructure kind of piece bolted on behind it. That has two thrusters attached on it's rear and two large guns attached to some foreward mounting points. Then there's fins attached to dorsal mounting points on the thrusters, and (you can't really see it in those pictures) there's a belly mounted generator.

To get the best understanding of what I mean, you could go to http://www.roboforge.com/ and download the demo there - or you could even just look at the screenshots and stuff of the design area (though some appear to be from a beta or something) to get some idea of what it's sort of remotely like. That game is not the same as this mod, but the "design" aspect of it is similar. I think that's the easiest way to demonstrate how the meshes need to be broken down into their component parts.

If you're still interested after that, pretty much any style can be used, since the real "style" of the ship comes from the way the components are arranged. (EG, all the components from the fighter in the screenshots have been blantantly ripped off from the Taiidan Interceptor in Homeworld - but the style of ship doesn't resemble the Taiidan Interceptor at all) Thus, style isn't so important. One thing I should mention though - the ship components are all static meshes, and they need to have a Karma collision hull. Ideally, one that makes good use of cylinders and spheres, because the bulk of the processing that's done for the mod is static mesh collision. Then again, everyone else probrably has faster computers than me anyway. Let me know what you think.

New Screenshots

Yeesh! I can't believe what the old screenshots above look like! And that I was actually pleased to have reached that point! Not that it's that bad, but the new screenshots are much nicer, I think. The last three show off my new "uber-leet" backdrop system, which is much spiffier than skyboxes for showing a fancy panoramic background, in my opinion anyway. Unfortunately, I rebuilt the geometry when I took out the skybox and forgot to rebuild the lights, so there isn't any lighting in those screenshots...

Corran: Woah! Looking very nice now Foxpaw.

Mosquito: this is easily the greatest and most ambitious mod for UT2003 ever created, when this gets released, it will set the standard for all mods to follow ingenuity and complexity. This could easily be one of the most technically complex and epic single person or even whole team created content on the unreal engine.

MythOpus: I wish I was a Foxpaw. Then I'd really be able to make a mod