Shallow Space - a 3D Space RTS Game - Now on Indiegogo + Free Demo

sorry TT_TT


it was just really not what I was talking about with them and now I'm afraid the thread might never adress what I was saying.

Oh well.

just try brian's demo, it's free. say what you think about the camera controls, say what you think about ozone's mock up as well. and if you have homeworld around talk about that too. it's really different, and it doesn't only come down to the mmb

Homeworld is old game. It was created in times where people was not used to 3d environment like they are today. Now almost every RTS game is using LMB and RMB to selection, orders and all that stuff. We also know that MMB is great button to control camera.

That are reasons which are sufficient to start working on new controls, instead of using Homeworld controls.
Shallow space from what I saw already will be more strategic/tactical than Homeworld, with smaller ships, bigger maps, more strat icons. I know homeworld works, but why you are so negative about trying to do something more "fresh"?

I'm not sure if I can talk about this, but after last changes with camera controls in next build, we created something that combines Homeworld's camera with free cam. I have new prototype with it, I can show it to you guys, but I need to compile and upload it.

edit:
ok, new prototype. It need some polish with move/rotation/zoom speeds, but it works

http://ozonex.pl/shallowspace/starcontrol2.zip

well I feel that's irrelevant as they hit a home frikkin run with their camera design.

have you ever read the strat manual for HW 1? monster of a book.

I devoured every page.

I now use it as a basis to say there was a monster amount of playtesting (during which I imagine the camera was reworked a thousand times) before the game was publicly released.

still just about the same.

click on box to focus is weird. you don't necessarily want to focus what you select. but i guess it's just because it's only a test and it's pointless to add an extra key when you're don't have select either way.
other than that it's ok.

don't think I'd use wasd and .....mmb.

fuckk mmb.

fuckk mmb big time. Mine is fixed and works now it's still the most gaddamn awkaward thing ever. it's not a bona-fide button.

3Ds-max have their heads up their butt for making it default but at least you can reconfigure it there which is what alot of people do.

I mean jeez who the hell scrolls their webpage with mouse drag? noone.

that's why they put it on this never-used button.

I don't know what is problem you want to show right now. We was talking about controls and camera, not about strategys and playtesting. If camera is irrelevant, then there is no problem. This game is in early alpha stage, not playtested and released. Ships can move, shoot, controls work, but thats it. Nothing more is done yet.

oh my.... Focus and clicking was made there, because there is no selection coded in this fast prototype! And again, one time you say that mmb is not a problem, and then you again return that you don't like it. Many games and programs use it, deal with it.

in never said it wasn't a problem it is a problem. I don't have to "deal with" many programs and games using it because "many" isn't "all", and as a matter of fact "many" happens to be "few". the fact that these are the only games and programs you might know or like does not detract from that.

i AM talking about the camera.

they PLAYTESTED the CAMERA. ok? they didn't get it right the first time, they got it right the 100th time, ok?

and they got it right I feel that's important to highlight.

their camera, is just as relevant today as it was 16 years ago. And that's because it is goddamn flippin awesome. and everyone agrees on that.

Same with Homeworld - not every game uses it.
Because you mentioned that strat book i misunderstood that you was talking about strategy, sorry.
Yes, they played it a lot, and many people played it and liked. But still, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't be making any trials to improve it. When Homeworld was released nobody thought about using MMB. Right now it well tested in action and it works great. And it gives us RMB for more battlefield control.

We should better wait for new build, and then we will see latest changes in action.

see now we're talking.

that's what I want and what I've got to say about the test so far is that they're < homeworld's camera.

that's not to say better will never be found it just means shallow's space camera controls are currently bad.

that is not true. what?

again not true.

we have two or three people who say it does and just as many who say it doesn't so you don't get to make that claim

Ok so I've now had time to download and try the demo.

Firstly I'd like to say it looks stunning for such an early game and runs smooth as butter on my machine so kudos there. I can also see lots of work has gone into allowing groups of ships to be easily manageable, again i think this is good and a big improvement over Homeworld where you can't do anything useful with the unit manager as the icons are too small (at least at 1080p).

I can definitely see the potential here.

My thoughts on the UI- as other has said an 'orbit' style camera would be a plus to easily snap into a specific area of the battle. Also I feel that scrolling the mouse wheel should 'zoom to mouse focus' instead of move the camera vertically (so scrolling forward would zoom towards the mouse pointer, scrolling back away). This would allow very quick maneuvering with the mouse over a large battlefield imo and is how many graphics and CAD applications function. Camera rotate on middle mouse click is fine for me, as is the left / right click mouse controls.

Another thing I really think is needed- the ability to queue multiple commands such as movement or attack by holding shift. This is modern RTS staple and I think it will work well here.

I'd also like to see hit box sizes increased (and selection of icons made possible) as currently it's very fiddly to target an enemy ship when its moving. The 'fluid' movement of ships in battle is something I very much like btw. In Homeworld anything bigger than a fighter would pretty much sit there and blast away. In this everything is in motion which is nice.

There's not a huge amount more I can say given the early state of the game, as I say I see lots of potential.

On a side note, I'd like to suggest that you consider carefully what you'll do with the whole tech tree issue moving forward. I personally don't think it's something that should be too limiting- I like the way HW1 did it (essentially unlocking each tier of ship and special abilities) keeping the tech tree simple with some meaningful decisions of which way to go, rather than HW2's approach which is to have to tech for every minor detail with lots of invisible upgrades. I also wonder if it would be wise to limit the tech tree (or at least a portion of it) to the campaign / story mode rather than multi-player. Having to relearn everything for every game makes little sense. If you do have a heavier tech tree maybe a refreshing way to implement the multi-player would be to give everyone a certain number of free tech unlocks at game start so you can unlock some stuff (this could also lead to some interesting play styles and counter as you could spend your tech points in different ways to get differing starting capabilities).

thank you!

You don't have any idea of software development, do you?

We have an orbit cam in the game and have had an orbit cam in the game for several months now, as I said earlier in the thread. And as was also said earlier in the thread, we have switched to a zoom to mouse focus instead of vertical movement for the scrollwheel.

@tatsujb, you have been nothing but hostile. I am all for taking suggestions, and we already have taken many suggestions from here and many other places across the web, but you are just very hostile and I have no interest in discussing anything further with you.

There is an orbit cam, but I want to rethink how that's entered into to make it easier to use. We've gone through multiple iterations already and I don't think we're quite there yet. This feedback has been helpful though.

The next build (currently in closed testing, I could definitely get you on that list) has switched to scroll wheel zooming instead of moving vertically. Also, try using the "z" button to zoom the camera, very useful.

Queueing commands is in there. I had thought it was shift, but maybe not? If it isn't, it definitely needs to be switched to shift. I'm very tired and not thinking straight, so I can't remember what it is.

Yeah, I REALLY like the constant movement as well. Movement is going to be very important for the small ships when we add in some of the weapons we have planned as well as balance the game to further contrast small vs large.

Thanks for the feedback!

I'd be interested to do a bit more play-testing, I'm going to be away a lot of the coming weeks though so it would have to be on my laptop, what does this scale like on low end hardware (the laptop has a GT 420m gpu which is pretty basic by modern standards, about the same performance as a desktop HD 4670 I used to own)...

read the damn book, I DO have an idea. YES nowadays we shove games out the door. But THIS is a 1999 game we're talking about.

back then playtesting was an actual thing.