So i asked Uber some questions via Kickstarter but only get the answer that i have to write it down here. Thats what i get: Have you pledged yet? Also I highly suggest you bring this stuff to the forum where everyone can see it. uberent.com/forums BE AWARE: I´m german so dont be bad to me if i wrote something wrong. THX -------IMPORTEND QUESTIONS------ 7.How is the research? In the Interview i just hear that you implement 2-5 Tech stairs or how much ever.Do we have to research 1 unit or building for 3 points or so like in SupCom 2 I played? Or like Star Wars: Empire at War i mentioned before.You unlock Tech 2 and unlock 2 new cruiser 3 new land units and so on? 9. Do you plan official Modding Tools or do we have to code xml (or whatever you use) our self? 11.If I play BETA and i play BETA if you release it do you implement a little programm that write a error report for crashes we can send you? I think its the best Idea to see wich systems can run it and wich gpu or someting cause a crash that you can fix it or programm incompatibility. 16.I think 1 importend question for modders is. Can we add aditional races,teams,techs,factions? Or can we only edit the factions,teams...and no add? Like 1 faction has like 10 land units or so . Can we add 1263 and numbers or can we use only the 10 units slots? I think its maybe an UI problem displaieng so much slots or do you add a scroll bar or sites we can pick? 21.Another Modding question is maybe. Do we have to use the skeleton of the standard units for mods like in SupCom 2 .Like the laser canon output must be at x:000 y:000,and the legs or other movement modules must be there. Can we create our own animation for it? -------NOT so importend question but pls answer-------- 1.So does Units get lifebar or an UI window for : how strong they are,life,what they are good against and so on? 2.Can you put in some funny easter egg i love to search them and laugh about them . Like Sunglasses for Commander if you look 10minutes in the Sun or something . 4.Is the colour of the particles of build units,buildings etc. finaly or can we change them (modding,options,team colour,....) 5.Wich engine do you use for PA or do you made your selft a engine?How do you call it? (Asteriod Buster Engine ) 13.Any ideas what the next 3 strechgoals are?Like better Graphics overhaul (PLS implement anti-aliasing 24x edge detect . I hate this stair effect on any objects or anything.) 14.For graphics i momentely use an AMD gpu so i cant use PhysX (damn...nvidia....)do we have to care about such thinks for better particel effects i like to see? 15.In the trailer we can see a big asteroid.3 Rockets cant destroy him and he still destroy the overhaul planet. How much rockets or what do we need to destroy the entire asteriod ?Is it unstipeble in some reason? 18.If there were different Techs ( I know you say its near not to be happen but anyway) can we use Spy robots wich use cloak technology to steal technology? 19.Which system can we expect in PA like in SupCom 1-2. Pathfinding or Flowfield ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA2epda-RkM ) 20.if we destroy the overhaul planet.Can we throw asteroids on the moon if the enemy is there withus too? 23.Do we have to use Hamachi or that kind of stuff to Host a LAN server? PLS dont be a failure as MAGICKA it does in Multiplayer.AWEFUL 24.Why is Alpha testing only on 100 and above?If Alpha testing were in the 50$ class i would choose it
I'd personally prefer you'd simply remove the colors and group the questions according to importance.
Reporting bugs will be possible for sure, one way or another. Maybe simply a forum, I don't know. I'm fairly sure it's a custom, self-made engine. They probably have some ideas, but they generally wait and see what people ask for. Sea units were a much-requested feature, for example. They'll stick to the simple art style though - it's cheap yet distinctive. And you can always force AA through the driver, can't you? I doubt it, they're focussing on gameplay, some nice effects don't pay off. There'll be some way to stop asteroids, or they'd be too strong, but the details will have to be found out through testing. I suppose you can throw asteroids into anything. They've got experience, they'll make it work. There'll be official online multiplayer and offline Lan games - I don't see how Hamachi is relevant to Lan games though? That's for online games (via simulated Lan, admittedly). So they get more money.
I'll try to answer some of these, but I can't answer all of them. Some are questions we don't have answers to, or more frequently I don't have the answers to though neutrino might. There are also questions we don't want to answer yet because things may change or we want to keep them as surprises. 7.How is the research? In the Interview i just hear that you implement 2-5 Tech stairs or how much ever.Do we have to research 1 unit or building for 3 points or so like in SupCom 2 I played? Or like Star Wars: Empire at War i mentioned before.You unlock Tech 2 and unlock 2 new cruiser 3 new land units and so on? I don't know for sure how this will work in our game, but I believe the intention is "more like Total Annihilation." TA tech progression was very straight forward, commander constructs building, building constructs builder unit, builder unit construct higher level building, higher level building constructs higher level builder unit, etc. No hard barriers, only economical ones. 9. Do you plan official Modding Tools or do we have to code xml (or whatever you use) our self? This will be a mix of several things, and I can't go in to great detail here. However we've announced two things publicly. First is a planet editor allowing you to create and save unique planets. Second is game models can be imported as FBX files. FBX is a file format available to a number of 3d modelling tools, including the free Blender, but also 3dsMAX which we use for development. I'll also say our intent is to keep as many game files as possible in human readable text formats to make modding as simple as possible. We aren't ready to talk about other tools quite yet, but we'll do our best to work with the mod community as the game progresses. 11.If I play BETA and i play BETA if you release it do you implement a little programm that write a error report for crashes we can send you? I think its the best Idea to see wich systems can run it and wich gpu or someting cause a crash that you can fix it or programm incompatibility. I can't guarantee it as this is outside my job, but it seems likely we would have some form of crash reports. For MNC and SMNC we had this functionality, but often most issues are more subtle than simply crashing so either an in-game reporting system, e-mail or the forums will be used to handle most the reported issues. 16.I think 1 importend question for modders is. Can we add aditional races,teams,techs,factions? Or can we only edit the factions,teams...and no add? Like 1 faction has like 10 land units or so . Can we add 1263 and numbers or can we use only the 10 units slots? I think its maybe an UI problem displaieng so much slots or do you add a scroll bar or sites we can pick? Not a question I can answer for sure, but I know there were a lot of complaints about the limitations of modding for TA and SupCom related to these kinds of problems. Certainly our intention is to improve on this. We will also want to keep this as flexible as possible for our own usage. 21.Another Modding question is maybe. Do we have to use the skeleton of the standard units for mods like in SupCom 2 .Like the laser canon output must be at x:000 y:000,and the legs or other movement modules must be there. Can we create our own animation for it? Another question I can't answer for sure. Like the above question it is in our best interest to keep this as flexible as possible for both ourselves and for the mod community. 1.So does Units get lifebar or an UI window for : how strong they are,life,what they are good against and so on? That's a question for neutrino, but I suspect the answer would be "like Total Annihilation". 2.Can you put in some funny easter egg i love to search them and laugh about them . Like Sunglasses for Commander if you look 10minutes in the Sun or something . I'm sure I'll be adding stuff in if no one else does. *shh, don't tell anyone* I think the popularity of +sing and other commands from TA has us thinking about silly things to add. 4.Is the colour of the particles of build units,buildings etc. finaly or can we change them (modding,options,team colour,....) Color and style was chosen for the visualization to try to evoke fond memories for TA players. We actually had a different effect in there just a few days before it went live. This is something I'll keep in mind when working on these for sure. 5.Wich engine do you use for PA or do you made your selft a engine?How do you call it? (Asteriod Buster Engine ) It is an engine developed in house. It is already running on several platforms, but we have a lot of functionality to add to it for PA. There's still some contention about what we should call it. Generally our projects have had coffee related nicknames, but some of us have been trying to get it called the Caffeine Engine as it'll likely run a number of coffee related projects going in to the future. 13.Any ideas what the next 3 strechgoals are?Like better Graphics overhaul (PLS implement anti-aliasing 24x edge detect . I hate this stair effect on any objects or anything.) I've talked about AA before a little in another thread. I'll make sure we support FXAA in engine, but other forms of AA are going to be dependent on the video card and drivers you use. I will do my best to try to support the different AA methods by selecting them in game rather than requiring them to be forced on from the video drivers. 14.For graphics i momentely use an AMD gpu so i cant use PhysX (damn...nvidia....)do we have to care about such thinks for better particel effects i like to see? PhysX particles aren't specifically on the list of things I'm planning for. They're fun for adding hundreds or thousands of relatively ugly particles to a scene which might be useful for some effects, but usually I don't like the look of them. The current plan is to use more stylized effects that can be used across a wide range of hardware efficiently. 15.In the trailer we can see a big asteroid.3 Rockets cant destroy him and he still destroy the overhaul planet. How much rockets or what do we need to destroy the entire asteriod ?Is it unstipeble in some reason? Not unstoppable, the other commander just didn't have enough firepower built up to defend. 18.If there were different Techs ( I know you say its near not to be happen but anyway) can we use Spy robots wich use cloak technology to steal technology? In a hypothetical game with cloaked spy bots and tech research, sure. In our game, probably not. 19.Which system can we expect in PA like in SupCom 1-2. Pathfinding or Flowfield ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA2epda-RkM ) The intent is for unit movement to be more like that of SupCom 2 (flowfield). 20.if we destroy the overhaul planet.Can we throw asteroids on the moon if the enemy is there withus too? Asteroids won't always 100% destroy a planet, smaller or slower asteroids can be used to destroy only parts of the surface. Think of them as variable size nukes. 23.Do we have to use Hamachi or that kind of stuff to Host a LAN server? PLS dont be a failure as MAGICKA it does in Multiplayer.AWEFUL Native LAN support, though Hamachi is usually for enabling online multiplayer support for games that only have LAN support. We'll allow players to host their own online servers as well. 24.Why is Alpha testing only on 100 and above?If Alpha testing were in the 50$ class i would choose it Same reason why we have beta access at $40, money hats! Er, no. Really it is for a number of reasons. Alpha is pretty much guaranteed to be in a fairly rough state, many things won't be ready for prime time so letting a large number of people get access to the game at this stage wouldn't be advantageous for us. The $100 price for alpha access automatically limits the number of people as well as somewhat indirectly ensures those who play during the alpha are those genuinely excited to play the game and willing to overlook some of the early technical issues. This isn't to say there aren't those who can't afford the $100 price point who aren't also as big or bigger fans of the game, just that this is a straight forward way of both limiting numbers and getting players who are more willing to participate in what will essentially be a very early testing phase.
I just want to say that I think it's too soon to be asking that many questions I bet they don't even know most of them...
