After the sun was destroyed by a supernova and most of humankind mysteriously abducted by a shadowy Alien race, a handful of brave space pilots established a new colony in the depths of space. Wasting no time, this motley collection of adventurers, traders and buccaneers set off to explore their new corner of the galaxy. Soon the United Confederacy of Planets was formed, heralding a new dawn for humankind free from Alien interference.

After many years of peace, the Alien threat has re-emerged to finish what they started! The Confederacy is in ultimate peril as massive Alien fleets begin their relentless drive towards the capital New Dawn, leaving nothing alive. Humankind's last hope lays on the shoulders of the most famous of the human pilots: the enigmatic "Captain", survivor of the doomed Sol System and the terrible planet of Notrium....

I'm always up for screenshots, I think they are alot better than posting the actuall beta's of the mod, as they don't give away too much. I've seen some of the ship designs ForceUser made. They look pretty cool.
It will be interesting to see this project done in Notrium, now that the Notrium has increased it's modding potential.
I'd like to ask though, will the entire thing be set in space like Wazzal, or will it be a mixture of planetry and space scenes?

Once you go to a planet, there should be a plot-object ship set on the top layer and another plot-object elevator shaft. When you want to leave, you use a key near the shaft and you go to the main star map.

On levels where your ship crash-lands or you get booted to the planet in an Escape Pod, you should start on a meteor crater. A fairly large one. Also, there should be a transporter at a boss room wich can only be open with a keycard from the Boss. You definitely start with a low-end pistol when you reach the ground.

The star map should have other ships on it smart enough to shoot lazers at other ships without supposedly colliding (see 1.2 AI stupidity tests). You should be able to move freely and the other ships should stop at certain planets, and force fiels on other planets should tear it apart.

That's it! (Wow. when I have a good topic, I write a lot.)

So this is your secret mod! It sounds really cool.

Are you going for a Smugglers style of gameplay? I know you're an active with that game, it might be a nice idea to bring in some elements from there.

"ZeXLR8er!!" said:
Thanks!! Yep, this is my secret mod. I've only just decided to make it of Wazzal... I was actually planning on making it a Smugglers mod!! (btw Ville, how did you know I was active with Smugglers? Just from what I've said here in these forums, or have you visited the smugglers forums? I'm an active member there too. )
I'm going to ask Niels Bauer (the designer of Smugglers) if I could have permission to use some elements of the game in this mod, because I agree, it would be good to merge the games.

"ZeXLR8er!!" said:
I haven't decided on how combat and hyperspace will work yet, but atm I've got the combat and flying in the same map; so no seperate view as yet. I think hyperspace will be done with jumpgates (an idea taken from Smugglers), becuase I can't think how I'll do it otherwise.
Screenshots on the way, guys!

"ZeXLR8er!!" said:


Here's some real early shots; comments would be appreciated, I know they're really basic but they're just there to give you a little example on where I'm going with the mod.

I must have been to the Smugglers forum at one time. I often visit independent game studios' forums to see how they handle them. I was actually surprised by how little Niels actually says in the forums.

yea, they are pretty cool shipos. I especially like the heavy fighter. Also, what are the size variations of the ships. Like you said, if the destroyer can launch fighters, it would have to be very big, and the fighters relatively small.
Only one small critisism. The transport and the other ships are not consistent in their 'design'. The transport is blue, sooth and shiny whereas the others are black and somewhat sharp and pointy. But its no biggy.

"Quanrian" said:
So far the mod looks great. My first suggestion is to use the particle system for the Planets. Basically just shrink down the graphic for the planet and use it as the particle that shows on the radar. This way you can very clearly distinguish where planets are.

You also want to be careful when you've got two different art styles going. Me and Ville had some hiccups with that. Basically you want everything to look like it fits, and not stand out like a sore thumb. So if you make any ships in 2d, make sure they at least look like they're three dimensional otherwise they're going to be an eyesore.

"Quanrian" said:
When you add a new feature in the game, like the healing in the ship, make sure you consider if it will really be worthwhile. I see alot of overly complicated ideas that are just far too over the top. In my humble opinion the best ideas are usually pretty simple. So be careful when complicating things and consider if the actual player is going to appreciate the amount of time you spent putting in something overly complicated, that while technically may be impressive, gameplay wise is drudgery.

"Quanrian" said:
Overall this project looks extremely promising. You've got some very solid ideas and the fact you're a good way through it convinces me more that you might finish it I'll defintely try and keep tabs on this mod. Good luck to you both Zex and Forceuser.

"Ville" said:
Well it does make sense that the player could choose what he comes to the planet with, after all it wouldn't be a biggie for a spacefaring captain to acquire portable weapons of mass destruction. People like big guns, I would most likely add huge weapon platforms (tanks, mechs), and have a million easy enemies for the player. Too bad the game slows down a bit if you have too many enemies.

"Ville" said:
If your planets are small, there will be a gameplay issue if you allow the player to heal fully on the ship. Waiting for the player to heal is boring, and the player would most likely run back to his ship all the time for boring healing. I suggest some sort of a cost for healing, money perhaps?

"Ville" said:
An interesting bit would be to not have a health bar, but the player would have parts of his body broken when the enemies hit him. You could do it with the slot system, the player would have a hand slot and feet slot. The player could then replace his feet with robotic feet, thus healing him. But that's just an idea, and not probably easy to implement.