Cash flow issues have stalled it a bit-but i've already made changes to fix that issue. Also-with so much A.I. code sitting from Mj-12 that can easily be expanded-and the time and money already invested in this project a lite spirtual successor to Emperor of the Fading Suns seems silly. So the scope has expanded. It's now going full blown epic- why not make the title I really want to?

 Goals:As I have shown in my past A.I. attempts-an A.I. need not cheat to be good. Dev's just do not want to invest in it-but good A.I. is very possible and this game will have it. Expect a rather detailed release on exactly how the A.I. is implemented.

Lore: 2 years creating this universe and there's still much to add. If I am to move pieces around on a map give a reason to do so other than numbers/stats under the umbrella- Emperor of the Fading Suns had that. This game will too.

After civ5 and Warlock master of the arcane it is clear the mechanics is there for fun meaningful combined arms tactical combat on a hex map. The problem with those games is their A.I. cannot understand it's own setup and system. Emperor of the fading Suns if all recall had the very same hex map setup decades ago. It can be done right with an effort for good A.I.- expect this same focus with the same abundant unit choices that title enjoyed.

I haven't released anymore tidbits on sneak peeks at the lore development in a long while. There is a lot more but i want players to discover that on release. The next phase is building the world inside the engine, the GUI and the added brains underneath to the system. I'll be releasing some short sneek peeks in this area as things progress-and the money situation begins to right itself so everyone can see actual in game footage.

I need about 3k more for the funds of the next phase and as mentioned I rearanged my personal life a bit to channel those funds to the project---(namely moving and saving nearly $500 a month there) and I'm still working with what I have and expanding and fleshing it out.

We've had some promising titles as of late but they are all half baked - if you want something done right you simply have to do it yourself I suppose - but this last round of ho-hum dead A.I. incomplete titles have really urked me to show just what is possible if you really try.

Course i could be hit by a bus and your never see it......

Interesting Dev Progress page for Endless Space.

http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com/Progress

Looks like all they have left is the AI "Tuning", along with the constant battle of squashing any bugs that pop up.

My opinion of the game will definitely vary, depending on how well this final bit of AI fixing is done and in further updates to it.

I believe in you Ghostryder, you can pull it right. EFS like lore and a competent AI, it seems very interesting.

Originally Posted By ghostryder (27 JUN 2012 11:35pm)

Cash flow issues have stalled it a bit-but i've already made changes to fix that issue. Also-with so much A.I. code sitting from Mj-12 that can easily be expanded-and the time and money already invested in this project a lite spirtual successor to Emperor of the Fading Suns seems silly. So the scope has expanded. It's now going full blown epic- why not make the title I really want to?

 

 Goals:As I have shown in my past A.I. attempts-an A.I. need not cheat to be good. Dev's just do not want to invest in it-but good A.I. is very possible and this game will have it. Expect a rather detailed release on exactly how the A.I. is implemented.

 

Lore: 2 years creating this universe and there's still much to add. If I am to move pieces around on a map give a reason to do so other than numbers/stats under the umbrella- Emperor of the Fading Suns had that. This game will too.

 

After civ5 and Warlock master of the arcane it is clear the mechanics is there for fun meaningful combined arms tactical combat on a hex map. The problem with those games is their A.I. cannot understand it's own setup and system. Emperor of the fading Suns if all recall had the very same hex map setup decades ago. It can be done right with an effort for good A.I.- expect this same focus with the same abundant unit choices that title enjoyed.

 

I haven't released anymore tidbits on sneak peeks at the lore development in a long while. There is a lot more but i want players to discover that on release. The next phase is building the world inside the engine, the GUI and the added brains underneath to the system. I'll be releasing some short sneek peeks in this area as things progress-and the money situation begins to right itself so everyone can see actual in game footage.

 

I need about 3k more for the funds of the next phase and as mentioned I rearanged my personal life a bit to channel those funds to the project---(namely moving and saving nearly $500 a month there) and I'm still working with what I have and expanding and fleshing it out.

 

We've had some promising titles as of late but they are all half baked - if you want something done right you simply have to do it yourself I suppose - but this last round of ho-hum dead A.I. incomplete titles have really urked me to show just what is possible if you really try.

 

Course i could be hit by a bus and your never see it......

Clearly, you need to be banned from going outside where buses might hit you!

Would you describe the new scope as 4X? Or is closer to a mostly-known universe (like EFS)? Maybe a 3x? Experiment, Expand, Exterminate? It certainly sounds like there is going to be space and land action, which would be awesome. With a competent/challenging AI, it could be nirvana.

Will the AI include non-combat like trading, diplomacy, espionage?

Finally, what's the Emperor Gambit lore on underwear?

If players are unfamiliar with the play of Emperor of the Fading suns this vid should give a very rough idea. Two things I'll point out. The soundtrack-which is epic. In 1996 it was poor midi of course. All my previous lore vids feature the music of Kevin Macleod- I choose him for ability and price range. He can and does score music for specific projects and part of my budget is going to be for that purpose. He absolutely rocks and music is absolute key to lore. It should be as high a priority as A.I. in my view. The music in Endless space is not bad per see-but it is very basic and generic. Far from Epic. Civ5's is of much better quality but is somewhat somber but fits - this vid is the kind of stuff I'm aiming for and I'm sure Kevin can deliver----once I manage to pay him of course.

Though it's hard to spot unless pointed out-your notice the combat screen resolution in terms of combat via space-this sparked the original card-based idea--but I got to tell you I was never really high on that if the end result was like this or like Endless space. It's not bad per see-but I feel in an epic type game the simplicity doesn't fit. For ground combat I very much like the combined arms approach. It's a panzer general combined arms fun type of combat-that absolutely works in titles (like Panzer general) when the A.I. can handle it and fails (in Civ5) when the A.I. is clueless. I'd say Warlock: Master of the Arcane does a better job than Civ5 but it too is not quite up to really handling it- but in short this is all due to a very consciouse decision not to devout resources toward it. A.I. doesn't suck because of complexity or an inability top handle the complexity-it sucks because designers don't devout any time to it. My last dev job with such a designer who will go unnamed (but most of you play their games) alloted 2 weeks for A.I., I kid you not. That's absurb to me. But that's today's industry-and yes that's today's wargaming industry-I wasn't on a farmville project. More time will be spent on A.I. here than on any other area. It's already 2plus years if you count MJ12-the birth of the core.

The real challenge is not the land combat--but rather the space combat. List any 4x space game of the last 4 decades that you are satisfied with in terms of combat? Sadly there aren't any I can recall. Games solely focused on it--say some of the Star trek games or Wing commander or whatnot perhaps but do not fit in strategic games of this sort. There's tons of examples however if you look at strategic naval games- and I will be looking at many but quite honestly I am not there yet on a system--but it almost has to be different than the land based combat to account for positioning, distance ...etc --- I am open to examples and suggestions but keep in mind the combined arms hex based system on land---it should naturally be simuliar but in different scale and complexity-- but should move not unlike warlock or civ--in flow. It is a challenge---but the 4x gendre needs something other than what it has been using. So right off the combat is not going to be akin to EFS in that regard in space.

 thirdly--Azz has contributed little to this. In the beginning he was slated to write much of the lore- but after his divorce he has lost interest-in fact I've been constantly sidetracked in other areas as his interests changed from websites to whatnots- and 100 percent of funds for this has been out of my pocket--that include server costs, tools, resources. The engine alone is $1500--but Daz and poser, PS, Videomach, Pinnacle, Bryce, xara and such have been out of my pocket as well-all tools needed and used. So naturally these things slow one down. I now have all minus one---so that hurdle is about overcome but that lore needs fleshed out--if anyone here is interested- and wants to take that up- with a total risk of a flop title and no reward-which is very possible in this outing I could use you. My writing skills suck.

Lastly i have no time frame. I'm not cutting corners to reach some preconcieved release date. It absolutely has to be full featured and working as intended before release. I have ideas to speed it up somewhat. Once we get enough material-like the lore outline-some in game engine art, etc we can try a stab at Kickstarter. This would enable full time committment- as it is it's a weekend warrior project. I need someone with a lot patience and commitment-as something like this progress can be agonizing slow -- if you have that and a lot of imagination the lore of this can be in your hands and we can all go down with the ship together----or make an impact for the better for the strategy community. I have the factions modeled mostly. As many have seen in my release vids. This are good for diplomacy screens and such.I'm still working on the symbiants and merchant exchange. In engine models still need to be produced. I'll need to do that or I'll need to hire a freelance to do it--if you recall the original basically focused on 3 types-infanty, artillery and tanks---with of course the different weapon components. It has a good base outline --

 Gameplay wise there will be some differences as well. The symbiots for example will not be restricted to one planet or one fleet-a fatal error of the original. These original static forces will now be expanding and alive outside in other solar systems to be introduced as the game progresses. This will solved the new player meets complex syndrom decades of dumb downs has caused. In fact by giving the church, Vua, symbiots and merchant league outside solar system starts all that complexity can be introduced gradually, allow randomness of planets and traditional scouting and discovery. Naturally diplomacy needs far more than what actually was offered in 1996- etc etc.

PM me if this interests you.

GR- If you haven't already thought about it, you might offer some ingame goodies to high contributors in a kickstarter. For example, for $500 a character of some significance can be named by the donor. Obviously you'd want to retain the right to  insist on lore-friendly names -- who'd want to see a Cpt. Meadbelly, for example. I've seen people pay more for similar rights on paper and pen rpgs (the next Traveller release, for example.)

Do you know if Empire of the Fading Suns computer game is available anywhere? I don't think it's on GoG, but haven't checked recently.

I think MOO2 probably had the most statisfying space combat (from an what can I do pov, not AI, lol) in a strategic game. Tactically, probably Nexus: Jupiter Incident and the Star Trek ones inspired by SFB.

Great AI and space fleet combat in Emperor's Gambit? I'll die a happy man.

What's the player perspective? You've shown videos and imagines of individuals before -- are they going to be in cutscenes, or am I walking around as an individual (like skyrim, for example) in game? <- Not sure question makes sense.

Originally Posted By meadbelly (29 JUN 2012 4:42pm)

 

 

Do you know if Empire of the Fading Suns computer game is available anywhere? I don't think it's on GoG, but haven't checked recently.

 

I've wondered why it hasn't been on GOG, too.  What with the so-called "rights" for some great oldies changing hands so much, it seems like some ownsers of those sales rights don't even want to bother putting it back up for sale.

Yeah i find Kickstarter intriguing. Funding by the players it allows total freedom of design. No coporate execs putting dates or making in game changes ala Diablo III to try another money making scheme.

The downside of Kickstarter is you need to be prepared before you try to raise funds. Who keeps track of donors? Your need some sort of accounting system to assure every single person gets their promised copy and whatever other rewards for the higher backers. That also means regular info updates, active discussion among the backers...etc etc. As a single guy deving it I can see ALL THAT taking up a lot of time. So I am a bit hesitant in that regard.

There also needs to be a lot of effort in the presentation. If your Brian Fargo 2 million instantly is a given for wasteland two, if your nobody Joe-Blo Ghosty the idea has to be presented clearly and indepth and convincingly with impressive production values to show the seriousness it has to me, my ability and at the same time something someone might want to play. Not many even Know of Emperor of the fading Suns. After 30 years some may have a vague memory-hardly anyone owns and plays the game. Many who do can't get it to run. (I have a copy and I do have it running under Windows 7 32 bit. I've failed to get it to run under 64 bit. )

A successful fund raising would allow full time commitment, and also being able to hire freelancers in a lot of very time consuming modeling. Those short vids take a lot of time to generate. What people do not see is all that is tried and trashed. I've created many many models and scenes and rendered takes coming up with characters/houses/races that I just was not happy with. The Empress is actually a 7th model try, the winged techno-bitch 4 different remakes, that contraption and the church model was agonizing to put together, on and on and the lore behind them goes unwritten. Coming up with characters from nothing really is hard to say the least- which is why you often see hampsters in a space suit-- devs want to get to the 'game' and to hell with the lore.

 Other roadblocks yet unforseen are going to happen.

BTW those clips you can think of those developed characters being used much the same way the CGI characters are used in Civ5. They'll be there in diplomancy, when you select your house to play-game events and yes key cut scenes. The actual in game art-- I'd say will look a lot like civ 5's maps and the units and general look a very dark hard sci-fi tone. I do have planet models and corresponding textures. They are quite good. Comparable to say what you see in Sins of a Solar Empire. Some of you have seen the large scale look of the ships and such-again very high poly models for cutscenes and whatnots- but these will have to be taken down polycount wise for the endgame maps as they now are 70k poly models--and most games like this (like civ5-use about 3k poly models.

And no, I'm not making this a 3d shooter lol. However zooming in and out ala civ5 style will be there. How close I'll determine when things are in place and how they look. But expect the game to begin much as a typical 4x space game. However planet maps-just like in Emperor of the fading Suns will be far more than you usually see in 4x games. I'd love to put in some kind of dynasty play. The main problem with EFS was it was incredably easy to track down a prince and get a sceptor. With a dynasty system...even somwhat simplified, this can be handed from character to character making it a lot harder to narrow it's location as well as put another layer to enjoy the lore of the game. I'm kind of waiting to see how it unfolds-however Unity 3 really speeds up development greatly compared to other engines I've worked with so there may be reasonable time to put in such a system.

I've put several thousand in this, and i'm turning 57 in July. I just figure this may be my last shot to make this game, which I've been thinking about for 30 years. So i'm rolling the dice. No more small scoup projects working up to it. I'm out of time for that at this point.

You guys will be in on the alpha and beta -and as mentioned anyone who lacks technical skills should not be hesitant if you got some people's skills or writing skills- I'll throw you a character model- and you name the house/race and write the background and the strengths and weaknesses. There's a wiki on Emperor of the Fading Suns so you can get a basic outline of the 5 houses, the church, the symbiots and so forth. The Vau I am not sure. In the original game they were filler. They didn't even get a turn. And again it's not an exact remake- it's Emperor's Bane-- so there will be significant differences to avoid lawsuits but more importantly to address the many weaknesses in the original.

Also there needs to be a pretty decent governor and automation system in place. Imagine 7 solar systems, eaxh with several planets. As you expand and play each map if something isn't done to address this turns could be very long moving several dozens of units. So some system...ala JA2 as a planet is conquered you can go ahead and build it up the way you want and not worry about it anymore as you don't worry about a sector in JA2 unless there's a counter attack.

  I also intend to post much of the devlopment details over on my site. I built a lot of tutorials and dev stuff here for Game research over the years and 90 percent of it got trashed when they redid the forum-so I'll be posting that stuff over there so that will never happen again.

Originally Posted By Nefaro (29 JUN 2012 5:14pm)

Originally Posted By meadbelly (29 JUN 2012 4:42pm)

 

 

Do you know if Empire of the Fading Suns computer game is available anywhere? I don't think it's on GoG, but haven't checked recently.

 

 

I've wondered why it hasn't been on GOG, too.  What with the so-called "rights" for some great oldies changing hands so much, it seems like some ownsers of those sales rights don't even want to bother putting it back up for sale.

 

I'm surprised to learn that so many other people enjoyed that game as much as I did! I got it into in the same way I got into other crpg's -- I was playing the paper and pen rpg first. (Plus, Dune is the greatest scifi novel ever.)

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that so many other people with similar game tastes to mine now played it then, but that is kind of an interesting timeline, isn't it? I mean that game has got to be near 20 years old. I had to have come out in the early 90 - mid 90's, right?

GR -- if I were in other circumstances, I would seriously consider taking up your writing offer. But I can't, due to professional and personal obligations. I need to dedicate my personal time to my own opus (not a game; a novel. But it will include games, lol). But I bet there are number folks here who might very well be interested. I'd start a thread. Not only because I've hijacked this one (whoops!), but I bet if you posted a thread title on the subject, it would have more visibility.

Well if the universe and game take off you could be writing a series of books..... lol.

If you missed it during the alpha, the game is 20% off using the coupon code SPACE-ISEND-LESSS.

Big update came out today.

Includes the battle camera controls and lots of of adjustments.

So far the AI is handing it to me on "hard", though I suspect it's getting an economic bonus. It's much better (than the last beta) at sending meaningful fleets with mixed weapons at you, much harder to defeat.

I started a new game as the Pilgrims, and I'm having a ball. I'm playing a medium 4-arm spiral galaxy with pirates turned off, and I had my initial cluster to myself, which gave me an opportunity for rapid expansion.  Now that I'm able to travel through wormholes, I've met the Amoeba and the United Empire.  It's too early to comment on the A.I., since the map is made up of small clusters of stars connected by wormholes with a lot of choke points. I did destroy an Amoeba exploration ship just to see the new camera controls, but it doesn't seem to have had any effect on diplomacy, which is a little worrisome. Still, I'm happy, but I was also happy with the state of the beta, so YMMV.

One thing - the battle camera seems to be off by default.  You have to click on the little box in the lower rt. hand corner to enable it.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF (4 JUL 2012 5:36pm)

So far the AI is handing it to me on "hard", though I suspect it's getting an economic bonus. It's much better (than the last beta) at sending meaningful fleets with mixed weapons at you, much harder to defeat.

I look forward to your review

Originally Posted By tgb123 (4 JUL 2012 6:36pm)

I look forward to your review

The final score will hinge on the quality of the AI. So far, it's been better (than the beta) at throwing together mixed weapons/defenses (it doesn't stick with the same formula, which makes battles a lot more tense since you don't know what you're up against) and it was actually using its units to invade my systems instead of parking them all at one system in defense, although it eventually left all of my sieged systems for some reason (maybe it was under attack somewhere else) and I was able to take a couple of systems back and then get a peace treaty.

 Anybody care to share some images of your gameplays?

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF (4 JUL 2012 5:36pm)

So far the AI is handing it to me on "hard", though I suspect it's getting an economic bonus. It's much better (than the last beta) at sending meaningful fleets with mixed weapons at you, much harder to defeat.

Unless they changed it in the recent update, ALL difficulty levels but the lowest get some kind of 'cheat' bonus.

Good to know, huh?

I suppose this makes more sense than having two or three 'Easy' levels that nobody will use because Normal is easy enough. 

Originally Posted By Nefaro (5 JUL 2012 7:38am)

Unless they changed it in the recent update, ALL difficulty levels but the lowest get some kind of 'cheat' bonus.

That's a big comment on the quality of the AI.

It still has problems organizing and sending fleets during war. It builds big fleets and then parks them at its home systems. I was in a war with the pink guy. Did he send any of those impressive highlighted fleets towards my planets? No, he sent fleets of one ship at a time.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF (5 JUL 2012 8:53am)

Originally Posted By Nefaro (5 JUL 2012 7:38am)

Unless they changed it in the recent update, ALL difficulty levels but the lowest get some kind of 'cheat' bonus.

 

That's a big comment on the quality of the AI.

 

It still has problems organizing and sending fleets during war. It builds big fleets and then parks them at its home systems. I was in a war with the pink guy. Did he send any of those impressive highlighted fleets towards my planets? No, he sent fleets of one ship at a time.

 

 

I am on the fence on getting this one. I don't mind a cheating AI. MOO 1 and 2 AI both cheated like hell and I thought both those games were great. I don't mind a challenge. But in those two the AI was pretty brutal in the offense which made it interesting. Is that the case here or does the AI even with its bonuses remain too reserved?

Previous to this update, I've seen the AI occasionally send one, or a small fleet, over into my territory.  He actually managed to start seiging one of my planets before I could gather enough force and send them that way.

It actually turned into a big back & forth for quite a few turns.  I sent a scout around a back way to a planet near his home system (and within my scout's sensor range) and watched his home planet activity.  It would build up a fair-sized couple of fleets and left them sitting on his homeworld for awhile.  But when I moved most of my fleets to break his siege, it sent another one in to support there, and kept one at home.

Seems to me like it's making some good decisions, just not all the time.  This is pretty normal for AI in a game.  At least it has a tendency to protect it's best system(s) when in doubt, from what I've seen. 

But it's still taken the offensive regularly, which is something a surprising amount of AIs don't do much or well at all. 

Like I said, I've not played since the new AI update yet so things have probably changed and will likely be changed again.  Thus far I don't think I'd rate it in the Terrible AI department as far ask it's combat operations go.   I'll reevaluate that after playing a nice long game soon.

In James' game, sounds like either too much value is being placed on scouting, by the AI, or that it's fleet organization skills aren't up to speed yet.  How much military power do you have adjacent to his system(s) there?  I'm guessing you got Mr. Pink on the defensive...

I wonder if it matters which AI race you are playing against as to how aggressive they are? 

Originally Posted By Nefaro (5 JUL 2012 12:19pm)

In James' game, sounds like either too much value is being placed on scouting, by the AI, or that it's fleet organization skills aren't up to speed yet.  How much military power do you have adjacent to his system(s) there?  I'm guessing you got Mr. Pink on the defensive...

Pink has a military about twice the size of mine. I have a video I am encoding then uploading (that I will link to here when finished) where I illustrate the deficiencies in the AI.

Originally Posted By JD (5 JUL 2012 12:28pm)

I wonder if it matters which AI race you are playing against as to how aggressive they are? 

It does to an extent, but if you have twice (or more, in my current game I'm going to show in the video) the ships, you need to invade no matter how peaceful you are.

One other question to those who have been playing this for awhile: does the combat portion hold up over the long term for you? In other words, does it get repetative and boring. Does ship design and fleet planning play a big part of determining combat outcomes or is it more of who has more ships?

Originally Posted By Yog (5 JUL 2012 4:04pm)

One other question to those who have been playing this for awhile: does the combat portion hold up over the long term for you? In other words, does it get repetative and boring. Does ship design and fleet planning play a big part of determining combat outcomes or is it more of who has more ships?

Ship design is the most important factor: scouting and then choosing the best weapons to counter what the enemy has. I feel it's an interesting tactical game of "chicken" inside the game. You'll win if you have, say, 11 ships to 1 ship, no matter what the components, but in closer matches, weapons and defenses are very important.