Empty Epsilon - Game Development

Greetings,

I am very interested in assisting with the development of Empty Epsilon. Is anyone here also working on the game?

Thanks!

Comments

  • Daid, the head/main developer of EE posts here. Serveral others have forked the code and committed changes that have been pulled into the main source code.
    I have made various scripts, tools, and reported issues for the game.

    If you're interested in assisting: fork, make changes, push, and send a pull request. That's how most projects on GitHub are updated.
  • I made it, so I sort of am working on it I guess?

    I'm kinda in stealth mode, working on a few other things, but not spending much time working on EE. But I'm always answering questions if you are wondering about things in the code or want to know how things can be done.

    I personally think the game would benefit from a few more missions. But what parts are you interested in developing?
  • Good Afternoon Kwadroke and Daid,

    Thank you so much for your fast reply. I am glad you mentioned it, as I am actually very interested in adding some missions. I went ahead and downloaded the repository.

    Do you happen to have any documentation/guidelines on how to add missions and the correct way to format them? In your opinion, what style of mission would benefit the game most at this time?

    Best Regards,

    Nathan

  • There is a mission scripting guide at:
    http://daid.github.io/EmptyEpsilon/#tabs=4

    This guide pre-dates a pretty important feature, and that is that you can copy whole layouts of the map to the clipboard to paste in scripts later on. (F5 does this in the GM screen)

    Scenarios come pretty much in 3 types right now:
    * Randomized, simple scenarios that just throw a random set of enemies at you. Examples of these are the "waves", "surrounded" and "basic" scenarios.
    * Tests, scenarios I threw together to test things. For example the "battlefield" scenario is designed to stress test the game and network code. Other example is the "empty", which I use often to test things.
    * Missions. These are full scripted missions. Your comms officer gets your mission goal communicated. Scripted events happen.

    I personally think the mission scripts are the most interesting ones. As they can be vastly different, while the randomized are generally "more of the same".
    The "Beacon of light series" is an example of this, which is the first mission I made.
    "Birth of the Altantis" is the second mission I made, and is pretty much the least combat oriented mission made so far. And should serve as a pretty good example of what is all possible.

    "Ghost from the Past" is one of the contributed missions, and I think that one needs some re-balancing. As when we played it, we got confused and overwhelmed at some point.
  • edited March 2017
    Hello and welcome to the boards!

    There are some guidelines and a scripting tutorial on the Website

    Also it could be helpful the read a bit about the lore of the game (at least if your plan missions that won't be solely action-driven) by browsing a bit through the science database (especially the factions part).

    If you want a quick way to set up your universe at the start of your mission, you can use the GM screen to do so and create all objects you want at the start. Once done, use Copy scenario/F5 or Copy selected (on linux, you would have to install xclip first), to copy the according code to you clipboard, then paste it into your favorite editor.

    edit: oops,daid was faster.
  • Good Afternoon,

    Thank you for sharing this information Daid and Blue Shadow. This is very helpful! After getting a hang of the general process, I would like to discuss with you different mission design strategies you may have, such as how to keep the mission from getting confusing or too challenging. Perhaps you have insight on a few things that you recommend not to do.

    Best Regards,
  • There is pretty much one main way to work against confusing/challenge problems. And that is playtest.

    Other then that, don't spawn enemies on top of the player, don't change friendly/neutral ships into enemies without a bunch of clear warnings (The ghost from the past mission does this with great confusion)

    Next to that, make sure comms has all the information required. Don't be vague.

    Finally, account for everything. If you have a friendly station that is essential, players will find a way to get it destroyed. If you ask the players to goto a location, they will most likely take a detour. No matter what you ask from the player, they will do it slower then expected, and not how you expected it.
  • Thank you for sharing this information Daid, I value it highly. I have a feeling that a very well made campaign will need several revisions before you can get it just right.

    Thanks again for your assistance.
  • Good Afternoon Daid and Kwadroke,

    Thank you so much for putting that scripting guide together. It was very helpful! I have now begun to start experimenting on my own. Once I have something together, I would like to share it with you.

    Is there a good place to share missions, so members of the community can try them out and provide feedback?

    More questions: Will it be possible for me to implement custom ship designs, environments, and skyboxes into a mission? I also am very interested in adding cut scenes and pre-mission briefing scenes.
  • edited July 2018
    (i deleted my post : not relevant anymore)
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