Paypal donations are simply easy. While ~4% is going to paypal, it makes it easy for me to handle. And, the website where we're buying the models from also accepts paypal (in dollars, that's why the donations are in dollars, even tough I'm in Europe) so there are minimal transaction fees involved like this.
I didn't do more then simply setup a donate button that transfers funds to my paypal account. No idea why that would add a strange "don't live in the UK" problem.
Working on putting those in the game. Got the models properly converted, all the weapon and engine positions hooked up, but still need to put them up with proper ships. Most likely replacing some of the existing duplicate used models.
I added a heading view in the main screen 3D view, as when playing as captain, not knowing your view heading made it quite more complex to play.
Combat maneuvers need changes, they are too powerful and too jerky.
Finally, I'll most likely add sensor probes to the relay station, as right now it's still a bit boring to play relay. But you do have info that nobody else has.
New "default" player ship, new heading indicators for main screen, "space dust" (which is hard to see on a screenshot, but gives a good sense of movement in the game).
Also changed the combat maneuvers. Think the new implementation does more justice to the concept. But I'll see when we have our next play session.
Oh, and added callsign indicators on the main screen view as well. Not visible in the screenshot, but when ships are close, you can see their designation. Which helps the captain in telling what to target.
I've been busy re-writing the GUI system. As the old system started to show it's limitations. Quite some work, but in the end it will fix some inconsistencies and duplicate code.
Next I'll work a bit on the science and relay stations. As they need some work IMHO. Thinking about adding the option for to have Science "direct" the radar to get a longer range directional radar. With scanning targets taking more or less time depending on how far the target is depending on your view range/direction.
Relay already has sensor probes now. Which work but can be abused to hell, as they are refilled for free while docking, so while docked you can send out unlimited amounts.
Also thinking about a "anomaly" system, where science and relay have to work together to figure out what an anomaly actually is, adjusting sensors on science while reading them on relay or something like that.
Which allows you to determine what the anomaly is, and if it's something positive (extra energy, free weapons, boost on shields?) or something negative (loss of energy, damage, etc...) and giving the ship the option to "beam the anomaly on the ship".
Glad I found this project. Will be checking it out with a group soon. If ever interested I know where you can get some super nice models of BSG TNS. I have used them in a few projects, not games.
Any chance we will get more keyboard inputs for controlling the ship? I'm about to build some consoles and will be using buttons and a Teensy for sending key presses and it would be nice to use it for EmptyEpsilon as well.
No problem on that. With the new GUI system I have a lot more options at my disposal.
I'm almost finished with converting most things to the new GUI system. (Only the relay station of the 5/6 player crew stations isn't done yet)
Few changes I did at the same time are:
* Removed the radar sweep of the science station. While a nice visual effect, it confused communications quite a bit I noticed. As the ships would jump a few km all of a sudden.
* Nebula's now cast a visual "fog of war" on the science radar.
* You cannot click buttons while pause is active
* Helms impulse and jump controls are visually more clear what they mean
* Weapons missile aiming has been changed, hopefully a bit clearer then before. And clicking the top right of the fire buttons of the tubes overlaying the radar will no longer cause a target change (and thus losing your target)
* Engineering internal ship view got some visual improvements.
And some other news: I'm trying to see if I can build the code for Android.
(@KahulBane: I cannot use BSG models, for IP reasons. Same reason there is no star-trek in there)
As explained before, I've been re-doing all the GUI code. The main reasons where to remove a lot of duplicate code (between the 6 and 4 player crew stations) and to allow the following to be possible:
Before, if I created a popup dialog like this, All the buttons below that needed to know they could be masked by the popup. Now this happens without thinking.
So this screenshot shows the new self-destruct code entry dialog. But I've done the same with the comms systems, and the GameMaster screen.
Tracked down the source of the crash this morning. Now the code is actually seeming to start to run a bit before crashing again, with a slightly more meaningful stacktrace. So I'm getting somewhere, slowly.
Can the Android version be compiled using CodeBlocks? If so, are there any additional libraries or compilers required? I've got some Android-on-a-stick devices I want to run this on (ARM & x86) and I can test keyboard & mouse inputs.
No, compiling for android is right now a complex whole. And SFML contains a bug that I fixed locally. Else it crashed on startup when trying to read a file that does not exists.
As soon as I have something which does more then crashing I'll provide the apk so you can give it a shot.
This version only contains ARM binaries. So it won't work on the x86 device. There is no music in it (to reduce file size), and while you can start a server, the scenario selection does not work yet, so it's an empty world.
Everything else seems to work, if you are on wifi it will connect to a local server just fine, and all the stations seem to work. And I was surprised to see how well I could press buttons on my tiny screen.
There is still a mouse cursor visible at all times. But the touch/mouse code is becoming a bit of a mess right now...
Comments
http://bridgesim.net/categories/emptyepsilon
And thanks a lot @ people that are donating. This will make the game look way more awesome
Keep up the good work!
Looking good.
I'm working on converting some Star Trek ships that will hopefully be playable in the future.
I've got some Android-on-a-stick devices I want to run this on (ARM & x86) and I can test keyboard & mouse inputs.
I tried it on my phone since I'm still at work. Besides the issues you said seems to work standalone so far.