Sorry for the lack of updates, life has been kinda busy lately!
I've been working on Axis Shift (or Space Strategy Game(SSG) as I've been calling it...) as much as I can, but unfortunately, that equates to about a half an hour every night before I go to sleep, so progress has been slower than I would like. Anyways, I do have some updates for you guys, and I'll try and lay out how we're going to do some of the more complicated stuff in the game.
Space Debris: The Visual Side
Since every good Turn Based Strategy game has some form of terrain, we decided we needed to have some sort of "terrain" system for the space combat of "Axis Shift: For Realz This Time". Since the entire game takes place in space, asteroids were the prime choice for creating obstacles to the ships in the game.
Implementing the asteroids was as easy as adding an attribute to the Tile class that specified whether it had asteroids or not, and the concentration of them. Making them visually appealing on the other hand was not as easy. Even though the game is tilebased, making something like an asteroid field look random enough using static tiles would be a pain in the ass, so we took a different approach. Mark drew up a few asteroid sprites, and whenever a tile is generated that contains asteroids, it also creates a certain number of random asteroids with random sizes and spin. This creates a very random looking field of space debris that moves and looks quite realistic.
Here's a picture of my initial asteroid test using my own asteroid sprite.
And here's how it looks now that Mark has contributed his half of the equation:
AI: Part One
The AI in this game is going to be the hardest component to get right, as we've never really dealt with AI that had to think that far ahead before.
The plan for the AI in SSG is that the AI will be split up into different levels. The highest level is the Strategic Level, where the general guidelines for what the AI ship's goals will be.
The Strategic AI doesn't specifically tell the Ships what to do, it pretty much looks at the aggregate situation and decides stuff like what targets get what priority rather than "Tell Ship X to attack Ship Y". If the Strategic AI can't see any targets, it will look at where it's ships are situated, and based on what direction the last enemy ship was spotted, give out a general search command in that direction hoping to find the enemy fleet.
A neat feature of the Strategic AI is that it gives directives to each type of ship. For example, When a general search directive towards the bottom of the map is given, only Light Ships will listen to the command. This prevents Carriers and Battleships from going off on their own without support and getting pounced on as they blindly search for the enemy fleet. Instead, Destroyers and Fighters will search for the enemy fleet while the Capital Ships obey their own directives. Alternatively, if the directive given is "Destroy all Enemy Fighters", a Carrier or Battleship wont directly seek out and engage, instead leaving that task for the Destroyers and Fighters.
So while the Strategic AI gives out general Rules of Engagement, the next tier down is the Tactical AI, which is what tells each ship how to move and what to do, but thats a subject for another update....[wink]
Random Academy Paragraph
I've decided that this paragraph will focus on the better aspects of the Academy rather than the shit we have to put up with[grin] One of the coolest things we have happen here are the random flyovers that occur every week or so during out noon meal formations. So far we've had a few F-16's, A KC-135(boring!), and a few C-17's. We even had two huge special forces helicopters (MH-53's for the curious) land in our courtyard, and the Spec Ops guys ate lunch with us(They were certified badasses...) Another pretty emotional experience was during the Air Force's birthday parade. The entire Cadet Wing formed up outside, and the Commandant of the Academy called out the names of every graduate who has died in the line of duty. After he called a name, the current Squadron Commander of the Cadet Squadron the person was in while they were at the Academy would respond "Absent Sir!". The ceremony lasted about an hour, and finished with a four airplane flight of F-16s that performed a missing man formation in honor of the fallen. Its a good way to get reminded of why you're going through all the shit involved with this place...
Well guys, I should have another update sometime soon! Peace Out!
