New Seven-Eleven Space Sim??

So... it seems everyone (including the "slurpee-jerk" down at the 7-11) is making a Space sim AND making more progress than I am!

WTF!

I really just have to get something coded up and then move forward... seems I'm in a perpetual-design state... meaning I'm not getting anything done! :(

In the mean time; check out Astrox on Kongregate - he's basically got everything I want Skyport Alpha to be except the multi-player.

ScriptableObjects - you shiny cute thing!

Given my ultra-lack of experience with Unity (and C#) I spent a couple days researching and working on ScriptableObjects. There are useful pages on the Unity site along with some excellent blog posts and found a great YouTube video.

Working example:
I got my "factions" example up and working and can easily create new factions and alter the existing ones via the editor. (As seen in this video).

...and then it hit me!

SCRIPTABLEOBJECTS ARE FOR READONLY DATA!

Sadly it wasn't until I actually got my example to update an existing faction that it hit me. All scriptableobjects are stored in the READONLY bundle. FFS!, what an idgett!

EDIT: They are of course still very useful in reducing memory as described HERE.

Status Update

A quick design / status update: Aug-21-2013

1. Turrets: We have plasma (straight-line ball of plasma) turrets and (lock-on) missile turrets working. Moving and tracking the target, which has given me even more ideas....

2.  ROS (Reactive Organic Ships) - this race of organic beings (they ARE their ships) will transform their appearance (from GREEN (friendly) to RED (threatened)) depending on their mood.

I'll try and get a Unity Web app posted so you can see what I mean.

A million ideas riffle through my head while I hone and improve my C# and Unity 3D skills. I had to work through several problems while working on the turret systems since nearly all of the tutorials and forum posts were written in (yuk) javascript... :-p

Note: I have also had to abandon my (very nice) Apple magic mouse in favor of a (shivers) MS Home (USB) 3-button mouse which is absolutely a must (3-button) while using ANY 3D application, including Unity.

:-)

Unity 3D

... is not out of the running, just yet.

Since indie devs know exactly what I mean by the "oh wouldn't that be cool" aka OWTBC where by even the most well planned development process can go awry, I've spent the last few days reviewing some (excellent) Unity 3D tutorials. I have a lot of concern but it makes a lot of sense to create, develop and manage the project in one (tool) place and Unity 3D offers exactly that.

... more to come ...

Design: Phase 3

We held another brainstorming session where we actually played the game (on index cards) and answered several more design questions.

"Skyport Alpha will not be just another space shooter"

Also moved a couple of items to v2.0(1)

Decisions:

Flight / Space travel:

• Fuel - powers engine for normal space flight
• Power cells - power jump drive / gate

Starter Packs for starting a new game:

• Trader pack
• Mercenary pack
• Explorer pack

Notes:
(1) This is very helpful to stay on-track and limit the number of "OWTBC" (Oh wouldn't That Be Cool) features that often derail projects.

Design: 2D vs 3D

One early decision we made was to go with a 3D game design. It ultimately won because one of our main objectives will be Explore and let's face it, flying around in a 2D game isn't very Engaging.

With 3D selected, the next choice is game engine. While there is a cocos3d that leverages the awesome cocos2d framework, I disqualified it due to some of its limitations. Surprisingly there are quite a few to chose from:

• Unity (free & $1500)
• Sio2 Interactive (-annual fee, yuk)
• Ogre
• Panda3D (not iOS?)
• iSGL3D (open source and awesome) <- winner!