Pre-Order the Game!

Desura Digital Distribution

Monday, January 28, 2013

Kickstarter Launched!

I've launched the kickstarter here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1093012264/beyond-beyaan

So head on over and show your support!  I'm also doing a Master of Orion series giveaway on GOG.com here:

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/master_of_orion_giveaway_and_a_kickstarter

So if you want to grab a copy of MoO 1/2 or 3, here's your chance!  You don't have to back the project to participate in the giveaway!

Let's make this project a success!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

More Work on System Window

Things are starting to piece together!  I'm really liking the new UI.  I can create an unique type of control for a particular sector, then just add it!  For example, if a derelict was found in a sector, then it'd have "Investigate Derelict" project that you can add to the system's projects.  Right now it only displays sectors with a planet.  I've shrunk the window a bit, the idea is that you can move it around. The left side of this window is not final yet, I plan to improve the resource display so it'd use icons and such for easy visual indicators.


In other news, I'm preparing for a kickstarter!  If all goes well, it might be launched within next week or so.  So be on lookout for it! :)

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Sectors preview

Still working on the UI stuff, but here's a preview of what I have planned.  The idea for planets with regions is to display the name, special icons (such as special resources or fertility or others), list of regions, then finally the current project and "project button".  I'm thinking of combining the project button with current project into one item.  But at least you can see where I'm going with this.  Individual sectors won't have a scrollbar inside them, their entire information will be displayed.  So there's just one scrollbar to scroll through all sectors in a system.


Friday, January 11, 2013

More Less is More stuff

My previous idea of having a system window on left with list of planets and "information" window on right of it was a good start, but it still didn't sit well with me.  After brainstorming a bit, I think I hit on a good display window that will reduce tedious clicking.  I've started on it:


Top left is the system name and information.  Box below that is your empire's resources of all sectors in the system.  Below that is list of current projects (it will be slider based, so you can prioritize a project over others)

On right of the three boxes will be the list of sectors.  I may shrink the window, but for now it's giving me some room to work in.  The idea is that you can directly control the system and all of its sectors from this window.  If you want more information on a sector, you double click on it, and it will pop up a window with more details.

Note that I used "sectors" instead of "planets"?  I've changed to a system where each system have a list of sectors that you need to explore before you can utilize them.  Sectors can contain at most one item, or nothing.  So you may find a planet, some ancient derelict, a space monster nesting ground, pirate cache, etc. I really want to enhance exploration part of the "4X", and this is one approach.  You may be thinking, "wait, won't that make it tedious clicking on each sector to explore?".  My answer is that I plan to implement a queued orders system for fleets.  So you can shift click all sectors in a star system, then shift click next star system to explore, and it'll explore those in turn, with the sit rep reporting any interesting stuff that they discover.

Each sector will have its unique control displayed in list of sectors.  For example, a sector that is empty would just say "Husnus II - Empty Sector" and is very short in terms of height, while a sector with a huge planet of 20 regions will display all of the regions.  I plan on adding two types of planets, the "region" based one and "slider" based one to support modding :)

With this sector system, it enables me to add "fleets in sector"meaning I can have fleets stay in a sector to hide from the enemy if they haven't explored it yet  This mechanism in turn enables me to have space-based races that don't live on planets.  To produce stuff, they'd have to be in sectors, feeding on asteroid belts or other space junk.

You can see in my commit feed that I've already changed to this system, but with only "Planet" item in sectors.  I also decided to change my "Design Document" to "To-Do List".  So you can see what feature I'm currently working on, and what other features I've finished or are planning on implementing in the future:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VGMRtRF7gtH-ETUHRSBCmlLwj1wLzvpxEfdPlDIlMJo/edit

If you don't see features that you'd like implemented, feel free to comment about them!