And they twinkle as well! It was tricky getting them to scroll properly. Most games just cheat in this area, if a star falls off screen, warp it around. But in this game, if you click on a location, and the stars just randomly move around, it'll disorient you. So every background star has an actual coordinate that is converted based on it's "layer" when it's drawn. The result is a consistent starfield that don't change no matter where you're looking in the galaxy.
There's still some tweaks to be done (maybe reduce the amount of background stars?), but it's making the game feel more lively!
Instead of reducing the number, perhaps make some of them darker? That would still provide the texture, without making it so dominant.
ReplyDeleteJust curious, are background stars going to be consistent between sessions?
ReplyDeleteI made some of them darker, and it looks better! Thanks for the suggestion!
ReplyDeleteSaving/loading isn't implemented yet, but I could add the background stars to the save field so it'll always stay the same between sessions.
You mention "based on it's 'layer.'" Do you mean that some stars are on a nearer layer, and some are on a layer farther away? If so, very cool. That would give some nice depth to the galaxy when you scroll.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first looked at the map, I thought all the white stars were also colonizable. They weren't nearly as prominent, so I thought they'd just have 1 low quality planet or something small, and the large stars would have several, generally higher quality planets.
It might work to do it that way. You want to focus on macro stuff, so it probably won't work with your design ideas; but just a thought.
The background stars do look like they have depth when you scroll around, and makes it feel more like a real galaxy.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the way the game is structured, only the big stars are actually involved in the game. The background stars are there just to make it look nice.