News: Back to ship equipment
15:08, 1 Mar
I’ve recently decided that I’ve not really finished the ship equipment stuff: there is currently no way for the AI to refuel before they leave the planet, which means eventually they’ll get stranded, and I really want to allow players to upgrade their ships sooner rather than later.
Therefore I’ve turned off the interiors for now, and I’m working on refuelling, and allowing players to customise their ship a little more.
News: Artist required
09:13, 13 Feb
Some unfortunate
The concept groundwork has mostly been done already, I need someone who can take on the artistic feel of the game we’ve already got to and produce more content for it.
You’ll need to be able to work with 3D models and render them to 2D PNGs, and generate normal maps. You’ll be creating ship art, tile-based ground sci-fi locations, supporting art for particle effects and some tile based animations.
Ideally you can use Git/Github to replace placeholder output files directly into the game’s codebase, but that’s not essential.
If you’re interested, please get in touch via email or reply to this thread, with work samples and an idea of rate.
You don’t need to be local, but you do need great English and be close enough in timezones to make it easy to chat on Skype.
Thanks! Some examples of the media from the game that you’ll need to produce:
News: Ship interiors
14:22, 8 Feb
So you may have read this post which talks about the process I recently went through to try and improve Sol Trader’s AI.
This led me to start work on the interior code: there’s not much to see yet as there’s a lot of ground work to be laid, and Aamar my artist hasn’t had a chance to work on the graphics yet so they are all placeholder:
Having said that, here you go:
If you’ve got Alpha Access, hit “TAB” to walk around the ship yourself…
What do you think?
News: Inline help for factories
15:33, 18 Dec
It has been quite hard to see from a simple factory list exactly what that will mean for your trading options at any particular planet.
Now I’ve added help for the factory conversion processes. Click on help from the main menu and you’ll see a brief description of all the different conversion processes under the “Factories” tab.
There’s also context sensitive help on the factory list - click on any factory on the first tab of a planet and you’ll be presented with the help screen zeroed in on the help for that factory.
With the clues you’ll pick up from the descriptions, you should be able to work out what’s likely to be in demand on a particular planet in the future, and what you’ll be able to sell when it’s been produced. Keep an eye on the factory list when you’re planning your trade routes!
News: Coding crossroads
14:59, 6 Dec
I’m at a bit of a crossroads: do I continue with ship components and build big weapons, or start work on the world generation code?
It will be great fun to shoot at things, for sure, especially other ships. Doing that should have a definite consequence, though, especially in some of the more habitable areas. I want to do some of the thinking aroud what drives the characters motivations to behave the way they do - each character will have a unique history in the world which will affect their actions.
From a coding stand point: the first will be lots of playing with fun graphical techniques, the second will be fascinating from a raw game design point of view, and give a solid platform to continue.
Tricky. Given that my time is very limited, I should probably work on whatever will keep me motivated to continue.
I’ll keep you updated. If you have a preference, then let me know!
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What is Sol Trader?
Sol Trader is a brand new, expansive, open ended, space exploration and trading game. It is set in our Solar System in the near future.- A unique story engine: immerse yourself in a world with a real history and interact with characters to find out their backstories and motivations.
- A full economics system: Trade with real characters on the official exchange or privately via the black markets.
- Buy or rent a spacecraft to explore the known solar system, and customize it to your hearts content.
- Explore vast planets on foot; dig for minerals and establish mining operations.
- Scavenge for bounty on huge space wrecks drifting through space.
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