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Command the journey to the inner asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. Settle Asteroids and gather their ressources. You'll also have to maintain a fleet of space ships to defend your colony against pirates and other mining companies.

Report RSS AI Progress: Fightings and Visual Extras

Read more about the latest updates in Age of Asteroids, overall progress and the next iteration of the alpha demo!

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The latest updates to the game concerned a lot of cool stuff.

GFX


First of all, the sun is finally added - looks just nice and was something that bugged me all the time to not see the sun (it's cool as a reference point also).
Beside the sun the Tactical Overview is now overworked. You now see your sector and the radar range indicators and such things. Also the camera control was adjusted to be more helpful.

Some things get complicated in 3D, so I did an aproach of making everything a bit useful. For that reason in tactical view you get some sort of layer, originating at your current asteroid or - if no asteroid selected - in the middle of your sector. That way you always have a good reference point for any commands. This will even be more helpful once you can track asteroid movements and such things. At first it feels a bit weird but it once you are used to it, it is pretty good to handle. I've looked a lot onto older Homeworld Versions, how they did solve that, but they actually managed to virtually flatten down the playing area (and lead the player to play there) which is not possible in Age of Asteroids.

AI: Fighting


The Ship AI in concerns of fighting was completly reworked (yes, again!) because there were some "cat-chases-tail" situations. I've started thinking about how I play such games as a pilot and for that reason started up some rounds in War Thunder (Dogfighting Game with Planes) and look how I do react.

The thing is, once you have someone behind you, it is pretty hard to get rid of them - your best chance is to get away, call for help and pray while flying ridicolous manouvers.
The same is now happening in the game. Once a ship is in trouble it will start to flee, try to get out, call for help and head back to the asteroid (there is more chance of getting out of fire range).

The ship fights therefore will not be over in a few seconds, they can last pretty long, and there is still room for improvement. Also the ships will be different equipped and may have different engines, so they may differ in turning capabilities and speed. So this will get pretty interesting :-)

New Demo Iteration

A new iteration of the alpha demo will be available very soon where you can see this new stuff first hand and hopefully you like it, don't hesitate to ask any questions or give suggestions!

New Gameplay Video aboutrecently added features


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reiti.net Author
reiti.net

There is also a IndieGOGO Campaign running - pledge or share it please!

Indiegogo.com

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Scotty.
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reiti.net Author
reiti.net

Thank you for the video, I really enjoyed watching it! It also gave me a good idea about where I should really add some more UI clues for the player. It's aaaall in the process :D

Actually many of the features are actually working but lots of them are deactivated in the demo or are completely unbalanced at the moment. Thanks again for reviewing ;-)

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