Hi,
I have been very busy with the server and client design. I have a working model that should work well and provide security. PUSC uses an authoritative server which means that clients can not cheat (virtually eliminated) because the clients do not send any position, velocity or other client side data, they only send moves and options data. Testing looks good and that has freed up time to work on other areas of the game.
Tiled and non-tiled backgrounds.
I have enabled the tiled image background feature for PUSC and it is working awesomely, really giving depth and adding to the parallaxing effect. Coupled with the rest of the map the parallaxing is spot on and looks and feels great. I also use for some maps a continuous image that spans the entire map for a non-tiled background. The two options will allow for some really stunning background effects.
Buy and ship interfaces.
I have also been adding in many of the interfaces used in PUSC which includes buy, ship, pilots and other interfaces. The buy system will use a handful of categories like guns, bombs, mines, shields, power plant and advanced. Selecting a category will list the classes of available items within that category. So selecting 'Guns' will list all the available lasers, plasma cannons and more that are available. Typically items listed will be by description (text) and will not include an image for now, but that will change as I get the time to make images for them.
The ship interface also lists available ships by category and class. Ships are listed with ship view and descriptions making it easy to browse ships. Like the buy system you will use earned credits to buy a ship. Also both the buy and ship interface let you track and use inventories.
Pilot interface and HUD.
The pilot's interface lets you interact with other pilots. You can attach to another pilot (warping to that pilots location or acting as a turreted ship attached to another pilot's ship so both that pilots and your weapons can be used in an attack (an ss/continuum must have). You can also message, view the profile, check statistics or report another pilot.
I have improved the HUD system to include buttons that allow access to all the interfaces and options available in PUSC. The HUD uses transparency so game play is visible and will collapse leaving only the energy bar. I have also made the radar window "dock-able" to the HUD as seen in the image. When you click on the radar window control buttons will appear letting you dock/un-dock radar to the HUD. It will automatically adapt to all HUD collapsed states and stay docked. When un-docked the radar is a free floating fully resizable window.
I have also be working on my custom built GUI system adding in new features and applying fixes to accommodate some of the above features and options. The GUI system handles all the in game windows, buttons, list-boxes, sliders and more allowing for movable, resizable windows and familiar controls. All of the above interfaces are using this GUI framework which is proving to be well worth the effort in writing it as it is very fast and has a low impact on performance.
In game IRC client.
Lastly I have been improving the IRC global chat gateway (a window based in game IRC client). This IRC in game client lets you chat with anyone in the world over IRC from the PUSC client directly. It is designed to let players chat outside of the game adding a reliable global way to get support, chat, meetup and extends the PUSC community. This is in addiction to PUSC's game chat which you can see just below the IRC window in it's own transparent window.
I will be putting together a video that will including server controlled players/bot game play as soon as I can.I am also looking to start open beta soon so keep that in mind and be sure to check here for details on testing. ;)
Thanks for supporting PUSC.
- Rich -
