I think that is still up in the air somewhat. IMO, there needs to be a level of professionalism to the tools/documentation/support. I myself, would prefer modding tools to be a stretch goal to ensure an adequately user friendly toolset.
Fair enough, yet you also need a KS bait for all developers that are intrigued by your tech 
[quote=“cybercritic, post:170, topic:582”]
My opinion is that if you are capable of making a game with it, there is no reason that others shouldn’t be able to do the same.[/quote]
A tool set that can be used to build game A is only guaranteed to build game A. So other people could duplicate game A, but that may well be the limit of that tool set. It might seem that having the ability to change scripts and models would allow many different games to be built, but if the tools are geared to the characteristics and capabilities of those scripts and models then we’re back to building game A.
Sometimes a tool set is really just application code in a tool-like framework, waiting to be made more general purpose.
I hope that the team will focus on the API level stuff and ignore the usability. Function before form. Where usability is critical, you can be sure that other developers will tackle the problem - but only if INS has built the functionality.
That’s a bit funny @JB47394, because the devs have been pretty clear that they are building a game engine and not a game, development on IBS has not even been started. And what purpose does a game engine…
I’m not gonna write a 500 word argument on what a game engine is and why, here is a link for your enjoyment.
The point at which we launch the KS work will have started on the game however it will be in the very early stages.
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I’m not sure what your strategy on the INE is and how you want to take it forward, the days of paying thousands or hundreds of thousands dollars for a game engine are about done. There are AAA companies that still have the budget for such thing, but they are few and they already have engines. The new trend seems to be targeting indies with easy to use yet powerful engines and in today’s age there are many such customers. I flipped over in my sleep when Crytek announced they will give away licenses for few buck per month subscription service.
Have you considered your strategy going forward regarding INE, I can imagine how hard this topic is, you have invested a colossal amount of time and effort into this and giving it away as a $75 buck extra during the KS might sound like an insult.
Where do you see the market for the engine that has been in development for the last 10 years?
Or for our modding system & marketplace.
[quote=“INovaeFlavien, post:121, topic:582”]
I wouldn’t say our rings are better, but I thought they were more or less on the same level ( although we went for a more realistic look / distribution ). More specifically, we got a lot of criticism about the popping… which is even worse in E:D.[/quote]
While I hardly noticed popping in your video, IMHO ED’s asteroids are amazing - no popping at all in their most recent iteration (during Beta it was terrible). You see asteroids from so far out that they are barely more than noise, then they gradually get larger & larger (resolving into individual dots, then discernible rocks, etcs).
Your “realistic look / distribution” is completely opposed to your aim of having dog fights like in Star Wars, where the asteroids are (unrealistically) large. ED goes for the Star Wars look, and is a much better game for it. I suspect a lot of the criticism was people trying to justify their disappointment at how boring & small your asteroids looked.
As someone else pointed out, you weren’t demoing a game, you were showing a graphical tech demo that focused almost entirely on planetary rings. The result was that people focused on your graphics, and specifically your rings, rather than looking at the game as a whole.
I still maintain that you have focus too much on graphics tech, which has delayed the game far too long. The graphics engine can always be improved after the game is released, but you can’t release a game with bad gameplay (although ED stretches that claim to breaking point!).
This is not true. No need to ‘suspect’… you can read the criticism for yourself:
The vast majority of criticism was of the composition of the video. I.e. Not criticism of the engine but of how the engine was shown off.
2 Likes
Don’t know if I’m the only one but I prefer realistic rock distribution far more than Star Wars look and feel with Millenium Falcon dogfights between asteroids. In fact I prefer realistic everything. I want to feel like I’m exploring this universe. Not some fantasy universe “far far away”.
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i prefer the inovae rings too, they look pretty close to the real ones: https://kellyoakes.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/saturn_from_cassini_orbiter_2004-10-06.jpg
The only criticism I have, is that the size difference between large rocks and dust are too abrupt, I imagine there are all sizes in between, from house sized to pebble sized to dust. Maybe an effect like it is used for snow in some games could render the smaller sizes inbetween.
Yes, I had the same problem with those rings, no size transition. This is why the previous one looked better in a way, even if it was less realistic: there was no discontinuity between the smallest and the largest rocks.
That said, popping didn’t bother me much, as it is obviously a problem that will be solved at some point when LoD is more advanced (not to trivialize it, of course, simply you can’t ship a game without it).
I think “criticism” is to be understood as the short form of “negative criticism” here.
I believe INS’s interest is in “cinematic style battles”, which are those fights you see in almost any science fiction movie involving space combat; two capital fleets blasting away at each other while the fighters dogfight in close proximity. No rocks are involved, large or small.
Note that, strictly speaking, the ring video was of a planetary ring, not asteroids. Asteroids orbit the sun.
[quote=“ChrisHandley, post:178, topic:582”]
I suspect a lot of the criticism was people trying to justify their disappointment at how boring & small your asteroids looked.[/quote]
Part of that was using the wrong presentation. Players see that video and don’t see prospective gameplay. Why am I here with my ship? Staying a bit farther off and just showing rings as a visual would have been far better. Interacting with a field of dust would be astounding if the engine could present a ship collecting ring dust the way a filter-feeding whale does - which would require their particle engine, which is not yet available.
[quote=“ChrisHandley, post:178, topic:582”]
I still maintain that you have focus too much on graphics tech, which has delayed the game far too long. The graphics engine can always be improved after the game is released, but you can’t release a game with bad gameplay.[/quote]
Yes.
I don’t really have any problems with the newer rings, but I was expecting to see an iteration of the tech they showed a while back in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvm_pVvEv8A
I was more impressed by it.
I’ll ignore the fact that planetary rings aren’t made of asteroids, since JB was kind enough to be pedantic for me, and move right on to the fact that we have no idea how big or small the rocks in the latest ring video are. There’s no ship in the scene to make comparisons to. It’s entirely possible that the density of large rocks is just lower. Also, and I’m going to be stupid nerdy here, there’s very little actual dog fighting in the asteroid field in Star Wars. There’s maybe 4 seconds of it until they reach the large asteroid/dwarf planet. Most of the combat takes place in the canyons thereon.
So, in order to have dog fights like in Star Wars, Battlescape needs canyons.
Using Saturn as the default model for rings… While there’s a continuous distribution, yes, the density of ring particles decreases exponentially with size, and the parameters of this exponential function are different in different parts of the rings. So, finding a house sized boulder every 100,000 km is perfectly reasonable in most regions of a realistic ring system. But there are also regions where very large rocks are uncharacteristically common.
[quote=“JB47394, post:183, topic:582”]
Part of that was using the wrong presentation. Players see that video and don’t see prospective gameplay. Why am I here with my ship?[/quote]
Pretty much this, yes. The rings were pretty, and I appreciate them for what they are. I even really liked the last video. It’s just… Nothing really happened.
All of that is awesome.
1 Like
Remember those tunnels in the ICP asteroids? They were fun to fly through 
like @Kichae said, using Saturn as a example of rings, their really isn’t any transition in size between rocks. their are transitions between each ring. ie, the closer to the planet the smaller they get. however this isn’t even constant. as much of Saturns rings are mostly dust with a few larger rocks tossed in.
then, you have to take into consideration of how old the solar system is. the older it is, the smaller and thinner the rings will be(if any at all). where as a newer solar system would have more larger rocks.
Wait, which Star Wars film are we talking about here?
The only one with an interesting asteroid field chase.
ie starwars 1 just before the start of the war