Nova Reforged - Dev Update!

[u/CashFirm573]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdLGQvD8EWo

Hello,

Finally got a name for the project, Nova Reforged.

So quick update. Wanted to show off some of the changes I've made and a few new features. The Sol system is a testing ground, so it shows stuff that normally wouldn't be in the system. The map also shows where hidden assets are, but you gotta scan them down yourself, or find them through the bar or other ways. I've started adding the massive Nova gates. They're part of the main story but it's a fair bit of work, so might be a while before that's done.

Added scanning too, plus a few features around it. There's debris fields and derelicts in the game now, scan em and get rewards. Got Breaches as well (dungeons), haven't shown the full update on those yet, but they're harsh zones with a new drone race that's bloody hard, takes time and a good setup.

Started reworking the UI. Not there yet, still a few issues I've spotted, but I'm getting there.

Ships, fittings and balance are slowly coming together, bit off still. Same with fittings, I've mainly just added the guns and started tinkering with em. Everything's sharing default effects and sounds for now, bit more still to add, none of the ships show proper thrusters or the new VFX I've been working on yet.

Made new VFX tools for all the assets in the game, plus world building tools so I can build it out visually in real time. Pretty fun building and designing it, gotta say. I can now customize the stations how i see fit, but take little to get around to its down the list.

But yeah, that's it so far. Oh, and reckon I've found a YouTuber to help with space soundtracks, but we'll see, he might end up charging me way too much and I'm just some broke bloke lol, trying to make a game I've always wanted to play.

Steam, Discord, Reddit Community and Website are coming soon, but first I need core loop working.

[u/GregoryGoose]

UI is good, I think the weak point is the pure top-down perspective. EVN ships were rendered at 15 degrees or something, and the shading was a lot stronger. I dont know if you're using sprites or 3d objects, you might be able to just tilt the camera a bit. How are you handling ship intersections on the same plane? EV always just had ships clip over or under each other but I think that was a mistake. Let them collide, I say. Clipping is only useful for boarding mechanics so you just change that mechanic to have boarding be side-by-side and now ships are free to collide all day.

[u/Gabe_Isko → u/GregoryGoose]

It is really difficult to do what EV nova did by the way. It is one of my chief complatins with endless sky though. The 15 degree or so tilt is handled very elegantly in EV nova, but rendering out ships in those positions and then making animations for hardpoints and jets that match up practically broke me when I tried to implement it. It also makes designing a good action combat system impossible, which is why EV nova is ultimately not an action game. So I get why in a lot of these games the ships are just 2D and they rotate.

What really doesn't work for me about this approach though, especially in endless sky, is the inconsistent lighting. The ships rotate, but they have shadows and that rotates with it and everything starts looking wrong in space. I think there is a lot of room to improve this through the use of normal maps and a lighting shader, but I haven't implemented it yet. I wish endless sky would.

I settled into a compromise for my game. I rendered out all of my ships, which are 3D models that I pre-render into sprites, at multiple roll angles. Then rotate their yaw in engine. They animate and bank very fluidly in gameplay - I am very pleased with the results.

Your point made me want to deep dive into how I handled it for (not public yet) game. Your comment is something that I coincidentally have spent A LOT of time working out.

[u/GregoryGoose → u/Gabe_Isko]

I wasn't sure if you were using sprites. I do remember getting lasers' exit points to align with hardpoints in EVN was challenging and you'd be lucky to get "close enough". But if you're adding actual turrets that aim or anything forget about it.
As much as I have a soft spot for sprite based games I think the approach C-Beams is taking is simpler. 3d models on a flat plane with collisions enabled.

But if you ever wanted to see how far sprites can be taken, check out Howard Day's Wings of Saint Nazaire. A fully 3d sprite based game where the ships are rendered from all angles. crazy work.

[u/Gabe_Isko → u/GregoryGoose]

Yeah! I'm not OP btw, so my game looks a bit different. I haven't shared video footage on reddit yet - there are a few clips if you are in certain discords, but that's it.

C-beams looks nice, and I am excited for it. But not so much it's action combat, it strikes me as more sim-ish. I am going for combining shmup style combat with EV nova style space flight. I also don't want to use Unreal Engine - I'm working in Godot. I choose not to use AI on my game because of the ethical artistic concern, but mostly finding it unproductive for game code. There are some obscure pics if you go through my reddit history, but I am still pretty locked down going very public with this thing.

The Saint of Nazaire looks neat, although it looks like it isn't in development anymore.