LÖVE

When we are invited to someone's home we should bring some gift (preferably a desert). Since this is my first post, I'd like to show the beginning of my project.
I've been following love for a long time, until now finally I started to learn lua.
I plan to make something like a Elite 2D clone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_%28video_game%29), one of the best games ever made. My first attempt was in Game Maker, dropped when I left Windows. Last year I tried Game-editor. Very nice but with a terrible interface to do serious programing (this doesn't mean I do serious programming).
Right know I have a ship with a particle engine. To continue, I must use Objects. For example, I need do create child objects whose position and other properties are related to parent objects (sun, planets, moons,...), so I'll try middleclass or hump.class. Next, Collisions and gravity, Last, trade and economy.
Eternity will be the name of the game (or the time it will take to make it).
Controls: Cursor keys.
Comments appreciated.

Thank you guys. I hope I can contribute in the future.

Linux-man

Controls:
When docked: Space to launch.
Controls are: cursor keys, space to phaser/laser. m to missiles
Cursor keys to move around the galaxy chart and up/down some lists (equipment, ships, load game)
"Double click" down to stop the engine
"Double click" up to get an expensive turbo (only when bought)
Access Menus with 1-8 keys or click in menu when docked
9/0 - 10x time change. Keyboard don't work when you are asleep (that's right, you are in a cryogenic coma).
z and x to zoom out/in (view, Long Range Scanner and Galaxy chart)
c - Normal scanner scale (10000 or 100000) 10000 will be useful for future mining, docking and close combat.
s - Normal scanner information cycle
n - Laser cycle (front, rear,...)
a- Autopilot on/off. Must choose a destination on Long range scanner with left click. right click to delete)
j- Jump to hyperspace (only when cockpit J green - enough fuel, star system selected, far from the sun)

Scanner and Galaxy chart - left click on star/planets to get information / select star system to jump. Right click to deselect.

To dock you must be bellow some relative velocity from the station. Cockpit D green/yellow tells you're OK.
Market and equipment: Buy/sell with left/right click
Equipment sold at half the price.

I'll complete the list as I remember...

Not bad. Needs more parallax background. Take another couple of star layers have have their movement slightly offset from one another. It creates a more cooler looking space background. I believe someone already made a good example, but I can't remember the name.

In the todo list, but right now the background is static. It's the spaceship that's moving. I'll probably add random stars.
Working on autopilot code.

Thanks

Looking heaps good atm.

Cool man. I agree that it could do with parallax backgrounds! That would add so much depth.

For the fun I decide to in space really fast (always "up").
I see the engine/booster effect of the ship... (see 1)
It's a detail but it can be better if the effect will be limited to the zone 2 or 3.

my 2 cents

TsT wrote:For the fun I decide to in space really fast (always "up").
I see the engine/booster effect of the ship... (see 1)
It's a detail but it can be better if the effect will be limited to the zone 2 or 3.

my 2 cents

Nooo! It should use all 3 with a huge flame like in your picture. That looks really cool.

Concept:

Great !

WOW! I did that!
Unfortunately, that's not what I want for now. It's a strange spread effect at high speed, and angle dependent, so of no use. I did spread = 0. Later I will try to do cooler engines.
Right now I'm starting to think Object Oriented Lua. Instead of using one of those nice OO libraries, I decided to do the basics, you know:
ship = {}
ship.__index = ship
The No.love code is a must to start. If I had no experience with other languages, I would be kind of lost. For a newbie, it would be nice to have OO code explained in the tutorials. It could be the no.love code or something simpler.
So, I have the same code but OO. I'll continue with parallax (you guys inspired me). Next version will have something new.
Again, comments to the code are very welcome.

Tst: The effect you found could be implemented if the particle engine had gravity with variable direction.

But, since today I learned about push, pop and translate, I'm updating eternity with a better engine effect. Now the particle engine is static so the ship speed is not an issue. I'm really impressed with the things that can be done with love.

Another idea, for high speed, the stars should be rendered as line (not point) but maybe hard to implement...