Star Couriers - inspired by FTL (Faster than Light)

[togFox]

MS Windows only.

I've made the pre-alpha developer version available for those that want to follow the games progress.

The game is raw. Very raw. Graphics are place holders. There is no sound. There is text on the screen to help me debug. BUT - the game loop is there and it is playable with no crashes. It's not balanced so it's not fun. So - if you want to take a look, you can, but if you want to wait - you can do that too.

Here is the manual:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RFo ... sp=sharing

You might want to see how I've taken FTL concepts and added a few fresh ideas.

Here is the exe on itch.io:

https://togfox.itch.io/star-couriers


Nasty things you need to expect:

- Unattractive graphics. Most are all temporary
- Yucky text on screen. These are placeholders to help me debug.
- The game isn’t balanced yet.

Lets end on a high note. The things that work well:

- Players can move around with intelligent path-finding
- You can build walls and doors to make rooms
- Cargo can be destroyed and impact your payday
- Fires can spawn, grow and spread
- The hull can be breached and this reduces oxygen
- Players can be injured from fire and lack of oxygen
- Players can be healed in the medbay
- Crewing stations (engines) impact space travel
- Antagonists can spawn and damage your shields and hull
- Mission selection can change your space travel danger levels
- Can pause the game and have a think before progressing

Feel free to post and let me know you're following with interest.

[darkfrei]

It must be more from Space Rangers in all games about space and spaceships.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Hot dog! He did it! Nice. It has alot of stuff so far for being raw. Oh, so you control/oversee many entities/people? How do you lose? And what do you mean by not balanced. Resources, enemy attacks or...

Talking about antogonists ... you could add different types of people that join your crew only to be sabotagers working for the enemy, and then mayb some become attatched, and maybe you could send out spies/excavation missions to get minerals... (me getting excited and complicating things ) and you could add progen backstory! Wait, nevermind.
What (will)make(s) it different from FTL(which I haven't played and probably should )

[togFox]

I'm not sure what this genre is called. You have s crew to direct and you need to deal with crisis as they happen. Priorities and time management are key. Do you decide to put out a fire or remain in the cockpit so you can dodge incoming attacks? You can't do both so critical decision making is key.

If you haven't played FTL then perhaps you know Bomber Command.

You lose when you're ship is destroyed via a strong enemy or crew is killed via bad decision making.

This is different from FTL:

- you can build interior walls any way you like (for fire control etc)
- there is cargo to protect
- this is more rogue-like in that your adventure could continue forever and not time-boxed like FTL was
- co-op (fingers crossed)

Short story: this is an open ended adventure.

[togFox]

The graphics are still very basic but there is incremental improvement.



I've started implementing an AI for the bots that learn from their failures and learn how to get better. I doubt they will ever get smart enough to take over the world but I hope they show some degree of intelligence.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Woah! How? ML?

[togFox]

RML - re-inforced machine learning.

I've implemented something called a Q-table. It is the easiest of the RML's to understand and implement but, of course, it has it's limitations.

Short story - the bots will take some sort of action and if it 'progresses' the state of it's own ship then it learns that that is a good action to take. If it takes an action and their vessel continues to deteriorate then it learns that was probably a useless action to take.

It won't be a perfect system and it won't be a perfect implementation but heck - I do it because I can.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Woah....though won't that mean that the bots would be really dumb when you first play (unless their trained)?

[togFox]

Correct, but no worse than any other random AI.

The game will be bundled with limited training from my own play testing and debugging.

[togFox]

Small incremental improvements: