Starfox Multiplayer Shooter

[fritzgryphon]

I'm working on a PC Starfox Flying Shooter Zone Based Multiplayer game in Unity.

The current version of which you can find here:

 

http://preendog.com/LylatOnline01.rar

 

In Version 0.1

-Chat and custom 8-bit looking portrait (edit playerportrait.png to change the look of your character)

-Put different weapons and equipment on your ship

-Shoot a green homing ball

-Control throttle and boost

-Landing gear

 

Known bugs:

0.1 is not ready or tested at all, but it's been a while since I released -something-.

 

-Other players might not appear  until you spawn a ship.

-Special weapons fired by other players might be invisible or in the wrong place.

-Landing gear on other ships will always appear to be down.

-Engine particle effect might disappear. 

-Firewall or virus scan warning about suspicious behavior (I think this is because the game saves your controls and score to the hard disk)

 

Planned/Wishlist Features Are:

-Less bugs

-A radar

-More levels

-More bases to call home, for lawful players and for pirates

-Buy capital ship for mobile base

-Better random enemy encounters

-Grafix

 

 

So I invite you to try it out.  Let me know if you find anything broken, or have any suggestions.

[Invisible Fire]

So far you're doing great, keep up the good work

 

You might want to add charge up lasers and barrel rolling.

 

I worked on a Star Fox game too, but I'm no good at game development.

[Icy]

Those planned features sound great. It's so nice to see a fan game with something real to look at (or in this case, play!) rather than mere words and ambitious plans!

 

Great work so far. Although the classic Star Fox camera doesn't rotate with the Arwing, but that may just be a design choice on your side.

Also, yes, barrel rolling would be nice, and charge lasers aren't 100% necessary, I'd say, but they're awesome, so why not?

The collisions seem a little weird currently, but I know as well as anyone how that can be, especially with an early prototype. 100% perfect collisions are one of the toughest things to accomplish in any engine.

 

Keep it up, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more!

 

Making it multiplayer would be amazing. AFAIK there has never been a real Star Fox fan game, large or small, that had real multiplayer, online or local.

Best of luck to you!

[jeth]

This looks pretty sweet. Best of luck to you!

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

I found it quite enjoyable. The only issue i seem to have with it is that the ship seems to turn a little too sharply at times. Of course, this is because of the strict use of the keyboard as part of the control scheme. If lets say (and im sure this may be a bit of a stretch) you allow the players to program their own controls (with the controller device of their choice) as they see fit in the options. Anyone want to use a joystick? I know I would.

 

I just noticed the  "-Game device configuration and profiles saved online" part of your post. Is what i described above what you meant?

 

The best part about this is how you allow the player to control speeds with the throttle gauge. This helps a lot when it comes to adjusting speeds (to the extent the player wants) to make sharper turns, or even potentially throw off enemy pilots who are hot on their tail.

 

That being said, I feel the tools are there for skilled pilots to avoid incoming fire. The barrel roll won't work well with this particular flying engine. At least that is what i remember other people saying in the past who tried to implement it.

 

When it comes to firing on the enemy, I feel that this game could use something to confirm that the target has been hit. At this point in time, I cannot seem to figure out exactly what the range of the laser is. Sometimes I think I will be able to hit the target, and I can't tell if they barely miss, or if the target is simply out of range.

 

All that being said, this looks to be a very promising project. I can't wait to see how it improves over time.

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

I'd like to add this to what I have found with the game so far. I noticed the AI controlled fighter seems to have a bit of difficulty figuring out the difference between the sky and the ground. Attached is what appears to happen when the AI cannot adjust flight direction quickly enough after being shot.

 

It seems that even after ramming into the AI fighter on the ground continuously, it remains stuck in that state, basically rendering it defenseless and completely vulnerable to fire. In fact, the only thing that can happen at this point is for the fighter to be destroyed.

 

Here is the link, since the file itself was too big to attach.

 

http://imgur.com/WttzA7X

[fritzgryphon]

That's very true.  I've since updated the ground avoidance, and reduced the AI stunning effect caused by blaster hits.

 

The latest version has a simple chat box, naming your player, and respawning.

 

Keep in mind, this program will be crazy buggy and wrong until I get the hang of things, and then start implementing features "for real".

[Fana McCloud]

I'd much rather steer with my mouse or a joystick rather than the arrow keys, but because this is a prototype I realize that the arrow keys are probably just a stand in while things are fine tuned and coded.

 

I also found it impossible to take off again after "landing" my arwing by touching the ground and throttling it down all the way. I'm guessing it's due to the collision detection not wanting to tilt the arwing when it's that close to the ground, so it's something you might need to tweak or find a solution for.

[fritzgryphon]

Fana, are you able to throttle back up while on the ground?  It should  be possible to take off again from most attitudes, though you will have to be moving forward to do this.

 

Controller support is next on my list, and a rather challenging part.

[Fana McCloud]

Yes, I can throttle but can never tilt up, just skim along the ground.

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

Yeah i think gryphon is right. for some strange reason, you need to push the throttle to the max power, and instead of tilting straight up I find that it is necessary to turn either left or right while tilting up. When I do that, it begins to work again. Either that or find a patch of land that is somewhat like a "hill" where you can use it as a ramp for liftoff from the ground.

[Fana McCloud]

Ah, I just discovered that the throttle is only responsive to tapping the key, not holding it, and after getting the speed maxed I was able to lift off. I'm used to throttles being something you hold down, so maybe that could be changed?

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

At first I was thinking that too Fana, but when I got used to it, I came to understand once again what one of my issues with the flight controls had always been in SF games. The ship is generally moving at the same speed constantly, making it necessary to tilt your ship, or constantly barrel roll, to turn sharper. What this control scheme allows the player to do is place a "cap" on their speed as is necessary to turn sharply or turn around in the other direction. It becomes necessary in Gryphon's game because he takes gravity into account when it comes to flying. That being said, it becomes impossible to consistently turn in circles forever, as at some point you will hit the ground if you do not pull up, hence why you need various throttle levels.

[Fana McCloud]

Well yeah I get that changing throttle speeds is useful, but usually I hold the throttle until it reaches the desired speed, then let go, not tap it. 

[fritzgryphon]

I'll keep that in mind.  I'm going to experiment with using a throttle, or just having boost and slow buttons like in the canon game.

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

Just leaving a note here, I noticed dramatic improvements in the AI for sure. For the time being, it seems the AI difficulty levels affect mainly their ability to target (and successfully hit) other pilots. There was a small improvement in their ability to avoid, and occasionally successfully evading other pilots when being followed close behind. It is now much more difficult to evade an AI fighter especially the HARD difficulty ones, as I noticed I had to decrease my speed to actually shake them off.

 

The only issue I noticed was that when a HARD difficulty AI and an EASY difficulty AI would engage each other, it seemed that for some reason, the EASY AI would be able to outperform, and successfully defeat the HARD AI fighter. (I noticed this occurred on 3 consecutive occasions, without any tampering on my part.) I'm not sure how the AI targets engage one another exactly, but it seems that in the scenario described above, the HARD AI fighter would simply be far too aggressive in terms of their flight speed, which caused it to overcompensate for distance, and fly right in front of the EASY AI, giving the EASY AI a chance to get a lot of shots in. In the worst case scenario, after spawning my ship, by the time I could reach the other ships, the HARD AI was already at 60 Health, compared to the EASY AI having all 100 Health points.

 

Other than the issue i described above, nothing problematic showed up. When engaging a human controlled arwing, the AI responds as they are supposed to in terms of their skill level. In fact, the HARD AI almost shot me down in a one-on-one situation, leaving me with 20-something health when I finally defeated it. Furthermore, the changes you made to reduce the AI stunning effects from blasters has fixed the problem of the AI piloting ability I described before.

 

And don't worry gryphon, whatever info I'm feeding to you is all in an effort to help you make this game as good as it can be. I understand that the process of making a game can be quite frustrating at times due to unexpected glitches and of course the complexity of the code itself, sometimes making it hard to troubleshoot. I figure the sooner problems are found, the easier they will be to fix.

[fritzgryphon]

Don't worry, I appreciate the feedback. 

 

It is planned that the AI will try to regulate it's speed.  Currently it is very easy to force overshoots.

 

The Hard AI is allowed to turn faster, has less aiming error, shoots more often, and makes fewer turning errors than Easy.  This also means it tends to fly slower and make an easier target in some cases, which will be addressed.

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

Did you disable blasters for the user with this update?

 

Custom name thing functions properly, and the chat box being made smaller was a good change as well.

[fritzgryphon]

Cool, thanks.  But what do you mean about disable blasters?

 

Also, do you have a game controller?  Right now, the default X, Y and Z axes should control your ship, and button0 should shoot. 

 

I'm working on a simple configuration menu now.

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

I didnt realize that at all. I assumed the default gamepad controls meant the "gamepad" was the keyboard. Anyways, I was referring to the keyboard, as it seems the spacebar won't fire the blasters.

[fritzgryphon]

Oh, I didn't notice that.  I must have broke it when I assigned the trigger.

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

I assume you are also working on a way to adjust the throttle on the gamepad? As of right now, i still have to use my keyboard W and S to speed up/slow down ship. With the gamepad, the ship controls much smoother i noticed. And I was only testing it with a regular Logitech standard gamepad similar to the PS2 style of controller. With a joystick gamepad it should be even better I hope

 

EDIT: Well, I just experienced a crash on the game launcher as soon as I say that.

[fritzgryphon]

Some of the crash bugs fixed.  You can assign Axes in a config menu (but not buttons, and the data is not saved).

[fritzgryphon]

Can now configure keys and buttons.

 

Only a single game controller will work, as values are aggregated from all attached controllers.

 

Configuration can't be saved, as the webplayer categorically prevents writing files onto a local drive.  Could use a database, but that would be complicated and insecure.  Future versions of the program might also have a local version (which will be completely the same as the webplayer version, but you can save your controls and change the game resolution).

[StarFoxfan-FUR_ever]

Adding the aiming recticle helps out so much with the aiming. In fact, it does not feel like I am shooting up into the air anymore

 

The AI still needs work. This time around, a medium difficulty AI completely annihilated the Hard difficulty AI. I really wish I had a screen capture program to show you in a more detailed manner what happened. Basically, the Hard difficulty AI was moving so slowly it seemed as if the throttle was at minimal power. Because of this, Medium AI was doing circles ( literally ) around the Hard AI in such a manner as to not give the Hard AI a chance to even get off a single blaster shot. From the moment i launched, I punched it to max throttle, and I couldnt even get close enough to get a reading of the Hard AI's Health Points and Shield points because the Medium AI defeated Hard far too quickly.

 

I think there is one way that you can fix this problem from occurring in the testing phase. Instead of having a designated area for all the AI pilots to spawn from, could you possibly spread them out? As the program is, the AI will always spawn in a group on the opposite side of the map from where you are. This creates a situation where they engage each other almost immediately.