Lets try for next week to get the Random Events in! Turns out other space games are doing random encounters too, and I just learned of it today. That means I'm on the right track!
A huge huge huge amount of design happened in the past two weeks. I'll run over it as I explain I needed a bunch of techs to make stuff happen. One of which is Inventory/Character Sheets which are mostly in:
Star is order by rarity.
M is order by mass.
$ is order by value
dm^3 is order by decimetric volume. Volume in your inventory changes depending on temperature and other crazy stuff. I shelved Diablo 2 stacking in 3d because my friend said people like simplicity in some regards. This inventory is high tech under the hood with Entity/DOTS high tech under that!
Other techs I have already put in are:
Spawn enemy monster & wire up damage.
I need to finalize in 'Random drops like Diablo 2 or Path of Exile', Tool tips and power up zones you get by flying through. They're in, just need wired up.
The design is actually AMAZING! Absurdity Trail random events allows for a proc gen galaxy with weights that change depending where you're at. There are alliances of alien races known as factions. You can get in good one with faction and be bad with another. The center of the galaxy lies a mysterious horror, and as monsters/enemy ship fleets/alliances grow stronger as you try and get to it. You can't just warp to the center of the galaxy, you need to find trade paths through radiation zones. Once you find radiation zone paths, you can go from star system to star system. Many paths of non radiated zones have choke points where alliance fleets gate keep with warp interdictor technology. So in order to prove your worth, you must win in fights,be friends with that alliance, pay a toll, have a gem, or just hit pedal to the medal baby and pray as you zip by them.
Check points are of two fashion. The standard check point is dimensional signature target check points. This is where you can restart the game coming from your home base with a limited ship. It is costly to jump via dimensional warp gates so you can't take much with you like a big fleet, but they're common so you can travel light around the galaxy if you want. Then there is a more uncommon warp gate target check point. This you can warp with you and your entire fleet provided you charted a path of non radiated zones to it and provided no warp interdicting pirates are on the path.
That's a long winded way of saying in a game of risk/reward perma loss of huge fleets, one of the soft save roguelite features is information. Information of where to warp to, information where to get good trades, information of resource rich zones, information of what player friends to make, information of what enemy factions to favor or unfavor, and information on how to acquire navigation deep into the galaxy via radiation zone scope pathing. I want the player to feel a sense of more permanence, soft saving, rogue lite features than senses of loss when your entire fleet might get risked in the wrong manner. Starfighter General will have the feeling of a Carebear progression game, while having hardcore perma death in some aspects of losing fleets. Since I dis-incentive bullying and mob rule dystopia play, this is gonna be an experience you never experienced.
I'm happy Unity released some sort of basic 4 player multiplayer. That way I don't have to rush mine to market and I can do these more fun techs which will play like a roguelike. The ground up of the design of the game is multiplayer so it won't be tacked on though it is added later. My multiplayer breaks so many rules you're used to. Traditional Client<>Server is O(n^2), mine is sub O(n), yes less than n bandwith,close to O(logn) aka near infinite networked players same zone. I say this with a grain of salt for there will be a limited number of fleet that can come with, but that's down the road. Just happy Unity released multi so I don't have to force it out and present it to Unity. I assure you my networking is far superior to Unity's at this juncture. I typically pioneer algorithms the gaming industry independently discovers later.
So design solidifying on the universe power progression, gates between star systems so going deep is risky and hull/armor/shields of your fleet are at risk if you have to retreat through hostile radiation zone choke point gates. That's a reason you'd want to power up combat ships in itself and level and all that jazz. Last week we put wandering monsters in with the dragon. This week I made the dragon sound and particle effect when spawning. It's a matter of whales and bistles (bells and whistles), pacing it. And to conclude, I have health conditions with stress and am just barely food secure, so I'm limiting my bust tail crunch mentality... I just enjoy this so I code basically all day when I am not keeping the house hold in order.
Next 100-300 hours we should have a ROCKING fun Starfighter Game. I missed a self imposed micro deadline, but life isn't easy when you barely have enough for food. I look at Star Citizen and wonder if God will let me shame their massively funded and large team with a superior product by basically one guy without much help and dealing with malnutrition occasionally living in a place without water. I'm not poor mouthing, so much as starting to enjoy the challenge since I'm up trending.
Other techs upcoming Proc-Gen Universe, with star field truly generated where are positionally. Different star types/nebula/Anomoly/factional controlled space/black hole horizons/etc will clue you know from afar what types of encounters/drops/adventures you might get into. We operate on a "diminishing returns" system that means your most optimal encounters/drops occur when you do not always camp a single star system. It's space, it's meant to be explored. Yay. A related tech is when you go warp, the stars/nebula/etc will shoot past you relative to where they truly are in space,not some generic yellow star dots passing by you like a screen saver. This is even important because if you subtly remember where Warp Interdictor alliances could ambush you from and visually recognize it while in warp, you can drop out of warp to recalibrate, or prepare your warp paths ahead of time.
Another tech I need to add is boring, a way of simulating 64 bit+ space in 32 bit, a 3d Engine limitation. I have a few options.