Thank you for your answer, I´ll make sure to read them and have a look at the other info from Godot docs.

This sounds interesting. As others have said, you’ll want to split this into “modules” that have reasonable size.

One such natural module is the galaxy travel: I am picturing a top-down 2D style and you guide your ship to find planets that will sell you the mech components you need.

If you are so inclined, you can imagine some planets want to buy just components, and this way you can buy and sell your way to having enough to buying all the components, so you can assemble them into a mech.

This can be a complete small game, with a bit of Elite😃angeous flavor. Buy low, sell high.

Later you can combine this with other modules to make the complete game, but the advantage of this way of splitting is that you have a slice of your game that you can playtest and tune to make sure it’s fun.

Yes, the way I imagine it is quite overwhelming, a galaxy split between humans and enemy aliens, and human factions going to war with each other and attacking or defending from the aliens and you in the middle doing your thing. That alone sounds hard to code...

As for the other part you would design in house all parts, so instead of findind "Astral runner legs" you first research them (by reverse enginering from enemies or rewarded from a quest), produce a blueprint and incorporate it into any mech template you are assembling for selling. The assembled mech will have then variable stats depending on used pieces and how much prototyping you did, quality of the engineers you are employing... and might turn out with some kind of bonus or fault that will decrease or increase price and perfomance. Malus like missaligned, unbalanced, overheating... or their opposite bonus. Then with the money from selling, you can refine your existant pieces to be cheaper, faster, simpler to produce... so you can potentially refine all base components and release a higher performance Mk2.

If the mechs are just for sale you won´t really care about their stats, but I want to attach an autobattler so you want your hardware to be able to destroy the opposition, that´s a better encouragement to get better models rather than just getting a bit more of money per sale.

The player must do their best to get new pieces blueprints with better base stats to use on their models, that would be one of the main progression elements, I have many other ideas to flesh the concept but I dont want to cover the post in a wall of text.

Yes. So with the knowledge that many people run out of steam before finishing their grand vision (I’m not saying it necessarily happen to you), what you need to figure out is a plan for what to code first and so on, such that if you stop before the complete end you’ll still have a good game in your hands.

6 months later

Hello again, after some months of lurking around the forum and now with the drop of workload in my company due to the summer 😃 I decided to finally get my feet wet with Godot and try to get something done with my idea. I had a look at your links but I have a few doubts before even starting:

  • Language to use: I have some experience with C, but it was long ago and I´m totally rusty by now; is GDScript a better option for me? it seems to be recommended since it´s optimized for Godot. Think of me as a total newbie, which one do I pick taking easiness and number of examples around into account?
  • Godot version to use: 3.5 is said to be very stable and have lots documentation and add-ons around, but 4.x looks nice even if unstable and incomplete. Should i use the newest or am I better off with the old one?
  • Is there some starting framework? I would prefer to start right away instead of going tru all the examples and learn the ropes on the go.
  • Is there a good examples page? Most likely what I want to do has been done to death before by someone even if partially.

To resume what I wish to do:
Space sim with simple economy (just a fluctuating market for different ores)
Research system
Lots of slider for editing the mech components on and individual basis
Customizable units using created components
Autobattler using those units

Style: 3d pixel art, so low poly overall

I would appreciate some pointers to make those.

  • xyz replied to this.

    I recommend:

    • GDScript. It’s easy to use and it can get you results quickly.
    • Godot 4 since you’re starting a new project. It will get better over time, 3.5 will not.
    • There is a starting “framework”, try the Maack template: https://github.com/Maaack/Godot-Menus-Template

    For 3D models most people use Blender, I would recommend it too - it’s free, though there is a learning curve. You can also search for free 3D assets to get started but eventually you’ll want to know how to make your own or edit existing ones.

      Danimal To resume what I wish to do:
      Space sim with simple economy (just a fluctuating market for different ores)
      Research system
      Lots of slider for editing the mech components on and individual basis
      Customizable units using created components
      Autobattler using those units

      Don't start with such a large project. Complete something much much smaller first.

          axolotl Thanks for the help; I got the art side covered since I have always been on the artist side of things (coding being my weakness). I already made two models of what the art direction could be like, it´s Blender btw (does it look good to you?):
          https://opengameart.org/content/roller-tank
          https://opengameart.org/content/pixel-futuristic-soldier

          xyz I´m quite aware this is going to be scary, so I will take it step by step, first trying to get a ship moving around a space skybox and then build around it bit by bit. I actually feel better if I see results, so maybe I´ll try to create working versions of everything in separate "games" to get the know how before merging it all.

                Danimal The models looks great, good job!

                Also starting small is a great idea, we always recommend that so good job.

                  Personally I'd like to make a Lemmings clone with Beavers making Dams, and if the Dam bursts, game over.

                  Danimal i wish i could create something so clean 😃, that resembles something real 😃. Very good.

                    Thanks guys, in 3d pixel art you can go cartoony with solid colors like mine or use "dirty" textures. By dirty I refer to techniques like dithering to help color transitions or simulate shadows, or just outright noise to make it look the ones from old consoles (not mine):

                    https://opengameart.org/content/low-spec-reticulans

                    Adding some light noise to my textures is easy; which style do you guys prefer, clean cartoony or dirty 90´s?. The problem is to keep all assests consistant so if I use models from other people going dirty might be the only way, it´s hard to pass so many already made spaceships:
                    https://opengameart.org/content/lowpoly-spaceships-pack

                      Danimal The sprites resemble the main character from an old Xbox game "Destroy All Humans" which was released a few years back.

                      You might want to edit slightly to not get into copyright traps.

                          GodotBeginnerRich It´s not mine and it´s a "grey", the most common and overused interpretation of an alien since the Roswell´s fake autopsy. That game was just one of many to copy the alien from that video.