Project Metal Storm

Jesusemora

Danimal what are you aiming to make?, a X-com of human versus machines or something like Final Fantasy Tactics in space?

The original-original idea was to make an RTS, but I didn't want to mess with networking or real time AI, and it would've been a lot of work. Making a Tactical turn based game was much faster to code, because there's fewer unknowns, one unit acts at a time, in a phase, and then the next unit acts.
The next idea was to make a mech vs mech game like battletech or phantom brigade, with localized damage and salvage. I didn't have a mech model so I baked a sci-fi cinematic mesh that I had and looked good enough.

The story will be about a planet that has to defend itself from an empire, so the game will start at the geoscape, missions will pop up, and then you would send your mechs to fight other mechs. there will also be research, and mechs will be able to be outfitted with different weapons, maybe even parts like arms. after the mission, weapons and parts will be damaged or destroyed, and the rest will be salvaged. new mechs and weapons will have to be researched to be used and will unlock new technologies.

There's a ControllableUnit class and the units inherit from this, so far the foundations for localized damage, turn based gameplay, visual customization, weapon customization, ranged combat and melee combat are done, but these units are a single mesh. the next step is to make an actual mech with different parts that can be damaged and weapon slots.

If these placeholder units are kept, I might split the gameplay into two "phases", in the first phase the giant mechs would fight other giant mechs, and try to reduce collateral damage to buildings. the second phase would take place inside buildings, with smaller mechs and powersuits. This was decided because of the size difference between a human and a bigger mech that would make the gameplay more engaging, and because coding 4x4 units will mean creating a parallel pathfinding system, and the maps will shrink as a result, so no "armor hunting" for now.

Danimal Those bubblegum crisis suits alikes came out very well, kudos for that.

yes bubblegum crisis was the inspiration, thanks for noticing. I just hope the other mechs end up as good.

I'm almost finished with the fist mech, it will be a basic medium sized mech with some weapon slots, mostly for testing the new features, but will be kept in the final game:

Danimal If you want some license friendly models I made this list some time ago, maybe you can use something for a quick variety filler:
https://opengameart.org/content/models-for-a-space-game

I think these ones fit your style pretty well:
https://opengameart.org/content/animated-mech-pack

I will try to make my own models for now, but I will look into it.

Danimal

Jesusemora The story will be about a planet that has to defend itself from an empire, so the game will start at the geoscape, missions will pop up, and then you would send your mechs to fight other mechs. there will also be research, and mechs will be able to be outfitted with different weapons, maybe even parts like arms. after the mission, weapons and parts will be damaged or destroyed, and the rest will be salvaged. new mechs and weapons will have to be researched to be used and will unlock new technologies.

May I suggest a change to the story?, instead of being attacked by an empire (which is a bit plain and overused imo), make the enemy a rogue scion of an imperial family that failed in his/her throne takeover and is on the run. He/she arrives from very afar at the systems owned by your state, obliterates all space defenses (due to technological superiority but with small numbers) and starts with light plundering initially (not just your planet, but many systems at the same time) to outrigth conquest.

And as they become more desperate by the mounting resistance, lack of resources and retribution army coming after them, intensifies pressure and goes outright crazy, ordering orbital strikes, deploying bioweapons and other future war crimes; also add some goverment traitors for plot twists. You can tell the story little by little by using tv war emisions from your state of how other planets are getting conquered, or suffering big attacks. Final objective could be like all Xcoms to take down their mothership.

Because what conqueror gives their prey the chance to grow strong little by little instead of crushing them swiftly unless having very small numbers or being outstreched?, in which case they wouldn´t attack at all.

Anyways, sorry for ranting, I hope to see your progress from now on.

Tomcat

Danimal instead of being attacked by an empire (which is a bit plain and overused imo)

There's no overuse here. It's very real.

Because what conqueror gives their prey the chance to grow strong little by little instead of crushing them swiftly unless having very small numbers or being outstreched?

Underestimating the enemy. That's what we're seeing in our world right now.

Tomcat

Danimal Without going political, it´s best to stick to fiction.

Let's not talk politics. But it was you who started talking about the scenario not being realistic enough.

Danimal (which is a bit plain and overused imo)

I only pointed out the factual errors and tried to argue that the author's original scenario is quite realistic.

Danimal would rather not see any paralels in mah videogames.

Games (tales, novels, movies etc.) always are reflections of the real world.

Jesusemora

Danimal make the enemy a rogue scion of an imperial family that failed in his/her throne takeover and is on the run. He/she arrives from very afar at the systems owned by your state, obliterates all space defenses (due to technological superiority but with small numbers) and starts with light plundering initially (not just your planet, but many systems at the same time) to outrigth conquest.

That sounds a bit cliche, not that mine isn't. Like the story of Char's revenge, or Battetech's clan wars. I think there's enough space medievalism in mecha, although my idea was also based on mecha anime.

Danimal And as they become more desperate by the mounting resistance, lack of resources and retribution army coming after them, intensifies pressure and goes outright crazy, ordering orbital strikes, deploying bioweapons and other future war crimes;

was going to do that anyways, the player doesn't just fight giant robots, but I'm going to throw in some monsters too. When there's no one to control the powerful, they have no reason to "act honorably", they have no need for a justification, and it really sends the message that they are the bad guys.
Like in X-COM, there will be terror missions where you protect the cities, recovery missions against landed ships, base attacks, base defense, and some other objectives.

Danimal also add some goverment traitors for plot twists. You can tell the story little by little by using tv war emisions from your state of how other planets are getting conquered, or suffering big attacks.

the problem with this is it adds a lot of work to do, like cinematics. I'm planning on telling the story through some dialog system and messages to start, maybe if there's time there will be an opening cinematic of some sort.
I though about other planets, but I can't imagine how that could be handled, you go from having one planet to having to monitor others, and that could make the gameplay slower.

Danimal Final objective could be like all Xcoms to take down their mothership.

For the final mission I was thinking of some fight in space against a fleet. like in Char's revenge (sigh).

Danimal Because what conqueror gives their prey the chance to grow strong little by little instead of crushing them swiftly unless having very small numbers or being outstreched?, in which case they wouldn´t attack at all.

the kind that underestimates their enemies.

Tomcat Danimal Without going political, it´s best to stick to fiction.

Let's not talk politics. But it was you who started talking about the scenario not being realistic enough.

Danimal (which is a bit plain and overused imo)

I only pointed out the factual errors and tried to argue that the author's original scenario is quite realistic.

Danimal would rather not see any paralels in mah videogames.

Games (tales, novels, movies etc.) always are reflections of the real world.

please do not draw parallels between my game's story and the various wars going on at the moment, that was not the intention.

I think I should post a more detailed synopsis, because "planet that defends itself against empire" is very vague, but it's still in work and prone to changes:

It takes place on an Earth like planet that has been settled for 400 years. It has been isolated from the struggles between the Galactic Alliance and the Conglomerate by being in an unimportant sector of space.
One day the Conglomerate sends a small army to conker the planet, they defeat the defense forces using superior technology, enslave the population, and start building strange machines. They maintain control of the planet though fear, with mechs scattered across the planet and covering the mayor cities.
But one mistake results in a combat mech being misplaced and ending up in the hands of the resistance.

The first mission will be one mech against other 2, and 4 mechs that were in storage will be captured.
In the second mission the enemy realizes that the resistance obtained mechs and recalls their entire army of 10-20 mechs to protect their HQ while they wait for reinforcements, The player will have 4-6 mechs.
After this battle the planet ends up in the hands of the resistance and you get to build the first base, and get to keep whatever survived the battle.

Again, this can all be changed at any point, and it needs more work.

the idea is to have the player start from zero and with very few resources and having to research the technology and capture enemy weapons and mechs until they can develop their own.

I made some progress on the first mech, now it has arms. I need to make some weapons.

Danimal

Without going political, it´s best to stick to fiction. Right now the world is in a very scary state and I would rather not see any paralels in mah videogames. Let´s not hijack a game development thread.

Tomcat

Jesusemora please do not draw parallels between my game's story and the various wars going on at the moment, that was not the intention.

It's going to happen anyway. People find analogies where there never were any.

but ended up doing it. here's the result so far:

There's a more interesting question. Is it possible to switch between realistic graphics (or close to it) and cartoon-like graphics by applying a shader? Or does that require a deep reworking of the models? I'm not a fan of such graphics (although this one looks quite decent), but I know that many players like it.

Danimal

I have never seen Gundam... I prefer the western style of mechs which are basically bipedal tanks. Maybe your very first mission should be a tutorial where a group of infiltrating footsoldiers steal their first mech while learning the controls.
The news I mentioned before can just be a fixed pic with the reporters/random place informing what´s happening in other worlds, so you don´t have to move from your own to get some flavour news of what´s happening outside. I personally like the idea of a space mothership/superweapon since it´s kind of a Damocles´ sword constantly hanging over you, but that can also be achieved in other not so obvious ways.

How much love are you planning to give to the pilots? Will they be faceless soldiers with no impact or will they level skills and the like?.

I like your WIP mech, but I thought it already had integrated weapons on the arms.

You probably know this title, but Front Mission has a lot of similarities with what you are planning; and the forgotten and criminally underrated "Mission force: Cyberstorm" can become a wealth of ideas for you. That game is old but AWESOME.

Jesusemora

Danimal I have never seen Gundam... I prefer the western style of mechs which are basically bipedal tanks.

Gundam is said to be the one to start the real robot genre, it has a faction called zeon that is whatever he author wants it to be at the time. And the most well known character is Char, who is the prince (?) of zeon, who at one point betrays them, destroys his fleet with a laser and starts throwing asteroids at earth.
The real robot genre really begins with Macross, which was adapted into Robotech for the west. the first season of Macross was about earth fighting aliens, but when robotech needed a second season they adapted a different anime, this resulted in a world with royal families. This was in turn adapted for Battletech, which is all about kingdoms and feudal lords.
So space feudalism is something I'm trying to avoid as it's very common in the genre.

Danimal You probably know this title, but Front Mission has a lot of similarities with what you are planning; and the forgotten and criminally underrated "Mission force: Cyberstorm" can become a wealth of ideas for you. That game is old but AWESOME.

I learn that Front mission existed just yesterday 😆 , I will try to look into it.

Danimal Maybe your very first mission should be a tutorial where a group of infiltrating footsoldiers steal their first mech while learning the controls.

It's a good idea, but I'll try to get all the mechanics working before thinking of the tutorial.

Danimal The news I mentioned before can just be a fixed pic with the reporters/random place informing what´s happening in other worlds, so you don´t have to move from your own to get some flavour news of what´s happening outside.

That could work

Danimal I personally like the idea of a space mothership/superweapon since it´s kind of a Damocles´ sword constantly hanging over you, but that can also be achieved in other not so obvious ways.

Indeed

Danimal How much love are you planning to give to the pilots? Will they be faceless soldiers with no impact or will they level skills and the like?.

they will have names and level up some skills points but the missions will result in casualties very often, like in old X-Com.

Danimal I like your WIP mech, but I thought it already had integrated weapons on the arms.

Well the mechs are modular, so the weapons can be changed for different effects. The left arm can be given a machinegun, or a cannon, or missiles. That's why the arm has those slots.

Jesusemora

Sorry for the double post, I just wanted to post a pic and some updates:

So there's not much to show, I remade the head of the mech 4 times and was not convinced, so instead decided to work on the code.
I started the basis for a rudimentary AI system, It's going to check the tiles that the other units can move to and where they can shoot from and follow a kind of protocol. It was going to do it for the next turn only for every enemy... and now I realize that units act one at a time in a turn order, so there's more improvements to make.
it's not coded yet but there's some ideas for tactics/protocols that the AI can take:
Hide: unit tries to hide to protect itself.
Attack ranged: unit tries to stay out of range of other units or melee attacks and focuses on one unit.
Melee: unit tries to enter melee with target or closest unit and/or stay clear of attacks.

the AI is a variation of a very traditional system where each tile is assigned a number depending on the value of the move, used for chess, but I added some extra heuristics to take advantage of this style of gameplay.

Then looking at some anime styles I tried to mimic the metallic shades and shines. I didn't want to use a custom light shader, but ended up doing it. here's the result so far:

edit: improved the shader more.
this will be used on metallic parts:

and this is what non metallic will look like:

housatic

Jesusemora Looks great!! I'm a big fan of art with this kinda solid black shading, though I wonder if it won't make the models look a bit unclear when zoomed out

Jesusemora

I uploaded another video, I need better recording software, but the game is running at 60 FPS.

in here we can see the AI, improvements to the camera system (bug fixes mostly), the anime shader, a new melee attack, double movement and more that I don't remember.

housatic I added the ability for the dark shades to disappear at a certain distance after your comment, but it can't be seen in this video because it's using the non metallic material.

Tomcat Is it possible to switch between realistic graphics (or close to it) and cartoon-like graphics by applying a shader?

it is very easy to swap these materials for realistic ones, in the case of this model it started as realistic. it could also be done with the flick of a switch in game. but it takes a lot more time to make detailed realistic models and bake all 14 or something textures, specially with blender 3.
I think there will be a normal map because it helps with the shader, a diffuse, although probably very simple, a metallic map, probably AO, and roughness. So I could make PBR versions of the models by adding an extra diffuse map. In the case of this model, it had aniso and clearcoat textures for the finish because the model was made in cycles, but no other model will have those.

Tomcat I'm not a fan of such graphics (although this one looks quite decent), but I know that many players like it.

if enough people complain, I might add the option to disable it. but some of the backgrounds will be handpainted and retain some of the style. well, it is too early to tell.

xyz

Jesusemora Do you plan to have non-flat terrain as well?

MikeCL

Jesusemora Awesome progress! One thing that sticks out for me is the camera that follows the character. It's a bit much with those fast turns. But maybe that's just me 😛

Jesusemora

xyz it was the original idea, there is a height map and all the path-finding algorithms (AI included) are checking if tile is the same height for moving. there's also bools for can_fly and can_hover in path-finding, but so far the world is flat.
it will be possible to get on top of boxes and buildings, but I need to implement ramps somehow and jumping (with jetpack) and a third raycasting function since they currently work in 2D.

so to answer the question: elevations yes, but no bridges. the terrain will also be somewhat destructible, so that will add some more tactics.

Jesusemora

MikeCL Jesusemora Awesome progress! One thing that sticks out for me is the camera that follows the character. It's a bit much with those fast turns. But maybe that's just me 😛

It used to be worse, I'm trying to improve it. The problem is that there's no diagonal movement so the pathfinding creates these zigzag patterns that result in many turns, and then the camera follows the character.
A way it could be solved is by passing the movement to the camera as a list of positions and smoothing these patterns, but right now the camera just follows the unit.
Alternatively I could add diagonal movement (it's just a line of code), but I need a way to force 90º turns on corners to prevent units from phasing through walls.

MikeCL

Jesusemora I see.. But would it be possible to maybe lerp the camera rotation to smooth it out and not have the turns so violent? 😛

Jesusemora

MikeCL Sooo I added diagonal movement, while still keeping hard turns for corners. I just had to add this line of code:

for j in corners:
	var cpos : Vector2i = pos + j
	if cpos.x > 1 and cpos.x < TerrainMap.map_size-1 and cpos.y > 1 and cpos.y < TerrainMap.map_size-1:
		var direc : int = TerrainMap.get_voxel(cpos, 0)
		if direc == 0:
			var odir : int = TerrainMap.get_voxel(cpos, 1)
			if odir == 0:
				if TerrainMap.get_voxel(pos + Vector2i(j.x, 0), 0) == 0 and TerrainMap.get_voxel(pos + Vector2i(0, j.y), 0) == 0 and TerrainMap.get_voxel(pos + Vector2i(j.x, 0), 1) == 0 and TerrainMap.get_voxel(pos + Vector2i(0, j.y), 1) == 0:
					arr.append(cpos)

The camera was already slerping, but was using a curve sampled from the difference between the current rotation and next rotation, now there's fewer turns so I can use a simpler method.
Next should be camera clip and fixing some of the visual bugs.
I've also increased resolution to 1920x1080 and it maintains 40 FPS, so next video should have better quality.

kuligs2

Jesusemora 40fps?... why so low?

Jesusemora

kuligs2 integrated GPU. although I will investigate further.
games are playable as long as it's above 30 FPS, and any modern computer or pc with external GPU will be able to run it just fine. like, I can't record something like NORMORD, I can't get 60 FPS in something like that with my pc.

it's 1920x1080 HD, it is the most used resolution next to 1366x768 and 1366x864 according to the W3S, so it can be taken as a high end. anyone with a 4K monitor probably has a powerful GPU.
https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

if I need more FPS I can use FSR, it's a tradeoff between quality and performance, the higher the resolution, the more it takes to render a scene because there's more pixels.

It's also a tactical turn based game so performance is not as important as in an FPS or RTS.

xyz

Jesusemora Do you have the next milestone set with this? If so, what are the main features for the milestone? I'd like to comment but I don't want to comment on things that are not relevant for your current milestone.

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