Nomad Fleet (Space RTS / PC)

UPDATE 09/05/2015:

The game has been greenlit! thanks for your support!

UPDATE 18/04/2015:

I started a Steam Greenlight campaign: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=427297728

I also have a trailer:

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UPDATE 13/03/2015: I have playable prototypes for PC, Mac and Linux here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/nomad-fleet/downloads

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Hi, my name is Jorge and I would like to show you my first PC project: Nomad Fleet.

What is Nomad Fleet?

Is a real-time strategy game set in space with procedural levels. You control a fleet of spaceships and jump from sector to sector while harvesting resources, fighting hostile aliens, trading and researching while being chased by a mysterious alien species that has mankind nearing it's extinction.

Comparisons are inevitable so let's say I have been heavily inspired by Homeworld and FTL.

A bit of the Story

Two hundred years have passed since Earth's destruction.
The few remnants of Mankind survive crowded in their spaceships.
A nomad race, a cursed race.
Dreaming of a promised land and peace, we roam the stars and scavenge for resources while the rest of the galaxy looks the other way.
We have tried before but the Great Enemy keeps chasing us every time we try to colonize a planet or gather in great numbers.
They are the gardeners and we are the weed.
But nothing of that matters anymore because the Great Enemy has returned and we are few, we are spread and we are weak. Is just a matter of time before they can finish the job.
But in our desperation, a glimpse of hope: an Ancient Hyperspace Gate has been found and it appears to be powerful enough to take a whole fleet to another galaxy, far enough to finally outrun our pursuers.
We just need to cross the whole galaxy... and you'll take us there, Commander.

Enough talk! What can you show us?

Here's some gifs and captures showing my current progress:

Human fighters vs Alien Dreadnaught



Tactical map

http://gfycat.com/LimpingAssuredCopepod

Hyperspace jump effect test

http://gfycat.com/ColdSociableCicada

Galaxy Map




Other info?

- Is my first PC project but not my first game. I have two published Android games (enough to make me realize that I don't really enjoy making mobile games).
- For the moment there's no website, Twitter, etc. I've been focusing only in the development but I intend to correct that.

Thanks for your time!

http://nomad-fleet.com/

 

Hi

Here's another update, I've been working in several things like pooling and UI but here's something more visual to show. I'm testing some bombers, the gif is heavy so you can watch a lighter version here if you want: http://gfycat.com/FlakyPhysicalCopperbutterfly

 

Space Moss?

 

What do you mean?

 

Oh, I see it now. Yeah, that's a nebula generated by the Space Unity plug in (loses quality with the gif compression too).

I would like to get some cooler skyboxes but for now that's not in my priorities.

 

What is your preliminary releasedate if i may ask?

 

No idea, I hope that is not more than a year from now but it could take more because in around 6 months I'll have to get a new day job (I'm unemployed and funding the game with my savings) and that will slow down the project.

I hope to get a good prototype before that and maybe get some extra funding but I wouldn't count on that.

 

I made a little battle with my interceptors and record it. Sadly the gifs lose too much quality so here's some links to some short videos in case you are interested:

http://a.pomf.se/kpoorr.webm

http://a.pomf.se/jodect.webm

 

I like the way you use .gif's in your presentation. That in itself is fun for me!

I think the game is looking great and off to a good start. I see a lot of influence from Homeworld, which is a good thing.

Keep us updated.

 

Yeah, too much time in gaming forums had teach me to value the power of a gif. Sadly they are too heavy, I wish I could embed gif from gfycat or webm directly. Well, eventually I'll start posting videos instead.

Thanks for your comments.

 

I fixed some bugs with my interceptors so I uploaded more gifs with combat and a new alien frigate in case anyone is interested:


http://gfycat.com/AchingWealthyHippopotamus

http://gfycat.com/NiftyFittingAmberpenshell

http://gfycat.com/MiserlyEdibleIvorybilledwoodpecker

 

how did you do the hyperjump effect?

 

I used a shader with the clip instruction, I remember basing my solution in something I saw in this forum but I can't find the original post to give credit to the guy... well, here's the code of the shader:

Code (CSharp):

1. Shader "Custom/Hyperspace Advanced" {
2. Properties {
3.     _Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
4.     _SpecColor ("Specular Color", Color) = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1)
5.     _Shininess ("Shininess", Range (0.01, 1)) = 0.078125
6.     _MainTex ("Base (RGB) Gloss (A)", 2D) = "white" {}
7.     _Illum ("Illumin (A)", 2D) = "white" {}
8.     _BumpMap ("Normalmap", 2D) = "bump" {}
9.     _EmissionLM ("Emission (Lightmapper)", Float) = 0
10.     _planePoint ("plane point", Vector) = (0,0,0,0)
11.     _planeNormal ("plane normal", Vector) = (0,0,1,0)
12. }
13. SubShader {
14.     Tags { "RenderType"="Opaque" }
15.     LOD 400
16. CGPROGRAM
17. #pragma surface surf BlinnPhong
18.  
19. sampler2D _MainTex;
20. sampler2D _BumpMap;
21. sampler2D _Illum;
22. float4 _planePoint;
23. float4 _planeNormal;
24. fixed4 _Color;
25. half _Shininess;
26.  
27. struct Input {
28.     float2 uv_MainTex;
29.     float2 uv_Illum;
30.     float2 uv_BumpMap;
31.     float3 worldPos;
32. };
33.  
34. void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) {
35.     clip(dot(IN.worldPos - (float3)_planePoint,(float3)_planeNormal));
36.     fixed4 tex = tex2D(_MainTex, IN.uv_MainTex);
37.     fixed4 c = tex * _Color;
38.     o.Albedo = c.rgb;
39.     o.Emission = c.rgb * tex2D(_Illum, IN.uv_Illum).a;
40.     o.Gloss = tex.a;
41.     o.Alpha = c.a;
42.     o.Specular = _Shininess;
43.     o.Normal = UnpackNormal(tex2D(_BumpMap, IN.uv_BumpMap));
44. }
45. ENDCG
46. }
47. FallBack "Self-Illumin/Specular"
48. }
49.  

The idea is that you change the parameters of the material in your code telling it where the material must be clipped and in what direction (the red plane is just for show):

Code (CSharp):

1. renderer.material.SetVector("_planeNormal", newNormal);
2. renderer.material.SetVector("_planePoint", newPoint);
3.  

 

thanks, I really need to learn more about shaders!

 

I added new ships, you can see them in this link: http://gfycat.com/RareBleakDunnart

They are:

- Terran Destroyer.
- Terran Escort Frigate.
- Xeno Destroyer.
- Xeno Bomber.

 

Making some stress tests (98 ships in this one including fighters):



The Profiler is a good friend so far...

 

Finally, this thing is starting to look more like a game. I got this video that is not visually striking but shows the tactical map where you can see all the ships as icons (people that have played Homeworld must be familiar with this and how useful it becomes when you lead a fleet in a 3D environment).

Also now the ships can be ordered to attack more than one enemy and will attack their "favorite enemies" first (for example: a bomber will go against a capital ship and a interceptor will go against bombers first) and sort them by distance.

http://a.pomf.se/dozncb.webm

 

UPDATE!

I have a working prototype that you can download and try if you are interested. You can download it here (215 MB only PC): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9078240/Unity/NomadFleet/NomadFleet.rar

The prototype is very early but it counts with a tutorial and a sample level (I suggest trying the tutorial first).

Thanks for your time!

 

This looks super-cool! Great job also posting lots of pictures and GIFs as they're appreciated by anyone who is intrested to check out the thread in general

 

Thanks, the idea was to attract attention. Sadly, is still not enough to convince people to download my prototype it seems (well, who can blame them? downloading 215 MB and executing a file from a stranger are big deterrents).

 

Don't worry, just be patient and they will come in time

 

I've been working in three new features: building ships, harvesting resources and docking small ships in the Mothership.

The building feature is already present in the prototype and here's a screenshot of the new harvester (resource collector ship):



Now, I'm working in the docking feature. I hope to get it done this week so I can include it in a new version of the prototype.

 

Ok, so the fighters (interceptors and bombers) are very small so they are hard to see specially in battle so I modified them so they show their icons when they look too small. In that way the player will have a better idea of where his smaller ships are:



I also fixed a bug where the icons and UI had some sort of lag compared to the real position of the ships.

 

For anyone that doesn't have time to try my prototype (or doesn't want to) I made a short video showing the basic gameplay. Of course, it's no trailer just something quick that I hope makes the gameplay clear to anyone (I would probably have to recruit someone to care about marketing though because that's clearly not one of my talents):

 

Working on obstacle avoidance now. Steering behaviours are hard, I hope to get better at them with some time:

 

Very interesting game, since I like HW games, I'll test your demo

 

Thanks, any feedback is welcome.

 

Just finished working in an alien light carrier. Now the AI can reinforce it's fleet:

 

Working in the pirate faction now:

 

Wow, the pirate ships are really nice, good job!

 

Thanks, I think I'll add some skull decals or something.

 

Some of those ships look really similar to the Hiigaran ships in Homeworld. Possibly too similar but that my opinion.

Game looks like its making good progress.

 

I'm sure the artist was inspired by Homeworld to make the ships. I know I was inspired by Homeworld to make the combat.

 

I like the game premise! I can definitely see the Homeworld inspired elements. Things are looking great so far. Just thought I would mention something I noticed playing the demo.

Whenever I opened the build or research menus, I found myself instinctually trying to exit out or minimize the display by pressing the escape button. Perhaps it could be changed to where if the build or research menu are active the escape button closes them, and then a secondary press of the escape button brings up the exit menu. Just a thought.

Anyhow, nice work and look forward to watching this project!

 

That's good advice, thanks!

 

Some new features and content that I'm working on now (they are GIFs so I better post the links):

Building Capital Ships

Docking

Fighting Pirates

 

Experimenting with PBR (click the images for a bigger picture):

 

So I made a new version of my prototype, now it has a new sample level, a full tutorial, many fixes and some extra features. You can download it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9078240/Unity/NomadFleet/NomadFleet.rar

Also I made versions for other platforms (they are untested though):

Mac Version

Linux Version

 

Testing some laser corvettes now...

 

New playable versions released!

This time I added 3 new levels, new ships and mechanics like trading, I also made many fixes and changed the explosions and skyboxes.

The links are the same mentioned before.



If you want you can check the IndieDB article for more information.

 

I'm putting more effort in the marketing so I made an Official Website and a trailer:

 

I started a Steam Greenlight campaign: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=427297728

Please vote for the project if it looks interesting to you.



Thanks.

 

I'm working in the intro of the game and I could use some feedback and suggestions (I'm no writer nor english native speaker so I'm interested in knowing if the text is good enough):

 

FINALLY! my game has been approved in Steam Greenlight!
Thanks to everyone for your support!

 

Congrats on making it to steam! Looks like you have put alot of effort into it since I have last tried it. Looks very good! I will have to give it another go here soon!

 

Thanks! yeah the game has grown a lot.

 

First test uploading a build to Steam and executing it works without problems so far:



Soon I'll be ready for release, I'm so excited!

 

Congratulations.

 

Thanks!