Shallow Space a 3D RTS

Hey I just wanted to start a thread about something me and the team are working on which you might like.

Before I hit you with the spiel it's probably best to just show you the latest development video:

So as you might have guessed by now it's a 3D RTS called 'Shallow Space.'

We cite 'Homeworld' and 'Nexus: The Jupiter Incident' as our sources of inspiration but when we examined the gameplay of these two great titles; Nexus as an RTT game with absolute control over each ship and system; vs. Homeworld as an amazing RTS featuring en-mass warfare - we felt that the ideal command experience lay somewhere in-between.

Ships in Shallow Space large and small are grouped into Wings and then Flotilla. Perks and attribute bonuses earned by player progressed Officers and equipment earned in mission will influence ship attributes and available abilities in those formations.

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The player configures the bulk of their forces before a mission and gets a certain amount of points to spend. They can pick ships they've preconfigured and setup Flotillas for various tasks, these tasks are further underlined by a 'Class' system which will denote the Company or Regiment the Flotilla is 'borrowed' from granting bonuses to that role. (Examples include '227th Highlanders' (Assault Practitioners,) '178th Pioneers' (Support & Acquisition,) '107th Wasps' (Carrier Command.)

Each of the players Officers grant bonuses to the amount of ships that can be commanded and therefore, the amount of slots to put ships into. The player will get a certain number of MP (military points) to spend before each mission, but they likely won't be able to fill their Battlegroup with the allowance and should instead pick the mightiest of Capital craft with a keen support function the player can then use that support function to gather resources and construct more ships in-mission in a more standard RTS fashion.

Abilities such as 'Short Range Jump' will allow you to instantly withdraw your forces from battle, terrain altering ship modules will allow you to shape the vast arenas teaming with NPC life, into meaningful areas of operations and the heavy customization features will mean the player can play out the mission exactly as they want to, rewarded by many areas of progression including RPG-style character advancement and additional ship variants and modules.

Other examples of diverse tactical choice would include:

• Missiles/Torpedoes will come in different types for different jobs
• A wide choice of Carriers and Corvettes
• Ships can be rigged with different type of weapons (Turret and Fixed) with differing damage types (Energy, Kinetic, Precise.)
• Blueprints to Hull and Weapon variants can be found in-mission and the game will feature a random loot drop system for the Single-player campaign.
• Ships can be configured with hull and weapons modules for seemingly infinite combinations.

^^ Image from 'The Omega Directive' a fleet modernisation program we have going on in the background ^^​

In addition to all the customization, the wings/flotilla system allows us to do some very clever things with the AI and the planned Officer/Crew RPG features. The player will complete RPG-like activities and complete tasks with their custom fleet such as collect incidental missions from NPC forces, hunt out enemy fortifications and progress the main quest-line set by command as well as resource collecting, unit construction and all the standard RTS fare.

Along with all this we are modernising the games assets to implement the very latest of technology with PBR rendering and the ability to ship the end game with 4K textures. The game is a single player, campaign driven type with skirmishes, multi-player planned for the skirmish modes at the least and we expect Early Access at the end of October/start of November. Advanced press previews will be available upon request.

The project is indie to the core supported with only the money in our pockets and the folks good enough to preorder so if you do have $15 lying around throw it our way and you won't regret it because you'll get one hell of a game.

 

Looks really cool.

 

Thanks I see you're no stranger to MSGDIs ships lol

 

Yeah, I like MSGDI's ship models. They work really well in space games.

 

There's a new article over on the blog discussing turrets and projectiles and how they affect the combat in Shallow Space.

Turrets have been the subject of a vast rewrite over the last week, their code has been completely purged and they have been written from the ground up to be both useful and performant in the Shallow Space engine.

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But why would we go through all the effort of coding turrets with arc's of fire and attributes? Well the answer lies in the intent to make the projectiles in Shallow Space simulated - so there are no fake effects or trickery and the fate of a plasma blast or cannon bullet is not decided before the shot is fired.

But what does that mean for gameplay? and how scalable is such a mechanic? All answered with a new short dev video for good measure in the latest blog article 'of Turret Theory and Simulated Projectiles'http://shallow.space/turret-theory

 

Looking really good so far guys! Keep it up! =)

 

News of Shallom’s attack spreads across the empire, major press on all of the core worlds of shallow space has decided to report on it and news is spreading beyond into the deep space colonies. The faction publications have used it as an excuse to slam the Terran Confederate Navy reigniting old tensions between the Empire and Pleiades and so TCN HQ missives fly between departments as the organisation clambers to regain control of the situation.

Two reports attached for your perusal commander.

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Looks really well polished so far, great job!

 

Thats pretty much super duper badass.

 

Cheers guys!

 

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New faction up: Pleiades Corporation [PLC] with accompanying star charts over on the blog.

The Pleiades Corporation controls the Pleiades Stellar System, a full ‘core’ system of the Terran Imperium. Settled in 2362 by the presumed lost worldship UES Halifax, the Halifax governors set about extracting mineral wealth from all corners of the stellar system and returning it to the populated twin worlds of Paradijis and Eden.

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Also some images of our latest Pleiades ship dubbed the 'Medium Corvette' also with a 3D sketchfab view of the model again, over on the blog

 

Checked out the sketchfab model, all I can say is 'wow'.

 

The perk delivery and ship/officer name collection system is now active!

If you’ve already preordered check your e-mail for an automated message from backers AT shallow DOT space which will contain a username and password for logging into the website.

All ranks have received some bonus stuff right to their portal so do check your e-mail not to mention that we really need those names! So be sure to login and submit them.



Captains be sure sure to upload those photos via the instructions in that e-mail. In case you've forgotten a hand drawn sketch of a face of your choosing is going to feature in-game!

For more information, see the latest blog post.

 

Recent open communications have been intercepted between Samuel Shallom (under the assumed name of ‘SHALLOMATRON’) and other mercenary and pirate perpetrators.

The discussion thread was found on a recent publication of ‘Illegal Refreshments,’ who are the reporting arm of the APF (Allied Pirate Forces.)

Intelligence from other sources confirms a small scale operation is being planned but the location of the operation and registration/type of the craft involved are as yet unknown.

Head over the the blog and read the latest instalment of Lore set in the Shallow Space universe and be sure to checkout the 'Story' category, there's a hell of a lot more where that came from!

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There's a new post up over on the blog discussing status effects and just how exactly we intend to form the maps in Shallow Space. Obviously we all know space is an unforgiving void but it makes for a very boring play area if we leave it as such, so we'll need to create areas for the Players and AI to hide and take advantage of.

But how will these areas affect the ships and combat? How can we shape the void into a meaningful area of operations? Find out in the latest article 'of Terrain in the Void and Status Effects...'

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An extract from the latest post:

"To further complicate the mechanic different classes of ship will be affected differently by terrain. So a wing of Corvettes might traverse the expanse of a dense asteroid cluster far quicker than a Flotilla lead by a capital ship which has a severe penalty to movement to avoid damage. The player will be able to see the effects of a piece of terrain by hovering over the the representing icon in the macromap after they have scanned it."

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Also, work has been progressing on the Ship Configuration screen. It's exciting to be able to expose more of those variables we've been relentlessly preening in the background and we're further excited by the fact that this forms another solid section of the spine of the game (and it's great fun slapping modules on those hulls!)

Head over to the gallery to check out the latest imagery.

 

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The latest faction blurb has been posted; the Alliance of Interstellar Mercenaries.

AIM exists as an umbrella outfit for those rejected by the conventional military but don't feel the calling of the more maniacal operations of the pirates.

AIM is as a legally justifiable although morally questionable entity subcontracting a variety of services mainly to the corporations. Their only allegiance is to the coin they are paid.

Abbreviated: AIM] There will always be those people who have a ‘certain kind of a skill’ but cannot or chose not to operate in the official military machine. The Battle for the Pleiades System and the resulting ‘Race for the Blankicite’ saw a massive arms race and mass military spending followed by budget cuts and discharges of personnel. Those cut loose found that in the wild west that was the Shallow Space colonies their skill set was very much valued.

Find out more about them here.

Also another ship is born from the preorder funds, the 'Light Corvette' joins it's bigger brother which together form part of the PLC faction line-up. Keep these ships coming by pledging to support us.

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I am really digging the updates. Those corvette designs are hawt hawt hawt!

 

A new Corvette is born from the preorder funds; if you were following the twitter you’d have seen it a little early. This Light Corvette forms the second ship of the nine ship Pleiades corporation line-up.



Head over to the blog to see more images and the 3D turntable and if you haven’t already pledge, and help us make many more of these beauties!

 

A little while back I went ahead and pre-ordered Captain just because of posts like this.

Can't wait to see some more ships. The sketchfab is awesome.

 

Worlds collide in this weeks instalment of lore as we explore Samuel’s involvement in the Gift.

This weeks instalment of lore comes in audio form voice-acted by our very own resident author John Harper, a traditional transcript is also available - both on the website: http://shallow.space/shalloms-personal-diary/

"I have to admit, walking onto the bridge of the TCN Concordia, its captain’s gaping throat gurgling blood over his chair, I felt a sense of accomplishment I have never felt before. It was a hare brained scheme to lift this ship, but Marlon came through, true to his word, and now I feel closer to my goal than ever before."

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The latest development video from us, not recommended if you have a heart condition, definitely recommended if you're looking for a kick!!

There's a hell of a lot of new stuff crammed into this one so expect a full debrief on the blog early next week.

Essentially though apart from the obvious Ship Configurator:

- We have the 3D improvements to the UI, spheres show ranges (Green - deep scan radius, Red - weapons radius, Yellow - status effects radius.)
- Status effects (more info) and scan ranges added.
- A new artist makes his mark with some beautiful background artwork.
- optimizations to turrets go in and fixed weapons get a rewrite - both now using completely simulated projectiles (more info.)
- All factions (all 9 of them) now represented as entities in the alpha.
- Drag selection box rewritten to allow Battlegroup formation moves and grouped Corvette wing moves.
- Enhancements to the fleet UI to support drag selection groupings.
- Game ported to Unity 5.1

Crank it up and enjoy!! (I know my hearts still racing...)

 

I'm blown away. Do wish that video was longer though!

 

Yeah, to make those two and a half minutes nearly 25 minutes of footage was recorded.

I might do another vid because I had to chop some pretty cool stuff out of that last one! Glad you enjoyed it man

 

A cogent summary of progress over on IndieDB as some more budding contractors join the team and we hint at some of the customisation options that recent advancements bring.

Also catch a sneak peek at the latest ship that’s about to hit our screens, the PLC Heavy Corvette!

“The game engine is progressing at a phenomenal rate, at lot of the stuff I did last month paved the way for this rapid progress so mechanically we are witnessing some of that enhancement as the roots start to bud on the surface. It’s shocking how quickly we are moving towards the ‘end-game’ scenario now with the planned ‘Overlord AI system’ and the Map editor looking pretty close on the todo list.”

Read on in 'Limit of Exploitation'

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The latest OMEGA ship model is up for show; a 'PLC Heavy Corvette' joins the three ship line-up.

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A 6 man ship with 4 medium fixed weapons mounts [FW-M] and a medium [M] turret point, these craft normally form the pointed end of QRF (Quick Reaction Force) response to an incursion.

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This puppy is 2.5x the size of the Light Corvette, so you can imagine how big its carrier is going to be!
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View the 3D turntable over on the blog.

 

There are 8 human factions in the Shallow Space universe:

The 3 core empire factions with overall control of the majority of humanity.
The 3 mighty corporations, nipping at the emperors heels for dominance
The 2 subversive authorities living outside of the core worlds of Shallow Space in the fringe colonies nibbling at the edges of the Imperium.

Some of the factions are further split into subordinate authorities or companies, some with Elite units and/or special abilities.

Find out about the next revealed core empire faction the 'Terran Confederate Navy' over on the blog...

[Abbreviated: TCN] The Terran Confederation Navy was formed in response to the discovery of the Pleiades Corporation, descendants of the presumed lost worldship UES Halifax. When the Pleiades Corporation refused to enter the Terran Empire, Emperor Christian decided to force the issue. He issued the construction of a military fleet to occupy the Pleiades system....

 

Introducing the new Matar class (Medium Cruiser, 3 x Heavy Turret Points [H])

 

The latest development blog article is up, this one discusses some of the concepts of the Ship Configuration and Fleet Configuration screens and there's also a VERY juicy extension video to #45 showing some extended gameplay footage, the ship and fleet config screens in action and a fly around the new PLC 'Matar' - medium cruiser!

Take a look at 'of Ship Customisation and the Mustering of Forces'

"The Flotilla Identity acts as both a way for the Player to glean a formations purpose and its position in the theatre but also encourages the Player to think more carefully about their formations. So it is the intent that this identity system grants bonuses pertaining to that particular squadron’s characteristic. For example the EW Squadron would get increases to passive and active ECM/ECCM modules, Defence Practitioners might get natural damage resistances."

 

Absolutely stunning work I think this project deserves more attention, it gives me a strong homeworld vibe and seems that you guys try to do your best.
A very small complain, i think you may have overdone it with the space dust / nebula like clouds in your latest video/images. It seems more like the fight takes place inside a planets atmosphere and less in space Don't know though if there is a lore reason for that or its just the general art direction. Either way good luck on the rest of the development!

 

Cheers! The reason is so that we don't loose detail on the ships really. If we were to portray space more truly, a lot of the ship detail would be lost in the shadowed areas. If you look at Eve Online gameplay they do the same.

We will add stars and further detail to the skyboxes, they are still being perfected.

Getting attention is tricky nowadays, we're going to have another press push soon in the run-up to Early Access, hopefully that'll do the trick!

 

Hmm nice trick, it should also help separate the ships from the background
Getting attention as a full space rts could be hard, though there are surely many fans of the genre out there! For the casual players an rts ui like yours will look like a hacking console and may scare them away. A story trailer could maybe work better for that demographic.

 

The latest ship the PLC 'Matar' is now up for viewing on the 3D turntable over on the blog with some accompanying facts.

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The roadmap has also been updated with the most recent progressions. Stand-by for a big article in-bound over on IndieDB regarding modding and the planned campaign mode!

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Big announcement over on IndieDB as we come to some realisations and decide to embrace the modding community, we hint at the campaign mode and the Steam page gets launched!

True to our style, we have a big stack of cool stuff ready to be chain fed into the community there so follow the page and check in from time to time.

Excerpt from the IndieDB page:

"On the journey to Early Access last week I came to quite an unexpected crossroads. You see I took the scene that I’d been using to construct the tactical side of things and began to tear it down into individual components to design levels, it was at that point that I realised I could either take the easy route and hardcode the level editor into the game OR I could do the right thing."

Read on in 'Belly of the Beast' or if you can take no more of my idle prattle; go direct to the Steam page!

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Read through the 'Belly of the Beast', interesting read. I enjoy seeing updates on your game as well, looks absolutely amazing man, great job!

 

That's really great to hear thanks

 

The latest ship is created for the Omega project; the Destroyer 'Markab' joins the PLC 'Pegasus series' line-up.

An excerpt below from the blog (link) which contains both a 3D turntable and design blurb...

"Due to increased usage of Carriers to deliver Corvettes in sporadic combat, the use of Corvettes as station defense and the expense of the PLC’s flagship Carrier combined with a full complement, the ‘Markab’ was developed as an entirely new class of ship in the PLC ‘Pegasus series’ line-up."

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New video up showing off some background variations, a hint at the campaign mode, a track from the games OST and a fly around the PLC Destroyer 'Markab!'

 

There are 8 human factions in the Shallow Space universe:

- The 3 core empire factions with overall control of the majority of humanity.
- The 3 mighty corporations, nipping at the emperors heels for dominance
- The 2 subversive authorities living outside of the core worlds of Shallow Space in the fringe colonies nibbling at the edges of the Imperium.

Some of the factions are further split into subordinate authorities or companies, some with Elite units and/or special abilities.

Find out about the next revealed faction; 'The Terran Empire,' as well as star charts of the remaining undisclosed two core systems, here.

[Abbreviated: TTE] The Terran Empire is the ruling government of the human population in the region known as 'Shallow Space'. It currently comprises 3 'core' stellar systems and 8 'colony' systems. They are spread across a region of space roughly circular in shape with a diameter approximately 100 light years.

 

We talk about some of the principles of the AI in the latest development post and talk about how individual components on a ship can influence the decisions of a ship or it's formation in a bid to make the behaviour of the units seem more realistic.

Overlord AI gets mentioned and we talk a little bit about how it behaves reacting to the same information that a human player would, and how it doesn't cheat.

"Those of you that have been following the project have likely noted the enforced unit formations, and some of you have asked question about this additional layer of complexity. Just why have we opted for such a system? What does it add to control or gameplay? In this article we want to talk about just that."*

*"Overlord might of course then divert other Flotillas to the fight, or adopt another tactic to keep you on your toes, so as the Player you’ll have to appreciate the entire scope of the mission and the setting not just that particular conflict"

Read on in 'of Simulating Intelligence and Overlord AI'

 

With PLC being one of the core factions in-game, they will receive a full compliment of ships in a range of sizes from Corvettes and Destroyers up to Carriers and Battleships. This week the Pleiades Light Cruiser ‘Enif’ joins the line-up. Check it out!

"This verticality means the craft has a minimal attack surface when lined up for a direct assault or a direct withdrawal increasing the natural avoidance of Large [L] and Very Large [XL] projectiles."

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Huge announcement over on IndieDB folks as we get a new talented team member to assist us, Mathias (previously of Deep Space Settlement) joins the team further upping the quality of our ships and stations and speeding the time it’ll take to construct the long list of planned assets.

In other news you can get a sneak peek at 3D renderings of the new INC faction ‘Armstrong’ modular cruiser, some shots of the updated UI and yet another cogent summary of progress from James in the latest news ‘Force Multiplier.’

“Back in the trenches Mathias joins the project in an unexpected twist of good fortune, it’s a curious sensation actually as I remember peering over the game design document a month ago thinking ‘man that INC faction and their modular ships has Mathias’ name all over it’ but beyond even that we’ve been seeking his council for well over a year now…”

Read on in the latest article 'Force Multiplier'​

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As mentioned in the latest update over on IndieDB, we've decided to swap out all the placeholder assets a little early and add a sprinkling of new effects to maximise the impact as we prepare to launch the Early Access. The UI gets another pass as all the elements are flattened and moved out of the way to maximise screen real estate.

Mechanically we are wrapping things up with the sample content and are nearly set to send out the keys to the people who were good enough to preorder (and it's not too late btw!)

Here is the very latest video 'Omega' showing off all the good stuff as you've come to expect!

 

The latest 3D turntable for the PLC Command Carrier 'Sadalbari' is up for you to take a look at, along with accompanying description.

"The Sadalbari boasts 2 Extra Large [XL] and 2 Large [L] turret mounts, berthing for 20 standard Corvettes and still room enough for 3 Extra Large [XL] support mounts. In addition PLC have configured the internal dimensions of the craft so they can boast that it is ‘negative space ready’ which will further enhance the crafts capabilities when the technology arrives to market."

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That day is finally here folks! But we haven't used it as an excuse to let progress slip, we have a lot of work to do. We bounce straight into the arena with UPDATE 3 which adds a sprinkling of new features most notably the ability to customize your ships appearance.

"The major feature added in this update is the ability for the player to skin their ships in many different ways. You can choose primary and secondary colours and even the texture of the material. The themes are applied to ship configurations themselves, so you could have scout ship configurations coloured differently to attack ships."

Head over to the website and see what else is new!



Also we get a helping hand from the General Manager of another popular project 'StarMade' who is currently hard at work skinning the forums and will soon be helping with support and growing the community for Shallow Space. Lets have a round of applause for DukeofRealms!

Did you check out the game forums yet? Go and take a look!



So this current version is merely a preview of what is to come. The game will expand massively in both scope and content as we head towards final release. We intend to update frequently and will be adding serious amounts of content over the coming months.

As we hope you will see, what we have here is a very solid foundation, a lot of the core mechanics are present and the ways to interact with them are quite refined. It's a platform on which we will now keep building and iterating on.

I want to express a huge thanks from the guys at Special Circumstances, we really appreciate your interest and support and we hope you will enjoy playing Shallow Space as it develops!

 

Purchased. Cause I'm awesome like that.

 

Cheers dude!

Hey there everyone, it's been a while!

Did you see our latest ship the PLC Heavy Cruiser ‘Algenib?’

“Although some critiques call the design into question noting that it’s peak fire coverage points are the same as the Matar’s, the craft sports far stronger generators making the Algenib a more capable energy weapons platform.”

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We’ve been busy since our Steam launch rolling in fixes and additions to the alpha.

UPDATES 1, 2, 3 were basically bug fixes and we added the ability to change the theme of your ships allowing the customisation of the primary and secondary colours and the tweaking of the material properties (metallic, shininess.)

UPDATE 4 worked on the scanning mechanics making it harder to detect the enemy and introducing a negative status if your units are ‘surprised’ by the enemy (they start attacking you before you’ve detected them,) we are started rolling in the Objectives system and we added new weapons and abilities. (over 60 fixes, additions and tweaks in total)

UPDATE 5 is the most recent unit which introduced the Algenib Heavy Cruiser, 5 new abilities, the ability to save/load fleet configurations and we evolved the Objectives system a little more (over 80 fixes, additions and tweaks in total)

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We also unveil the second subversive faction the ‘Allied Pirate Forces” over on the blog:

“[Abbreviated: APF] More often than not, history teaches that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and this is the common ground that forms the tenuous power titled the ‘Aligned Pirate Forces’.”

 

As the first modular ship pieces come in we've decided to show them off over on the blog keeping with the tradition of listing them with a blurb and a fully 3D turntable!



We won't see these boys in-game for a while yet, with indirect fire weapons (missiles and torpedoes) and precise weaponry slightly higher up on the priority list. But the INC faction will get a ton of pieces to assemble Corvettes, Cruisers, Battlecruisers and Capital ships and what is perhaps even more exciting is that the player constructable stations in Shallow Space will also be modular.

Take a look at the turntable and accompanying description over on the blog!

"Their modular design discipline is somewhat different to the other human factions who generally engineer complete schematics to a predetermined specification, ICN instead split their ships into self-contained sections which can be assembled bespoke to suit a mission or role. This methodology has placed them leaps ahead of the competition in terms of blueprint..."

 

New to Shallow Space in the last couple of weeks:

The last remaining PLC Pegasus series ship is born; the ‘Homan’ which has an extra special surprise, a spinal mounted XL fixed weapon!

“It distinguishes itself from the standard Cruiser by including capacity for a special weapon. With the MFC now creating similar special ships and INC furnishing the Armstrong range with such modules, the term ‘Battlecruiser’ has been adopted to describe Cruiser sized ships able to enact a far more destructive force than their ineligible peers.”

Take a look at the 3D turntable and read up more on the history of the Homan (and the Battlecruiser class in general) over on the blog!

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Another packed update is now live on Steam, UPDATE 6 brings 70+ additions, fixes and tweaks including the Homan, the MFC mid-battleship the ‘Nottingham,’ the addition of shield modules with even more customization options and a new Combat Simulator mode for testing your ship designs against mirrored forces on a special map.

“In this update we continue to focus on refining the strategic experience, work on the reported issues, inject new ships and modules and put in the scaffolding for the new ‘Combat Simulator’ which will allow you to test your ship designs. We’ve also added two new ships and the ability activated XL weapons, a total of 70+ additions.”

Read on in the update ‘all hail UPDATE 6’ over on Steam.

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Hey there, it’s been a while! Here’s the latest from the Shallow Space team.

Two new ships complete with 3D turntable and descriptions for your perusal Commander.

The Battlecruiser, the MFC ‘Blackbird’ comes with devastating on-board missile launchers and you can choose the ammunition to take into the battlefield. The catch is that to use these guys strategically requires a little bit of skill, with salvo sizes, missile types and ranges all adding to the scope of decisions you'll need to make as a Battlegroup Commander in the field.

Read up more on the Blackbird, the missiles mechanic and view a 3D turntable of the new model over on the blog!

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Check-out the latest Capital ship complete with turntable and description over on the blog!

"Another classic MFC design that is still in use during today’s operations. The ‘Vindicator’ is designed for long range tactical engagements with static targets such as stations and platforms, it is also equally suitable for indirect fire missions against larger vessels and light conventional combat."

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UPDATE 7 arrived during the festive period along with two incremental patches (taking it to UPDATE 7.2) adding additional functionality and take a look at the special year end summary of the project in the post ‘Looking back, moving forwards; it’s a New Year!’

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Wow! This is a very cool looking project! The art is impressive!