In the two months since my last post I have released Captain Jameson 0.4, taken a holiday, ported most of Captain Foraxian to XBLIG, abandoned Foraxian XBLIG because ports of games in unpopular genres and unpopular styles are, unsurprisingly, unpopular, and devised a wonderful plan for Captain Jameson 0.6. Oh, and I’ve been working on 0.5, which is the subject of this post.
Captain Jameson Alpha build 0.5, to use its proper title, is not a major milestone. There are no sweeping design changes and there are no amazing additional features. Instead, 0.5 contains all the little adjustments, tweaks, and bugfixes that I’ve been putting off for the past year. It won’t make the game substantially different, but it should make it substantially better. Of course I couldn’t help making a few visual adjustments, as illustrated by this screenshot. Items of note are:
Snipe laser targetting
These show where a snipe laser will fire, and make the module feel a lot more snipey. It’s surprisingly fun to use.
New blurst shield visuals
The original blurst shield (in Captain Forever) was an ultra-rare component. Very few people ever saw one, so I didn’t think much about its appearance. Now blurst shields are relatively common, so the bizzare vibrating sausage graphic has disturbed many a player’s vision. In response to forumite prompting I’ve redesigned it.
New mouse cursor
I may still fiddle with this, but so far I like it. The crosshair is oriented in the same way as the player’s ship, which makes some sense when you then use this cursor to attach modules.
CJ0.5 is still some way off, but for now you can still play 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, and even 0.1 if you’re particularly sentimental or masochistic.
Enjoy!
<3 Farbs
Not to sure about the cursor, but i’ll have to see it in action to make a proper judgement. Also, I approve of the (Do we call them ‘sights’ or ‘targeting beams’ because ‘lasers’ is taken) beams of light and new shields. RIP vibrating sausage.
Sniper targeting lasers….are….awesome!
Does the Snipe targeting extend to the full range of the higher class modules? In that case it would make it a lot easier to snipe out individual modules from out of range of other ships weapons, like I like to do, without accidentally damaging modules that you want to keep. Awesomesauce!
Would be exceedingly fun to build one’s own missiles after a dedicated launcher module. Missiles/projectiles would require (limited) propulsion and a warhead of choice; same modules can be used for the ship, too. Operational difference would be that the attached modules would have limited burn time / life time depending on several factors.
- Explosive munition modules for detonation on contact (that could be detached as space mines without propulsion, too!)
- Ramming spikes (build your own space javelins)
- Sticky modules, shoot and attach bulk on opponents to make their vessels unmaneuverable and/or drive them away with included thrusters
- Remote detonation? Fire and detonate when close enough
- Remote control with limited burn time on thrusters before the missile/projectile becomes a dud
- Targetting system module. Without one the missile would only fire all of its propulsion devices until depleted or detonated. Upgradable, Bravo level targetting would locate Bravo enemy vessels within a smaller range and slower reaction time/latency, Delta system would track Delta (or inferior) ships within faster latency and longer time before dying out.
- Target by pressing down the missile launch key, hold until target lock acquired, release to launch. If no targetting system mounted, holding down the key would fire any available missiles sequentially with an appropriate delay by configuration level.
- Configurable sentry devices & mines
- Sever modules from other ships while they are still alive by cutting/unconfiguring a module out with a specific tool/weapon. Difficulty level / time needed would increase by the factor of how close the module being tampered with is in connection to the main command module. For example a module being directly connected to the opponent’s command module would take forever to detach whereas several modules down the stack would come off with relative ease, albeit with a risk of damage on the module and ones after it depending on configuration level (Bravo .. Kilo)
$0.02 dispensed.
A new post! Hot tomalé, he lives!
The best part was the ‘clickage invokes zoomage. I lol’d.
Sweet, really looking forward to the laser sights.