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Multiplayer Space games possible?!?

by Benjamin Stramke · in Torque Game Engine · 07/19/2002 (7:34 am) · 4 replies

Hi guys, i got the idea to make a game like DarkSpace (there is atm a trial running on www.darkspace.net), because the game makes a lot of fun, but the problem is, the program would cost too much and has no real research tree...

Is the Torque Engine able to do such a game with around 64 (player controlled) ships and some planets? On the most screens there is a annoying white fog, that would not be good for such a game, is there a way to turn it off? And is there a way to disable the Z-Axis moving? Because it is too complicated to fly a ship which you see from outside, watch for planets etc... (it would mean that i would like to make the 3D Engine of Torque to a 2D Moving engine which could display 3D objects) Is that possible? And how? Any resources about that?
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Associate Kyle Carter
#1
07/19/2002 (9:54 am)
Yes, it's possible. I'd suggest the following steps to get the torque engine to do that:

1. Modify object movement code to keep all objects' Z co-ordinate at zero. The base shape class might be a good place to do that.

2. Turn off fog, increase visible distance. You'll want to make sure your scenes aren't too complex, though. To avoid Z buffer problems in such a large scene, you might want to implement some object sorting.

And there you are. All the rest can be done straightforwardly in script. (Unless you want other "special" features)

Torque Owner Sabrecyd
#2
07/19/2002 (10:24 am)
The fog is used to help with engine performance (for one). It can be turned off, but maybe a better idea would be to make the fog in your game black (you can change the color) and set the visible distance fairly far for a space type setting.

Torque Owner Lhh
#3
07/19/2002 (10:40 am)
where can i find the object movement code??

Associate Kyle Carter
#4
07/20/2002 (12:40 am)
Check the base shape class; alternatively, ask in the private developer's forums. We out here generally don't have access to the SDK.

Turning fog to black might work well, but I've found the games that do that look really weird - with proper LODing you should be able to get away with not having fog as long as your scenes aren't really dense. This is space, after all - distant enough objects LOD down into a point :), and you're going to be dealing with distances on the order of thousands of meters... If it's going to be a bit denser than that, then fog could work great. But maybe putting it in a nebula might make fog seem more natural...