News

Been working on getting the 4th-page of the briefing screen to display some establishing images of the environment in which the game is taking place...

Here, the moon graphic and labelling is an external PNG file generated in Photoshop, but the Earth and moon orbiting it is dynamic, with the moon leaving a trail behind itself as it moves.

For space missions, the idea is to build some moving models of whichever entire solar system the action is taking place in, which should be quite pretty to look at.

The Trekkietar website is a good hoot, and at the same time, completely dysfunctional ...
It'll let you have a TNG uniform but will only let you have an original series phaser in the "body accessories" tab.

So, I went and fixed that, and when I say "fixed", I mean "totally fixed" ...

2019.12.05 | 21:20


https://trekkietar.framiq.com/ wouldn't let me have a TNG phaser.
Found the site with the help of Chris Stough :)

Radisa: I remember the time of playing older X-Bomber indie game and picking X impulse and accidentally one shot stage 2 boss and now the latest versions of X-Bomber allow you to release even powerful version of X impulse where the sound frequency breaks the void of space and almost muted any other sounds including its own blaster sound.

In a nutshell it went from wow to WOW


Reply: My housemate at University; Andrew gave me the idea of making the 'super X-impulse' silence all other sounds, to make it more ominous than just giving a 'bigger sound'.
That was an excellent idea.  I made sure to mention it in the game's credits.

Hopefully, I should be able to turn my attention to the sound effects before long.  They've been left for a long time and could stand some improvement.
It might happen for 0.84's G-release, or it might have to wait for the one after.  :D

Objectives

Level 16
 - Astrofighter dock
	- add minelayer ship
	- add green heavy bomber variant
	- change beam cannons so that they track player
	- add astrofighters

Complete

Level 16
 - Black cloud transition improved 
 - Fortress exterior improved - missile and energy net launchers added
 - Drone hall improved with moving drone magazines
 - High security area and reactor logic improved
 - Improved multi-level background layering
 - Fixed some graphical glitches relating to the fortress interior environment

Level 9
 - Introductory, coastal phase improved

Mission Briefings
 - Mission environment display

Engine
 - Sync of ground objects with terrain further improved

A little while ago, Infinity Magazine did a segment on Star Fleet, which included a nice double-page poster.
Unfortunately, this, when obtained via the digital download version, was too small a resolution and the wrong aspect to be used as a desktop background on most of today's monitors.

So, a few weeks ago, I set about improving the image quite a bit.
You can get the lossless PNG here:
http://xbomber.co.uk/?dir=Star+Fleet%2FArticles+and+Scans

To get the image to a higher resolution, I resized it twice using the 1.0 and new 2.0 "preserve details" algorithms in a ... popular imaging application, and then blended the two layers together, using the multiply method, which gave a much better contrast.

Level 16
 - Interior environment graphics
 - Reactor progressed
 - Power transfer area progressed

Level 8
 - lots of bolts tightened
New Special Weapon
 - Dai-X #9; arc sabre
Special Weapons
 - X-Bomber #8; Gunboy
	- firing cycle/animation improved
 - Dai-X #2; lock-on lightning
	- improved sprites
	- smoother beam handover between lock-on and manual modes
 - Dai-X #4; plasma grenade launchers
	- graphics improved
Player ships
 - Various improvements to Dai-X
 - Shield bubble displays properly on all player ships when player hit.
HUD
 - Score display and performance counters restored, slight re-configuration

Radisa: Buster Cannon is just broken I tell you.


Reply: Time to do a short update on v0.84f ...
This week, I've been revising the quantum blaster purple weapon for Dai-X.
That weapon was a relatively recent addition to the game, compared to others, and I wanted it to be devastatingly effective against bosses.

The below video by Radisa demonstrates well, though, how the weapon is so devastating that it can be exploited in some ways that I hadn't anticipated.
I will say, that the video below is from a 2016 version of the game and the quantum blaster had already received quite a few changes and fixes since then.
 In any event, the weapon has been tweaked and rebalanced in almost every conceivable area.

So, with that and previous updates, I think I've done about as much as I'm planning to do on v0.84f.
I'll probably test it a while longer and release it on Friday night, as I did with the last version.

I like this new version of the Alliance tunnel-digger.
It doesn't actually appear anywhere in the game (well, not yet, anyway).
I also fixed the levels and backgrounds for the concept drawings for the buster cannon (aka. quantum blaster).

Had some thoughts on how to re-work some of the sketches that went into the production of the game.

For Star Fleet Saturday, it's been a few weeks since we had some fan artwork ...
Here's the X-Bomber drawn by Japanese artist; PLC.

I like how streamlined the ship looks in the picture; like it's for 'Star Fleet: The Next Generation' or Andy T's Star Fleet: Genesis.

In X-Bomber the Game, the ship is a bit different to the original, since the ship wasn't finished in the series, when it was launched.
This is the kind of thing I was going for.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'll be glad to hear from you and I'll reply as quickly as I can.

Email me at:
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