Stellar Forces

Are you ready for the next level?

2011-12-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

The 'campaign mode' in Stellar Forces is going through a major overhaul, and the first two changes have already been made:-

* The stat increases that a unit gets if they complete a mission are now allocated to different stats randomly. Prior to this, all stats were increased by one point. Now, units will slowly become more unique.

* Any unspent creds when equipping for a mission are saved and will be added to the creds available for the following mission. So if you think you are good enough to go to war on a budget, you can expect a windfall for the next mission. If you survive of course...

Stellar Forces Android Proves a Success!

2011-11-17T04:58:00.000-08:00

What's that smell?

The Android client for Stellar Forces has just been updated, and now has a help/tutorial mode and also you can now view the log for your game without having to visit the website.

Stellar Forces on Android!

2011-10-27T08:16:00.000-07:00


What are we all in here for? They could be coming from anywhere! Spread out for god's sake!

I know I said I wasn't going to blog any more, but I couldn't resist mentioning the new Android client for Stellar Forces. It's not been released yet, but it's just having a final bit of testing before it's released into the wild. The above screenshot shows a scene from Moonbase Assault which I'm playing against myself (and losing badly as usual).

Probably the last post...

2011-06-23T01:34:00.000-07:00

Regular readers, if they exist, will know that there has been a lack of updates recently. This is mainly because I've been concentrating on developing Android stuff (and thinking about an Android version of Stellar Forces, natch). The game is still being added to (including 5 new missions since my last blog post). However, the lack of blog updates doesn't seem to have caused a lack of new players; quite the opposite in fact! So I've decided my time is better spent maintaing the software for now.

Stellar Forces: New Client Upgrade

2011-04-28T02:03:00.000-07:00

A new version of the client (1.73) has been released, which contains a few new features that people have been asking for ever since Stellar Forces with first conceived.

You now don't have to restart the client between taking turn.
There are now enemies with a rudimentary AI in the practise mission. At the moment they just look around and shoot any of the player's units that they see, but it's a start.
The Strategic Scanner is now available inside the client, as shown in the screenshot above.
Lots of other minor tweaks as well, natch.

Stellar Forces: New Features

2011-04-21T06:29:00.000-07:00

There's a few new features in Stellar Forces:-

New points for Victory

In order to address the slight unfairness that a new player will only get the same amount of points regardless of whether they play another new player or a very experienced player, the points for a victory are now no longer always a straight 3. Instead, a player's points for a victory are calculated as 3 + "the difference between their league points and their opponents divided by 10".

For example, a player with 5 league points playing against a player with 35 league points will get 3 + (30/10) = 6 points if they win. The more experience player will always get the straight 3 points for victory.

Now there is more incentive to play against more experienced players. The amount of points available for victory is shown in the game requests, and also on the strategic scanner page.

New Opponent Points Range feature

When creating a new game request, you can now choose an "Opponent Points Range". This is a list of ranges of points (based on your own league points) which can be selected which will restrict which players can see your game request.

For example, if you have 21 points (like I do at the moment), and you choose the range 11-31, then only players with league points within that range will be able to see and accept your game request.

This feature is designed to enable players to play opponents of similar skill if they want to, although don't forget that the rewards are much higher now for winning against an opponent with more league points.

New Missions

There are now two new mission: "Denunciation 2v2" and "A Tale of Two Bases 2v2". As the name suggests, these are unique in that two players play together against two other players.

New Unit Type: Blobs

2011-04-11T04:42:00.000-07:00

Stellar Forces has a new type of unit: Blobs.

They are pretty different from the other units, and not just in looks. They have the ability to merge together to make more powerful blobs (as in the picture), and obviously split up too. Soon they'll probably be able to absorbe enemy units in some kind of "The Blob" [film] kind of way, which is just co-incidence, honest. It should make for some interesting tactics - grenades are pretty effective against them (especially when there's lots of smaller blob-ettes flooding the area).

Two New Missions

2011-04-07T05:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Boylflea and Pcasaca, Stellar Forces has two more missions:-

Oddworld (by PCasaca)

The Big Push (by Boyflea)

See you on the battlefield...

Stellar Forces: 1,000 Games Played!

2011-03-25T04:36:00.000-07:00

Stellar Forces has just hit a milestone in the last hour: there have now been over 1,000 games played!

And it's a bit of co-incidence that the 1,000th game is the first test of a brand-new unit! More details will be revealed when it has passed...

Starting a Game Against New (New!) Players

2011-03-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

There is a recently added feature in Stellar Forces for creating new games for friends that haven't registered yet.

When starting a new game, these are the options you are given:-

One of them is 'Optional Opponents'. Here you can either enter the name of another SF player (in which case they will be the only one allowed to join the new game) or someone's email address. If you do this, they will be automatically registered and sent an email with the breif instructions on how to join the game.

So now getting your friends to play Stellar Forces couldn't be easier.

Stellar Forces: Attracting New Players

2011-03-22T02:33:00.000-07:00

As with all games ever written since the history of time, Stellar Forces is always trying to attract new players. There's a lot of competition out there, so every little thing counts.

I'm just going through the front page of the website which is the first thing a potential new player will see. It's critical it looks good and does everything right to convince them to play.

I've decided to remove the video clip. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that if someone sees this, they may feel that it gives them enough information to potentially discount Stellar Forces and go onto something else. It's difficult to convey everything about the game in a simple video clip, and people do have a habit of judging games by their looks, whereas the main "selling point" of SF is the strategy and tactics and multiplayer-ness.

I've also restored the "brief description". I think it will help if players are told immediately what Stellar Forces is all about, rather than hope they drill down into the website to find out.

Hopefully, all of the above along with a few cosmetic changes will increase the take-up of the game.

Stellar Forces: Another Gameplay Vid

2011-03-15T07:25:00.001-07:00

Here's quite a successful turn I took recently in a game of Stellar Forces: 2 enemy units were toast by the end of it.

Stellar Forces: 3D Mission Playback

2011-03-11T05:56:00.000-08:00

It's now possible to playback missions using the same 3D Client as is used to play the game. Here's a playback of a recent 4-player Last Man Standing mission:-

It's possible to play back any mission since the data for the missions has been stored ever since Stellar Forces came into being.

Stellar Forces: New Logo?

2011-03-07T08:55:00.000-08:00

I've just created this image in about 2 minutes, for no good reason really.

Really I should be blogging about the new client release (1.59), but you can read about that in the forums.

Better Maps

2011-03-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

Deadlime has outdone himself with his new map for the Denunciation mission in Stellar Forces:-

It is exactly what I was envisioning when I created the new tiles and scenery squares. The game maps are starting to look a lot more like real live places and less like the rather simplistic environments that they were. Onwards and upwards!

Homage to Laser Squad

2011-02-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

Obviously the whole of Stellar Forces can be thought of as a homage to Laser Squad, but here's another small touch: new deployment squares:-

Ps - No more posts about smoke grenades. I've finally released the client so you can recreate the smoke effects for yourself.

More Smoke Grenades

2011-02-23T04:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I'm bothering to post this as it's nothing special really. There was a smoke grenade explosion just inside the doorway, and I like the way the smoke has "funnelled" out the door. Who needs Havok?

Maybe if I stopped posting entries like this, I would actually finish implementing smoke grenades sooner.

Stellar Forces: Smoke Grenades!

2011-02-22T05:25:00.001-08:00

By popular demand, I am working on adding smoke grenades to Stellar Forces.

Stellar Forces: Taking cubism to the next level!

Stellar Forces: Interior (and exterior) Design

2011-02-21T04:34:00.000-08:00

Here's the original Assassins map:-

And here's my new one after adding and changing a few more textures:-

It's looking a bit better, but I've started to realise that the skill required for this is effectively "interior design", i.e. what kind of floor colour goes with what kind of wall. Dammit, I'm a programmer, not Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen!

Stellar Forces: Not Enough Memory

2011-02-15T01:01:00.000-08:00

By far the biggest of the (very few, natch) issues that players of Stellar Forces have is running out of memory when playing the game. This is undoubtedly because of the 3D, for which I use JMonkeyEngine2.

The problems typically occur when a new "visual effect" takes place, using up a fair bit of memory and pushing the client over the edge. Maybe I should get the game to create lots of "hidden" visual effects at the start, so that if the game is going to crash, at least it will do so at the start rather than mid-game and potentially cause problems.

But are there ways to reduce memory? I had a go with JConsole to monitor memory usage. At the point where the game is ready to start playing, the client is using 30Mb of memory, although there is a peak of about 60Mb just prior to gc()'ing. I need to find out if that is normal.

Stellar Forces: Texture Revamp (pt 2)

2011-02-03T02:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks to TheAncientGoat and Phillip Taylor for showing me the error of my ways, although I was already suspicious that my method for merging textures was very cumbersome and inefficient.

Thanks to them pointing me in the right direction, I've now decided to "sort-of-texture-splat". There's probably a special name for it, known only to people who know this kind of thing, but whatever it's called I'm going to have two quads on top of each other, with one quad having a transparent texture on it allowing the other quad to show through.

Here's a rough demo I did by putting a "roadside" texture (from UFO:AI) on top the grass texture, just to prove I could do it:-

Now I've accomplished this, I just need to squirt my artistic juices and design some nice map layouts. That reminds me, I now also need to change the map editor to allow for two floor textures. A programmer's work is never done!

Stellar Forces: Texture Revamp

2011-02-02T04:18:00.000-08:00

I'm in the slow process of adding new textures to Stellar Forces. Not completely new textures though; I'm trying to eliminate the harsh edges between existing textures.

Take grass when adjacent to a road, for example. This is the grass texture:-

And this is the road texture:-

And using the power of Gimp, I've created this which blurs the edges and makes it a smoother transation:-

Here is in action:-

If you see what it looked like before (ignore the deployment squares):-

It's going to be a long process, since for every two textures that may be adjacent, I need to create 4 "combined textures". Hmm. Is there an easier way??

Stellar Forces: New Client Released (v1.55)

2011-02-01T00:48:00.000-08:00

I keep forgetting to post here about new Stellar Forces client updates. However, new version 1.55 has just been released with the following changes:-

The size of explosion f/x is related to the power of the grenade.
There is only a 50% chance that an explosion will cause other grenades to explode. After a few overzealous grenades, it's been decided to temper them a bit.
New 'close combat opportunity attack' feature. No longer will running up to the enemy and shooting at them "point-blank" be quite so risk-free (not that it was anyway what with Death Greandes being avaiable).
Units will now opp-fire on the very first turn.

If you already have the Stellar Forces client, it will upgrade automatically. Otherwise it can be downloaded from Google Code.

Stellar Forces: More Grenade Shenanigans

2011-01-27T04:40:00.001-08:00

This time the grenades were not on my side...

As you can make out from the scanner view below, there are only 3 units left alive in this mission, and my last two units must defend the central computer from the last remaining enemy unit. I know he's in the top-right room somewhere as he's just killed one of my other units in there. My unit at the bottom is wounded and thus too slow to make it to the top room.

The only way to be certain is a grenade! So my unit walks out the central room where he was positioned, manages to survive a laser blast, and throws the grenade. Only one grenade (of course).

"So Steve", I hear you ask. "Why were there 3 explosions, one of which engulfs the central computer that you're supposed to be protecting? Did it not go to plan?" Of course not. The first grenade set off a chain reaction of two other grenades. Since my unit had left the door to the computer room open, the blast from the last grenade hit the computer. Defeat was served cold (or something) and my unit was given early retirement.

Stellar Forces: Chain Reaction Grenade Frenzy Attack!

2011-01-26T06:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the 'chain reaction' feature of Stellar Forces, where exploding grenades cause other grenades in the explosion range to also explode, I managed to win this game of The Assassins after only two turns. The final 'Strategic Scanner' view of the map looked like this:-

I think I can make out about 7 explosions in all, killing all 6 of my opponents closely-bunched units. The forces of good have triumphed again!

Stellar Forces: The Awful Truth

2011-01-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

After playing over 240 missions in Stellar Forces, I have decided to face the awful truth: I am not actually very good at it. Between the 13th and the 17th of this month, I lost no less than 7 missions (and won zero).

Here's a few highlights.

In 'The Assassins: Outhouses' where I had to kill Sterner, Monkey proved the adage "attack is the best form of defence" by grenading 3 of my units into oblivion in the first 2 turns. He's the one that's supposed to be hiding! (or so my thinking went).

In 'Prison Mutiny', my prison guards were so busy covering all the expected escape routes that the prisoners might take, that I forgot they could blow a hole through the walls and create a new exit. Which they did, leaving me looking like I couldn't organise a booze-up in a brewery.

In 'Defend the Base', Victor concentrated all his attack forces on one side of the base. Needless to say he broke through my useless bunch of an-excuse-for-soldiers and lobbed in a couple of grenades. The first one blew the doors of the computer room apart and the second destroyed the computer. Victor was the victor.

Maybe more practise is in order. Or a cheat mode... ;)

Stellar Forces: 'Intermediate Mission Playback'

2011-01-17T01:05:00.000-08:00

With such a snappy name it must be a snappy new feature I hear you exclaim!

Following on from the Mission Playback feature in Stellar Forces, where you could view the whole mission once it was finished, it is now possible to view a playback of any of your current missions up to its current stage.

Of course, the main difference between this and the original playback feature is that you are only shown what your units actually saw. Which is nice.

Stellar Forces: Undercover Agents

2011-01-13T04:45:00.000-08:00

They said it couldn't be done, but Stellar Forces continues to push the limits of turn-based squad-level multi-player strategy games!

The latest new features is what I've logically called 'Undercover Agents'. The mission starts of normally enough, but if an undercover agent is involved, then at any time, one of your units could suddenly reveal themselves to be under the control of your opponent, thus causing you to radically rethink your plan and kill the agent.

Obviously this new feature is kept under control. The mission is balanced to ensure that the side with the agent doesn't have too much of an advantage, and at the moment a squad only has one agent, to prevent a bloodbath.

Let battle commence!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-05T04:12:00.000-08:00

A happy new year to all Stellar Forces players; past, present and (of course) future.

I hope Stellar Forces keeps growing in 2011 as well as it has in 2010: There are currently 34 games being played, there are now over 50 missions available, and we've just tipped past the 800th game!

I've also received my first donation from all-round top player Deadlime. It's not enough for me to retire on, but should buy enough chocolate to keep the trouble-and-strife happy while I spend too much time on the computer adding more and more features to the game.

Stellar Forces: Mission Roundup

2010-12-20T05:52:00.000-08:00

There has been quite a few new missions added to Stellar Forces, so here's a quick roundup with my patented "in-a-nutshell" mission descriptions:

Denunciation: (Kindly created by Deadline (Linden Clarke) Like "The Assassins" mission, except both sides have a target that must be killed.

Alien: (Kindly created by Deadline (Linden Clarke) A recreation of the classic film. The crew must activate the self destruct and escape, whilst avoiding the seemingly all-seeing alien.

Sniper's Paradise: (Kindly created by Pedro Casaca) Two sides face each other across a barren landscape. Sniping is the order of the day unless anyone is brave enough to make a run for it.

Egg Collector: (I do actually create some missions myself) Four sides must race to collect the most alien eggs which are all concentrated in the centre of the complex.

Egg Hunt: (Kindly created by Deadline (Linden Clarke) Two sides battle to be the first to collect and alien egg and escape with it. Of course, the aliens themselves are unlikely to let this happen easily...

Stellar Forces: In Space No-One Can Hear You Scream....

2010-12-09T07:11:00.000-08:00

...when you've primed a grenade to go off but forgotton to throw it.

But seriously, thanks to Deadlime (Linden Clarke, the seemingly perpetually top player) it's now possible to recreate said screaming in the new Alien mission. One player takes control of the under-equipped crew of the Nostromo who must initiate the self-destruct mechanism before escaping, and the other player controls the alien, who must do what comes naturally and eat all the humans.

Coming soon... Aliens! Probably.

Stellar Forces is 1!

2010-11-29T04:30:00.000-08:00

It was actually about a week ago, but in all the excitement it passed me by. However, back in November 2009, the very first game of Stellar Forces was played. Now, almost 700 games have been played and the game goes from strength to strength. Thanks to everyone who has played a game, and especially thank you to all those who have provided content, media, new suggestions and great ideas. Here's to the next year and beyond!

Stellar Forces: Mission Playback

2010-11-26T03:18:00.000-08:00

It's finally here! The one feature that was a fair bit of work but I've been wanting to add to Stellar Forces for months: Mission Playback.

Once a mission has been finished, it's now possible to playback the whole thing in a Strategic Scanner-style view. Ideal for seeing where your tactics failed or how you defeated your opponent so easily.

Here's an example mission playback from one of my less succesful missions. See how I charge across the complex looking for the enemy! Grin as my units are picked off one by one! Laugh as I concede since victory has eluded me again!

Stellar Forces: Autoupdating Client

2010-11-24T07:07:00.000-08:00

The v1.44 (or greater) versions of the Stellar Forces client will now automatically check and update itself to the latest release.

Stellar Forces: Think You're Good?

2010-11-17T04:54:00.000-08:00

So you've played Stellar Forces a few times, and maybe even won a battle or two. But have you tried Advanced Mode yet?

* Players are informed of enemy movement and shots fire if one of their units is within the noise range, even if they can't see them.

* Equipment and corpses are only shown if a player's unit can actually see it.

* Dead bodies are not shown on the strategic scanner.

* Players are only informed of game events (e.g. the death of an enemy unit) if one of their units actually saw it happen.

Originally, alien eggs and flags (as in capture the flag) weren't shown on the scanner in Advanced Mode, but it was decided that was a step too far.

Are you good enough??

Stellar Forces: New Queen Alien

2010-11-12T04:02:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing that Stellar Forces has been missing, it's a giant kick-ass Queen Alien. Something like this:-

Stellar Forces: Tactics Answer

2010-11-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

[See the previous post for the question that this post refers to]

I use the word "answer", but what I really mean is "what I did which wasn't the best solution".

I decided to use my man (highlighted in blue) to see if there were any units in the adjacent room (where the door had been destroyed) that I could use the grenade on. I temporarily ignored the fact that there were units behind the two doors, since the doors themselves provide a small tactical advantage (in that I'll get an "opportunity fire" shot when the enemy walks through them).

Moving my man so that he could see into the adjacent room proved to be a mistake cos he was immediately shot and killed at point blank range. :(

So my next move was to pick up the grenade (highlighted in green). I didn't think it worth throwing the grenade in the direction of the enemy unit that had just killed my "blue" man, since it would leave the unit exposed to one of the other enemy units hidden behind the doors after his AP's had run out.

I picked up the grenade, and it turned out it wasn't even primed! Maybe I should have checked that first. Damn my opponent for making me look a fool!

Stellar Forces: Tactics question

2010-11-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting tactical problem I was posed by an opponent in a game.

I have a unit stood next to a grenade (green) - an AP100 as well, which has a radius of 5. I know for a fact that there is an enemy unit stood behind each of the red doors. I also have the unit highlighted in blue. Presumably the grenade is about to explode, so I need to get rid of it. But what do I do out of all my options? And what order do I do them in?

Answers tommorow.

Stellar Forces: Voice F/X

2010-11-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to top Stellar Forces player Deadlime (Linden Clarke), the latest version of the client now has voice f/x!

Stellar Forces: Quickstart

2010-11-03T03:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, some ideas are so obvious that you wonder why it takes someone else to point them out to you. And so it was with a particular feature of Stellar Forces: previously, when a game was started, the player who created it would have to wait for an opponent to join before they could equip; then they would have to wait for their opponent to equip before they could deploy. Etc etc...

Why why why? Deadlime pointed out to me that there's no obvious reason for this, and there isn't a technical one, so just equip already! Players can now equip AND deploy all before an opponent has checked in. And why not?

Stellar Forces: First Tutorial Video - Deployment

2010-10-29T05:50:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start creating some tutorial videos for Stellar Forces to help new players get a head-start on the finer details. Here's the first one: a tutorial on deploying units.

UPDATE: I've remastered it (as we in the movie business call it) to a higher quality. The video is still boring though, unless you want to know how to deploy units.

Stellar Forces: Smooth Moves

2010-10-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

I've just been adding smooth movement and animation to Stellar Forces. S'all.

Stellar Forces: Gameplay Video

2010-10-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

I've finally got round to creating some gameplay videos for Stellar Forces. This is just a quick demo of a recent turn in one of my games. (I hope my opponent isn't watching this.)

Operation SNAFU: Autoposy

2010-10-18T04:40:00.000-07:00

A while ago I blogged about a new kind of mission I was creating for Stellar Forces. In a nutshell, the missions were in the usual Stellar Forces style (e.g. destroy the computers on the moonbase) but the difference was that it was a secret to the other players which side was actually the one tasked with destroying the computers.

And the first game of the first version of this kind of mission (which I've christened SNAFU [warning - pdf] missions after the Paranoia mission that inspired it) has just been completed. The "saboteur" is randomly chosen, and as luck (?) would have it, I was the one chosen to be the saboteur. What are the chances eh??

Anyway, playing the mission was (in a good way) a bit like a game of chess: the units on all four sides were jostling for position to get the best view of the computers, so that when the saboteurs struck, they would be discovered. I realised that my best hope for success might be to actually kill some units instead to create confusion and give me some space. [Un]fortunately, that's exactly what happened: the first enemy unit I killed (making sure I wasn't seen by any other units) happened to have a Death Grenade, which explodes when the unit holding it dies. This grenade took another of my units out, and severly wounded the first.

All that action pretty much gave away my position, so after that, I was a sitting duck and soon got wiped out. All in all it was a great tactical game but too short (due to my impatience). Next time (if I'm the saboteurs) I might just stick to destroying computers.

Stellar Forces: Practise Missions

2010-10-11T01:48:00.000-07:00

Player Hardwired had a great idea for Stellar Forces last week that is so obvious I can't believe no-one (including me) hadn't thought of it before: a practise mission!

One thing that prevents new players appreciating a game like Stellar Forces is that it can seem a bit daunting at first. Add to that that fact that players are always playing against another human player (so they may not want to look too much like a beginner) and it probably puts a lot of people off.

The practise mission aims to address that. It's basically a 1-player mission where the player can walk about, shoot weapons and use equipment without worring about waiting for another player (or another player waiting for them) and get to grips with all the controls before starting a proper game against a real opponent.

Hurray for Open Source!

2010-10-05T03:52:00.000-07:00

This is just a plain-old thank you to the creator(s) of the excellent UFO:AI, and in particular, the creator of the unit models, without which Stellar Forces probably wouldn't have existed, at least not in the semi-decent form it is now. (It would probably look more like my previous efforts - warning: your eyes will bleed).

That's the great thing about Open Source: it allows people to get a massive head-start on whatever project they want to create, and it doesn't diminish anything else. It allows a huge range of games to exist which wouldn't in a purely commercial world, meaning there is almost certainly a free game out there for everyone. And if there's not, why not create it?

Stellar Forces Map Editor

2010-10-01T01:31:00.001-07:00

When starting a new project that requires some kind of map layout, OpenOffice is always my first choice: it's nice and simple, and using cell colours it pretty much does everything you could want from a map editor, while the map file format stays simple, anyway.

But as features get added to games, sooner or later the map file format contains so much information that it becomes too fiddly.

And that has become the case with Stellar Forces. As well as just the texture of the floors and the location of doors and deployment squares, the map file also needs to store the owner of squares (for the multi-player Moonbase Assault missions and others), "escape" squares (for the Alien Escape mission and others) and of course scenery codes.

So that's why I've created the Stellar Forces Map Editor. It's a fork of the old Java version of Tiled (there is a new .Net version, but I know Java much better) and uses the same textures from the actual game which gives a very good 2D representation of what the map will look like. It's highly beta though and still has a few quirks, but should make creating maps much easier for everyone.

Stellar Forces: New Forums

2010-09-29T00:50:00.000-07:00

Although my game design and programming skills are second-to-none, I humbly admit that my design skillz aren't amazing. ;)

With this in mind, I've set up the new Stellar Forces Forums using phpBB, the ubiquitous forums software that also looks pretty good as well.

I just need to get people to start using the new forums and not the old ones! And also the good design makes the current Stellar Forces website look a bit dated.

A Whole New Idea for Missions

2010-09-27T00:28:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted from the Stellar Forces forums]

Years ago I was reading a copy of White Dwarf (back in the day when it covered RPG's) and it had a mission for the RPG "Paranoia". The mission was about all the players working together to accomplish some goal, but the catch was that one randomly-selected player was secretly working against the others and had to try and disrupt them and cause the mission to fail. (Actually, this being Paranoia, it turns out that *all* the players were told to work against each others!). [Update: I've actually found the supplement [pdf] on the all-knowing internet].

Unfortunately I never got to play this game, but ever since, I've been wanting to try something similar. And now that Stellar Forces exists I have the chance! There are probably lots of possibilities with this idea, but the first one I have come up with is something like 4-player Moonbase Assault: 3 players are the "defenders", and one randomly selected player is the attacker (but that side is not revealed to anyone else). The attacker must try and destroy the computers without being spotted shooting at them.

Another idea off the top of my head include Rescue from the Mines-style mission, but one side has to kill the hostages. Needless to say, no-one is told which side it is (apart from the player controlling them).

What do people think? Would it be any good?

Stellar Forces: Small Victories

2010-09-20T03:06:00.000-07:00

Stellar Forces is now 5th in the Google search results when searching for "free squad strategy game", even above UFO:AI.

Stellar Forces Update

2010-09-17T05:08:00.000-07:00

Just a few changes to report on since the last update:-

The wiki now has a proper URL: http://www.stellarforceswiki.com
New campaign league.
4 new missions: "Hit and Run 1 - Breakout Map", "Hit and Run 2 - Escort 2 Map", "The Assassins - Outhouses" and "Gladiator".
New league of players who are playing the most concurrent games.
Games can be conceded and also "mutually conceded".
In campaign mode, units get a stats increase when going up a rank.

Stellar Forces: Now with 32 more bits!

2010-09-07T04:55:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Deadlime's good work, Stellar Forces now works on 64-bit Windows. Not being able to afford a 64-bit system had prevented me from investigating this particular problem, but now it's sorted, there's no excuse not to join in the fun!

Stellar Forces: Campaign Mode

2010-08-23T04:17:00.001-07:00

Announcing the lastest feature to be added to Stellar Forces: Campaign mode. Now units can be carried forward to the next mission, increasing in rank as they do so (with bonus rank-points for exterminating enemy units).

There is also a league table showing who's got the highest ranking units. The first campaign games are being played now. Get in there early to give your squad the best head start!

Stellar Forces: Latest News

2010-07-30T07:12:00.000-07:00

A few bits of news: Firstly, I've now acquired a static IP address, so Stellar Forces now has a proper domain name and doesn't have to mess about redirecting to Dynamic DNS's.

Secondly, after what seems like an eternity, Deadlime is no longer the top player, having been relegated to second place by Monkey with 40 points to 34! (As of the time of writing anyway).

And finally, a new version of the client has been released: 1.26. Only a few minor tweaks (and the obligatory batch of bug-fixes) like being able to un-use the current piece of equipment. See the Stellar Forces page for full details.

If you think you'd enjoy a relaxed take-your-turn-when-you-want-to turn-based strategy game, why not give it a go?

Stellar Forces: New Missions

2010-07-15T03:58:00.000-07:00

Since the last update on this blog, 3 new missions have been added to Stellar Forces:

Capture the Flag & 4-Player Capture the Flag
The classic game mode that is in every other multi-player game ever, now has its best incarnation in Stellar Forces. It surely needs no introduction, suffice to say that the idea is that each side capture the flag that is in the centre of the map and must bring it back to their side to win.

3-Player Moonbase Assault
A classic twist on the classic Laser Squad mission: this time, there are two groups of attackers trying to be the one that destroys the most computers, while the defenders are stuck in the middle trying to protect them (or let the attackers kill each other while they keep out the way!).

The client has also had several updates and is now on version 1.27. If you're running an older version, upgrade now!

Stellar Forces: Latest News

2010-06-29T00:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick rundown of all the new features that have been added to Stellar Forces since the last update:-

* It's easier to analyse the game during and after on the map now that the direction of units is shown.

* New Mission: The Exterminators. This is designed to be similar to The Assassins; it has a much bigger and more complicated map layout, but to compensate the assassins, they have a lot more credits with which to buy some high-explosive weapons!

* Missions have been adjusted: in Prison Mutiny, the prisoners now have 400 creds; in Alien Escape, the aliens now start with 10 units.

* Ammo is now not wasted when reloading; if the old ammo clip has spare bullets in it, the clip is retained.

* The client is now up to version 1.25

* This hasn't changed: Deadlime is still top of the league!

That's all for now. My todo list is about as long as War & Peace, but I'm always open to new suggestions and comments.

New Gameplay Features

2010-06-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

To keep the Stellar Forces game interesting, I've added two new gameplay features:-

Hearing Enemies
This is an option that can be selected when creating a new game. If selected, units will be able to hear enemy units in close proximity (< 3 squares) even if there is a wall in the way.

Alien Impregnation
There are now two missions that use this feature - if an alien kills a human unit, the human unit turns into an alien.

(Ps - I wouldn't recommend searching for "alien impregnation" on Google like I did to accompany this article.)

Psi Powers?

2010-06-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

It was probably only a matter of time before this came up. Since Stellar Forces is inspired by Laser Squad/X-Com, and the other great games written by Julian Gollop include Chaos and Lords of Chaos, then adding the features of those games into Stellar Forces seems like a good idea, and psi-powers instead of "spells" means that the gameplay mechanics of Chaos can be easily transposed into the Stellar Forces milleu. (Having said that, maybe I should just fork the code and create a new game called Magic Forces or something?)

However, Chaos and Laser Squad were different in many ways, so there are still lots of questions to be answered about how psi-powers will fit in, e.g. what is the limit on psi-powers? Does the player get to choose the powers or are they randomly selected? And what psi-powers will there be? That should be a good one to answer. Copying a lot of the Chaos spells seems like a good place to start. Imagine a Turmoil spell being cast in The Assassins!

Creating Custom Missions

2010-05-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

Creating a custom mission for Stellar Forces couldn't be easier:-

Identify an existing mission that is the most similar to what you intend to create (i.e. uses the same kind of textures and scenery).
Download the mission map for that mission from http://www.stellarforces.com/serverdata/new_maps. Make sure you download the ”.odt” file, not the ”.csv” file.
Edit the file to your own map specifications. The codes used should be fairly obvious, and everything is colour coded.
Download the units file from http://www.stellarforces.com/serverdata/units.ods and add a row for each unit in your mission.
Send both the edited files to me (see the contact details on the website) along with the following information: how many credits per side, how many turns, who wins when the turns expire, and whether the walls are destroyable.

That's all there is to it. I'll then add the mission to the list and everyone else can enjoy your new creation!

Stellar Forces: New Missions Frenzy

2010-05-14T05:08:00.000-07:00

Stellar Forces has 4 new missions awaiting release:-

3-Player Assassins
This is a twist on the classic Laser Squad mission The Assassins, and as the name implies, it is a 3-player version. Sterner Regnix and his gang must try and fend off attacks from two assassin squads, or can they try and play off the two enemies against each other?

Battle for Sigma 7
This will be uploaded tonight after extensive testing (as always). Two small armies must battle it out across a barren landscape.

Prison Mutiny
There has been a mutiny in the underground high security prison of AmpliNova. Each of the escapees has a copy of the plans for a new chemical weapon. All it would take is for one of the prisoners to escape for millions to die. The prisoners must be killed! (This mission was created by player PCasaca and is currently being playtested).

Laboratory Attack
Marsec Corporation Scientists are developing new defensive weapons including undetectable Laser Trip Wires and Land Mines. Now with their leader Sterner Regnix on the run, the Laser Squad have launched an offensive attack on their laboratory complex. All Scientists and Computers must be destroyed! (This mission was created by player Deadlime and is currently being playtested).

Thanks to both PCasaca and Deadlime for creating new missions. If anyone else would like to create their own mission, the simple instructions on how to do this can be found on the Stellar Forces Wiki.

Stellar Forces: Gameplay Video

2010-05-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Krogot for creating this, though he never told me and I've just stumbled upon it! It's a short gameplay video of Stellar Forces. Just like the real thing, it's a bit dark, but should give a good idea of the gameplay.

Also, there's a new version of the client released today: 1.17.

Stellar Forces: Ahora en Español!

2010-04-30T02:02:00.000-07:00

Hola y gracias por leer esto. Por el poder de Google Translate (y mucho mejor por los mejores jugadores Víctor) Stellar Forces ahora tiene soporte multi-lingual. Por el momento no hay más que español, pero pronto habrá portugués gracias a PCasaca. Ahora estoy tomando las solicitudes de la lengua junto a añadir.

Gracias y buena suerte!

Stellar Forces: What makes a good mission?

2010-04-13T04:05:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this for a while. It's true of this game and of the original Laser Squad that some missions are more enjoyable (or get played more, which may be for slightly different reasons) than others. Here's what I came up with:-

1. A mission where players can use multiple tactics.

Obviously a mission where the players can try all kinds of different tactics is going to get played a lot more than one where the same obvious tactic is the only one to use. A good example of a mission that allows for multiple tactics is The Assassins; the attacker can go through room by room looking for Sterner Regnix; or they can stand outside and blow the building away until Sterner eventually gets caught in an explosion; or they can blow a hole in a side wall and enter the building by an unexpected route. These are just a few ideas off the top of my head.

The "defenders" also have a good range of options; do they sit tight in the middle of the room and pick of their opponents off as they come through the doors; or do they make an audacious bid to leave the building thus making it very hard to be found? And which room is best to hide in?

2. A mission with an interesting map

I'll admit it, I've made a few boring maps in my time that are far too symetrical, but I've learnt from my mistakes! A god example of an interesting map is Moonbase Assault. There are lots of little rooms, lots of big rooms, and lots of long corridors. Each side of the map lends itself to different tactics, and the attacker is left to ponder when is best to reveal their location by destroying the computers. And where does the defender place their men? Do the concentrate them in the centre where all the computers are, or try and defeat the attacker before they get there?

3. A mission with a tight focus

Years ago I hacked the original Laser Squad and added loads more rooms to The Assassin map, thinking it would make a better game. Wrong! All it did was mean one player had to trudge around looking for the enemy, which was no fun. Players want to either get straight into the action, or know that the action is just round the corner ready to be got into. The size of The Assassins map is perfect; not too big and not too small.

The layout of the Moonbase Assault map is also ideal, as both players are heading for the same place and not wandering around looking for each other. I've also kept the randomly-generated maps of the Last Man Standing missions deliberately small so players are only round the corner from each other from the start. And now that there's a 4-player last man standing, it's not long before the bodies start piling up!

Stellar Forces: Ménage à trois!

2010-03-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

The title says it all. Or rather the title says rather more than that, and may be giving the wrong idea about this game.

What I'm trying to say is, Stellar Forces is now taking strategy games into new territory, and has it's first 3-player mission! It's a simple affair that I knocked up to test the concept, but so far so good!

And if this works, who knows what next? I do, and it will be 4-player missions. So there.

Stellar Forces: Spot the Difference?

2010-03-22T05:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's only a small change, but when you're coding procedurally generated the 3D by hand, every little successful change is a victory! And for such a small change, I think it improves the look considerably.

Stellat Forces: Door Tactics

2010-03-12T02:28:00.001-08:00

Doors can a real issue. You just know that right behind it is an enemy unit waiting to stick his laser pistol in your face the moment you step through. But there's no other way to proceed! Or is there?

Here's my list of available options to handling doors with the minimum of death:-

Grenades
This is the obvious option and works very well, but takes a bit of time to set up and also uses up a grenade. Simply drop (or throw if your feeling lucky) a grenade next to the door. Once it goes off, the door will be no more.

Advanced tip: time the grenade to go off at the end of your opponent's turn, so you get to move in straight afterwards.

Needless to say, don't stand too close when the grenade goes off! I like to have a few snipers stood well back ready to pick off any units that become visible.

Super-Heavy Armour
Super heavy armour is pretty much exactly as it sounds - it's very heavy, so it slows a unit down considerably, but it does afford a 40-point protection, meaning they will stand a much better chance when staring down the barrel of a gun. Use a unit wearing S.H.A. to open the door and check for enemy units immediately behind it. Once the coast is clear, let a more agile unit investigate further.

Force of Numbers
Your final option is sheer force of numbers. Line up all your units outside, let the first one take the hit, and then pile in! Usually works eventually, but can lead to lots of death, especially if there are multiple enemy units covering the door with lots of overwatch points!

Stellar Forces: Now with less beta!

2010-03-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

I've finally decided to bump the version number of the client all the way up to 1.01, since it stopped being "beta" weeks ago and is now a fully fledged feature-complete game. This new latest version has the following features:

New equipment: Death Grenades.
A unit's health is shown on the stats bar.
A shot's accuracy is always adjusted by a random fractional amount.
Added 2 more sound effects.
Reduced the potential throwing innaccuracy.
A lot of the weapon and equipment prices have been recalculated.
When deploying, the map shows the enemy's deployment squares as well as your own.

There's also a new mission by the name of "Moonbase Assault 2", which is very similar to Moonbase Assault 1, except that both sides now have a moonbase with computers to be destroyed. This means that delicate strategic decisions need to be made: how many men do you send out to attack the enemy's moonbase, and how many you keep back to defend your own?

Frankly, the biggest problem I had with this mission is trying to think of a contrived storyline as to why two enemy's would build moonbases right next to each other! Any suggestion gratefully accepted.

Stellar Forces: New Client 0.56

2010-02-23T01:12:00.000-08:00

New client 0.56 has just been released with the following features:-

* Implemented the original Laser Squad shooting algorythm (with a few minor tweaks).
* Added Rocket Launchers.
* Added sound effects.

That's right, you can now play The Assassins mission with the classic tactic of blowing the whole building away!

Should I increase the version number to > 1? The Stellar Forces client is still on v0.56 because I started on v0.1 or something, since the first version is usually full of bugs, and then just add 0.01 each time. However, it's been pretty much bug-free and complete for as long as I can remember, so I was wondering if having a version number < 1 was putting people of by making them assume it's unfinished? All I'm doing now is adding snazzy features and more equipment, so the v1 tag would be fully justified.

Stellar Forces: Victor no longer the Victor

2010-02-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

Since Stellar Forces started having a league table, the player named "Victor" has been at the top - until yesterday! He was finally usurped from his position by "1980-20..". Actually, they are both on joint first place, but "1980-20.." is probably first because I put them in alphabetical order if it's a points tie.

Talking about the Stellar Forces website, what the site really needs is some graphics, maybe depicting scenes from various missions. If anyone is able to do this it would be very much appreciated.

Finally, there's a new mission and new client about to be released, but I'll say more about that when it actually happens.

Stellar Forces: Mission Ideas

2010-02-09T04:57:00.000-08:00

I've got quite a few ideas for some more interesting missions in Stellar Forces, but they need a bit of developing. Here's a bit of a brain-dump:-

* One side starts with no weapons, and must avoid the enemy until they can get to a stash on the other side of the map.
* A mission where one unit is an undercover enemy that can be activated by the opposing side at some point.
* A mission where both sides must search for something
* Crash site mission - One side must rescue the survivors of a shuttle crash, who are defenceless and must avoid the enemy until the rescuers can arrive.
* Escort hostage mission: (I think this one could be quite good, but needs some work) One side must escort a hostage to the other side of the map. The hostage is under the control of the opposing player, who also has a team that must rescue the hostage. I just need to find some gameplay device so that the players are co-erced to react just like they would in a real situation. i.e. not sacrifice the hostage.

Stellar Forces Consolidated Update

2010-02-03T05:18:00.000-08:00

Stellar Forces development continues unabated, stopping only to actually take my turn in one of the various games I'm losing in.

Here's all the major tweaks since the last update:-

* Users can now subscribe to forum topics.
* Players can now show their website address in their public page.
* Each game is now automatically given its own sub-forum.
* Added a Miscellaneous Statistics page.
* Now shows the armour details on the armour buying page.
* Armour protection is now reduced if the attack is from the sides or rear.
* There are now small explosions wherever bullets hit a target.
* And last ut not least, a new mission: Rescue from the Mines.

The current "most voted for new feature" is to improve the GUI when equipping units. That is going to be no small task, but I'll get round to it eventually. I promise!

Stellar Forces: New Mission and Game Clarification

2010-01-21T04:08:00.001-08:00

The latest mission to be added to Stellar Forces is The Alien Hordes: a horde of aliens is heading towards the marine's barracks and must be killed; should they make it, then close-combat will ensure the aliens swiftly anihilate the marines.

Also, a clarification about the game: one 'complaint' about Stellar Forces by some potential players is that they are disappointed because it doesn't have an instant turn-around, i.e. take your turn, then your opponent takes their turn immediately afterwards. This is a fair point, but unfortunately not how I designed the game.

To clarify, this game was designed to be played in a relaxed way, like a PBEM. Once you have taken your turn, your opponent is notified by email that it is now their turn. However, they may not take it straight away. Typically, expect to take a turn and then wait a day to take your next turn (of which you will be notified by email). Of course, your opponent might take their turn immediately, but that is up to them, and you can play as many concurrent games as you can handle if you get bored in the meantime!

Stellar Forces Feature Update

2010-01-19T04:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, let's get straight to the point: This is everything that's been added to Stellar Forces since the last blog post!:-

* New version of the client - v0.51
* New equipment: Medi-kits
* Customisable unit names
* Practise games
* Keyboard controls are now fully redefinable
* New mission: 'Escort'
* As well as the usual host of minor bugfixes and tweaks.

That's all folks!

Stellar Forces: Wiki

2010-01-12T03:21:00.000-08:00

Stellar Forces now has a wiki. After a recommendation, I'm using Dokuwiki, and it's seems pretty good and very straight forward.

The wiki has only been around for about a day so it's obviously pretty sparse. However, I'll be moving over all the docs from the website. And of course, anyone with a Stellar Forces login is able to log in and add their own content.

Client Update - 0.47

2010-01-08T05:17:00.000-08:00

I don't normally post a blog entry every time there's a client update to Stellar Forces, as I usually release a new client every few days! However, I thought I'd list all the major improvements that have been added over the last few versions:-

* Walls, computers and doors can now be destroyed by a grenade
* A grenades explosion radius is now used to calculate how far it can destroy walls and computers.
* The keyboard controls can now be redefined
* Improved explosions
* Fixed a few bugs (natch)

Note that these are just the updates purely to the client; the web server (and thus the games engine and framework) has it's own set of improvements recently, including new missions, new league tables etc.. I think I blogged about those a couple of days ago.

Stellar Forces Features Update

2010-01-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

Here's the list of features that I managed to squeeze into Stellar Forces over Xmas:-

* Vote For Feature: Users can now vote for the next major feature that gets added to the game. In the lead at the moment is "Destroyable walls", which is just being tested and will be added in a couple of days.

* Messages between users are now stored so that they can be viewed on the website.

* Two new missions: Defend the base (which is still being tweaked, and was originally in favour of the defenders) and A Tale of Two Moonbases.

* View Mission History: Once a game has been finished, it is now possible to view the locations of all the units as they were at the end of each turn, which makes for very interesting viewing.

That's pretty much it, as well as the usual bugfixes. And we're always looking for more players!

New and Helpful Feature

2009-12-23T05:06:00.000-08:00

I've just added a new feature which improves Stellar Forces further above and beyond the game on which it is based, namely Laser Squad:

One minor flaw with the otherwise excellent Laser Squad was that if one of your units saw an enemy unit during the enemy's turn, you were never informed, which doesn't make for a realistic game at any level.

In Stellar Forces, if one of your units see's an enemy unit during the enemy's turn, it is now shown on the game map.

Coming soon: Another new mission!

Stellar Forces Progress

2009-12-21T01:32:00.000-08:00

I'm quite please with the way Stellar Forces is turning out, considering I only started programming it about 2 months ago. There are currently 14 games being played, and new logins being created all the time, and I've had some great games against some challenging opponents. There's been a few minor teething troubles like imbalanced missions and the odd bug, but as of now I can say that the game is great fun.

Unfortunately, as to be expected, there are a few people who have created logins and started a game but then obviously decided it's not for them. It's understandable since there's no way of knowing what a game is like without playing it, but it's a shame from their opponents point of view and I hope it doesn't put them off!

Stellar Forces: Out of Alpha

2009-12-15T01:03:00.000-08:00

Stellar Forces is now out of alpha! I've been tweaking the client and uploading a new version every couple of days for the last few weeks. I think I've now ironed out all the major bugs and even added a few more missions. The latest version is now 0.4.

The next stage is to make the game more accessible; unfortunately, it's very hard as the programmer, when you know a game inside out, to see how it might look to fresh eyes who have never seen it before. Will new users know where to go and what to click on? Does it make them want to play it? Until I work that out, I'm going to add a quickstart page.

New Mission: Moonbase Assault

2009-12-11T01:14:00.000-08:00

[Read in a Geordie accent] Day 34, and the housemates in the moonbase are still managing to hold off the onslaught of the Laser Squad, who are intent on destroying the moonbase computers and save the free world. Corporal Jonlan has managed to elimite two members of the Marsec Corporation, but he has been wounded by the primed grenade hidden in one of the dead bodies. Who will win? You decide!

But seriously, the newest mission in Stellar Forces is Moonbase Assault: the Laser Squad must attempt to destroy a certain number of computers located around the moonbase, whilst the Marsec Corporation must defend the moonbase either by killing the Laser Squad or at least holding out until re-inforcements arrive. Each side has 8 units, and the key to winning this is stealth.

Randomly generated maps - a bad idea or a terrible idea?

2009-12-09T05:31:00.000-08:00

For a couple of the missions in Stellar Forces, I thought it would be interesting to have randomly-generated maps, since it will mean an infinite variety of layouts and thus increase the replayability.

However, I've come to the some-may-say obvious conclusion that randomly generated maps aren't always a good idea, especially for missions that have important "hot-spots" (my term for some aspect of the map that plays a critical role in the mission). A randomly (or "procedurally") generated map is probably okay for a straight firefight mission, but there are at least two reasons why they are not the best idea for anything else:-

1) The random layout may give one side an unfair advatage; I'm currently playing the mission Escape, where my side has to get to the escape chute. As luck would have it, the escape chute was "randomly" placed in the next adjacent room from where my units started! Some may say that this is a flaw in my algorythm, and they would be right.

2) The other problem is that nothing can replace a hand-crafted custom designed levels, with all it's subtle nuances that are probably only noticed after using it to play several games. Years ago, I hacked the original Laser Squad, and messed about with the maps, in particular making Sterner's moonbase a lot bigger. Unfortunately, this had the effect of making finding him especially hard! This showed me that not just the layout, but even just the size of the map is critical.

So I'm going to produce customized maps for all but one of the missions (that one being the straight firefight). Unless anyone else wants to have a go?

Stellar Forces: Now has a proper domain name

2009-12-07T01:33:00.000-08:00

Stellar Forces now has a proper domain name: www.stellarforces.com!

Hopefully this will give it the credibility to be taken seriously as a game that is here to stay. It's always looking for more players, so if you want to play a turn-based strategy game where you can take your turn at your own convenience, please give it a go!

Stellar Forces: Units now have heads

2009-12-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

The development of Stellar Forces is a process of constant improvement, and it's hopefully a testament to the other important new features that have been added that only now have the units been given heads.

I considered it a low priority since it didn't affect the gameplay whatsoever, but it must be said that it has improved the look of the game considerably. Next on my list is adding some more scenery so the levels aren't quite so barren.

New Mission: Breakout

2009-12-02T05:07:00.000-08:00

A new mission by the name of Breakout has been added to Stellar Forces. The mission premise is simple: one side must escape from the complex within the time limit, whilst the other side must prevent them with a dose of death laser fire.

The complex itself is quite large with more corridors than the players have units, so it's a bit of a game of hide and seek and is ripe for various tactics. However, this being a new mission, it's probably going to get tweaked over time.

Note that you will need a client of at least version 0.36 to play this mission.

New Client - 0.36

2009-12-01T02:31:00.000-08:00

It fixes a few small bugs and adds a few tweaks (like makes the units slightly more accurate at shooting) but the main difference is music! Thankfully, there is a mute button though for when it eventually starts to grate.

League Table

2009-11-30T04:11:00.000-08:00

There is now a League Table, so you can see how well you are doing compared to the other players!

New Version and New Forums!

2009-11-27T01:50:00.000-08:00

A new version of the Stellar Forces client has been uploaded, and I can also announce that we have some new forums, linked into the Stellar Forces website (so users don't need to log into a seperate website to be able to chat).

I've added forums before to my website, and it's usually only a matter of time before they get spammed and so I have to add a captcha or something. However, until that happens, it's pretty open (to people who have a login to the website).

Looking for Playtesters

2009-11-25T08:48:00.000-08:00

I'm looking for playtesters for the game Stellar Forces. It's completely free, and based on Laser Squad and X-Com (without the resource management sections). If you liked those kinds of games, then why not give it a go? Any and all constructive criticism is welcome, and if you have any good ideas for it, you can have them put in!

Seeing through doors

2009-11-23T07:24:00.000-08:00

I vagually remember reading something on the internet about rounding errors causing problems with 3D games. I wish I'd concentrated on it more when I read because I think it could have been useful in solving a problem I had.

I discovered that it is possible for a unit to see an enemy through a closed door if they (and the enemy) were positioned just right (slightly off-centre in this case). After a lot of investigation and messing about, I found that it was indeed some kind of rounding problem: the width of the two halves of the sliding doors don't quite equal the full width of the doorway, meaning there is a gap (of probably 0.0000001 units or something ridiculous!). However, computers being computers, that's probably a big enough gap to allow a "ray" through.

Still, it's fixed now, and I'll be uploading a new version soon. The big question is "do I force everyone to upgrade since they'll effectively be able to cheat with their current client?".

New Stellar Forces Client

2009-11-20T01:02:00.000-08:00

A new version of the Stellar Forces client has been uploaded: version 0.32 alpha. There are only a few minor visible changes in this version: the password input is now masked, the lights are a bit brighter, and the currently-selected unit is highlighted, among other tweaks.

The main change is in the background code - the client is now more accomodating if the server sends any extra data. This is so that if the format of the data send to the client is changed (which is expected and understood by newer versions of the client) then those still using the older versions won't have any problems (although the data will be ignored, which could be interesting).

[Send Reminder]

2009-11-18T00:46:00.000-08:00

There's a new feature on the Stellar Forces web control panel - "Send Reminder". There are a few games being played that are waiting for opponents to take their turn, so I thought it might be a good idea to allow reminders to be sent, otherwise a game will grind to a halt.

Stellar Forces Update

2009-11-16T06:32:00.000-08:00

So far the Stellar Forces website has been live for about 4 days, and things are a bit quieter than I had hoped, though a couple of games have just about started.

I originally didn't want too many people to join, since if any major problems were found, it would have meant them all re-starting their games or something. However, I forgot what a problem it is trying to entice players to play something new, so maybe I should have given it more publicity.

This is something I intend to correct very soon. This time I'm going to concentrate on mentioning it on sites that have a specific link (not in the href style) to Laser Squad/X-Com-style games, rather than just pure gaming sites.

Welcome to the Stellar Forces Blog

2009-11-16T00:43:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the new Stellar Forces blog. Here I'll be talking about my new game Stellar Forces, which uses Laser Squad/X-Com game mechanics and a modern lobbying system to connect players who can play across the internet at their convenience.