Thank You

[Shadders]

Hello Everyone,

I’ve already made my first post and am delighted to find a game forum that’s so genteel and filled with people who genuinely want to help.

This is the first Evochron game I have purchased and I’m glad I did, my initial hours of game play have been very rewarding.

My general questions revolve around the map system:

1. Is it possible to find out more info about a system you want to fly to without entering the system? For instance, I’m in Sapphire, and want to know about Olympus, what can I find out about Olympus before I jump there?
2. I’m a bit confused about the scope of the (F1) navigation map. So far there are two modes, the system map that shows planets and stations and the map that shows the different systems, EG Perl and Sol. Are these all of the known systems or is there another, bigger level of zoom?

Next, a couple of questions for Vice:

It’s amazing that you seem to have crammed so much into a 150Mb install, I’m assuming that you must have used some procedural generation in order to do it. The initial load time of EL, along with the comments during load make me think this is the case. This kind of approach to programming has always fascinated me. Since the original Elite game was coded on a 32K BBC model B and had something like 256 systems in 8 galaxies. I think they could have made more but were discouraged by the publishers.

Since then, procedural generation seems to have almost died out as a way of producing game content. The only new thing I see is a MMO game in production called Infinity.

So my questions are:

Do you use a procedural technique?

If so, what parts of EL do you use it on?

Do you have anything like a developer blog?

Thanks in advance to everyone taking the time to post,

Shadders.

[Vice]

Glad you're enjoying the game. Answers below.

1 - Most information about a system is designed to be presented to you when you travel there, kind of an exploration requirement, revealing details about an area only if you travel there yourself or hear about it from others. Obviously, once you've been there, you'll get a lot of information about a system, but getting there is part of the challenge and the information is a reward for putting the effort into travelling there. That said, you can get some basic information about a system, such as the status of its economy and territorial borders, by using the optional map modes.

2 - What you see on the quadrant map are the charted systems of the Evochron quadrant. Each solar system can consist of several planets. Beyond that, there are many uncharted systems you don't see that can be discovered through exploration.

Do you use a procedural technique?

In several ways, yes, or at least similar concepts. Some media/content is created in code, built in memory, rather than being loaded strictly from disk.

If so, what parts of EL do you use it on?

Most of the cockpit is created in code, several texture details, some special effects, planetary mesh/terrain details, etc, etc.

Do you have anything like a developer blog?

Nope, wouldn't have much time to update it anyway. I spend much of my time working on the game, handling e-mail/tech support, and other things.

[Edited on 3-17-2009 by Vice]

[berighteous]

... and blowing away reds online...

[Shadders]

Thanks for the info Vice,

And wow for responding in 12 minutes!

Best regards,

Shadders.