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Open Rock Raiders Delta


bartvbl

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A few weeks back, me and Ramius were discussing a bit our thoughts on open rock raiders. We didn't completely agree to addict's planned changes (for example: adding single tile thick walls), and started looking into it ourselves. Our vision is to recreate the old game, with its original gameplay structures, yet adding new features that improve the gameplay. I have made a small overview of our thoughts further down the post.

We have decided to use python to program the game, mainly due to its flexibility while still having enough performance to run a game with the size of open rock raiders. Naturally, since we are going for a recreation of the game, the whole thing will be done in 3D using openGL. At the moment, the status of the project is that I have been reading into openGL and am going to port the code I wrote in ActionScript to python in combination with openGL, while Ramius is working on the menus, which is mainly 2D related.

I could imagine that anyone who has contributed to the "editions" of open rock raiders currently available might be annoyed by this. It is yet another open rock raiders project; starting completely from scratch. While the projects currently around have focused on 2D, I believe that it is better to make a fresh start, and keep 3D in mind from the start. Naturally, this project is completely open-source, and due to the high portability of openGL, hopefully the other projects around can also profit from it. We also named the project (at least for now) "Open Rock Raiders Delta". This is to avoid any confusion with the other projects currently around.

We had a few discussions today on various tweaks that we will be making to the original game. I have compiled them into a small overview:

  • "before a power path can be built in the original game, the rock raiders must bring 2 pieces of ore to the building tile, before they can convert it into a power path, no matter if there is already ore present on the tile. Should the rock raiders be able to make a power path out of a tile that has already ore on it, without having to transport 2 pieces of ore to it?"

    We think there is no reason not to let the rock raiders use the resources that are already on the building tile.


  • "health bars of rock raiders do not refill in the game. Once they loose life it iwll not return. Should eating a sandwhich heal a rock raider?"

    Yes, but only in very small amounts. We thought that adding a separate building that can heal rock raiders (perhaps a 1x1 tile that contains a first aid post) can do complete healing, yet this will require rock raiders to come back all the way to the base.


  • "Should tranporting vehicles be able to transport more than one type of good at the same time? In the original game, transporting vehicles can either carry ore or chrystals in one go"

    Yes. There is no reason why the small transport vehicle would not be able to carry more than one resource type in one go. However, the priority settings should be obeyed; if there are many different kinds of resources in the vicinity of the vehicle, it should collect the resource that has the highest rank in the priorities panel.


  • "What do we make of the bats and spiders? In the game, the only thing that they really do is being plainly annoying"

    Bats and spiders are, annoying as they are, a part of the rock raiders game. Bats could be made vulnerable to electric fences or will at least try to stay away from them.


  • "Should large vehicles be able to transport goods, or should we create an additional "large transport" vehicle? If so, should they be able to carry more than a small transport vehicle?"

    Yes. Large vehicles should be able to carry goods. However, small transport vehicles should be able to transport goods faster. The payoff of using the large vehicles to transport goods is that even though they are a lot slower, they can defend themselves against incoming enemies with their lasers, and have more health compared to the small vehicles. The small vehicles can then transport more resources in a shorter period of time.


  • "Should we add bridges/floating power paths?"

    Yes. But the bridges will only work for rock raiders and small vehicles, but do not work as power paths. This is to avoid that power is transferred to a remote location, where the player can continue to expand the base powered by the power station somewhere else. To ensure that bridges are not used to complete a mission too easily, bridges should only be limited to 2 or 3 tiles in length, and are very expensive to build, so that they form a serious cost consideration for the player.


  • "Should it be possible to drill walls that face water? In the original game no vehicle can do that."

    Yes, this would be something possible to implement in some vehicle, but it is not something that will be in our main focus.


  • "should the small digger be able to transport goods?"

    Yes, but it should only be limited to 1 item, and not be upgradable; the prupose of the small digger is to digg, not to transport.


  • "Should dynamite destroy anything around it? This would include rock raiders, buildings, power paths, but as well rock monsters, slugs, and other enemies"

    In the real world, anything gets damaged from dynamite, so why should it not ingame?


  • "In LRR, rock raiders carry their skills over to a new mission; rock raiders that you trained in mission A will have the same skill again in mission B. Should this also be the case in ORR, or should each rock raider have a randomised set of skills?"

    Rock raiders should carry over their skills from one mission to another. In the story of the game, rock raiders return to the space ship when they are done with a mission. It would be logical that when they start on another mission, they carry over their skills to that mission. It would also make the medical facility a lot more important, because you don't want to have your experienced rock raiders killed.


  • "In the original game files appeared a special command for a rock raider named "analyse this tile", for geologists. Could this be implemented in ORR, and if yes, what will it show?"

    Yes, this could be implemented into ORR. It could show all the minerals that are around the target tile selected by the player. This would make the profession of geologist a lot more useful ingame, as you can pinpoint the exact locations of certain minerals.


  • "When a source is taken down together with another wall, the additional goods it contains are not awarded"

    Drilling a seam generally takes a good amount of time. This effort is rewarded with additional resources. If the player chooses to drill the wall the quick way, like taking it down in combination with other walls, he does not invest that time and is therefore not awarded the additional resources.


Of course, help is very much appreciated. If you want to contribute, let us know!

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GAH. IDEA.

You could have some kind of Raider Management menu, where you can see all your raiders and sort them by skill or level or current task and mark them priority teleport next level and stuff.

If you wouldn't mind, could you pass this on to addict and mouse?

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