Nobody's Planet - A Space and Planetary Survival game - In Development

[Exclipse]

Stars End

http://www.starsendonline.com/

...More info coming shortly...

Introduction:

Nobody's Planet is a space age survival game that focuses on vehicle and base building, combined with resource mining. It is an open world, multiplayer game designed to allow players to make it on their own, assisted by their inventions or by teaming up with other friendly players. Keep in mind that while Nobody's Planet can be related to reality, it is not intended to be realistic. So, things like laser blasters and photon cannons can be expected.

Features:

-Spherical Worlds where players can set up bases and mine resources. There is no transition between flying from space to a planet's surface, and a planet can be circumnavigated with a vehicle on its surface or by orbiting in space.

-Resource Management where players find resource rich areas and set up mining operations. These areas can be anything from liquid oceans to gas rich atmospheres or simply deposits on the planets surface. Once a player has gained the ability to travel into orbit, they will find asteroids to mine as well and gas giants to scoop resources from.

-Vehicle Building plays a huge part in the game. Players can fabricate parts from resources mined and then combine those parts to build spaceships, aircraft, or ground vehicles, such as rovers or even tanks. Vehicles use a centralized physics system, so you do not have to be a genius to build something that will fly, but it can certainly help when designing a specialized vehicle meant for more than moving from point A to point B. This also allows players to build asymmetrical vehicles without much trouble.

-Vehicle Systems can be simple or complex and this is where being a genius player can help. Vehicles have many systems to play with and, depending on how effectively they are used, they can greatly enhance a player's chance of staying alive.

-Base Construction is essential for survival and accessing many of the features in the game. While most things do not require a large base, several things are required to allow a player to build vehicles, turn resources into parts, and create life support. A base can be as simple as a platform with a fabricating device or as large and complex as walled and shielded operations centers with manned and unmanned turrets or even a launch facility for putting stations in orbit.

-Multiplayer is the focus for the game and we do not expect many people to play the game on their own. Forming groups and competing with other players (or groups) for resources, and even entire planets, is expected and encouraged. A system of creating an organization and adding and removing players is a necessary feature.

Storyline:

While this is not a story driven game, it is still good to provide a back story for why a bunch of space explorers have ended up stranded from society and on a foreign, unexplored planet.

A more extensive back story is being written, but currently the basics are as follows:

You were a member of a massive expedition to explore a possible first contact with intelligent alien life. Upon arrival in the sector your star ship was lost. Whether this was caused by a lengthy space warp, some natural cause, or an encounter with a hostile force is unknown. You awaken in your escape pod and must direct your drop pod to the surface of a nearby planetary surface. How many members of the expedition made it to the escape pods like you is unknown and, on a star ship as massive as your's was, it is unlikely you will have ever met them before. You can only hope they will be friendly.

Once you land, your pod deploys basic utilities for you to use, a part fabricator, a few weapons, and a material analyzer. The rest is your story.

More information here

Twitter

Forum

If you like the direction of this project, please up-vote it on steam concepts http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=304286077.

While being skilled and experienced is valued, we are more intent on finding individuals who are dedicated and interested in the project.

Contact: [email protected]

The following two images show how ships looked in the old building system using blocks.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Exclipse

[mike9606]

Looks interesting, are you a developer or just a person letting people here know about it? If you are the developer, will it be more survival or PVP oriented? My problem with multiplayer games with weapons is that there are always those people that kill on sight and/or make a giant OP ship/vehicle and just camp at the spawn and kill people even though there is no reward for it.

[Exclipse]

I am the developer, so feel free to ask any questions you might have.

To be fair the game will be what people make out of it, however server hosts will have the tools to put restrictions on their servers, so if they want to limit pvp, or weapons than that will be up to them.

If a host wanted a co-op only server this would be possible, and there will be npc's players can team up against.

As far as camping a spawn... well that would be quite an impressive feat in this game, as you spawn in space, at a random location around a planet. So pretty hard to predict where to camp.

[mike9606]

I am the developer, so feel free to ask any questions you might have.

To be fair the game will be what people make out of it, however server hosts will have the tools to put restrictions on their servers, so if they want to limit pvp, or weapons than that will be up to them.

If a host wanted a co-op only server this would be possible, and there will be npc's players can team up against.

As far as camping a spawn... well that would be quite an impressive feat in this game, as you spawn in space, at a random location around a planet. So pretty hard to predict where to camp.

Ok, good to know there will be options for restricting weapons, and that spawn-camping is essentially impossible. I'm looking forward to be able to play this! Also, when it gets properly released will it be free or cost money?

Edited August 30, 2014 by mike9606

[ZedNova]

Gimme. Now.

[comham]

Might be cool. I like the small planet.

Edited August 30, 2014 by comham

[vger]

Wow, reminds me of when I first got my hands on a really primitive 3D modeller and started recreating my original Lego designs in CGI so I could see them fly around in space.

I am SO playing this.

And sorry, but a random gripe: is that all-black&white logo the permanent one for the game? I feel that it greatly undersells what the product is capable of. It reminds me far too much of many of the minimalist 2D indie games that are popular right now. Most notably it makes me think of "Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet," and I think a lot of other players will get the same first impression.

Edited August 30, 2014 by vger

[Space_Kraken]

*Initializing hype-starship*I'm going to be watching this thread for a long time. On other note, the planet seems a bit small, any reasons. Lastly, will there be a kickstarter? Because if so, I would give you my monies.

[Exclipse]

Ok, good to know there will be options for restricting weapons, and that spawn-camping is essentially impossible. I'm looking forward to be able to play this! Also, when it gets properly released will it be free or cost money?

At some point when the game is much more of a finished product it will cost a normal indie game price. But initially it will be free or very very cheap, and as features are added the price will go up slightly. This rewards people who support the game early.

Gimme. Now.

I wish I could.

Wow, reminds me of when I first got my hands on a really primitive 3D modeller and started recreating my original Lego designs in CGI so I could see them fly around in space.

I am SO playing this.

And sorry, but a random gripe: is that all-black&white logo the permanent one for the game? I feel that it greatly undersells what the product is capable of. It reminds me far too much of many of the minimalist 2D indie games that are popular right now. Most notably it makes me think of "Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet," and I think a lot of other players will get the same first impression.

Glad you like the look of what I have done so far.

The logo is certainly not permanent, I made it hastily when I needed it for a post. It will be replaced when I have time to sit down and properly redesign it.

*Initializing hype-starship*I'm going to be watching this thread for a long time. On other note, the planet seems a bit small, any reasons. Lastly, will there be a kickstarter? Because if so, I would give you my monies.

Glad it's watch worthy! The planets certainly are small...ish. In fact, compared to real life planets... they are tiny, compared to Kerbal Space Program Planets... they are small.

The larger terrestrial planets are actually around 18km in diameter, this gives 1017 square km of surface area to play on, This is larger than many MMO worlds. Now consider that there will be multiple planetoids in close proximity, so you really have a lot of surface area to play on.

So a very large part of designing this game has been determining how big we could make planets before it was a problem.

One problem that could arise would be not enough player encounters. The game is primarily a multiplayer experience, and if you go hours without seeing another player than it makes it pretty dull.

We have considered a kickstarter, but to be honest at this stage there is little purpose. Any kickstarter we did would not be able to raise enough to pay developers wages, so can't use it for that. We are developing with Unity3D, currently using the free version, so getting Pro could be good, but that is only around 1500, which is well under what a kickstarter could provide. It is also an amount that if I thought we really needed it I could fork up the cash for it myself.

There really are not any other software purchase needs, so basically a kickstarter either would not provide enough funding, or it would provide too much.

Finally, this games development is a work of passion, and the individuals working on it do so because they really want to see the project come to life, not because they are looking for a paycheck.

Perhaps down the road a bit, a kickstarter will be something we look into, but not in the near future.

Oh! Almost forgot! Enjoy a GIF

Edited September 1, 2014 by Exclipse

[ac30fspad35]

so basically kerbal space program...with survival and lazors.....im game.

[Tery215]

Judging on your kickstarter's lack of success:

There can be only one! ... space game! ... in this decade...

Still, there are so many hybrids.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Tery215

[Exclipse]

Judging on your kickstarter's lack of success:

There can be only one! ... space game! ... in this decade...

Still, there are so many hybrids.

We did not have a kickstarter... And do not plan to.

[KooperIO]

One Question Sir...

HUGE FLEET BATTLES?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

If so i would spend 200000000 dollars for a kickstarter!!!!!!

Lol, can't wait especially if free hopefully you'll keep graphics to a low most new games in alpha over-intesify their graphics take space engineers for example, I'd love to play your game that is if i'll be able to run it on fast speeds on lowest lol.

[SpaceXray]

I am definitely buying this!

[Exclipse]

One Question Sir...

HUGE FLEET BATTLES?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

If so i would spend 200000000 dollars for a kickstarter!!!!!!

Lol, can't wait especially if free hopefully you'll keep graphics to a low most new games in alpha over-intesify their graphics take space engineers for example, I'd love to play your game that is if i'll be able to run it on fast speeds on lowest lol.

To be honest we do not yet know how large battles will handle. Performance wise I expect larger battles to be 20 persons maybe a maximum of 40. Server hosts will probably want to have their servers cap at 40 players.

Graphics will be nice clean and simple, however this is a very physics intensive game, so I cannot say it will run super fast on an ancient system.

A great thing about our graphics style is that it does not require us to put a big effort into creating hyper realistic stuff. So we can focus more on performance and making things run smooth.

We will be letting people try a prototype soon(basically just waiting on Unity3D to release V4.6) so people will be able to check the game out and see how it runs on their computers and everything.

[gooddog15]

would players be able to trade & build spacestations?

[Greenfire32]

I absolutely love the look of this.

Thread=subscribed

[Franklin]

As an [obvious] KSP fan the game clearly draws a lot of design influence from it, so I'm interested, but I really hope the game weighs more heavily on the trials and tribulations of design nuance, rather than resource grinding and repetitive battle.

So many of these kinds of games focus on quick-building, easy-piloting building elements to try and rush you into the meat of the game which is invariably combat that, once you've got a few hours under your belt, starts feeling repetitive (*cough* Robocraft). That or the game goes too far into the recipe grinding and micro-details of design and resource collecting, and has you spending hours looking at rockfaces watching stack counts tick up, or spending hours mulling over where every rivet should go (*cough* Space Engineers). Both of these extremes (too much focus on combat, too much focus on build recipes) get dull quick, and leave something to be desired. Which of course is where KSP excels, possibly because it has neither. It's just pure trial & error design.

Obviously that isn't the entire focus of your game, clearly it design, exploration, recipe and combat oriented, I'd just caution focusing too heavily on slapdash combat by making design and piloting too easy, or pushing resource/recipe grinding (as if that's the interesting part of designing things).

[Exclipse]

would players be able to trade & build spacestations?

-We do not plan to have a "trade system" built in. Will you be able to give stuff to players and them give you stuff back? Yes. It is just not some sort of secure trade interface like you might see in an MMO or something.

-Space Stations, absolutely. This will mainly be done by launching a station core into orbit, and then sending up supplies to build with in orbit. Stations in orbit work differently then piloted ships in orbit. Piloted ships and any other floating junk orbits freely with physics. Players however can put their station on "soft rails" which is a system that keeps a station on a fixed orbit so long as nothing messes with it. Imagine if the ISS had a very fancy autopilot system that would fire thrusters to keep that station on a very specific orbit. So long as it has the fuel, does not receive damage to the systems that keep it on track, or does not get pushed off its orbit, then it will stay there. This system can also be used to keep stations in orbit at less than orbital velocities, it will use a lot more fuel, but is possible.

I absolutely love the look of this.

Thread=subscribed

Glad to hear you like it!

As an [obvious] KSP fan the game clearly draws a lot of design influence from it, so I'm interested, but I really hope the game weighs more heavily on the trials and tribulations of design nuance, rather than resource grinding and repetitive battle.

So many of these kinds of games focus on quick-building, easy-piloting building elements to try and rush you into the meat of the game which is invariably combat that, once you've got a few hours under your belt, starts feeling repetitive (*cough* Robocraft). That or the game goes too far into the recipe grinding and micro-details of design and resource collecting, and has you spending hours looking at rockfaces watching stack counts tick up, or spending hours mulling over where every rivet should go (*cough* Space Engineers). Both of these extremes (too much focus on combat, too much focus on build recipes) get dull quick, and leave something to be desired. Which of course is where KSP excels, possibly because it has neither. It's just pure trial & error design.

Obviously that isn't the entire focus of your game, clearly it design, exploration, recipe and combat oriented, I'd just caution focusing too heavily on slapdash combat by making design and piloting too easy, or pushing resource/recipe grinding (as if that's the interesting part of designing things).

I understand your point of view, as I have had a lot of the same views and frustrations in my gaming experiences, and that is part of why I am taking the route with development that I am.

We do not actually plan to add mining where you go around whacking rocks with a shovel/pick/rock/fist. Firstly... its just not that fun, and secondly it did not really fit the very futuristic theme we have going.

To mine you set up mining rigs, these are automated, and the resources are collected and stored for the player. To give you an idea, our land mining rig looks a lot like the thumpers from half life 2 http://images.wikia.com/half-life/en/images/archive/1/17/20081220210728!Thumper_Coast.jpg

There are two other types of rigs, one for gasses and one for liquids.

The actual building is a relatively quick process, you pick your part, point where you want it, click, and an additive laser zaps the spot and your part quickly materializes.

The design process is more in depth, there are a pile of ship systems a designer must pay attention to, in order create a really top of the line ship. Does this mean you have to be a really good designer to make something that flies, absolutely not. You can throw down a cockpit, a fuel tank, a couple wings, and an engine and probably make it into the air.

There are so many things I wish I could talk about here in terms of features, but cannot because it needs to be released on the appropriate timeline/channels. So for now that's all I will say. *mutters something about being able to completely design everything about rockets and missiles and other weapon systems.

[Exclipse]

So my computer caught on fire while working last night. So core development is going to be slowed down until that is resolved.

[problemecium]

It sure looks enticing so far, but it does still have that "Made in Unity" look about it. I presume you'll be hiring some asset and GUI artists eventually. But I wish you luck! I like the idea of it, it's kind of like how I imagine the early vision of KSP could have been if made into a multiplayer version.

[Franklin]

To mine you set up mining rigs, these are automated, and the resources are collected and stored for the player. To give you an idea, our land mining rig looks a lot like the thumpers from half life 2 http://images.wikia.com/half-life/en/images/archive/1/17/20081220210728!Thumper_Coast.jpg

There are two other types of rigs, one for gasses and one for liquids.

The actual building is a relatively quick process, you pick your part, point where you want it, click, and an additive laser zaps the spot and your part quickly materializes.

The design process is more in depth, there are a pile of ship systems a designer must pay attention to, in order create a really top of the line ship. Does this mean you have to be a really good designer to make something that flies, absolutely not. You can throw down a cockpit, a fuel tank, a couple wings, and an engine and probably make it into the air.

Glad to hear you understand the issue with resource/recipe grinding, that's promising. I like the idea of miners that are more or less automated. I'd love to have more involvement in its erection (heh) than a laser pointer but you're the designer who am I to niggle.

Essentially, if you've got realistic gravity physics, fuels, not-too-easy piloting and cuts out the pitfalls of resource grinding I think the game will do well in its own niche.

[mike9606]

So my computer caught on fire while working last night. So core development is going to be slowed down until that is resolved.

Why must the universe conspire against most good things? Seriously though, it sucks that your computer caught fire. I hope you can get it fixed/replaced without issues.

[Exclipse]

Why must the universe conspire against most good things? Seriously though, it sucks that your computer caught fire. I hope you can get it fixed/replaced without issues.

Ordered a new motherboard, and power supply. Should fix it, the motherboard was the problem, something shorted out on it, and the whole thing had flash burns, replacing the PSU because the main power cord had burns as well, and I just don't trust there to not be issues with it.

[ZedNova]

So my computer caught on fire while working last night. So core development is going to be slowed down until that is resolved.

Wow, seriously? That's gotta suck.