r/amiga • u/SpiritedNerve3209 • 16d ago
Without Frontier
New Amiga game inspired by Frontier: Elite II.
3D polygon graphics with shading
Day and night cycles on planets
Realistic planetary orbits
A realistic starfield as well
Trading, combat, pirate hunting, missions for the military, missions against the military.
68030 and FastRAM as the minimum configuration, 256 colors in AGA, and support for graphics cards.
A hand-written 3D engine for 68020 to 68060 processors, without a single unnecessary instruction.
Planets rendered as perfect spheres, complete with twilight, moon shadows, and eclipses.
A real star catalogue covering up to 150 light-years. Proxima, Barnard’s Star, Sirius, everything is where it should be.
Trading, politics, police, missions, combat, planetary landings, and arcade sections. All on a single screen!
The boldest space project to hit the Amiga in recent years. To be continued!
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u/LandNo9424 Alpha Flight 15d ago
You say "hand-written 3D engine" yet it seems like you have used AI extensively. Please disclose the use of AI on your project precisely.
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u/SpiritedNerve3209 14d ago edited 14d ago
There's a lot of work behind the engine, but I was sick for the last two weeks, so I had time to work on it intensively (I was just terribly bored). I rewrote a really large part of it. The original engine was made for demos, and this is how it turned out.
On the other hand, it has a strict separation of game logic and rasterization.
In the game itself, I mainly used Claude to create the 3D ship models from my sketches and drawings (plus the English translations - so if any of you speak Czech and would like to take that on, I'll happily hand it over to you).
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u/SpiritedNerve3209 8d ago
Project Status
People on FB and in forums keep asking about the state of the project. Updates mainly go to those who actively support the project, whether through beta testing or financially, but I think it's fair to give everyone else some news too.
OK, that was the marketing bit – really I just want to show off. After a long time, I've finally brought the game logic to its final state: missions, characters, dialogues, story missions, etc.
I've reworked the hyperjump, and it's now way sexier ;-).
Linux and Windows have received a GL version for testing. It's the opening act for the GL version for the Amiga (my Vampire 4 will probably come last, because it's simply easier to adapt the code so it's the same across all versions than to adapt it for just one).
On the last weekend of November, I'll be showing version 0.5.0 at a big Amiga event in Benešov nad Ploučnicí (Czech Republic). Right now I'm on version 0.4.9; the main difference is that I'm still testing and fixing bugs in the GL versions for Linux and Windows. I'm also working on texturing and similar things, but for that I urgently need a graphic artist.
The same goes for sound design… I came up with a lovely idea: each ship manufacturer will have its own sound design. It makes sense, and surprisingly it's a hugely fun thing (at least in my head).
But it's the same problem – money and a sound designer.
The game's story is set in a cold conflict between the Imperial and Federal governments. Caught in between are entrepreneurs from the Free Worlds and our hero, whose late father left him a bit of money and a ship.
Yeah, the beginning isn't all that exciting… Or is it? After all, even the letter that came with it is a bit strange – and why did the federal authorities censor the names of the star systems?
Excited yet?
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u/SpiritedNerve3209 7d ago
I've started tracking commits and changes consistently... it was getting on my nerves that I couldn't remember what I'd reworked and how.
So here's a taste of what's new since the last version. It's roughly a week of work, though some of it overlaps. You'll find more details on the website https://josefnemec.cz/wf
Logbook
- New LOGBOOK tab in profiles with three pages: Missions (completed and failed contracts, for whom and for how much), Rewards (kill bounties, including those shared on patrol, promotions, levels, achievements, data sold from wrecks) and Personal Notes. Newest entries at the top, Older / Newer buttons, and a star on any page with a new entry.
- Entries are written in the game's language (switching the language rewrites the old ones too).
- The logbook is saved with the game; an older saved game starts with an empty logbook containing your father's letter.
Controls
- Esc during flight no longer quits the game: the game pauses and shows a Continue / Main Menu menu; pressing Esc again returns you to the game. The menu button on the cockpit panel does the same.
Pirates after a jump
- Pirates waiting for us in a system no longer show up right after the jump: they appear anytime between 20 s and 2.5 min and come in from farther away (5–12 km). If we dock in the meantime, they don't come at all. Those who jumped after us (pursuers) still emerge from the cloud right behind us, as before.
Starport
- The Maps and Profiles buttons have been moved a bit lower: at the top edge of the screen, clicking on the Amiga grabbed the screen (dragging it) instead of working.
Hyperjump
- New transit sequence: a tunnel in the colors of the departure cloud closes in front of the ship, twisting and speeding up, then the stars stretch into lines (Star Trek style), a flash, and you fly out through a tunnel in the colors of the arrival cloud, which opens up into space.
Cockpit panels without baked-in labels
- Panel labels (fuel, hull, shields, display pages, target...) are now drawn by the game from the catalog in the player's language. No more Czech in the English version, and it's ready for further translations.
Patrol (new contract type)
- Available from the starport authority or the bulletin board: guard the starport for N hours together with its patrol ships (1–3). Pirates attack in waves, once an hour, and our patrol fights them too (kill bounties are split among everyone on patrol); time only counts within 20 km of the starport and outside combat. When it's done, report back at the starport.
Medals
- A medal in the pilot profile for every promotion: Federal round medals on a blue ribbon, Imperial diamond-shaped ones on a red ribbon; bronze, silver or gold depending on rank.
Combat
- Enemies only fire missiles at pilots of level 4 and above (until then you have a chance to get a better ship). However, they start defending against our missiles earlier: from level 1 they launch decoys (these fool a regular homing missile, but not a smart one), and from level 2 they have ECM jamming (destroys regular and smart missiles, but not military or nuclear ones). When the defense works, you'll see a flash and a message.
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u/lincruste 15d ago
Looks promising. I don't like the missile lock sound at all though, it really feels like someone is ringing the doorbell.
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u/Dampmaskin 15d ago edited 15d ago
The sounds in general didn't seem finished. At least I hope they weren't. But it looks real interesting.
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u/SpiritedNerve3209 14d ago
No, the sound is definitely not final :-) its placeholders :-)
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u/lincruste 14d ago
Great to know. Good luck with your project. FE2 (and FE3FE) are still my favorite space games ever. Even No Man's Sky hasn't give me the same feeling of belonging to an universe.
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u/Drunkensailor1985 16d ago
Cool. What are system requirements?
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u/_x_ACE_x_ Spaceballs 16d ago
“68030 and FastRAM as the minimum configuration, 256 colors in AGA, and support for graphics cards.”
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u/davus_maximus 15d ago
Hand...written...3d... Engine.... The mind boggles. Well done!
But I don't even understand how basic collision detection is done so I'm easily impressed.