Got a lot done over the last week, as I was on vacation for Thanksgiving. Too lazy to do a video today, so just some screen shots:
Above is all the client modes (screens) Weapons, Navigation, Science, Comms, Engineering, and Debug. They are small because, like Word War vi, the graphics scale to match the window size, and I have shrunk them all down to fit on the screen. They are all separate processes communicating via network with a server process. The large screen partially shown on the right is the "main" screen. Any client process can "project" his screen onto the "main" screen by pressing "ctrl-O" -- O for "on screen!", as Capt. Picard so frequently says.
Above is the navigation screen. Left/right arrow keys rotate the ship, up/down arrow keys move the ship fore and aft. The Warp drive slider and "engage" button "warp" the ship instantly through space (the warp drive needs some work to make it a little more intuitave and, uh, dramatic as well.)
Above is the Weapons screen. Torpedoes may be loaded into the torpedo tubes (2) and fired at passing ships. This needs work (sound effects) and also, right now, a single hit invariable annihilates whatever it hits, so that needs fixing. Phasers don't work yet.
Above is the "science" screen (scanning). You have a scanning beam that you can swing around using left/right arrow keys. up/down arrow keys control the width of the beam. When the beam is wide, it's range is short, and the further away things are, they "fuzzier" they are. As you narrow the beam, the objects become less fuzzy. At a certain point, when things are un-fuzzed enough, you get some information about the ship, like it's name, position, bearing, range, heading, shield strength and wavelength characteristics. You can also zoom the science scope in and out using the mouse scroll wheel.
The "dotted" lines in the above still picture are kind of moving around and a bit more lively than they look in this picture, but you can't see it in a still shot.
Above is the engineering screen. There are 4 gauges: RPM, Fuel, Power, and Temperature. The idea is you have some sort of "engine" consuming "fuel" and producing "power" which can be distributed to the various systems. The power is a function of rpm and temperature. The sliders are used to distribute the power around the ship. The power distribution part doesn't really do anything yet (but the sliders work.)
Last, is the debug screen, which shows a map of the universe. The white dots (or, X's, if you look really closely) represent computer controlled ships. They are clustered around the "starbases" because the AI for these ships at the moment consists of "go sit near the nearest starbase."
Also, difficult to show, when you start up each client you can specify which "roles" it will fulfill -- science, weapons, navigation, etc. ("all" is an option.) Additionally there is a "soundserver" role, so that sounds which are global to the ship -- e.g. being hit by a photon torpedo -- can be directed to the system that is connected to the big stereo. Sounds also may be directed to individual stations -- so you could get distinctive science-y beeping noises from the science station laptop, and weapons-y noises from the weapons stations etc. Not that any of those sounds are in there yet, but the infrastructure to do it is there in the code.
No 3d "thru the window" view yet --- if I do it, it will be a totally software z-buffered flat-shaded triangle renderer that looks like it's from a 1982 silicon graphics workstation. You'd probably rather someone besides me programs that bit, lol. As would I, as would I.
-- steve
p.s. Not getting a lot of feedback... wonder if I'm wasting my time creating a game that requires you get together 4-6 of your linux/startrek nerd friends on a LAN to play, lol. Well, it's a fun waste of time programming the thing, and, I am learning a bit doing it, so... I'll keep at it. I do worry that the various stations won't actually be *fun enough* though -- trying to program in some "fun", but, also keeping to the spirit of the thing -- the "fun" may depend more on the personality of the participants than on the game content for this sort of game, not sure.
).
(It might make sense to make some things in the game nerdy-funny-ironic, rather than nerdy-serious, too. in-game warning messages perhaps.)
