Thanks for all the support! Many of you have reached out with questions, suggestions, offers to help, etc. I made a Discord server specifically for talking about all that stuff if you're interested. discord.gg/mte3bPuUnq
You Know people will happily watch you do this Live on stream right?@@LevelCapGaming though to be fair that can be distracting. But you might wanna do some sort of Star Citizen Dev fridays type deal where you go in and have chat sort of Brainstorm stuff that you then can Riff on.
More creators need to get involved with development. Not only is it a great way to diversify what you can offer as a community leader, but it will also help everyone have more informed opinions on other games in the industry… which will help protect all of us from succumbing to scams or spreading misinformation. Incredibly impressed with you taking this step LevelCap. I’m excited to see what you create.
I've been watching you since I was 13-14 (10ish years omg) and I have to say that I am extremely excited for this project. As a man of space (I actually do astrophysics research!), I'm interested in seeing real zero-g maneuvering. I'm sure there are some other gravity related things you could do with gravity wells etc... Very exciting concept and I'm happy that it's going to be transparent!
Can’t wait to see the progress. As a long time viewer since your airsoft days I’ve always loved your ideas and opinions. I seriously can’t wait to see what you do!
As a fellow "old" gamer I would love to see some elements taken from Sid Meier's Pirates (1987/2004). I know it's not a space game but you do traverse around the seas in your ship and are able to stop in towns to either speak with the shipwright for upgrades/repairs, Governor for talking politics or trying to marry into the family for an alliance, or stop by the bar to speak with the bartender for tips on other pirates locations and even recruit some new crewmembers. You can siege cities with your crew to take control & their loot. Ships were upgradable with different types of cannon loads, better sails, copper plating etc. Regardless I'm excited to see what you guys come up with, hopefully there won't be any $50,000 ship packs though 🤣
Sid Meier's Pirate is the ultimate "just one more turn" kinda game. Next thing you know the sun has just risen! I'll still pick up and play EVNova and Pirates! to this day.
In one of your previous video you mentioned Escape Velocity, which was one of my fav game at the time. So when you mentioned it as an inspiration for your project it gave me chills! I’m so excited!
Would massively recommend looking into a game called 'HighFleet: Deus in Nobis' for some inspiration if you haven't already, it sounds mechanically similar to what you intend to create, just in a different setting. It falls somewhere in the 2D(ish) fleet/aerial, ship commanding strategy genre and operates predominantly off of a complex and highly stylised UI system. It's full of character, player expression, and oozes personality. It's also an indie title developed by just 2 devs... GL with the game! Excited to follow the progress.
This is a great idea and it will be really cool to see how this process unfolds! I feel like I recognized the game you mentioned in the intro to the video, but I probably only had the demo version as a kid.
Really great to hear talk a little about how you want to differentiate your game from others on the market. Hearing you say you wanted to make a game like Escape Velocity, my mind went immediately to 2 or 3 games that are in EA that are basically that concept. Really looking forward to hearing more about your project. I attempted something like this a few years ago (had a few interesting ideas for games) but I don't have much talent for art. My enthusiasm took a big hit when I started using free assets and the game never looked like what I imagined
Love the fact that youre taking some inspiration from the Expanse. Ijust finished watching the series a few days ago and I loved the whole realistic aspect of the space combat in the show. Can't wait to see what comes out of this project.
What I'd like to see in a space combat sim is heat management. in real life, heat management with radiators is hugely important. I can imagine a game incorporating some of heat management mechanics. For example, ships need to have radiators to radiate away heat, especially in battle with guns firing and the like. You could cripple an enemy ship by blowing up their radiators, forcing them to scale down their attack, so they don't generate too much heat. Simultaneously, you could use internal heat sinks to sneak up to an enemy or to allow you to open up with a bigger barrage than your enemy.
I built a scale model of the solar system a while back in UE5 just for fun, with all the proper sizes, distances, rotation speeds, etc for each planet. It turned out pretty cool but the distances were so huge stuff got really buggy. I wanted to make something that was like a cross between the Expanse and Kerbal where you had to fly around the Sol system and engage in combat using real orbital mechanics and stuff. Like DCS but for Expanse style space combat. But ultimately I don't think I know enough to make it work at this point.
Space game with our solar system would be cool… Our solar system has 8 planets not counting the sun and 146 moons the story could be what’s going on now humans trying to get to mars to expand the human race and colonize our solar system
You've just touched on exactly the reason why Star Citizen had to upgrade to a 64bit coordinate system. There's a limit to 32bit float values, and that limit is 16,777,215. That means that if we travel in any direction from world origin in the game engine, the closer we get to the theoretical limit the more buggy things get. This happens in pretty much every 3D package. 64bit on the other hand has a limit of 9,007,199,254,740,991. So... A LOT bigger. I'm not entirely sure if this is easy or extremely hard to implement in UE5 though.
@@MCJamZam Yeah the numbers started to get incredibly huge, especially for Neptune and Uranus haha. I had a few different sizes for the project, one with real world kilometers converted to centimeters in UE5, and one with milimeters. Problem one: the orbit sizes in CM were too big to render, and in MM the planet sizes were too small to render. The relatively small sizes of the planets, in proportion to the insane distances between them, are a really hard problem. I did eventually manage to get the sizes and distances working, but the next problem was that the speeds I needed to have the planets orbit at were below the minimum speed for UE5 so they just ended up standing still. Light was also an issue. By the time you got out to Neptune you couldn't see the Sun. But when I made it bright enough to see at Neptune, it was now too bright to see at Earth. It's still on my to do list but I might need to start with ship mechanics and figure out the solar system another time haha.
OMG YES, I've wanted that for years. If you get the scale issue down then it becomes much more manageable. The best part is you don't have to render a whole landscape, you just have to become a really good systems engineer and ui designer.
I started a process back when Star Citizen was young and UE4 was just introduced. My toughest nut to crack was physics around a true spherical body rather than he given physics on a plane and I failed in this. I also had issues with traveling far away from the origin point as things started to shake and break (ship traveling fast and far). I can't wait to see what you do.
Fellow space game dev here, if you really want to do it go for it. But expect it to take 2-3x longer than you think, with most of your time probably not spend on actual game mechanics (that's my experience, though my game is a 4x/grand strategy/ship rts blend, so your narrower scope really helps you there). The ship look great, I'm also a big fan of Homeworld and Expanse aesthetics (I love geometric designs).
This looks really cool - I can't wait to see more! I'm also a sucker for "realistic" space games and the blend between expanse and homeworld could be seriously addictive.
Love this. I've been wanting an Expanse style game so bad that I've been wanting to make it myself as well! I just don't have the skills so you are making many of our dreams come true!
I love the concept you got going for the player space + picture in picture. It's one thing that I feel benefits space combat the most; a true sense of scale. Good luck!
Having found your channel mostly for the BF4 videos you made close to a decade ago this was NOT a turn I expected you to take! I will definitely be following!
Never knew you were an animator! That's so cool! I've been working as an animator since 2009. Started with Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 and now working mainly in Maya. Good luck to you! Cannot wait to see the outcome.
Super cool. Escape velocity reminds me of this game called Transcendence, top down with newtonian flight mechanics. Top down rogue like style, you upgrade your ship as you guy while meeting new factions and quests. Free too!
Best of luck! I just found your channel and as an indie dev making his own space game (uner my channel) its exciting to see others do the same thing. Of course i dont have the channel size you do but i know youll do great. Im using unity but i have many of the systems you talked about in the game NTL as well. Picutre in picture, Systems, various weapons and encounters, ship management, holographic tatgeting, etc
I think that ship you modeled looks great. Less is more, man! Far more. I feel like most spaceship designs from various games, even star citizen (At least the RSI ones), has WAY too much stuff going on. I don't think you need all that pointy stuff and pylons and whatever else. In my opinion, which is what it comes down to after all, I think spaceships ought to look boxy and utilitarian, reflecting the harshness of life in space. Think the big ice hauler from the first episodes of the expanse. Just a big box with a rocket engine. Unless they're meant to be operated in-atmosphere, in which case it should probably be a spaceplane or something. Nice videos dude, subscribed.
Best of luck with this, right now I am finishing up my Cloud studies, and then I want to do something in 3D mainly for modding. Way back in my youth, I used to do 3d modelling for an old game, but I went in another direction as Jamaica at the time did not have any of those courses. So far you seem to have a great handle on it already so good on you.
Looks like a good start so far. I remember hearing about Blender when I first got into creating 3D art way back in the day. Good luck and I look forward to seeing your progress with the game.
You guys seem very professional, it's really refreshing to see! A lot of indie developers make it seem like you can pull good ideas out of thin air and just "wing it", which for a complicated game is not a good idea. I wouldn't mind if you dived deeper into the larger scale ideas rather than just the execution of said ideas.
Dude I remember watching your airsoft videos years ago when I was a kid. I'm also wanting to get into game development (I have a friend who went to school for programming and is teaching himself C# and Unity), and while I've kind of discovered I'm not the biggest fan of programming, I do enjoy modeling and I'm going to be going to school for Audio Tech and Sound production in addition to learning 3D modeling on the side. I want to get more into VR game development since it has so much potential and almost nobody's doing it. Also a big fan of space, so pretty much your project is 110% up my alley and I would love to see all that you're willing to share.
This sounds fantastic! Get on it as I can not wait to see this until its fruition. Will be tracking both your progress on here. I, too, love Homeworld! All the best: I await in anticipation!
Sounds fantastic. Concept reminds me of Total annihilation, prior to that most RTS games were shooting things on same screen, then you had this game come out shooting things 12-15 screens away with long range cannons.
As someone who has been watching since 2011 (started with the viper run on bf3 with your brother, great video) I'm excited to see you pursue a goal of yours. Good luck.
Best of luck to you, love UE, been using it for quite awhile now (since UE3/UDK) I agree with you about the struggles of a solo dev, been down that road a few times, and life kept getting in the way, even built a prototype which was similar to TIE fighter, and a few others.
I also started making a space game, taking inspiration from both Endless Sky and Star Citizen. Worked on it for almost two years, but have within the last few months decided to reboot the project in 3D. Got lots of videos of it on my yt channel 👏
I’ve been on and off in unreal engine just messing around learning different stuff. But I’ve never focused on my main goal which was to attempt to make a space ship game or if VR is optimized enough to try and make a SAO style game. I got distracted a whole lot due to the many things you can do in the engine. I’m 3 years in to when I first got in and still haven’t made anything that works together in any meaningful way. Having a concept helps you stay on track. It’s so incredibly useful to not run wild with ideas and have a roadmap laid out properly.
Hey LevelCap! I've been a watcher since your airsoft days, and have since transitioned into really enjoying your SC content! I'm really excited about the new project! It seems like something that is truly built on passion. I'm a UE5 environment artist, who is also a huge sci fi fan! So if later on in the projects development, you are looking for an environment artist, I'd love to pitch in and help. I have quite a bit of experience in Blender, UE5, SpeedTree, Substance Painter, Gaea, and more. So if there's somewhere you think I could fit in, I would love to talk with you about it. Anyway, enough about me, best of luck to you on your game dev journey, and I'm excited to see the updates!
I would love to hear what goes into a design document, and basically how to approach a project like this correctly, design-wise. "Measure twice, cut once" kind of stuff.
@LevelCapGaming dude, I feel your sentiments. I got a degree in game dev and graduated during the housing market crash of 2008. Lots of developers were having massive layoffs and I saw a side of the industry that ultimately made me realize it wasn't really for me, at least on the corporate level. Maybe when my kids are a bit older I can make time to start an indie project too. Excited to hear/see your updates.
looks cool, I like the concept. I always think back to the 80s with Starflight and Sentinel Worlds. graphically simple, I enjoyed taking my ships down to the planet and running a rover around to small settlements and mining for ore.
GL, as someone who started making my game last year i say go for it and dont break. Atlast you have XP in the field already, i had to learn modeling and programing from scratch because im machinist by trade :D But if you take suggestions, PLEASE make atlast somewhat realistic damage to ships, like warthunder or mechwarrior, there has been way too many healthbars in the last 30+ years in gaming and ship with single healthbar just feels wrong:P
Subscribed just so I can follow your journey. The Escape Velocity series was a huge time sink when I was younger, even made a small prototype a very long time ago in Unity (ship movement, turret tracking and predictive firing, and a simple ai that flies as you aimlessly shooting haha) Good luck with your journey 🎉
Flying dumpster pirate ship, to start with, ships designed after that will look better anyway. That's actually genius! Good luck and all the best on this adventure!
I like the concept of long range engagement. My mind started going when I heard this, made me think about anti-matter weapons and a distant ship suddenly becoming a bright, white ball of energy as it's aniilated. Anyway, I'm a sci-fi junky and love space sims as well. Looking forward to how this progresses!
i know its early concept but i think a top down or 45 degree Build your own ship would be SO COOL, like starfield but focused only on ship battles. Keep up the amazing work dude.
As soon as I saw the ship in the Zelda clip, I knew it was EV. Favorite game of all time. I've seen so many interpretations but never really a solid nod to it. Good luck with it.
I have one request/suggestion - make it playable on both high-end systems [with lots of eye candy] AND toaster systems [with the option of going way down in quality to flat shaders, etc.]. Seems like this may be the kind of game that could pull that off.
If you make it, and it is reasonably good, I'll buy it. Take a look at how Highfleet manages sensors, jamming, and BVR engagements. If you want long engagement ranges this is probably something worth looking at.
Best of luck. Escape Velocity reminds me of Subspace/Continuum. I put thousands of hours in that game from the 90s. Really hope you can bring games like those into a modern engine!
it wouldn't hurt to draw some inspiration from nexus the jupiter incident imo, that was an epic game and have never seen anything since quite replicate the feel of it. good luck with your project, looking forward to watching the development.
I actually love your first pirate ship. You say it looks like a dumpster, but what if it kinda was? A spaceborne dumptruck that removes trash from stations would be the very sort of ship that pirates would use.
I mean I like it. The idea is that pirates won't have access to modern military ships so their stuff will be older converted equipment. Lots of fun to have with those designs
I'm very happy to be here on a backwards trip through the time journey, catching this project late, based on a friends recommendation. Keep doing what you're doing, you don't need me to tell you that, but... Algorithim.
Let’s be real here, “flying dumpster” will most likely be what space ships will look like in a two hundred years or so. I love the realistic approach, gaming needs more realism because it adds so much depth and interesting emergent gameplay. Don’t be afraid to make us learn stuff in order to play the game! Can’t wait to see where this goes!
I've been workshopping an idea for an RTS on and off for years, but every time i open Unreal Engine, I'm overwhelmed and mostly clueless lol. RUclips tutorials have only got me so far.
I loved Escape Velocity and the similar Solar Winds back in the day. I recently ran across a browser port of Solar Winds and was a bit disappointed that it hadn't really aged well. I'll be looking forward to watching how your ideas pan out here.
Truck Simulator in space? Start small with a ship that can only carry a few containers to a nearby planet, upgrade your weapons and shields to fight off Pirates, am i getting this right? Sounds awesome! 😃
Thanks for all the support! Many of you have reached out with questions, suggestions, offers to help, etc. I made a Discord server specifically for talking about all that stuff if you're interested. discord.gg/mte3bPuUnq
John Denim here. U may notice that I donate u $5 a month for maybe last 2 years. I'm aka Johndenim. What's the next plan Charlie?
Good luck Levelcap! This is seemingly a pretty dope concept! Wish you the best dude!
Hope your game is coming along good Fry cant wait for a chance to play it.
Thanks dude you have been one of my inspirations to do my own project. Also thanks for the advice on getting started.
2 youtubers 2 games. These are exciting times.
You Know people will happily watch you do this Live on stream right?@@LevelCapGaming though to be fair that can be distracting. But you might wanna do some sort of Star Citizen Dev fridays type deal where you go in and have chat sort of Brainstorm stuff that you then can Riff on.
@@LevelCapGaming gameplay engine physics make it all - latency/gameplay are king
More creators need to get involved with development. Not only is it a great way to diversify what you can offer as a community leader, but it will also help everyone have more informed opinions on other games in the industry… which will help protect all of us from succumbing to scams or spreading misinformation. Incredibly impressed with you taking this step LevelCap. I’m excited to see what you create.
I’m so scared to get into development… OHD inspires me, you inspire me, but man its a tough leap to take
I like this take a lot.
The free software out there now is pretty impressive I would love to get involved myself it’s just seems like a huge time commitment
Hell yeah! I'm so excited for you
that is so cool! Goodluck man! looking forward to see more in the future
I think you could be on to something as long as it doesn't get stuck in perpetual alpha.
Heck, start us off with a genuine beta even. "Let it cook" as the kids say. And TRY to make modding a thing. It's a huge asset to a game dev imho.
As a fellow dev i look foward to the rest of this series
I've been watching you since I was 13-14 (10ish years omg) and I have to say that I am extremely excited for this project. As a man of space (I actually do astrophysics research!), I'm interested in seeing real zero-g maneuvering. I'm sure there are some other gravity related things you could do with gravity wells etc... Very exciting concept and I'm happy that it's going to be transparent!
thank you! and yes zero G is very fun. I want to work wit that as much as possible\
Can’t wait to see the progress. As a long time viewer since your airsoft days I’ve always loved your ideas and opinions. I seriously can’t wait to see what you do!
As a fellow "old" gamer I would love to see some elements taken from Sid Meier's Pirates (1987/2004). I know it's not a space game but you do traverse around the seas in your ship and are able to stop in towns to either speak with the shipwright for upgrades/repairs, Governor for talking politics or trying to marry into the family for an alliance, or stop by the bar to speak with the bartender for tips on other pirates locations and even recruit some new crewmembers. You can siege cities with your crew to take control & their loot. Ships were upgradable with different types of cannon loads, better sails, copper plating etc. Regardless I'm excited to see what you guys come up with, hopefully there won't be any $50,000 ship packs though 🤣
Sid Meier's Pirate is the ultimate "just one more turn" kinda game. Next thing you know the sun has just risen! I'll still pick up and play EVNova and Pirates! to this day.
i played it forever ago. ill look at it again for sure.
That was such a fun game. I rediscovered it on steam a couple months ago and was playing it with my wife and we had a blast
When you're tired waiting for star citizen so you decide to make it yourself.
In one of your previous video you mentioned Escape Velocity, which was one of my fav game at the time. So when you mentioned it as an inspiration for your project it gave me chills!
I’m so excited!
Would massively recommend looking into a game called 'HighFleet: Deus in Nobis' for some inspiration if you haven't already, it sounds mechanically similar to what you intend to create, just in a different setting. It falls somewhere in the 2D(ish) fleet/aerial, ship commanding strategy genre and operates predominantly off of a complex and highly stylised UI system. It's full of character, player expression, and oozes personality. It's also an indie title developed by just 2 devs...
GL with the game! Excited to follow the progress.
This is a great idea and it will be really cool to see how this process unfolds! I feel like I recognized the game you mentioned in the intro to the video, but I probably only had the demo version as a kid.
EV and EV Nova were huge games for me growing up. All the best in your journey LC and I look forward to hearing more!
The only lego mini fig I ever saved was Darth Maul..He's about or over 20 years old now.
Really great to hear talk a little about how you want to differentiate your game from others on the market. Hearing you say you wanted to make a game like Escape Velocity, my mind went immediately to 2 or 3 games that are in EA that are basically that concept.
Really looking forward to hearing more about your project. I attempted something like this a few years ago (had a few interesting ideas for games) but I don't have much talent for art. My enthusiasm took a big hit when I started using free assets and the game never looked like what I imagined
This is going to be a fun series to follow, especially to understand the thought process
Love the fact that youre taking some inspiration from the Expanse. Ijust finished watching the series a few days ago and I loved the whole realistic aspect of the space combat in the show. Can't wait to see what comes out of this project.
What I'd like to see in a space combat sim is heat management. in real life, heat management with radiators is hugely important. I can imagine a game incorporating some of heat management mechanics. For example, ships need to have radiators to radiate away heat, especially in battle with guns firing and the like. You could cripple an enemy ship by blowing up their radiators, forcing them to scale down their attack, so they don't generate too much heat. Simultaneously, you could use internal heat sinks to sneak up to an enemy or to allow you to open up with a bigger barrage than your enemy.
Oh yes yes... Make a game like the expanse tv show.. at least make the ships similar to those in the show.
I built a scale model of the solar system a while back in UE5 just for fun, with all the proper sizes, distances, rotation speeds, etc for each planet. It turned out pretty cool but the distances were so huge stuff got really buggy. I wanted to make something that was like a cross between the Expanse and Kerbal where you had to fly around the Sol system and engage in combat using real orbital mechanics and stuff. Like DCS but for Expanse style space combat. But ultimately I don't think I know enough to make it work at this point.
Space game with our solar system would be cool… Our solar system has 8 planets not counting the sun and 146 moons the story could be what’s going on now humans trying to get to mars to expand the human race and colonize our solar system
You've just touched on exactly the reason why Star Citizen had to upgrade to a 64bit coordinate system. There's a limit to 32bit float values, and that limit is 16,777,215. That means that if we travel in any direction from world origin in the game engine, the closer we get to the theoretical limit the more buggy things get. This happens in pretty much every 3D package.
64bit on the other hand has a limit of 9,007,199,254,740,991. So... A LOT bigger. I'm not entirely sure if this is easy or extremely hard to implement in UE5 though.
@@MCJamZam Yeah the numbers started to get incredibly huge, especially for Neptune and Uranus haha. I had a few different sizes for the project, one with real world kilometers converted to centimeters in UE5, and one with milimeters. Problem one: the orbit sizes in CM were too big to render, and in MM the planet sizes were too small to render. The relatively small sizes of the planets, in proportion to the insane distances between them, are a really hard problem. I did eventually manage to get the sizes and distances working, but the next problem was that the speeds I needed to have the planets orbit at were below the minimum speed for UE5 so they just ended up standing still. Light was also an issue. By the time you got out to Neptune you couldn't see the Sun. But when I made it bright enough to see at Neptune, it was now too bright to see at Earth. It's still on my to do list but I might need to start with ship mechanics and figure out the solar system another time haha.
OMG YES, I've wanted that for years. If you get the scale issue down then it becomes much more manageable. The best part is you don't have to render a whole landscape, you just have to become a really good systems engineer and ui designer.
I started a process back when Star Citizen was young and UE4 was just introduced. My toughest nut to crack was physics around a true spherical body rather than he given physics on a plane and I failed in this. I also had issues with traveling far away from the origin point as things started to shake and break (ship traveling fast and far). I can't wait to see what you do.
Man, you don’t know how much I relate to playing Escape Velocity as a kid. I’d be very interested in playing a spiritual successor to that game.
Fellow space game dev here, if you really want to do it go for it. But expect it to take 2-3x longer than you think, with most of your time probably not spend on actual game mechanics (that's my experience, though my game is a 4x/grand strategy/ship rts blend, so your narrower scope really helps you there).
The ship look great, I'm also a big fan of Homeworld and Expanse aesthetics (I love geometric designs).
I really enjoy the expanses looking space ship
This looks really cool - I can't wait to see more! I'm also a sucker for "realistic" space games and the blend between expanse and homeworld could be seriously addictive.
Good luck man, already in the process of working on a game. Dont forget you can do it man. It's so worth it the reward is so nice.
This is really cool! I’m excited to see more entries like this. Honestly, just talk about whatever you wanna talk about in this process.
Love this. I've been wanting an Expanse style game so bad that I've been wanting to make it myself as well! I just don't have the skills so you are making many of our dreams come true!
I love the concept you got going for the player space + picture in picture. It's one thing that I feel benefits space combat the most; a true sense of scale.
Good luck!
Having found your channel mostly for the BF4 videos you made close to a decade ago this was NOT a turn I expected you to take! I will definitely be following!
Never knew you were an animator! That's so cool! I've been working as an animator since 2009. Started with Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 and now working mainly in Maya. Good luck to you! Cannot wait to see the outcome.
This sounds like a cool project to take on dude, good luck and most importantly have fun with it, I'll be interested in following the progress.
I also grew up playing the hell out of the Escape Velocity series! Can't wait to see where this goes!
Awesome! Looking forward to see where you and Rich take this! All the best!
Super cool. Escape velocity reminds me of this game called Transcendence, top down with newtonian flight mechanics. Top down rogue like style, you upgrade your ship as you guy while meeting new factions and quests. Free too!
Best of luck!
I just found your channel and as an indie dev making his own space game (uner my channel) its exciting to see others do the same thing.
Of course i dont have the channel size you do but i know youll do great.
Im using unity but i have many of the systems you talked about in the game NTL as well.
Picutre in picture,
Systems, various weapons and encounters, ship management, holographic tatgeting, etc
I think that ship you modeled looks great. Less is more, man! Far more. I feel like most spaceship designs from various games, even star citizen (At least the RSI ones), has WAY too much stuff going on. I don't think you need all that pointy stuff and pylons and whatever else. In my opinion, which is what it comes down to after all, I think spaceships ought to look boxy and utilitarian, reflecting the harshness of life in space. Think the big ice hauler from the first episodes of the expanse. Just a big box with a rocket engine. Unless they're meant to be operated in-atmosphere, in which case it should probably be a spaceplane or something. Nice videos dude, subscribed.
Best of luck with this, right now I am finishing up my Cloud studies, and then I want to do something in 3D mainly for modding. Way back in my youth, I used to do 3d modelling for an old game, but I went in another direction as Jamaica at the time did not have any of those courses. So far you seem to have a great handle on it already so good on you.
Good luck man. You’ve got the passion for gaming so that’ll get you to the finish line when the process gets tough
Looks like a good start so far. I remember hearing about Blender when I first got into creating 3D art way back in the day. Good luck and I look forward to seeing your progress with the game.
You guys seem very professional, it's really refreshing to see! A lot of indie developers make it seem like you can pull good ideas out of thin air and just "wing it", which for a complicated game is not a good idea. I wouldn't mind if you dived deeper into the larger scale ideas rather than just the execution of said ideas.
Dude I remember watching your airsoft videos years ago when I was a kid. I'm also wanting to get into game development (I have a friend who went to school for programming and is teaching himself C# and Unity), and while I've kind of discovered I'm not the biggest fan of programming, I do enjoy modeling and I'm going to be going to school for Audio Tech and Sound production in addition to learning 3D modeling on the side. I want to get more into VR game development since it has so much potential and almost nobody's doing it. Also a big fan of space, so pretty much your project is 110% up my alley and I would love to see all that you're willing to share.
Level, its time we update the chinstrap my man! Love ya dude haha
This sounds fantastic! Get on it as I can not wait to see this until its fruition. Will be tracking both your progress on here. I, too, love Homeworld! All the best: I await in anticipation!
Sounds fantastic. Concept reminds me of Total annihilation, prior to that most RTS games were shooting things on same screen, then you had this game come out shooting things 12-15 screens away with long range cannons.
As someone who has been watching since 2011 (started with the viper run on bf3 with your brother, great video) I'm excited to see you pursue a goal of yours. Good luck.
Best of luck to you, love UE, been using it for quite awhile now (since UE3/UDK) I agree with you about the struggles of a solo dev, been down that road a few times, and life kept getting in the way, even built a prototype which was similar to TIE fighter, and a few others.
Good luck man, crazy to think I was 11 when I started watching you! From airsoft to legos to game development you can do it all.
I also started making a space game, taking inspiration from both Endless Sky and Star Citizen. Worked on it for almost two years, but have within the last few months decided to reboot the project in 3D. Got lots of videos of it on my yt channel 👏
Good luck!! excited to see the progress
also that small gameplay sneak peak looked sooooo good, loving the maneuvering thrusters and visuals!
I’ve been on and off in unreal engine just messing around learning different stuff. But I’ve never focused on my main goal which was to attempt to make a space ship game or if VR is optimized enough to try and make a SAO style game. I got distracted a whole lot due to the many things you can do in the engine. I’m 3 years in to when I first got in and still haven’t made anything that works together in any meaningful way. Having a concept helps you stay on track. It’s so incredibly useful to not run wild with ideas and have a roadmap laid out properly.
Hey LevelCap! I've been a watcher since your airsoft days, and have since transitioned into really enjoying your SC content! I'm really excited about the new project! It seems like something that is truly built on passion. I'm a UE5 environment artist, who is also a huge sci fi fan! So if later on in the projects development, you are looking for an environment artist, I'd love to pitch in and help. I have quite a bit of experience in Blender, UE5, SpeedTree, Substance Painter, Gaea, and more. So if there's somewhere you think I could fit in, I would love to talk with you about it. Anyway, enough about me, best of luck to you on your game dev journey, and I'm excited to see the updates!
can't wait to see more. im actually working on a really similar concept rn as well
Been with you since like 2012! Glad you still around 🙌
I would love to hear what goes into a design document, and basically how to approach a project like this correctly, design-wise. "Measure twice, cut once" kind of stuff.
@LevelCapGaming dude, I feel your sentiments. I got a degree in game dev and graduated during the housing market crash of 2008. Lots of developers were having massive layoffs and I saw a side of the industry that ultimately made me realize it wasn't really for me, at least on the corporate level. Maybe when my kids are a bit older I can make time to start an indie project too. Excited to hear/see your updates.
As a space game lover, Working 3d artist and backyard hobby Unreal Developer i hope the best for this project as it sounds really cool!
I'm much jealous 😅 I've been working on a space combat sim for a bit myself excited to see where your game goes!
Looks genuinely cool, would consider buying it once it comes out, good luck with it all man
Oooooo a level cap game?!! Been watching you for a decade now, excited for your first game. Count me in
looks cool, I like the concept. I always think back to the 80s with Starflight and Sentinel Worlds. graphically simple, I enjoyed taking my ships down to the planet and running a rover around to small settlements and mining for ore.
Seems like a great concept, I remember the old top down space games. When you complete this and put it up for sale, you got one buyer already.
This looks amazing, I have always dabbled with the thought of making a game, this may be the inspiration I need to start a new project.
GL, as someone who started making my game last year i say go for it and dont break. Atlast you have XP in the field already, i had to learn modeling and programing from scratch because im machinist by trade :D
But if you take suggestions, PLEASE make atlast somewhat realistic damage to ships, like warthunder or mechwarrior, there has been way too many healthbars in the last 30+ years in gaming and ship with single healthbar just feels wrong:P
Subscribed just so I can follow your journey. The Escape Velocity series was a huge time sink when I was younger, even made a small prototype a very long time ago in Unity (ship movement, turret tracking and predictive firing, and a simple ai that flies as you aimlessly shooting haha)
Good luck with your journey 🎉
Been following you for 12 years now. Amazing to see how far you’ve come and can’t wait to see how this project turns out! Best of luck, Level
This is Awesome dude!! Hope you keep posting updates because it's fascinating
Oh wow! This is super exciting! I'd love to follow your project!
Flying dumpster pirate ship, to start with, ships designed after that will look better anyway. That's actually genius!
Good luck and all the best on this adventure!
I like the concept of long range engagement. My mind started going when I heard this, made me think about anti-matter weapons and a distant ship suddenly becoming a bright, white ball of energy as it's aniilated. Anyway, I'm a sci-fi junky and love space sims as well. Looking forward to how this progresses!
Escape Velocity Nova was one of my favorite games back in the day, So much Hype for this to be a thing. Good luck!
i know its early concept but i think a top down or 45 degree Build your own ship would be SO COOL, like starfield but focused only on ship battles. Keep up the amazing work dude.
As soon as I saw the ship in the Zelda clip, I knew it was EV. Favorite game of all time. I've seen so many interpretations but never really a solid nod to it. Good luck with it.
Looking good with the basics you got. Sounds like it could be pretty cool man
I have one request/suggestion - make it playable on both high-end systems [with lots of eye candy] AND toaster systems [with the option of going way down in quality to flat shaders, etc.].
Seems like this may be the kind of game that could pull that off.
Looks awesome! Wish you best of luck with this project man! Excited to see where it goes
I’ve watched your videos since the battlefield 3 days. Didn’t know you had a game dev background. Good luck!
It´s so cool to be able to make a own game.
U can make different weapons like lasers, beams, bombs all that good stuff.
Such a cool Project.
If you make it, and it is reasonably good, I'll buy it.
Take a look at how Highfleet manages sensors, jamming, and BVR engagements. If you want long engagement ranges this is probably something worth looking at.
Best of luck. Escape Velocity reminds me of Subspace/Continuum. I put thousands of hours in that game from the 90s. Really hope you can bring games like those into a modern engine!
Awesome dude. I'm excited to follow the progress!
Good luck!!! The concept sounds great! Small spaceship design suggestion: look into Star Trek (Movies era-onwards) and Star Trek concept art.
it wouldn't hurt to draw some inspiration from nexus the jupiter incident imo, that was an epic game and have never seen anything since quite replicate the feel of it. good luck with your project, looking forward to watching the development.
This sounds super cool. I’m excited to follow along with the progress
Thats so awesome, good luck man!
A Top-down space sim is a great idea! Looking forward to this.
Best of luck to you both! Can't wait to see where this goes!
I actually love your first pirate ship. You say it looks like a dumpster, but what if it kinda was? A spaceborne dumptruck that removes trash from stations would be the very sort of ship that pirates would use.
I mean I like it. The idea is that pirates won't have access to modern military ships so their stuff will be older converted equipment. Lots of fun to have with those designs
I'm very happy to be here on a backwards trip through the time journey, catching this project late, based on a friends recommendation. Keep doing what you're doing, you don't need me to tell you that, but... Algorithim.
I can't wait! I was a big fan of EV: Nova and also was a huge Lego fan as a kid, I can't wait to see what you come up with!
this seems really fun, im really stoked youre doing this
I absolutely loved escape velocity! Looking forward to see what you come up with!
Let’s be real here, “flying dumpster” will most likely be what space ships will look like in a two hundred years or so.
I love the realistic approach, gaming needs more realism because it adds so much depth and interesting emergent gameplay.
Don’t be afraid to make us learn stuff in order to play the game!
Can’t wait to see where this goes!
I've been workshopping an idea for an RTS on and off for years, but every time i open Unreal Engine, I'm overwhelmed and mostly clueless lol. RUclips tutorials have only got me so far.
I loved Escape Velocity and the similar Solar Winds back in the day. I recently ran across a browser port of Solar Winds and was a bit disappointed that it hadn't really aged well. I'll be looking forward to watching how your ideas pan out here.
Awesome. Looking forward to seeing how this goes. Qudos for wanting to build a cool spaceship game. I do love me some decent scifi.
Looking forward to seeing you make the game! I like the style for the ships.
Truck Simulator in space? Start small with a ship that can only carry a few containers to a nearby planet, upgrade your weapons and shields to fight off Pirates, am i getting this right? Sounds awesome! 😃