Tag: space

Absolute territory updated to 2.2.0

Posted on by Dan Woods

2.2.0 Release (20210912)
Overview – Early enemy fighter weapons feel less overwhelming due to the fast firing rate

Gameplay

  • Amend – Track IR anchor point made same as VR
  • Amend – There are now two versions of the laser bolt cannon (Rapid Firing and Standard)
  • Amend – Vomitoria and Drosophilia now use slower firing laser bolt cannon
  • Amend – Updated weapon lore entries for the laser bolt cannon variants
  • Amend – Updated the 21 Absolute Territory missions to include the new standard laser bolt cannon. Added briefing text highlighting when new ships are made available. Added briefing text to make known about experimental laser weapon being available in mission 20

Simulator Modes

  • Amend – Wave and Gauntlet to include the new standard laser bolt cannon

Campaign Menu

  • Amend – Removed Tutorials as a campaign item selection (they are still available under Simulator menu). They no longer have skip dialogue, since all tutorials are available and there was no need to skip


2.0.1 Release (20210820)
Overview – Tunnelling can be disabled in options and an unsupported TrackIR implementation.

Visual

  • Added – Auto Exposure and Ambient Occlusion Postprocessing Effects
  • Amend – Gameplay scene lighting adjusted to use the Skybox instead of constant color.

Gameplay

  • Added – Toggle Tunnel Vision when using VR (Options > Game > VR Tunnelling
  • Added – An experimental and there not officially supported (I reserve the right to pull this feature at any time) Track IR implementation

VR

  • Amend – Press CTRL-F12 to recenter the VR headset in the main menu and in flight

An important developed note on the current Track IR implementation
As I don’t own any Track IR hardware I cannot reasonably test this myself and has been classed as experimental and officially unsupported. If you enable Track IR the experience may be sub-par or entirely broken. I will do my best to work with any Track IR users willing to be guinea pigs and provide relevant feedback towards improving the implementation. That is no guarantee that Track IR will become an official feature in the game and I reserve the right to abandon any further development on it.

Enabling Track IR
The command-line argument “-trackir” will be needed, I recommend you create a shortcut to the Standard game exe on your desktop and add the argument in the target box as exampled below.

Absolute Territory Demo Released

Posted on by Dan Woods

Absolute Territory takes inspiration from classic space combat simulation games from the ’90s and ’00s and adds features for modern gameplay and offers expanded replayability with Steam Workshop support.

The thrill of space combat with infinite replayability. Play the demo.

Absolute Territory takes inspiration from classic space combat simulation games from the ’90s and ’00s and adds features for modern gameplay and offers expanded replayability with Steam Workshop support.

The demo is only available during the Steam Summer Game Festival, don’t miss out, head on over to the Absolute Territory Steam store page and download the demo.

Singleplayer Campaign

Download and play to enjoy the first 3 missions from the Absolute Territory campaign (all 100% created with the in-game mission editor). Before jumping in, be sure to familiarise yourself with the basic controls of your ship by trying out the two tutorials and/or reviewing the reconfigurable keybindings.

In the campaign demo, you will fly patrol, raid an enemy depot, and strike down enemy transport.

Space flight simulation a step above others

As there is no drag in space your fighter wouldn’t normally fly where you pointed it after a turn. The on-board Reaction Control System (RCS) will attempt to compensate for your direction changes and maintain manageable speeds using the ships’ thrusters and main engines. Each ship in Absolute Territory has it’s own mass and thrust power and won’t handle the same.

Rotational thrusters will rotate your ship and attempt to compensate for any outside forces (collisions) which would turn you off course, and be mindful of oversteer as these fighters can turn fast.

Hit the afterburners and perform huge drifts while keeping your guns on your nimble opponent, or disable RCS and slide past large and slow targets while you pummel them into scrap metal.

Instant Action

Squadron

Fly against waves of enemy opponents. Can you win this simulation by going up against two types of Endophora fighter?

Mission Editor

Try the mission editor to create and play your own custom missions.

The mission editor in Absolute Territory provides a limited experience from the paid version. This demo offers restricted ship and weapons selection, and will not be able to create any conditions to drive events/storyline nor publish your missions to the Steam Workshop.

Wishlist the retail version

Absolute Territory is in development with a planned release for later this year. Wishlist and follow to show your interest and be notified of progress updates and its release.

Add to Wishlist on Steam
Absolute Territory: The Space Combat Simulator Steam Store Page

Steam Workshop Support – Absolute Territory Dev Diary #22 (11 Mar 2020)

Posted on by Dan Woods

Welcome pilot!

It has been another busy month where I had the unique opportunity to work on Absolute Territory for the past month on a full-time basis. During that time I ran a closed beta, squatted many reported bugs, added beta tester feedback, making many more improvements.

Some of the new features covered in this month’s dev diary include:

  • Tutorials
  • Transmissions (creating dialogue from NPC’s)
  • Steam Workshop support

Watch the video or read on below:

Watch this dev diary video
Add to Wishlist on Steam
Absolute Territory: The Space Combat Simulator Steam Store Page

Tutorials

Work has begun to include tutorials covering the different aspects of piloting your space combat fighter. They make use of a couple of new features added towards helping the player learn the controls. These tutorials are entirely scripted using the in-game level editor, and something the player could re-create themselves.

Transmissions

There was no way to convey the complex information needed to best instruct the player to pilot their ship. Transmissions have been added to solve this problem. Transmission sources can come from disembodied or embodied NPC’s. If the source is from an embodied NPC you will be able to see who is talking to you via the white bracket around the transmission source.

Help Glyphs

To further guide the player, help glyphs can be displayed to show relevant and appropriate controls on the HUD. These are context-sensitive and show help glyph for the currently used controller (if supported) with the correct keybinding (including user-defined). Currently, Help Glyph’s support keyboard, mouse and the Xbox 360 gamepad. Do you have a favorite controller not mentioned, post it in the comments below, as I look to expand on controller support.

https://media.indiedb.com/images/members/3/2913/2912252/profile/202003_Tutorial.png
The tutorial using help glyphs and NPC transmissions

Steam Workshop

From the conception of the level editor, one of the development goals was to have the ability to share missions with other players. With the majority of the features locked down and implemented, I was able to redirect development time into this area. From within the level editor, you can now submit your custom missions to the Steam Workshop using the publish form.

Fill in the title and description form your workshop item and hit submit. The level editor will then publish your workshop item with all the relevant files needed for other players to subscribe and play. You can make any last-minute alterations from within the Steam Community Workshop page itself.

Do you want to update your mission? Just load up the relevant mission, enter its Workshop ID and submit, your changes will automatically update your Workshop Item.

202003 Publish Mission

Have any feedback or suggestions or questions regarding this month’s dev update? Post them below.

Closed Beta and other Juicy Details – January 2020 Developer Diary for Absolute Territory: The Space Combat Simulator

Posted on by Dan Woods

Greetings pilots!

In this month’s dev diary I cover all things juicy which help improve the aesthetics and feelings of the game, along with some not so secret details about the closed beta.

Watch the video to find out more:

Add to Wishlist on Steam
Wishlist Absolute Territory: The Space Combat Simulator on Steam

Absolute Territory – Developer Diary December 2019

Posted on by Dan Woods

Greetings Pilots!

Welcome along to the Absolute Territory Developer Diary for the month of December 2019. The last month has brought in new post-processing visual effects, music, and more level editor improvements for more flexibility and provide easier use.

Read the Full Diary over on IndieDB.com

Welcome along to the Absolute Territory Developer Diary for the month of December 2019. The last month has continued to bring more challenges as I work towards a release date. The road may be long but I can see whats on the horizon for that all important 1.0 release.

Absolute Territory Developer Diary December 2019

Absolute Territory Dev Diary Aug 2019

Posted on by Dan Woods

In this August 2019 developer diary for Absolute Territory:

I demonstrate the new Navpont System for the Mission Editor. Navpoints break up the Mission into multiple zones for the player to complete a set of objectives as laid out by the designer (you!). If you have ever played the Wing Commander video game series you’ll be familiar with this format.

Based on feedback from the playable Alpha demo it seems players are not making themselves familiar with the abilities of their chosen space superiority fighter. To inform, I go into detail covering the basics and more advanced features that will help players increase their odds of surviving against multiple hostile opponents.

Watch the video to find out more…

Wishlist on Steam | Itch.io | Game Jolt | Indie DB | Twitter | Website

Absolute Territory – Alpha 4.2 Release

Posted on by Dan Woods

Welcome along to the Absolute Territory Alpha 4 Demo. This game is in active development and not representative of the final product.

Before you play I highly recommend you view the readme.txt within the download archive. The game can be played with keyboard & mouse/joystick/HOTAS/gamepad. You should review the keybindings within the Controls menu and adjust to your liking. You may need to define your own control bindings depending on the controller you will be using.

In this demo you can play through the first mission of the waves game mode, with a highscore table. You can also challenge yourself by creating your own custom missions, with a limited selection of opponents and features that will be available within the final game.

If you enjoyed the game, head on over to the Absolute Territory Steam page and wishlist.

DOWNLOAD ABSOLUTE TERRITORY ALPHA HERE

Have fun!

Drosphila with pulse guns and Spiculum missiles

Patch Notes

4.2 (20190828)

  • Fixed – Missile Launchers not being fitted correctly.
  • Fixed – Dart DF Launcher now fires Dart DF’s instead of Spiculum’s.
  • Fixed – Can now hear Dropshila and Vomtitoria engine pitch changes.
  • Added – Missile Decoy has a shiny new look

4.1 (20190828)

  • Fixed – Mission Editor: Default overrides for weapons not loading correctly.
  • Fixed – Mission Editor: Default override not loading when a mission is loaded.
  • Fixed – Firing Spiculum missile from Drosphila no longer detonates immediately.
  • Fixed – Pulse Weapons not firing.
  • Fixed – Pulse Weapons not tracking current target.
  • Fixed – Drosphila Wings are now symmetric on both sides.
  • Added – Player heard Interface sounds for Dropshila and Vomtitoria.
  • Added – engine effects to Dropshila and Vomtitoria.

4.0 (20190822)

  • Public Release

Wishes for Absolute Territory on Steam

Posted on by Dan Woods
Now available to wishlist on Steam

Hello pilots!

I am happy to announce that Absolute Territory now has presence on Steam. The page is live and ready for eager pilots to register their interest by wishlisting. Wishlist away!

This is also the first time I’ve been able to lock down and commit to Absolute Territory features. These are the minimum expected features to appear in the game. I am not to keen to talk about what I’d like to see added at this time, I’d rather state what is there or what will be there in upcoming updates to Absolute Territory.

Challenge your piloting skills by creating your own missions. Develop unique scenarios envisioned from your imagination. You decide the difficulty by adjusting the environment and opponents. Fight with the most devastating weapons against lighter opponents or truly test your skills against-all-odds.
1st and 3rd person space combat action.

  • Create your own missions with an easy to use and robust mission editor.
  • Fly multiple ships and configure their loadouts for optimum effect.
  • Improve your combat skills against waves of increasingly difficult opponents.
  • Or take up the ultimate challenge of flying the gauntlet against increasingly difficult opponents.

Don’t forget to head on over to the Absolute Territory Steam page and hit that wishlist button!