Galactica/TODO.md

Specific projects

Now:

• Replace handles with Arcs in content
• clean up content
• Clean up state api
• Persistent variables
• Better planet icons
• Clean up scripting errors
• Mouse colliders
• UI captures input?
• No UI zoom scroll
• outfitter
• fps textbox positioning

Small jobs

• Clean up sprite content (and content in general)
• Check game version in config
• Fix window resizing
• Debug: show mouse position
• 🌟 Better planet desc formatting
• Procedural suns
• 🌟 Back arrow -> reverse
• No wobble for ai ships & autopilot
• 🌟 User-configurable outfit space types
• 🌟 Sticky radar
• Configurable radar
• 🌟 Ship damage events
• Better landing animation (slow down)
• Land from farther away
• Ship collapse: damage + force events
• Redesign UI elements
• Background haze: 3d perlin?
  • nova dust parallax
• Motion blur
• 🌟 Generate outlines and colliders
  • Then: outline self in status
• Reverse engines + flares
• Turn flares (physics by location?)
• Angled engines & guns

Misc fixes & Optimizations

• 🌟 Better errors when content/asset dirs don't exist
• Clear // TODO: comments
• Correct drawing order (player on top, landing ships)
• Faster handles (better than a hashmap?)
• Check for handle leaks
• Better physshiphandle
• Clean up & faster frame timings (average)
• 🌟 Handle lost focus
• User config file
• 🌟 Document content
• 🌟 Clean up content: one ship per file, autodetect
• CLI: specify dirs, content location, logs, etc
• Starfield clusters, less flicker
• Collider groups for factions? (projectile optimization)

🌟 Player selection

• Planet name, ring, and distance
• Selection UI (around game object)
• Selection UI (radar arrow)
• Selection keys
• Select ships
  • Selection UI (HUD)
  • attack selected ship, even if friendly

🌟 Planet outfitter

• UI, show ship on land
• Money
• Display name != key
• then: non-removable outfits
• then: cargo space
  • then: collectible flotsam
  • then: mass from cargo and outfits
  • then: space conversion
    • then: heat + energy stats
      • then: damage type (heat, energy, disrupt, etc)
      • then: debuffs
• then: assign guns to points
• then: guns with consumable ammunition
  • then: enable/disable weapons

Ship Spawning

• requires: Basic ship AI (disable collision for now?)
• requires: Fleets
• Spawn ships from planets
• Land ships on planets (destroy)
• Start with player on planet, respawn

Debris (requires: flotsam)

• Destroyed ships leave debris
• Destructible & floatingdebris
• Orbiting debris: asteroids
• ES-style asteroid field (how should we do this?)

Camera physics

• lookahead
• damping
• Don't jump when landing/taking off
• wobble / ship thrown when hit?
• UI/effects when damaged?
• Focus important objects

Sprite reels

• Random start frame
• Trigger sprite reel during collapse sequence
• Trigger sprite reel when firing (requires: non-removable outfits)
• then: ship tint
• then: frame timing randomness
• then: leaks during collapse (needs effect physics)
• Sprite color variation

Texture loading

• loading screen & menu
• GPU limits?
• Cache direcory
• How to pack?

Sound effects

• Sound effects
• User-configurable music (?, game config or user config?)

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Ideas and long-term goals

Features (not soon)

• Multiplayer
• Configure key bindings, controller support
• Save game state
• Dynamic relationships (get angry when attacked)
• Jump between systems
  • Story: how?
  • Conversations, trade, missions
  • Lightweight whole-universe simulation
• Documentation site & front page
• Dynamic lighting (planets & ships)
• Lens flare?
• Active abilities
• Galaxy date system, slowly orbiting planets
• Parallelize frame computations
• Advanced AI: avoid collisions
• Land and unland effects
• Muzzle effect
• Effect / sprite color variation
• UI Animations

Game & Story

• How to keep player in system bounds, what to do if they fly far away
  • Max chase distance, physics-enforced area?
  • (Soft limits, you shouldn't go too far unless you decide to.)
  • Enforce: silently teleport to the other end
• How to handle death -- save scum should not be the norm (hollow knight?)
• Locks and keys -> variation?
• Hard to get outfits you've lost (hollow knight's charms do this very well)
• Missions: hunt scary targets
• The world exists outside of the system you're in
  • (large-scale dynamics)
• How does information travel?
• Communication timer: destroy a ship fast, nobody needs to know
• Do we want to pay crew?
• How should ship capturing work?
• Enemy motivations
• Where does money come from?
• Changing map paths? How?
• Actions against one faction affect another, dynamic relationships

Write and Document

• Parallax
• Starfield & tiling
• How the game is drawn
  • transforming game coordinates to screen
  • how angles work
• Computation flow
  • Physics pipeline
  • Outfit pipeline
  • Collision detection
  • Ship AI
  • Handles
• Content specification and pipeline
• How packer and optimizations work, and why
• How big should sprite resolutions be? How about frame rate?
• Naming: atlas, sprite, image, frame, texture
• Outfits may not change unless you've landed. They might not change ever for CC ships!
• All angle adjustments happen in content & shaders
• Reserved texture: index zero
• Errors: lowercase, no punctuation
• When to use what logging level

Ideas

• Improvements over ES
  • Better visuals
  • More interesting combat
  • More interesting missions
  • Big fleets shouldn't be broken (should the player even have a fleet?)
  • ES Enemies don't have a real motivation.
  • Death matters - save-scumming shouldn't be normal
  • More interesting trading?
• Death penalty
  • Find your wreckage when you die (dark souls/HK)
  • Lose some outfits, lose ship? Real risk for going out! (HK does this well)
• Damage to ship subsystems
• Soft and highly armored ship points
• Repair your own ship