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Incline Avorion - procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build ships out of blocks

Blaine

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https://www.avorion.net





Aspects of Avorion that will TRIGGER Codex edgemasters, spergknights, and beardlords:

  • Steam/Early Access
  • third-person
  • thread posted by Blaine, game must be bad
  • everything is shit

Things about Avorion you might enjoy:

  • design your ships completely from scratch using greebles and system parts; most sophisticated sci-fi ship design tools I've ever seen in a game, with the exception of Space Engineers
  • Avorion is very much like the X series of space sims, checking off almost all of the same boxes, including factory-building and controlling multiple ships—except that the UI, controls, physics, combat, ship handling, and design choices are much better, and the hardware performance is VASTLY superior
  • 6DoF allowing pitch, yaw, roll, and slide, with quasi-Newtonian physics; has a speed cap, but that can be removed via upgrade modules, allowing ludicrous speeds if thrust is continually applied; there is heavy flight assist, but this can bypassed in various ways, and maneuvers like rotating during flight to use main engine as a retro rocket are possible
  • placement of thrusters is realistic in that the farther they are from center of mass, the more effect they have on yaw/roll/pitch
  • supremely sophisticated and precise camera controls

Basically, it's X/X2/X3 but different and far better in almost every way, especially hardware performance and not being a janky piece of shit that uses only one CPU thread.
 
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Mustawd

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proceduralstation.jpg

sandbox.jpg

friends.jpg
 

Blaine

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When I watched the trailers, I thought that ship movement and such might be awkward and janky. It's the opposite, incredibly smooth and graceful, but it can look peculiar if you do weird shit with the mouse because the thrusters try to compensate.

The best thing to watch is the ship-building trailer the lead developer published on YouTube:

 

Blaine

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Is the creation part done completely with box shapes?

As far as shapes are concerned there are essentially rectangles, slopes, and several types of corners, all of which can be scaled on three axes, stretched on three axes, and rotated (90 degrees) on three axes. The granularity of scaling, stretching, and the snap grid is highly adjustable, from 0.005-10+, and snapping can also be turned off entirely or focused globally or per-part.

You can also "mirror" on all three axes, meaning placing a part on one side of the mirror places one on the other oppositely, and the mirror can be offset instead of being positioned only through the central vertices of the 3D grid/center of the ship.

There aren't explicit curves, however, although they can be simulated with small flat edges pressed together, nor is there granular or free rotation, so it's not entirely freeform.

Edit: Mustawd Here's what I mean by "simulated curves," a ship made by someone whose building skills considerably exceed mine for the time being (though it's a much larger ship, or rather is made with more blocks since entire ships can be scaled up or down, so it's more easily able to seem less blocky):

aa36afa81e.png
 
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Blaine

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As far as ship parts you can actually build with, there are the following in almost every type of raw material (some materials don't support armor blocks) and every available shape (rectangles, wedges, corners). Material type affects density, mass, durability, cost in credits, and even how many additional maintenance crew you'll need (rarer materials typically need progressively slightly more maintenance guys, per cubic meter).

  • standard hull
  • standard hull with small windows
  • lights
  • "holograms" (dimmer, insubstantial lights)
  • glass
  • armor, as well as "rock" armor, presumably for building asteroid and organic-looking ships

Then there are parts that only support rectangles, which includes all ship system blocks and a few others. Ship system rectangles can be scaled and stretched as much as you like, and the bigger they are, the more benefit they offer, although some have diminishing returns; a couple have exponentially diminishing returns, such as the hyperspace core. The ship systems' performance can be greatly affected by choice of raw materials, and a few such materials are especially good for electronic shit.

  • crew quarters
  • hangars (for fighters)
  • generators
  • batteries
  • hyperspace cores
  • computer cores (allow more upgrade modules to be installed)
  • integrity field generators (boosts durability of the surrounding structure)
  • shield generators (classic type, prevent damage until downed)
  • girder supports
  • solar panels
  • a round light on an antenna

Two of the raw materials are dense and protective, like iron (best used for armor), two of them are "high-tech" materials that are best used for ship systems, and two of them are lightweight yet still fairly strong, like titanium. The seventh material is the eponymous Avorion and is a rare late-game super-material, best at almost everything with one weakness (armor protection).

In addition to many types of weapon turrets, including lasers, railguns, missile launchers, plasma throwers, and lightning cannons, there are salvaging turrets, mining turrets, and tractor beams.

Also, there are tons of upgrades affecting almost the entire range of ship stats, including sensor suites, shield boosters, thrust boosters, hyperdrive range extensions, trading software, etc. These typically draw on the ship's power and some come with drawbacks. Then there's crew management; hiring expert crew can enhance your ship's stats in their area of expertise, though there are also untrained all-rounders who can do anything. You have to pay them regularly, which represents the ongoing cost of a ship, since the bigger and better it is, the more crew it will need.

Basically, there's customization out the ass. Apparently ship boarding is planned for the near future.
 
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Lazing Dirk

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I'm not entirely convinced on the building flexibility yet. Build a giant flying Trump face, that will surely you win you intimidation points in combat. Bonus points if you can build it out of gold.
 

Blaine

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I'm not entirely convinced on the building flexibility yet. Build a giant flying Trump face, that will surely you win you intimidation points in combat. Bonus points if you can build it out of gold.

You just want a giant flying Trump face.

If I were capable, I probably would.
 

agris

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Blaine looks interesting, thanks. Other than Fe and Ti, what are the material options? Is there a single screen that lists the structural and electronic materials that you can post a screenshot of? The simulationist aspect sounds really appealing.
 

Blaine

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Blaine looks interesting, thanks. Other than Fe and Ti, what are the material options? Is there a single screen that lists the structural and electronic materials that you can post a screenshot of? The simulationist aspect sounds really appealing.

Sure, I'll go above and beyond here. I should note more "technological blocks" become available as you go up in mineral tiers.

Iron is the first and cheapest mineral, colored rusty pale orange and abundant near the galactic rim. Lower stats in general and the heaviest material, but is the first "tough" mineral and its armor offers good protection even compared to the next tier or two. Supports no special technology other than the necessary basics: engine, thrusters, cargo, crew, etc.

Titanium is rare on the rim but gets more common a little ways in. It's white in color, almost as cheap as iron, significantly lighter, but its armor is significantly less protective (though it can still form armor). It "unlocks" generators, batteries, and integrity fields.

Naonite is located yet further in and is the first "tech" mineral. It's electric green. Not as light as titanium and can't form armor, but quite a boost to technological ship systems and good non-armor durability. "Unlocks" shields and hyperdrive cores (and also forms all the tech Titanium does).

Trinium is the fourth-tier and middlemost material and is basically super-titanium, as well as being the most versatile in the game as it supports every single kind of block, which is why I used it for the image. It's blue in color and is almost a third lighter than even titanium, while being significantly stronger. It "unlocks" computer cores and hangars, the last two tech blocks theretofore unavailable.

Xanion is the second "tech" mineral, colored yellow. It's noticeably (but not massively) better for systems than Naonite, it's lighter, and it's stronger. It can form every type of block except armor.

Ogonite is the penultimate material, reddish-orange in color, and the heaviest and most protective, but aside from armor in which it specializes it supports only hangars, generators, and batteries in terms of tech.

Avorion is the ultimate material, deep red in color, strong in every aspect and able to form almost every block, but with drawbacks. It's more durable than even ogonite, but can't actually form armor, so only hull parts and systems can enjoy that increased durability. It's heavier than all other minerals except the two heaviest, iron and ogonite. It's also the most expensive, and speculating about the rest since I haven't gotten there yet: Hard to find for sale, rare even at the core (all others eventually become abundant), difficult to mine, and is located in the Detroit of the game full of rough customers.

Note I've blown this up so the text can be easily read. I also left in my ship stats.

391664af22.png
 
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Blaine

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Oh, I should also add (in a double-post, so as not to increase the length of that novel) that you can paint every block on the ship with a variety of colors. You start with about 20-30 and can pick up "paint samples" to unlock about 30-40 more from shipwrecks or ships damaged in the midst of combat.
 

Turisas

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Is the lighting unfinished, or is it meant to look like crap? Also, how's the job variety and can you assign AI-controlled miners and traders to do the bitch work for you?

The ship crafting looks sublime though, gotta give such a small team credit for that.
 

Blaine

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The lighting looks fine to me. It varies greatly depending on what sort of system you're in, and also whether or not you turn bloom on (for a very rare change of pace, I've left mine on, because I like the bleed around engines and other energy sources). It's not a premier HDR piss-shader brownbloom next-gen experience, although it does have ambient occlusion. If you turn ambient occlusion off you can see what a dramatic difference it makes here.

You can assign AI-controlled miners and salvagers, either via hiring pilots to fly fighters that you purchase (or manufacture in your factories); or you can build (you can also purchase randomly generated ships from faction shipyards) a player-style full ship and assign a captain and crew to it. Captained full ships can also be told to guard a location, or escort you (if the latter, for them to follow, you must wait for them to align for jumpdrive and jump no further than their own jump distance).

Note that a major difference from the X series is that, currently, sectors don't continue to "live" while you are away. They are frozen in time, saved to file and left stored until you return. The developers are working on the necessary code and widgets to keep them alive while you're away. Given that there are 1,000,000 sectors in the galaxy (though most are empty or close to it, naturally), I don't know if they'll ever be able to simulate all of the ones you've discovered containing significant activity without roasting people's CPUs, but we shall see. Simulating 100 sectors was a significant drag on the X games' performance, but then again the engine also only utilized one CPU thread and EGOSOFT probably couldn't optimize their way out of a wet paper sack.

Plain English, you can't leave a sector and have your factories continue to produce, nor can you leave your miners alone; nor can you send traders around like in X3, although it seems unnecessary here because you actually can make enormous bank all by yourself without an immense amount of finagling and prep work.

I haven't done much with autonomous fleet ships or stations personally yet, although I did finally get rich. I went around prospecting for unclaimed massive asteroids to sell to civilizations (you can also build your own mines in them), which is basically Where's Waldo in space, and made a few handfuls of millions that way. I vultured around some huge fleet fights and nabbed a few good upgrades that snapped off, did some mining and salvaging, etc. Then a rare version of the good trade route software that automatically records all potential trades within the last X systems you visited appeared, and I spent 75% of my remaining millions on it (I'd spent some on other things too).

I turned 1 million into 65 million selling body armor to a military outpost, and then I turned that into 165 million selling targeting systems to a different military outpost, after feverishly bolting some crude cargo holds and upgrades onto my ship.
 

Blaine

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Oh, as for jobs, it's pretty standard fare. You can fight pirates and xenos in friendly (or neutral/suspicious) systems, hunt for pirates in deep-space anomalies, be a pirate yourself, smuggle illegal goods, take on odd delivery and supply jobs from various station BBSes, salvage (from live fights, your own fights, or wrecks found through exploring deep-space signals), trade, mine, prospect for asteroids and hidden stashes as I did (the asteroid prospecting is pretty novel, IMO)... then, when you're rich, you can build your own factories and fleets and terrorize everyone until there's nothing left as is right and proper, then commit sudoku from loneliness.

The exploration aspect is quite good. Occasionally I find odd things, like a perfect belt of small inert asteroids with one rich and large ore roid in the center, around which is gathered a circle of motionless but crewed ships. Apparently, they're ore-worshipping space hippy cultists.
 

Turisas

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Oh, as for jobs, it's pretty standard fare. You can fight pirates and xenos in friendly (or neutral/suspicious) systems, hunt for pirates in deep-space anomalies, be a pirate yourself, smuggle illegal goods, take on odd delivery and supply jobs from various station BBSes, salvage (from live fights, your own fights, or wrecks found through exploring deep-space signals), trade, mine, prospect for asteroids and hidden stashes as I did (the asteroid prospecting is pretty novel, IMO)... then, when you're rich, you can build your own factories and fleets and terrorize everyone until there's nothing left as is right and proper, then commit sudoku from loneliness.

The exploration aspect is quite good. Occasionally I find odd things, like a perfect belt of small inert asteroids with one rich and large ore roid in the center, around which is gathered a circle of motionless but crewed ships. Apparently, they're ore-worshipping space hippy cultists.

Sounds good all in all, but I'll wait for now since everyone still seems to be in the honeymoon phase - games like these, they need the long-term appeal for me to bother. The ultimate goal of going to the center of the galaxy to fight the Big Bad sounds lame on paper, at least. If they can figure out how to make the universe alive (or at least a reasonable enough simulation of it) I think this could be a keeper.
 

Blaine

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I think it'll end up being a 100-hour honeymoon phase for me, with a one-year anniversary blowjob.

Could even go for 200-300, who knows?
 

Tabs

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To me this looks like someone took Space Engineers' shipbuilding and put, y'know, actual things to do (a la X series) in the game. Am I wrong?
 

Blaine

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To me this looks like someone took Space Engineers' shipbuilding and put, y'know, actual things to do (a la X series) in the game. Am I wrong?

Space Engineers is no doubt superior for building a totally and completely customized ship that looks like it could come from a sci-fi movie, interior and all. Example: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=753963257

But yes, this is an extremely good ship builder except with an actual game attached to it.
 

Blaine

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Hoaxmetal I assume you noticed the Caldari inspiration for my ship?

A friend of mine further pointed out that the front looks like the Corpus from Warframe:

cea434a425.png
 

Hoaxmetal

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Gonna try and make a Naglfar and end up with a shitty Rifter rip-off D:
 

Blaine

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A goodly-sized NPC freighter passing close by the superfreighter I'm building:

451a9c031d.png
 

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