Sunday, April 10, 2011

Starship Builder - Multiplayer!

I've spent the past few weeks doing a massive overhaul of Starship Builder's code to support networked multiplayer. It's been a very long process, requiring a lot of code to be rewritten. But thankfully, and finally, everything seems to be working pretty much okay. Here's a glorious screenshot of two ships in the heat of combat, each belonging to a different player:


Download this latest build for PC and Mac.

Here's a more complete changelist:
  • Added basic network multiplayer.
  • Can specifically target a part of the enemy by right-clicking on that part.
  • Added armor pieces that do nothing but provide lots of protection.
  • Press F to make the camera follow your ship.
  • A black hole is now spawned after 3 minutes. It's not very powerful, but will suck in stray debris. Whatever you do, don't touch the black hole!
  • A massive asteroid swarm now spawns after 5 minutes. Good look surviving it!
  • Ships now maintain some amount of thruster stability even as many thrusters are destroyed.
  • Added a basic minimap.
  • Added small and big cannons.
  • A single enemy ship can now be spawned in the simulator.
  • Added a new mode that allows you to directly control your ship using the WASDQE keys.

If you want to play multiplayer yourself, here's some basic instructions for setting up a match:
  1. On one computer, start the game and click the "Multiplayer" button once the game is loaded.
  2. Select the ship you want to play.
  3. Type a game name where it says "Host a game".
  4. Click "Create".
  5. On another computer, follow steps 1-2.
  6. Click the button matching the game's name under "Connect to".
  7. Repeat steps 5-6 for up to 2 additional computers. (Total of 4 max players.)
  8. On the first computer, click "Start!".
  9. Have fun!

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