Wikipedia site created

We have a new Wikipedia page! Feel free to add to it, update trivia or details, or link to your profiles.

Our last step is to complete all Copyright transfer documents to give FOGE full rights to distribute.

Great job everyone! Excellent effort, and it was great working with you all.

Latest release

Added a few more updates:
- Derek's new voice files added
- Added a scoreboard that remembers the top 10 scores
- Two different games - one where you can play for double the points, but your clock doesn't stop when you're in the base
- Bots tell you info about how they are configured
- Removed the Chat HUD console, repositioned score
- Added more commands to Bots (Follow me, Mine here, go home)
- Added conversation file for Hammond, so he'll trade resources with you
- Added ammo boxes with advanced mining bits to increase mining yield

Updated video with Credits

Here is a slightly newer video with Dr J's and Derek's name in the credits. Thanks everyone for your hard work and excellent teamwork. It's so rewarding finally having a delivered product.

Updates to add pizzaz

We've already got a few updates ready to add into Release Candidate 2 (UPDATE: Just Posted).

These are:
- Added a scoring system!
- 30 lessons within the Lunar Academy (thank's Dr. J!)
- Increased sound volume for Derek's sound files (Thanks Derek!)
- New Lunar Academy Screen that looks much nicer
- Fixed some of the animation snaffus when mining
- Fixed a problem with the commander talking about the scientist
- Fixed some of the Supply comments

Anything else to get in before it's loaded on the terminals next week?

I'm going to try to add:
- Conversation files for Engineer Hammond in the Garage
- Stop the stutter-walking after mining
- Limit the number of upgrades you can give to any single bot (otherwise, one bot can drill 100s of minerals at once)
- Add a credits screen to give us all credit for the great work done

MoonBaseOne - Release Candidate 1 posted!

It's here and ready for serious user testing!

MoonBaseOne is ready to go!

All final systems have been added, so it's ready to play. I'll be doing testing, balancing, and tweaking over the next week, but it's ready to play now.

I'd love any feedback you all could send! What can be fixed or improved?

More things to tweak over the next few days. None of these are critical, but will add some oompf to the game:
- Add some more dialog from Dr. J's script
- Add some interaction for Hammond out in the Garage
- Add 15 more lessons
- Fix the sound files to play in the foreground audio

Great progress on Version 2.06

We're almost complete for Phase 1 of Moon Base One!

I'll post an updated version at the end of the day. So far, we've got every major system in, tested, and working. The only piece that's left to finish is the "Lunar Academy" computer teaching system for people to take lessons and get rewards from.

The Major fixes so far are:
- Fixed random crashes! (at least, all that I've been able to replicate)
- Supply purchasing system added
- All new conversation system added (it looks great!)
- Item upgrades can be purchased and applied to bots
- All new buildings fully added
- Missions give you the jetpack and mining gun... so you have to earn them
- You can no longer use jetpack inside base

Version 2.05 Posted

We're planning one more update this weekend to add the computer lessons and store purchasing GUI, as well as fix some moving AI and apply item upgrades to the robots. Newly converted sound files will be in that, as well.

There is a temporary upgrade (that hopefully fixes all crashes) posted now. It also has Andre's new amazing base layouts. Great stuff!

Version 2.04 posted

Large coding update!

The purchasing system has been completed. There are now 15 objects within the game that can either be purchased or earned by completing classes. Each object is found at a certain location (Supply, Garage, Computer).


There's a new way to purchase robots. Once you have enough materials, you go ask the supply officer. You can also by upgrades to your mining gun as well as to your carrying pack. The supply officer can also fix the broken robot out front if you have enough minerals.

We have audio cues being played to tell the players what to do... the volume is just really really low, so we'll increase that for the next update.

Video Mashup

Check out the new MBO Video!

Version 2.03 posted!

It's been a long time since we've posted an update... to summarize the reasons why 2.03 took awhile:
-Updated to Vista
-Reverted to XP
-Formatted wrong Harddrive (Doh!)
-Audio files not working
-Fixed it all again... better and stronger than the original..

LOTS of changes in this version:

• Forcefield around mission bounds
• Less minerals
  
• Better message popups to players
• More arcade like - 10 minutes to play
• Purchasing system finalized
• Mission eventing and timer system finalized
• Sound system entered (just need final sounds. :) )

MoonBaseOne Video

We've put together a short 2 minute video highlighting the game and some of the things you can do inside it. Check out the flash version (90mb), the full version (480mb), or watch it on YouTube below.

We're currently working on version 4.03, which will have a countdown timer to run through the game and get enough minerals in 10 minutes.

Version 2.0 posted

Version 2.0 of the game is up! This has NPCs with actions on them (they're still rudimentary), a new terrain, and Andre's new buildings. Lots more coming soon, so stay tuned!

Attack of the Bots!

A huge robot update has been posted in the latest release. Over 30 new features to really expand the robot system is in the new version 1.99. To really test out the changes, load the second "Empty Moon Testing" mission in the game loader.


New Robot features and Attributes:
- Hopper size - once the hopper is full of minerals, it tries to make a canister and drops them on the ground.
-- Once canisters have run out, it will run back to base to drop minerals off (if you buy a homing beacon)
-- You can add an attachment to the bot so that canisters it drops has lights to make them easier to find
-- You can give the bot more canisters by touching it, or drop all the minerals you are carrying by pressing 'L'
- Bots have different movement speed, size, color, and intelligence levels
- Bots can have better drilling bits, which dig faster and allow for more minerals to be recovered
- Bots can have have a microscopic imager to increase chances of finding minerals
- The more intelligent a bot, the better it is at finding new ground to mine on
- Bots can have an ad-hoc Network device, which lets them share bad mining spots with other bots
- Bots can have a Mineral Surveying Device which helps them always find good mineral spots

MBO Version 1.95

Version 1.95 posted to the link on the right!

Updates in this post:
- Robots have a number of statistics - intelligence, movement speed, carrying capacity, size
- Robots move around when there are no minerals available!
- Robots hold the minerals they find, you have to walk up to them to pick them up
- NPCs have proper animations, and react to players
- NPCs can have missions, and sell things to players
- New mining drill added

Still hoping to post Version 2 by Sunday.

MBO Version 1.9 is posted!

Version 1.9 is posted!

This version has:
- Andre's new Moon Base
- Enhanced Mining Bot functionality, sizes, and skins
- Testing mission for talking to NPCs
- Enhanced digging effects and sounds
- NPC characters within the base
- Sliding doors on the base

Please let me know any feedback, or suggestions for improvements!

Amazing Interiors

Andre (our head MoonBase modeler) has new screenshots from the base interior that he's building. Great stuff! We'll try to push out a new release by Thursday morning.

Building the base

For ease of management, we're going to break the game into two halves - Andre will run the base, and everthing within the base (floorplan, textures, objects, characters, etc). I will run everything outside the base (vehicles, mining, terrain, space weather, robots, etc). This will help us continue development while I'm out and when I return. I love it when your team allows you to take a vacation!


Andre has a pretty innovative idea to build a series of modular floors shaped like rings... this way, we can add a new ring when needed (or when we come up with a new plot device). This will allow us to quickly test new base layouts and change in the future to support more ideas. Andre's thinking of using an elevator between floors, and will give us a preview of the idea during tonights telecon at 7:30.

On the left side are some pictures of a new moon base idea that NASA is testing out, full story here.

Minor Mining update

I've posted a small update just to test the mining changes. I'm having troubles building the datablocks for the other player uniforms and bots, so they aren't in right now (should be soon!).

Changes:
- There are less minerals needed to buy robots
- Mining an area doesn't use up the land as fast
- Mining areas are much smaller - so you don't have to move as much to mine
- Jet pack speed is based on how many minerals you are carrying.
- Rocks are mineable again - about 40-60 minerals per rock

Astronaut Uniforms

Here's the texture for the Astronaut Uniform - we're looking for 5 new ones, one for each character:

The Source JPG file is located here. The Source PSD file is located here. Andre's Engineer uniform is also shown for comparison. Great stuff Andre!

More mining!

I've added a minor update as version 1.7:

- To fix a few of the bug reports, I changed the way that movement works with mining - now you use up energy every time you mine. This lets you mine faster.

- The player starts out with a bunch of minerals to begin with, to make getting a robot quicker.

- Each robot can have different numbers associated with it - how fast it mines, how much it mines

- Everytime you mine, it will use up a bit of that area... after 10 or so times, it will tell you that there's been too much mining in the area


Plans for next mining updates:
- Robots wil hold on to minerals, you have to go out and pick them up when they are full
- After robots can't mine in an area, they'll randomly move around until they find a spot that isn't mined yet, then restart
- When robots mine, they might hit a pocket of gas or something explosive
- When robots mine, they might slowly take damage
- You can recall robots to base... some of them might not work and you have to pick them up
-- This wil be very useful if a meteor storm is about to hit
- If robots break, you can either fix them or scrap them for resources
- When making robots, you can pick many different options for building them

What other ideas?!

Mining robots

Game version 1.6 is posted!

This has some upgrades to the mining logic. When you mine, you can only mine when you have enough energy. You can only carry 100 units of minerals... once you have that, go and touch the golden machine by the base of the outpost to drop those off at base.

After you have enough minerals to purchase a mining robot, hit the "+" plus key. This will place a mining robot. You can place up to 6 robots, and each one you get mines a little bit better than the last.

Currently, the robots each cost:
5 aluminum, 8 carbon, 45 iron, 3 magnesium, 25 silicon, 5 nickle

What else should we build? What should they cost? I've increased the mining values, especially in higher ares... is this enough?

Mineral Counts

All,
Can you help me work through the minerals that we will have and their percentages of being found every time someone digs? The way it currently works it that for every dig, you have the chance of finding 1 unit of each type - so you could get 1 of each if you "rolled" perfectly each time.

Here's my first though effort. These are very easy to change in my config files:

Name
1st number - % to find in Low Altitude
2nd number - % High Alt
3rd number - % In asteroids

Aluminum 10% 30% 40%
Calcium 10% 30% 40%
Carbon 10% 10% 20%
Hydrogen 20% 10% 50%
Iron 40% 10% 20%
Liq. Ox 10% 3% 20%
Magnesium 30% 10% 20%
Silicon 5% 35% 45%
Water 2% 1% 3%
Titanium 0% 30% 10%
NanoFiber 0% 0% .1%

Do we need to add Nickel? Anything else? I'm guessing Iron should be increased. Water as well?

I'm thinking of adding an extra column for % when digging underground or % when robot digs (though these might just be double and tripple the chances of finding one). Thoughts?

Lander Sketches

Phil Smith, our master Space Artist, had these sketches to help inspire us on for the 3D objects that we are aiming to create:

Mission and Feedback Loops

For our MBO subsystems, we're looking at the player keeping four simulation "loops" in synch.

Let's discuss what the loops are and their details in this post.

(Here's a spreadsheet that we can collaborate on)

New Game Version Posted

We've posted version 1.5 of the Moon Base One game. The new version includes:

- More vehicles
- Deadly spilled radioactive goo
- A Jet pack with Sounds
- Into Dialogue
- Breathing sounds
- Underground Outpost with Doors and a machine room
- A mining gun to mine into the lunar regolith or into stray boulders

This is a first draft for many of these effects - and some are still a little raw... they'll be cleaned up and polished during the next release.

Thanks for everyone's help!!

Moon Base One developers phone conference

Hey all, we're getting all of the developers together for a quick phonecall tonight at 7:30pm EST or 4:30pm PST. We'll be having these every week until we deliver the game in June.

If you're available, please call in so we can resynchronize on tasks.

1 877 761-1266
DIAL **
DIAL Password 12345

Inside the Moon Base

We're using 3D World Studio to develop interiors for our base. We need volunteers to help design the inside of the bases. Anyone interested? If so, ping me and I'll walk you through how to build these rooms! The next version of the game (out this weekend) will have some starting examples of inside rooms under the base we can walk around in.

http://www.leadwerks.com/index.php?page=applications_games.htm&subbar=bar_applications.htm

Listen to the Intro

Our professional voice actor, Peter Wylie, has recorded a few versions of the intro. I've done a few edits and put my favorite up here. Please leave us any feedback you have! I envision this will be the voiceover for the intro video.

If you like Peter's work, we might be able to request additional help from him...

Moon Base One: The Setting

The year is 2030. Rob Hegg stands atop the jagged mountains of the south side of the moon. Early in the 21st century, humanity came to the moon to extend humanity’s presence across the solar system. The moon is the first step. The quest to find extraterrestrial life has always been a driving force behind humankind’s expansion into the solar system. That, and the calling to venture into the unknown causes mankind to invest in its future by exploring and colonizing space. For the creative minded, employing space technology could bring untold riches in new commercial ventures.

Neither the early robotic probes, nor the humans that created them could have predicted the tremendous possibilities for humanity to be found in the chemical composition of the moon. Helium Three, the key to clean fusion power, was abundant in the hostile environment of the moon. It was no longer just exploring space, but exploiting it, which brought the humans. The possibilities for commercial growth and the development of wealth exceeded beyond belief. Scientists on Earth worked to perfect the processes for creating power from Helium Three that could provide near limitless clean energy for the entire planet. The hopes of billions of people rested with this precious element. So too did the fears of millions.

The development of limitless clean energy threatened nations all over the world. It threatens the empires, money, and power of those who produce fossil fuels. There are many powerful people, organizations, and countries who would love to see Moon Base One fail; so many in fact, that an increasing number of people believe equipment failures and other strange happenings are sabotage. There is no evidence of this claim. Still, inhabitants are warned to check everything and to be on the look out for “substandard equipment”.

Much of Moon Base One is buried beneath 5 meters of lunar regolith and soil. The lunar soil is an effective means of protecting its inhabitants from the intense radiation emanating from space and the nearby sun. Moon Base One has a short supply chain to Earth and orbiting space stations. Arrival of supply vehicles is a normal part on base operations. Moon Base One has begun producing helium 3 in ample quantities to meet Earth’s power needs. Moon Base One also supports nearby mining operations and fuel production for rockets bound for the Red Planet.

Calling all artists!

Are you an artist that can help us put textures on the 3D objects we come up with for the MoonBase? We need your help!! Here are step by step instructions on how you can put your art skills to work:

1. Save the file http://crossler.com/test/games/MBO_Objects.zip to your desktop
2. Unzip it to a folder on your desktop
3. Run the file named TorqueShowToolPro 1.5.exe within the directory you unzipped
4. Accept all the default settings when installing
5. On your desktop, click on the link named Torque ShowTool Pro

Within the ShowTool Program:

1. Click “OK” to use the program in evaluation mode (email me if your eval expires)
2. In the upper left hand, click the light green Project Directory button
3. Click Modify
4. To the right, click the gray “Add Directory” button
5. To the right of the textbox under “Path to Project Directory”, click the right arrow
6. Navigate to the directory you uninstalled the main zip file to (For me, this was C:\Documents and Settings\crossler\Desktop\MBO_Objects )
7. Click in the name box, and call it “Moon Base”
8. Click OK
9. Click the light green Load DTS button to load a DTS object to view (this has the 3D object wrapped in the 2D textured images)

Editing the images

1. Once you have the object loaded, to find out what textures are used, click the light pink Material List button on the left
2. This will list the name of the PNG or JPG image in the directory that the object is textured with
3. Open your favorite editor and edit this image file, and recheck with the ShowTool to see how your changes look (you can click and drag on the buttons to the top right to rotate the 3D image)
4. You can change the size of the images, as long as they have one of these sizes: 128x128 or 256x256 or 512x512 or 1024x1024 (they must be square)
5. Mail us the changed images files when done, we’ll add them to the game!

THANK YOU!

Help!

The skillsets that we still need volunteers for are:

- C++ Programmer (2-3 people)
- Audio engineer for special effects, background music (1 person)
- Graphics artists/painters/photoshop experts (2-3 people)
- 3D designer in Lightwave 3D or 3DS Max (1-3 people)
- 3D animator in 3DS Max (1 person)
- Voice actors (I think we have enough)
- Video designer (1 person)

Plot and Misson Document

A new collaborative document containing the Plot and current missons has been added as a link to the right: Collaborate on the Plot. If you want access to edit this or update it, send me an email!

How's this for opening text and voice over?

June, 2030:

Your volunteer application for a six week assignment to Moon Base One has been approved! As a contractor working for FOGE Inc., we are very proud of the studying and effort you have shown. Your hard work has paid off.

As you know, FOGE Inc. is one of the World’s lead stellar contracting firms. We are the best engineers and scientist available for hire!

NASA has just approved a contract for us to accomplish Phase 3 of the Moon Base One expansion. We will be improving existing facilities, and adding state of the art factories, robotics and infrastructure. Your success here is required for us to be funded to work on Phase 4. Your friends at FOGE are counting on you.

Over the next few weeks, your task is to set up an automatic mining process. Find enough materials from the lunar Regolith to build more robots and enhancements to the base. We'll give you specific tasks of what to build, but finding enough raw materials is paramount!

Now that you are here, get acquainted with the mining outpost at the base of the hill. The main Moon Base One structure is about a mile to the North East. Your room is in that main base - we have a rover assigned to you that can drive there. There should be a jetpack near here that will also help you fly around in the low gravity. Be careful on your landings - we've had many employees sprain their ankles from coming down too fast.

We'll call you on your inner-suit comm. radio when we have specific missions to do. From all of us watching your every move from back on Earth, FOGE Inc wishes you good luck. Have fun building the future of mankind!

New Year = New Things to do!

We're planning on having the final version of the game ready by June 1st. Make sure you check out Version 0.2, which was just posted (links on the right side of this page).

The things we still need help with are:

3D modeling and texturing:
- specifically: individual buildings in the moon base, mining equipment, and two new space rover vehicles
- 3D modelling of a robot/droid to carry rocks/supplies when called
- building new images for the existing moonbases - so they look a little more realistic
- 3D texturing of space suits from astronauts of other companies (we have the FOGE one, need a few more)

Coding:
- Mission system (building in some C++ code so that AI bots can respond to commands and communicate)
- Base building system (so that when players bring resources to the base, buildings are created)
- Various "mini games" to accomplish goals (like wire a broken circuit, reprogram a robot, fix equipment, etc)

Writing/Design:
- Designing the Missions for players (we have a good list online, but need some more granularity - What exactly are the missions? How long are they?)
- Writing text for the scripts (What exactly are the words that NASA mission control says to the astronauts for each mission? What other messages are sent?)
- Writing dialoge that the AI bots will use (Do they say "Hi" when approached? What about bots from other "companies")

Audio/Video:
- Recording the audio/video for the missions communications from NASA (we have a film studio ready to help with this)
- Recording audio for the other astronauts (we need a few male and female voices)