opu_projects:active_projects:outposthd

OutpostHD is the rebirth of the Outpost: Missing In Action project. Simply, it's an Outpost game inspired by OP1 that adds the missing advertised features, improves gameplay mechanics by removing a lot of the unnecessary and tedious micro management, interface choices that make a lot more sense, an enhanced research tree and a planned but as of yet undeveloped multiplayer mode.

The core of the project is to provide a fun OUTPOST game that has all of the advertised features and provides better feedback for things like resource lines, mining/factory/laboratory reports and colonist opinion/morale.

Project Goals

  • Develop a new, modern code base that can be built and run on multiple platforms including Windows, MacOS X and Linux.
  • Implement the core gameplay mechanics from OUTPOST
  • Provide a better interface from which the user can get better feedback from their Colony.
  • Add the ability to establish new colonies on the same planet.
  • Develop new visuals to replace the old graphics using modern rendering procedures and alpha transparency (something impossible at the time the original game was built).
  • Add additional planet and star types.
  • Implement a multiplayer mode where other users can establish colonies on the same planet or different planets/moons within the same star system.

Changes from OUTPOST

The core concepts for OUTPOST were great. The implementation was terrible. The following sections detail some of the changes in OutpostHD. You can follow OutpostHD's boards for additional details and to participate in the development of the game.

In OUTPOST, the Underground Factory could produce luxury items that were either consumed by the Commercial or Red Light District structure. This made sense as a boost to morale levels however the game designers chose to use superfluous item names for the production such as Fuzzy Dice, Wax Lips and Neuromancer Games.

I remember personally thinking that this was silly. In OutpostHD, Underground Factories will produce luxury items which I think are simple enough to label as “Luxury Items”. UG Factories will also be used to produce other items.

The original OUTPOST 'gamified' the pre-launch screens but did it in a way that isn't very much fun – lots of fluff with video animations to show launches and satellites and things that at the time were impressive but doesn't offer any real value today. OutpostHD will streamline this part of the game by giving the user fine-grained control over the conditions of their star system and planetary environments via a set of attributes.

Difficulty settings will affect the availability of attributes and the effectiveness or harshness of an attribute will be; for instance, high light output (a good attribute for solar power generation and food crop development) will be less effective in higher difficulties. Conversely, a negative attribute such as a low density planet will make metallic elements even scarcer on higher difficulties than in lower difficulty levels.

See this forum post for a discussion regarding this aspect of gameplay.

One of the problems with OUTPOST is the over abundance of resource types some of which were difficult to get. There were 11 mined resource types, all of which were needed to keep your colony operating. While Multi-Purpose Goo could be substituted for resources that were missing, this felt more like a band-aid solution.

OutpostHD has reduced this to four mined resources separated between Common and Rare varieties.

OUTPOST Resources OutpostHD Resources
Metals A Common Metals
Metals B Rare Metals
Metals C Common Minerals
Metals D Rare Minerals
Precious Metals A
Precious Metals B
Minerals A
Minerals B
Minerals C
Fusion Elements A
Fusion Elements B
Fusion Elements C

The reasoning behind this is that players need to be able to know at a moments glance how much of what resources they have without having to look at a report that spans an entire screen. The four resources provide enough variety to account for all of the original resources (with the exception, perhaps, of fuels for fusion reactions however it's debatable if this really needs to be a separate resource or can be considered part of the Rare Minerals resource).

Multi-Purpose Goo was a substance produced in OUTPOST through recycling of bulldozed structures and by waste produced by the colony (e.g., residences). It could be used as a substitute for any of the other mined resources. This likely made sense as the developers found that having all of the necessary resources to keep their colony running was next to impossible until you had the chance to develop nano technology. Worse still, because of the way it was implemented, if you had enough structures producing sewage (namely residences), you could effectively have an unlimited supply of MPG.

Because of this (and it's lack of realism), MP will not make a reappearance in OutpostHD. Instead, materials from bulldozed structures will be sent to the Smelter which reclaims some of the materials that were used to build the structure. As of now it's set at 90% but this will change later on based on difficulty settings and research into recycling technologies.

See Also

  • opu_projects/active_projects/outposthd.1529111789.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2018/06/16 01:16
  • by leeor_net