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 and Linux
  • Implement the core gameplay mechanics from OUTPOST
  • Provide a better interface from which the user can get better feedback from their Colony
  • Replace the original graphics with new, unencumbered assets
  • Add the ability to establish new colonies on the same planet
  • 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.

Main Article: Planet Selection

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.

Main Article: Mines and Mining

All of the mined resources from OUTPOST have been simplified and condensed into the following four mined resources:

  • Common Metals
  • Common Minerals
  • Rare Metals
  • Rare Minerals

This will reduce the player's mental workload allowing them to focus their energies on other parts of the game including population, storage and research management. Tweaked and overhauled production, maintenance and structure costs will continue to provide a challenging game-play mechanic.

Multi-Purpose Goo (MPG) was a poor solution to resource management balancing that failed in two main ways: it wasn't realistic (a problem for a 'hard science' game) and it was broken. That said, MPG will not make a reappearance in OutpostHD. While the resource management will provide a challenge to the player, the challenge will not be in the form of insufficient resources being produced by mines.

See Also

  • opu_projects/active_projects/outposthd.1529114416.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2018/06/16 02:00
  • by leeor_net