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Wartide

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:51:36 +0000

Hey, what happened with wartide, I remember you were working on that project not long ago.

I created my account after pre-ordering

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:34:02 +0000

Hey there, I just preordered this, but created my account soon after. I used the same email, but I dont know if the pre-order is linked to this account.

Will I get an email telling me if an alpha/beta build is ready to be downloaded? Or is one out already which I cannot access?

Thanks!

Developer Blog #35: Fortification Materials

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:10:06 +0000

In a previous developer blog, you may have seen images of a trench and barricade network (one of those images is reprinted below). We just teased you a little and didn't explain the full purposes of those. But today, we're ready to talk just a little more on the subject.

As re-depicted below, we previously showcased concept metal trenches and barricades. The United Traders Coalition uses three materials to deploy its fortifications, and metal is only one of them. Earthworks and concrete round out the remaining two.

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United Traders Coalition fortifications are created by infantry equipping spades and digging earthworks. Only a simple subset of fortifications can be established in this manner, as really anything more complex than trenches and barricades requires either concrete or metal.

Concrete and metal both require construction shuttles. These materials are more advanced, and both are capable of supporting construction of and integration of more advanced structures such as pillboxes, covered trenches, etc... into a fortification network than earthworks alone can.

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There are a few, key differences between concrete and metal, beyond just appearances. Concrete is cheaper and constructs faster, but degrades a little faster as well when under direct attack (for some fortifications, this rarely matters; for others, it could be key). Concrete and metal are both resistant to burrow attacks (attempts by burrowing mutants to surface at a location in a hostile manner), but concrete will fall to tunnel attacks (Mutant Network strategy whereby a shallow tunnel is built under a fortification, group of units, etc... and the tunnel is collapsed, instantly bridging the gap between the tunnel and surface)- although concrete does at least stand long enough during the attack that garrisoned infantry standing above the attack can relocate. Metal withstands this kind of assault unless it is so overpowering that all possible support for the metal platforms is encompassed and collapsed.

Concrete and metal are also more generally usable than for straight-up fortifications. They can also be used to cover the ground (like pavement) and to fortify structure/tower foundations, providing protection from the above-mentioned types of underground attacks. Simply, United Traders Coalition players can use earthworks, concrete, and metal to establish networks of fortifications that are varied, customized, and economically suited to their intended purpose.

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Developer Blog #34: Website Content

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:34:32 +0000

We're working on overhauling the content- the text, images, etc... on the website right now. It's been about nine months since we've made a major update to the main content areas of the site (or, really, everything but the developer blogs), and it had fallen understandably quite out-of-date.

Under Gaia is ever a work in progress right now and while we are getting quite close to our first release milestone, we are always changing and tweaking to improve the final product. So this update isn't going to always be up-to-date, but we will be making a more concerted effort to keep our website up-to-date from this point on so that you can reference our other pages with greater confidence.

Thus I encourage you to take a trip to our GAME section and check out all of the new content we have added there! We'll be sure to make mention here when major content updates hit the site, hence why this developer blog was delayed. Developer blogs themselves are going to become a little less frequent in the coming few weeks as we push to hit development milestones in key areas, so don't worry if you don't see anything here for longer than usual. But anyway, enjoy the new content, and we do apologize for the rough assets currently but we wanted to push the information out as quickly as we could.

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Developer Blog #33: Multidisplay Teaser

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:49:25 +0000

It's present time!

Engineering has been hard at work on Undying (our modular core that lets us hook different graphics, physics, etc... engines in so that we can keep our games constantly new) and everything around it... including the capability to support multiple displays across multiple devices.

We've talked about such support from a theory standpoint before, but we're now ready to provide a short, video teaser of that support in action. We've transcended the realm of hypotheses and theory and stepped into the land of reality.

Check out the video!

So what just happened in that video? First, you heard some nice music from Nathan. Second, you witnessed my primitive Adobe Premiere skills. Third, and most importantly, you witnessed our desktop, multi-monitor GUI in action, courtesy of engineering division.

You saw a "desktop GUI" straddle two 1920x1200 screens on a system with a GTX 580 and GTX 280. You saw "windows" on the desktop GUI drag seamlessly between physical barriers. You saw those same windows resize at will. The keen among you may have seen some amount of transparency in the windows and recognized that the windows are not at all limited to just that typical Windows design and we can in fact craft them into whatever form factor we want. Others of you may have noticed that the desktop was powered by two Windows 7 windows, which themselves can be resized, relocated, etc...

Right now, it all looks like some kind of primitive operating system rather than a game, and that's just fine. Besides obviously making cross-device implementation of Eyefinity and nV Surround set-ups easy for our games as well as making splitscreen easy, Developer Blog 19 clarifies many of the direct benefits of true multiple display support... and that blog went up before we confirmed the awesome SQUID-based GUI we'd be getting.

And for those of you sighing because you only have one screen- take heart, for everything done on multiple screens and multiple devices can be done on one, meaning that while viewing real estate may be at a premium, you will still be able to use the immense customization and robust feature set this technology offers.

Thanks for watching the video and let us know what you think on our forums while we continue to work on ratcheting things up towards Alpha Bronze (oh no, we haven't forgotten about that, don't worry).

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, President and Design Director

Developer Blog #32: Target Audience

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:32:12 +0000

By now, gamers are pretty used to hearing developers talk about how they want to satisfy wider audiences. Gamers are also pretty used to such statements resulting in "dumbed-down" games targeted at more casual audiences. And that's quite simply because the developers didn't mean what they said- what they actually meant was that they wanted to cater their game towards an audience with a greater built-in population, not that they wanted to cater their game to more audiences.

So I understand your trepidation when I say that we want to make Under Gaia appeal to many strategy audiences.

We don't intend to roll multiple games into one. We don't intend to come out with a console version of the game (if there is one audience we are targeting very specifically, it is PC gamers- we want to do the best we possibly can to make this a true PC game). We don't intend to simplify the game to attract a wider audience at the expense of the quality of the game.

Instead, we intend to rely on smarter methods of game design to scale the experience with the players, and to emphasize concepts that allow players of completely different schools of thought to compete.

Chief among these methods is customizable automation, which I won't get much into, but can quickly be summed down to a series of controls that allow players to tweak and fine-tune how their units behave and which allow players to specify other automated strategic actions to take.

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That's really significant. The biggest factor that limits unit counts, map size, customization of units, complexity of combat systems, and even strategic depth is rather simply player control. The more those things are piled-on, the more control needs to be removed from the player under standard strategy game design (consider how nice Company of Heroes' or Dawn of War 2's combat systems are compared to the relative austerity of StarCraft's, but how many fewer entities you control in Company of Heroes or Dawn of War 2). What customizable automation allows is for players to exert control over the natural automation that needs to be put in place when scale and complexity are increased.

And what does that really mean? It means at the low end, we can offer really nice default automation. This makes it easy for new players to get into the game and focus on learning the strategy of it before concerning themselves with the minutiae of execution.

But can they compete with players making good use of customizable automation and/or exerting superior amounts of concentration/leveraging greater actions per minute? Only if their strategy is truly superior. Players making fuller use of the game's mechanics or who are able to issue commands at a more rapid rate have a natural advantage in being able to exert more control, with those able to input more commands than others having the greatest advantage of all as they'd be capable- as they are in many great, modern eSports games- of refining their orders in real-time to a greater degree than their opponents. But the key is that strategy, experience, tactics... those will triumph over any foe that tries to win through brute-force execution (for example how in StarCraft players with significantly higher actions per minute tend to be able to macromanage more units to the front lines and maintain better control of their units, thus gaining a huge edge over opponents with notably inferior actions per minute despite the strategies employed).

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And so when you consider those impacts, I feel the game does manage to appeal to a variety of strategy audiences. It appeals to casual players who want to be immersed in a realistic commander experience but who do not want to put the time in to practice to get their certainty and actions per minute up, it appeals to players who prefer to focus on just the strategy over execution, and it appeals to those who appreciate the real-time component of Real-Time Strategy.

Of course, we're also doing all we can to provide an excellent GUI. We're introducing multi-display technology that leverages multiple graphics devices and a customizable GUI that lets players tailor their controls to their ultimate preference. This again makes the game inviting and allows players to compensate for lower actions per minute... without removing the benefits that strong real-time performances bring. Speaking of our GUI system, we're working on a little showcase of that, so stay tuned this week for a sneak preview and check right back here next Sunday for a full video presentation.

One of the questions we get about all of this is whether or not we feel Under Gaia is a good candidate for an eSports game. My answer is rather simply that you can't count on eSports. We do plan to provide some interesting features for replay, training, streaming, etc... but ultimately, it's the professional athletes that determine whether or not they want to make a game a successful eSport or not.

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That said, just because current eSport strategy games tend to prefer simpler mechanics and full player control, I don't think that means Under Gaia is discounted. I think it means Under Gaia is right in-line because it does provide full control and because it offers advantages to players who execute better, so you can still have players that slam down 350+ actions per minute and not only play the game well, but look impressive and athletic while doing it, but you also make sure that strategy is what really matters and there's plenty of it.

So I think RTS players of all types will find a lot to like and will find themselves able to get into Under Gaia and enjoy it at their own pace.

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Wargame: European Escalation

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:51:17 +0000

Descriptive Link

The thing of immediate interest to me is that it's a Eugen game, and ever since Act of War they've won my immediate attention no matter their project. RUSE, I still want a chance to fuller evaluate (I'm fully aware it's been out for awhile and I've owned it for a near equally long time), but at a bare minimum it definitely went into some relatively uncharted territory for RTS games.

The second thing of interest though is the laudable talk of supply chains (real ones, not what RUSE had) and in particular how users handle the preservation of supplies:

"Every one of the 300 units in the game possesses realistically rendered performance and behavior. Players must monitor which weapons systems their units may use, allowing or forbidding certain weapons in order to save precious ammunition." While this probably boils down to "just" stances, it is potentially a major advance in the usage of stances as far as modern, major RTS developers are concerned.

The combat complexity sounds good as well though I cock my head a tad at "critical hits" which in this case sound random rather than targeted- they seem to have the framework to do better than that, but this comes back to the issue of I feel Eugen may be beating around the bush of the true RTS revolution, but they don't quite understand it and how to fully apply it, so they stick with random critical hits because they don't want to overburden the player with real-time decisions.

The final nugget of nice-sounding stuff here comes in the form of the game's experience system. Really, it's a reflection on the game's combat systems and hopefully the game's combat focus, but the emphasis on specific, true experience statistics rather than general stat buffs is refreshing to see from such a developer in such a game.

Much remains to be seen- the first word in the game's title is "Wargame" which typically denotes a subcategory of strategy games which are almost entirely unaccessible to the casual RTS gamer and which make zero attempt to. RUSE was the complete opposite of this, and Act of War likewise was not a diehard affair compared to true wargames. "With rare strategic depth, Wargame: European Escalation stays accessible, and gives all strategy fans, beginners and experienced players alike, a unique, innovative and realistic gaming experience," is what the website has to say on the matter, and given Eugen's past I'd presume that true. That said, what kind of strategy game we're looking at here is still tough to tell- with the details available so far, it's actually entirely possible that this is almost a pure RTT (Real-Time Tactical) as the supplying and refueling components are the only discussed economic components, which could easily be worked into an RTT framework (although I don't think that the case here- I think the website just takes some basic RTS mechanics for granted).

All that said, Eugen's next game should be interesting, and until Relic wants to talk about what their newest project actually is, it's the top strategy game I have my eye on.

Developer Blog #31: 3D Terrain

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:06:39 +0000

When most people hear 3D terrain the first things that pop into their heads are the rolling hills and large mountains of the world. Most of the time we completely forget that the earth is made out of several layers of dirt and rock. Many games today use 3D terrain engines that have no depth. Popular games like Call of Duty or Battlefield 3 might look pretty, but can you dig into their terrain system? Can you create tunnels or shafts that go deep into the earth? The answer is no. However, their terrain systems work great for aboveground situations, but for Under Gaia we want something more. Letting players have full control both aboveground and underground is crucial to our gameplay. So how can we incorporate both without losing performance? Let's take a look at some games that have both aboveground and underground terrain systems.

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One game that is fairly familiar to many people is Minecraft. Minecraft uses simple cubes that make up the terrain. Although this system works great for their style of gameplay, it certainly does not look realistic. In fact, not a single curve can be found on their terrain.

For our game, we want a nice, seamless, transition between the underground areas and the aboveground areas. To do this we will be using a voxel/polygon hybrid system. This certainly won't be the first game to use this technology, but to this date no other RTS we're aware of has anything similar to this. With a voxel terrain engine we'll be able to create caves and overhangs with relative ease.

There are several problems with using voxels. The first problem is performance. If you have a few square kilometers of space that may require millions of voxels to look smooth and realistic, and to run such an engine in real-time simply is not feasible with today's hardware (as powerful though it may be). Instead, we plan on using larger voxels to create the terrain and then convert those into smooth polygons.

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Overall we feel that our terrain system will not only provide a unique gameplay experience, but also provide pleasing visual results as well.

-Jon (Toaster) Mitchell, Lead Technical Artist

Developer Blog #30: Mirrors

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:10:06 +0000

Up until this point, we've largely discussed Under Gaia as a game where Humans fight Mutants, and have acted as if that is the only case. In fact it isn't, and today we are going to talk a little on that subject.

The capability to support mirror matches rests heavily on the modularity of the designed factions. It would at first then seem that mirror matches in Under Gaia should be impossible, or subpar. For how will United Traders Coalition players gain money without boosted corpse counts from Mutant Networks? How will Mutant Networks operate against each other during the day, and what importance will the surface have when both players inhabit the underground? How does a defensively-oriented faction like the United Traders Coalition do anything but stalemate against another member of its faction? We've answered all of these questions and more to ensure that not only are mirror matches possible, they also might just be the most exciting mirror matches you've ever played.

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Let's first answer the questions posed by the United Traders Coalition on this matter. What of their monetary resource income? Since plants still exist and scavengers spawn every night as they normally do, United Traders Coalition income is reduced, but both sides feel the reduction (and any modes beyond 1v1 where a mix of Mutant Networks and United Traders Coalition might be present, the Mutant Network forces pick-up the slack accordingly). What of the underground in United Traders Coalition grudge matches? The United Traders Coalition can actually construct tunnels should it wish to, but it has little infrastructure to establish beneath the ground. Still, in a match-up where the underground's immediate relevance is reduced, the ability to tap into natural tunnel networks and leverage alternate assault paths can indeed be powerful.

And what of the United Traders Coalition's greatest issue, that of the potential for stalemate? While the United Traders Coalition is a force that likes to buckle down and hold out under even the heaviest of assaults, its design has been shifted over time to remove much of the rigidity of its defensive role. Instead of forcing infantry to use trenches and barricades, instead of forcing vehicles to hunker down at night, the design has shifted such that usage of such defensive tools are softly encouraged. No longer must the United Traders Coalition construct vast trench networks for its infantry, but its units are largely balanced around fighting from trenches, so there is a soft- but flexible- incentive.

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We are also expanding the role of Shuttles, allowing them to provide aerial transportation on top of their construction and surface to orbit duties. This will ease infantry transportation somewhat and open the battlefield a little more, without doing so overly much as anti-air will be introduced to compensate and Shuttles will be competing for usage as transports, resource collectors (they transport syngas from Refineries to orbit to give the United Traders Coalition operations their monetary income), builders, new unit transports, and new equipment transports. Their logistical uses are immense, and thus offensive use of their transportation capabilities is a huge risk, particularly given the sizable expense of each Shuttle. So while suicide drops like those often seen in StarCraft: Brood War Terran versus Terran are definitely possible, they should be a much bigger and less necessary risk here.

Then what of Mutant Networks? The big difference is that with no United Traders Coalition to go after, scavengers instead target the Mutant Networks. The networks themselves fight an interesting battle. They aren't magically able to send troops freely aboveground during the day just because it's a mirror, so they must still use the soft methods of accomplishing this- Ambush Sites, psionic dust storms, and environmental shielding armor- if they intend to traverse the surface during the day. Nonetheless, the majority of the war will likely take place underground, and this is rather new territory for Real-Time Strategy games. In fact, both mirror match-ups offer rather unique experiences.

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What pulls Under Gaia mirror matches together though and makes them properly exciting is that each faction is designed with multitudes of granularity among its unit and equipment selections. Mirrors are so named because they tend to result in two players fielding identical forces with identical build orders, leveraging mistakes to gain the upper hand. Under Gaia can transcend this because the huge amount of force customization available means that there are so many strategic options that there is no need for the two armies facing each other to be mirrors. We fully expect mirror matches to be almost as exciting and dynamic as the feature United Traders Coalition versus Mutant Network match-up, whereas in most RTS games mirrors provoke groans.

And we're also happy that we can offer mirrors because it allows players to choose and stick with either the United Traders Coalition or Mutant Network should they wish to. While not completely necessary, we feel this is a big positive for competitive play, and we seek to encourage that however we can, with mirror match support being just one method.

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

PS- Preorderers, don't forget to check out the Developer Blog Art thread that accompanies this, located in the preorderer-exclusive forum area!

New Developer Blog Art Thread

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 05:34:01 +0000

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Been reading our developer blogs lately and noticing the nice art but been wondering what it's all about? Well if you're a preorderer, wonder no more, as we are beginning a new feature in our exclusive preorderer-only section that focuses on explaining what the art is for, who created it, and (to some extent) how it was created.

If you've preordered the game, go ahead and click this link to begin reading-up on the art for the more recent developer blogs!

Developer Blog #29: GEAR-3

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 01:03:40 +0000

Art is back for another developer blog, and this time we are visiting a piece previously seen only in concept form. The GEAR-3 assault rifle. Some of you may remember it from what showed up in the forums a while back, as seen below.

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This assault rifle is the basis for all the United Traders Coalition (the faction that used to more broadly be termed "Humans") weaponry designs, and is one of the primary weapons of the United Traders Coalition infantry, as shown above with a standard, unmodified loadout.

This marks one of the first large pieces to pass through our new pipeline and below, as you read over design, you can tentatively see the stages it went through from start to finish.

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The GEAR-3 is but one of a massive number of weapons that will be available to the United Traders Coalition and furthermore is one of a few assault rifles available to them. While its electronic firing mechanism is unique in comparison to modern weapons, it is not unique in the world of Under Gaia.

What separates the GEAR-3 there from other assault rifles is its use of the large 7.62x25mm, 7.62x39mm, and 7.62x51mm caseless rounds. Remembering that the GEAR-3 uses caseless ammunition, these are quite sizable rounds that allow the GEAR-3 to function somewhere between an assault rifle and a battle rifle, not unlike more modern firearms such as the G3.

And yes ladies and gentlemen, you can switch what ammunition the GEAR-3 uses at any Barracks. Since bullets are considered an unlimited munition, it is free to swap them there, but should you wish to have an infantryman equip bullets of one type but carry some bullets of another type, only a finite amount of the secondary bullets can be carried- but they can be swapped in the field.

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The gameplay purpose of the different bullets is not overly different from the many attachments and modifications that will be usable on the weapon. The 7.62x25mm rounds contain twice as many bullets per magazine but have the least stopping power. They are ideal in enabling the GEAR-3 to lay down fully automatic fire (and yep, you can change firing modes at any time) as they produce less recoil than their brethren.

The 7.62x39mm and 7.62x51mm rounds both offer the same number of bullets per magazine. The 7.62x39mm provides good versatility in supporting all firing modes, though single shot and burst will tend to produce the best results. Finally, 7.62x51mm rounds offer the GEAR-3 some of the best stopping power around for an assault rifle but produce so much recoil that automatic fire and even burst are almost completely useless, leaving single shot as the prime- and still quite useful- method of fire.

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The GEAR-3 is a versatile weapon and it is now ready for battle courtesy of some bang-up work by Art. Rest assured, this isn't the last you'll see of the GEAR-3, but it may be the last time the GEAR-3 is the only weapon competing for your attention.

-Alex (Shigee) Ledbetter, Art Director and Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Developer Blog #28: Background Music

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:56:32 +0000

The sound team is here again to tickle your ears with new delights! Our sights (hearing?) are set on producing some war trembling tunes to prepare you for battle and to basically give you some good music to listen to while you play.

The first of the tracks is the first step in exploring and experimenting with what style and feel of music we need to best match the gameplay in Under Gaia.

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Keeping with the fusion of orchestral and rock music came the idea of having the movement of the piece being set by the strings and brass. Later in the piece the electric distortion guitar adds to the mix and really gives it a meatier feeling. The drums are the final part added to keep the sense of forward movement- also using quite an aggressive sounding drum kit, punchy kicks, and harsh snares. A piano can be heard very faintly when the guitars begin playing; this is just to add a bit more variation to the timbre. Almost the entirety of the track is played around the key of E minor and keeping on the E minor chord, the exception being the first 20 seconds as several chords are played during this. The only problem with this is the lack of chord changes- the track is relatively short and if this does get lengthened then it will definitely have more changes in the chordal structure and perhaps a more distinct melody overlaying to break any monotony.

Daytime Music: Background Theme 2

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Secondly, we have a piece where the feeling of darkness is apparent from the first note played. A choir sings legato chords for the opening sequence and the drum progression plays a very similar rhythm to the guitar's rhythm. Again this piece is played in the key of E minor and begins on the chord of E minor except changes in the chords come a lot sooner than the previous track. Hopefully this keeps a balanced amount of movement within the piece to keep you engaged in the music; not too much to be distracted and not too little to get bored. The polyphony works well between the guitar and the orchestral sections when the pace seems to increase- the beats get fuller and a drum pattern played on the toms is introduced at 0:47 while a horn section plays the legato chords on top of this section where the toms are played. The rhythm of the guitar slows down and is mainly block chords with few changes up until 1:48 where the opening section is repeated once again with the addition of a string section. A middle section is played at 3:12 in which the soprano choir take over a more dominant place within the mix, this builds up to a break down and guitar solo at 3:36 where all the higher-ranged instruments stop and only the guitars and the drums are heard. The piece comes to a conclusion from 4:24 with similar riffs played once again, all of the instruments except the choir are heard during this section.

Daytime Music: Background Theme 9

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This next background theme focuses on the same aspect as the first track- using the string section as the main drive behind the music. Three strikes on the timpani are heard amongst a brief interval of silence, then the strings come in and play their part, bringing an heir of further tension and darkness. This motif on the strings is repeated several times while brass sections are added, all playing to a slight crescendo. The dynamics are quite noticeable in this piece, instruments and sometimes entire sections of instruments will drop out to change the focus of the music to a specific part being played above the rest. Inevitably, the guitar arrives at 1:45 and plays a shot lead melody mimicking the string section first heard. The guitar then plays a quicker rhythm along with the drums as the horns are playing over the top. Following this the guitars drop back and play chords for several bars and the string section takes over with the rhythm. At 3:12 the intro motif is heard once again, and most of the instruments heard previously play until the end.

Daytime Music: Background Theme 11

We will be bringing a showcase of the dusk and nighttime music in the next sound team blog. Don't forget that the Mutants have a different set of music to the Humans so you'd best keep your eyes and ears open for future updates from us!

-Nathan (Doc) Watson, Lead Sound Engineer

Developer Blog #27: Alpha Bronze Pt 3

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:06:39 +0000

We touched a little bit on Tunnel Hubs during the last Alpha Bronze developer blog, but this time we're going to get a little more up close and personal with them.

Tunnel Hubs are primarily an Alpha Bronze resolution to representing Mutant underground assets. Later in the game's development, Tunnel Hubs will shift from their current, proper hub status, to pure entrances/exits- constructed portals between the aboveground and underground worlds.

In Alpha Bronze though, Tunnel Hubs ensconce not only an entrance/exit of a tunnel network, but also an underground hub. As noted in previous developer blogs, the underground in Alpha Bronze is strictly virtual (that will not be the case in the completed game). Thus, the easy way to think of Tunnel Hubs and virtual tunnels in Alpha Bronze is that they are like a much more complex, detailed version of the kinds of tunneling systems that exist in most RTS games with such functionality (for example, Command and Conquer: General's GLA faction's Tunnel Networks, Dawn of War 2's Ravener Alpha tunnels, Act of War's Consortium faction's Sleeper Cells, etc...).

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"More complex"? Yes. Each Tunnel Hub has associated with it storage statistics that determine what it can hold. This includes mutants taking refuge in a Tunnel Hub, food stored in a Tunnel Hub, herd animals being kept in a Tunnel Hub, etc... This all refers to a specific Tunnel Hub, with each having its own, local storage.

And then the tunnels themselves, virtual though they may be in Alpha Bronze, must be constructed. Every Tunnel Hub is not instantly connected for instant transport as tunnels in most other RTS games are. Mutants can only transport things between Tunnel Hubs that are connected, and transport is not instant either.

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How then, are tunnels created? Last time we mentioned that Mutants will have Workers in Alpha Bronze, but no resources other than food and population income. Time is going to be the constraint for building tunnels- and Tunnel Hubs and Ambush Sites- in Alpha Bronze. Time as the sole constraint seems odd, but it emphasizes one of the things we are focusing on tweaking and nailing down in Alpha Bronze, which is the impact of opportunity cost for Mutants. We want to constantly put the issue in front of Mutant players that there is too much to do in too little time with too few units. That is, facing Mutant players with the choice of investing in combat or infrastructure with their unit income skewings. If they skew too much towards combat, they won't be able to expand their infrastructure to maintain that combat presence. But if they skew too much towards infrastructure, they won't be able to defend it nor stop the Human player's own infrastructural expansion.

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So back to tunnel creation, Mutant players can drag new sections of tunnel from Tunnel Hubs or existing, accessible tunnel. They set Workers to work on those, and they are created over time. Tunnel Hubs can be created anywhere along the virtual tunnel networks, thus Mutants do not need to get Workers to a location on the surface to build a Tunnel Hub (though, as Tunnel Hubs are half surface structures, they can be destroyed while being constructed, and they don't exactly build fast).

With that, Mutants' underground presence in Alpha Bronze begins to take shape. They have the potential for great underground mobility and the capability to expand entirely through underground movement, but to do so requires investing much food and population income into recruiting Workers rather than Brutes and Gunners.

Next time we return to Alpha Bronze, we'll take a better look at the vulnerabilities of Mutants' tunnel system, as well as Mutants' capability to neutralize those vulnerabilities.

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Developer Blog #26: Art Direction

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:15:15 +0000

Art is making headway in all areas of Alpha Bronze- the build outlined during the latest few blog posts- but none of those posts has been dedicated to what Alpha Bronze means for art, and where art is going with this build.

Obviously it would be nice to have completely finished and finalized designs across the board right from the start, but it has become apparent there will inevitably be revisions to many pieces no matter how careful we are in planning them from the beginning with our limited resources (assuming we ever want to get a decent volume of assets complete ;p).

The design process of the basic asset forms can be seen here; this illustrates two separate conceptual processes used to iteratively design assets based on criteria and function while keeping the speed of production to a maximum:

Alpha Bronze art direction will be set to portray the basic defining elements of the races and their way of life and as much lore as we can cram in, but the art department's limitations make this an interesting challenge, in that some aspects of design, especially stylization of the final in-game assets, is slave to many very well-laid down bases, but there is a lot to the assets that simply has to be interpreted at this stage and implemented in a graphically-pleasing way that is as logical as possible and completely meant to be updated in the next phase to reflect global direction changes art needs to make in this strange independent development environment we find ourselves.

These images represent a finalized version from the above, where the forms and function were laid down to an acceptable degree with everything making sense visually, and then polished off with art direction's base design work to ensure that while some parts of function or basic form may change later, structural and symbolic graphic details continue on into the next iteration.

That said, the base artwork of the racial-graphical lore interpretations that define major aspects of art won't change across the project's development, and are our major priorities for Alpha Bronze release. These key points include color schemes and directional color palettes for global control, and on the smaller scale things such as racial/faction symbols, colors, flags, and structural/material designs that are to remain persistent throughout the project. This situation is a challenge for art, in that it's a sacrifice in design, but ensures us a solid foundation for all future art, and that all art whether it is made now, or later, will fit completely into the established art direction, leaving revisions to only basic design elements later on.

-Alex (Shigee) Ledbetter, Art Director

Developer Blog #25: Alpha Bronze Pt 2

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:11:22 +0000

What will Mutants be like in Alpha Bronze?

They will be a shadow of their full selves. But that's fine. Our primary focus for Mutants in Alpha Bronze is getting the beginnings of their horde macromanagement implemented and to begin to assess their night-time horde combat potential. I'm using the word "horde" quite a bit here because we aren't giving Mutants too many unit, weapon, and etc options in Alpha Bronze, so they are going to be forced a little more into the attacker role of a tower defense set-up almost compared to the fuller RTS experience they will have in the actual game.

But that's ok. We're purposely doing this because Mutants are a complex race that relies heavily on advanced systems that include tunneling and burrowing, neither of which will be fully nor properly represented in Alpha Bronze.

Likewise, we won't be representing at least two key Mutant resources (I'll hold off on clarifying what those are until later) in Alpha Bronze, and even some of their existing resource mechanics will be paired down a bit.

With all of that missing... why bother? And aren't Mutants just going to be... bland? No! They won't be bland, because despite how little of them will be developed and implemented, basic versions of the core mechanics that offer them their racial identity will be operative. Population points and herding will both be active, as will a virtual tunneling system.

Here is the current list of Mutant units and structures that will be in Alpha Bronze:

Worker
Brute
Gunner
Boss
Tunnel Hub
Ambush Site
Herd Animal
"Tunnel"

I don't expect many of you to be up on Mutant base types and what they are, but I'll tell you right now that "Worker", "Brute", and "Gunner" don't correlate to those at all. That's because they're not types of mutants- they are typical unit types like you'd find in your standard RTS. That's temporary, very temporary. The form system and equipment and everything we need to meaningfully put what we need for true Mutant units in won't be there for Alpha Bronze. And honestly, we don't necessarily want it immediately either because by just having a small amount of basic, immutable types, the Human player is going to be able to better predict the Mutant player and we are going to get a very good look at how Human players tackle the Mutant situation (Humans will be likewise constrained to traditional units instead of their true class-based system, but they will have more units available).

With the above said, even without real base types (one last interjection here, when we actually implement base types, the Worker, Brute, and Gunner are all actually just Commons), we are implementing population points and recruitment. Without a rendered underground, that means Mutant players will need to construct Tunnel Hubs near population points (identified via aboveground exits; not that Tunnel Hubs are inherently entrances/exits to the virtual underground that exists in Alpha Bronze) to capture them. Once captured, Mutant players will be able to leverage the recruitment system to tweak how many Workers, Brutes, and Gunners they get as income, much as Mutant players will eventually tweak their income of commons, specialists, superiors, and psionics.

The other direct resource for Mutants that will be in Alpha Bronze is food, thus herding will also be present to some degree. Between that and the numerous opportunity costs associated with the recruitment system and general Mutant population management, there will be enough macromanagement for Mutant players to concern themselves with despite having missing resources.

So then what do the Worker, Brute, and Gunner do, exactly? The Worker is pretty self-descriptive. Workers herd animals, transport food, and build structures/tunnels. Brutes are basic melee warriors that wield pikes and wear moderately heavy armor. Brutes are devastating in close-quarters combat with Human troops as other than the Skirmisher, Brutes have better melee combat training and quite a better melee weapon than Human units. Brutes' woes come from needing to find a way to safely enter melee combat against the massive ranged firepower Humans can put forth. Finally, Gunners wield crossbows for their ranged attack and have a spear should they get caught in melee. Their crossbows aren't superbly effective at breaching Human armor, and Human weapons tend to outrange the crossbows considerably, but Gunners can be successful in capitalizing on overwhelmed or over-extended Humans, and are a particularly effective solution to any Human position that tries to incorporate too many Skirmishers.

And what about the rest? Alpha Bronze "virtual" tunneling, Tunnel Hubs, Ambush Sites...? That's all for another time, as is the expected flow of Mutant activity in Alpha Bronze and how Mutants deal with scouting and defense.

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Developer Blog #24: Progression

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 03:47:28 +0000

We've mentioned before that one of the goals of Under Gaia is to introduce a lot of granularity in our "units", weaponry, equipment, etc... The primary purpose of that is to enhance the game's strategy component, helping players to constantly find ways to break any stagnant metagame that may form. It is something we are enabled to do by the true asymmetry between our factions as we don't need to worry about minute differences in stats being the sole differentiating factors between units of one faction versus those of another.

With all of the above meaning we're going to need a hefty roster of equipment fulfilling similar roles, some might question if we plan to handle that with some kind of progression system.

Why not? It's all the rage in FPS games, and while Command & Conquer 4 failed terribly at integrating a progression system into an RTS, this would obviously be very different because we could easily craft a progression system where all that is offered-up through progression are the "granular" offerings (that is, we could offer something to fulfill the basic roles, and offer any other equipment fulfilling the same role as a progression unlock).

Quite simply, Under Gaia is a real-time strategy game. Taking strategic options temporarily off the table is just a terrible idea no matter how you slice it, and it's wholly unnecessary when it comes to satisfying "progression". The "progression" of any good multiplayer game should come from the growth it induces in the player. In a strategy game, it's not at all uncommon for players to start only with a subset of strategies that they know, and to slowly expand. And not only do players need to expand, they also have to adapt in the continual arms race of strategies. Actually, any good, deep game should offer sufficient player-driven progression that artificial progression is unnecessary.

Then there's also the issue of practicality. Why would we ever want to make balancing harder on ourselves (as the potential equipment composition match-ups escalate from one to thousands) and thus risk providing worse balance for our players? Also, why should we unfairly advantage some players who just so happen to get the equipment they prefer earlier?

Despite the popularity of progression systems in FPS games, they've never shown themselves to be effective in a competitive medium. DICE's progression systems have routinely been criticized for leaving players high and dry of key equipment for their first few hours of play (an Engineer without a repair tool? Vehicles with no upgrades despite three slots for them? Clearly new players are disadvantaged against even slightly experienced opponents). But even "better" progression systems often require players to grind with undesirable equipment to get what they want. Add in the almost assured inconveniences of losing progress during server crashes or early exiting... and artificial progression systems offer no real appeal to players when you come right down to it.

Point is, a great, deep multiplayer game will be something that players will appreciate for a long, long time, and no artificial progression system will help that. In actuality, such systems just stand a good chance of harming the player experience. We won't be employing one, and instead will be spending our time focusing on how to make sure the game is worth playing for hours and hours on end- not working on how to have the game force you to spend hours and hours.

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Developer Blog #23: Alpha Bronze Pt 1

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:13:37 +0000

What is Alpha Bronze?

That's a question that will take many developer blogs to answer. But today, we are going to provide the first part of that answer.

Alpha Bronze is the first major, public milestone for Under Gaia. While we may put out some things here and there, Alpha Bronze will be the first build released externally that is to some degree representative of Under Gaia.

Let me break that down a little bit. Alpha Bronze, despite "Alpha" being in its name, is actually a pre-alpha milestone. Likewise, any time you see something with "Alpha" in a milestone designation, it means that milestone comes before Alpha (because alpha is just Alpha). What this means is that at Alpha Bronze, the game will be in a state where significant features are missing.

Missing features isn't something that sounds terribly exciting, right? Fear not, because it's not a case of just straight up missing things that the final game will have. All branches of the team will have things they are going to be actively looking at in Alpha Bronze, and for now I'll just get into what design will be looking at.

Alpha Bronze is the ultimate proof of concept and fun test for design. We get to evaluate whether a bare-bones version of what we're looking to do is sitting well with players (and that they're having fun of course). And while we have a very good idea of what we want to do- and what we are doing- there are quite a few things where we do just need to see how they play and how players use them and so on in order to see if we want to expand towards option A or if we instead want to shift towards option B.

It's also notable that Alpha Bronze is not a static build. We are going to update Alpha Bronze as we progress. We don't have a console version or anything stupid like that so we can push updates whenever and however we like, which is something we will use to the fullest for Alpha Bronze and other early milestones.

At this point, you may be wondering how you can get access to Alpha Bronze. We've still got some work ahead of us to get it ready for you first, but when it's ready all preorderers will have access. And your preorder access doesn't stop with Alpha Bronze- it continues on right through the game's release! By preordering Under Gaia, you not only help directly fund its development, but you also get a chance to play it in its formative stages and to provide game-altering input!

We have two other preorder incentives going on right now as well for those interested. The first is access to a special section of our forums that is reserved for preorderers. It contains supplements to these developer blogs that only preorderers can see and it also gives you even more direct access to us. We don't like to play favorites... but when we do, well we sure love our preorderers. The other incentive is that by preordering you get the game at 33% off.

Now there's no rush or anything as all of these incentives, including prerelease access, are going to be offered right up until we release the game. However, your preorder will go a long way towards helping us develop Under Gaia faster- and better.

So that's your first official glimpse at Alpha Bronze, but keep checking back as we get closer for more details!

-Rob (TerranUp16) Schwyzer, Lead Designer

Developer Blog #22: Super Cacti

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:17:53 +0000

Hundreds of years from now, the Earth has become a desolate wasteland after a great war. The climate has drastically shifted and has become much drier, making the already inhospitable Southwestern United States even less hospitable for many living organisms. Over the years, locally inhabiting cacti have mutated into new species and quickly adapted to this unfriendly environment and flourished across the land.

This concept art by Michael Rookard portrays variations of mutated cactus designs. Each has a futuristic and fantasy touch to it. Super Cactus is the blueprint for this design.

The art team broke down the cactus model into two major parts- the body (modeled and texture baked by me) and the spike (modeled and texture baked by Adam French).

The basic meshes were constructed in Maya, then imported into Zbrush/Mudbox for further detailing.

Once the high-poly models are completed, we then proceeded to retopologize each model and texture bake the maps.

A high-poly model can sometimes have over hundreds of thousands of polygons, sometimes millions, and will certainly take a long time to render.

By retopologizing and texture baking the high-poly model, we now have a low-poly mesh that looks quite identical to the high-poly version but with a lower polycount. This makes rendering the model more efficient and the game run smoother.

After the spike and the body model are done, we then combined their UV and duplicated the spikes around the cactus.

Finally, the color map is created based on several reference images. Some black spots are added to the surface to show the decay of the cactus.

That's where the super cactus is currently sitting, but no doubt we will fix it up even more!

-Yueh (Chow) Chou, 2D/3D Art Intern

Developer Blog #21: Training and Pipeline

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:42:53 +0000

Multiple monitors are great and all, but what are four monitors without something awesome to display on them? Welcome to Developer Blog #21, your dedicated art update for all things shiny.

This last week has been a busy one, with half the team in varying states of sickness and/or depraved Battlefield 3 Beta addiction- not to mention all our jobs on top of that- progress is ramping up rapidly in all areas and art is no exception (no really, that is not sarcasm).

One of the major goals currently in art is to get everyone on the same set of software packages and getting the 3D trainees up on their knowledge of the processes of game art and the art of technical requirements! Specifically, we went over the basics of plant creation and hard edge modeling and texturing. Here are some of the images created during the training process and what you can expect to see them applying for your viewing pleasure soon.

While training and environmental props are important, the major focus of my own work as art director has shifted to bringing a whole new workflow and pipeline for our art team to work with that will make everything faster, more detailed, and easier. Sounds like a lot, and well, it is! But the work is well worth it, as the quality and speed of our production should scale up by a few times what it was previously capable of.

The main goal of this pipeline change is to set down a hard production process all the artists can follow reliably. But as our art team expands and marketing and management have different requirements, this new process will allow existing artists to fulfill roles they may not have been able to previously, or without doing a ton of extra work to accommodate those needs. Here are some of the early speed tests, or early proof of concepts.

Stay tuned for more dev bloggery! Next week is another art update.

-Alex (Shigee) Ledbetter, Art Director

Developer Blog #20: Multiple Monitors Pt 2

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:28:14 +0000

You guys have been following along with Rob's great post on multiple monitors and their usage in-game. I thought I would continue that thread and write about the technical side and how this can present many challenges within DirectX.

As Rob has said there are a few utilities that allow for multi-monitor usage like NV Surround and Eyefinity, but those tools only extend the scene backbuffer over the entire area of both screens. As much as this is a way to do it, it can be hell with performance, and also does not allow for multi-device (graphics card) usage.

We have come up with a solution that not only allows for multi-device and multi-screen, but one that is fully customizable to the point that you can move anything- not just the GUI- from screen to screen. This means even the usual 3D pipeline has been redesigned to allow for multiple devices and multiple 3D screens to be created and destroyed at a whim. You will also be able to change the main 3D window on the fly, so say you don't want it on monitor one and you now want it on monitor two, no problem, hit the button that says send to monitor and select the monitor you want and voila you are now viewing the main battlefield on monitor two.

We have also looked hard at the input system and have found that we can and have separated the input pipelines to their respective monitors, meaning you can switch between monitors and cameras and the input will be directed to the selected 3D window.

This will allow for unlimited (based on system specs) 3D windows that are controllable. Couple this with multiple devices and you can see that we will have great battlefield control with minimal loss of performance.

We are also looking into using older cards and the like to speed up overall engine performance for non-rendered items.

So by now your asking yourself, "but how?". Well, the exact details are a trade secret for now, but let's say it's hard and complicated, especially when trying to back port to earlier DirectX versions for lower spec systems.

To give you the gist, we have a hierarchy built off the central core that controls each device independently and establishes what's best for running what. It then assigns those tasks to that device.

After this is accomplished we assign an input thread identifier to that 3D screen and use that to control what uses the input pipeline.

This segregation of the input pipeline from the render pipeline means we can transfer state from one screen to the next. Say you decide to have a largish "base" focused screen to keep an eye on production and the such and you have your main screen focused on where the action is. Now back at base we have created 50 troopers and want to send them to the warzone area, well we can select them on the base screen, move over the mouse to the main screen and just right click. The troopers will be remembered on both screens and it will make things useful for multiple front line battles. And of course, you will also be able to set things up so that selection between screens isn't remembered so that say you could have 24 troopers selected on the first screen and 26 on the second and you could just switch between screens to control each.

With this capability, we can open up a number of strategy-based design decision. It will however take some planning and major development to get that to where it needs to be, but as Rob conveyed in Part 1 of this developer blog, that is well under way.

Well that's about it right now, if you have any questions regarding future capabilities please feel free to ask away in our forums (which you can now register for!).

-Steve (Stiggy) Law, Technical Director