Similarities to the commercial game, Kinetic Void

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Err... yeah, well I suppose you can talk about other stuff as well, maybe?

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IansterGuy
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Similarities to the commercial game, Kinetic Void

Post by IansterGuy »

I found recently while scanning steam for all their space simulators a game called "Kinetic Void" The game features 'semi Newtonian physics', and features a toggleable governor just like VegaStrike uses. The thruster flight seems the same while the combat is much different in that guns auto aim and fire.

Targeting is done with a combination of mouse pointing and keyboard. Though I don't like the particular input method, I like that it specifically targets a ship without having to aim at it. This is interesting to me because I was advocating for an 'free mouse mode' activated by holding "CTRL" that would have similar targeting functions.

The game is open ended, randomly generated and the universe is plastic in that asteroids can be put on a collision coarse with a station.

Faster than light travel is much slower than SPEC, but planets are all unrealistically close to compensate as it only take "30 minutes to fly across a space sector", whatever that means. It's is interesting that given the same problem it was solved differently in VegaStrike since half scale solar systems are used here I believe. FTL acceleration is much more advanced the way Vega Strike does it, since it must make a short trip of realistic distances.

Ships are all modular like Kerbal Space program, and all objects are rendered with procedural graphics.

The game was a Kick Starter projects and was being sold as an alpha, and is obviously unfinished. Or is it? since it's already making money.

Official Website

More informative with a video http://store.steampowered.com/app/227160

Though the most interesting videos are on YouTube of reviewers reaction once they get their ship into space and try to figure out the controls.
TBeholder
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Re: Interesting comparisons of the commercial game, Kinetic

Post by TBeholder »

Looks cool, if not far outstanding.
IansterGuy wrote:I found recently while scanning steam for all their space simulators a game called "Kinetic Void" The game features 'semi Newtonian physics', and features a toggleable governor just like VegaStrike uses.
So did e.g. "Babylon 5: I've found her" on Homeplanet engine... It's halfway standard by now, IMHO.
IansterGuy wrote:Targeting is done with a combination of mouse pointing and keyboard. Though I don't like the particular input method, I like that it specifically targets a ship without having to aim at it.
Well... then there's this. :twisted:
IansterGuy wrote: I like their context menu, though I think it would be less miss click prone to right click and drag highlight to target ships and subsequently issue commands from a context menu.
The most convenient way would be to put targets on the list and then work with that list at leisure, rather than chase anything all over the screen.
IansterGuy wrote:The game is open ended, randomly generated and the universe is plastic in that asteroids can be put on a collision coarse with a station.
Faster than light travel is much slower than SPEC, but planets are all unrealistically close to compensate
And meaningfully throwing rocks requires a peculiar scale too, no? So that it won't take them eleven forevers to hit anything.
IansterGuy wrote:Ships are all modular
Well, yeah. That's how it should be. We'd have it years ago if bugs in subunits were slightly different. ;)
IansterGuy wrote: The game was a Kick Starter projects and was being sold as an alpha, and is obviously unfinished. Or is it? since it's already making money.
Unfortunately common. That's what you get when people let publishers sell air: Half of the products turn out to be beta versions, and another adaptations of "The King's Cameleopard".
Then again, wasn't Frontier Elite beta... and then FFE, as beta 2.0? :lol:
IansterGuy wrote: Though the most interesting videos are on YouTube of reviewers reaction once they get their ship into space and try to figure out the controls.
Heh. Isn't it always. :)
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Re: Similarities to the commercial game, Kinetic Void

Post by loki1950 »

They keep thinking that they are flying a plane :lol: very few people really understand close maneuvers in micro-gravity.

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IansterGuy
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Re: Interesting comparisons of the commercial game, Kinetic

Post by IansterGuy »

TBeholder wrote:Well... then there's this. :twisted:
I think the Intertial Targeting and Tracking System should be implemented, it just makes sense that a futuristic ship would always use this when aiming manually. Along with 'Interception Point markers' it would provide much more inertial awareness to the player.
TBeholder wrote:
IansterGuy wrote: I like their context menu, though I think it would be less miss click prone to right click and drag highlight to target ships and subsequently issue commands from a context menu.
The most convenient way would be to put targets on the list and then work with that list at leisure, rather than chase anything all over the screen.
VegaStrike partially already has that I believe, by saving target hotkeys. The thing is that hotkeys are not added to any list I believe. In high performance StarCraft gameplay, hotkeys are used extensively and are listed as horizontal buttons across the bottom of the view and are even clickable for newer players.
TBeholder wrote:
IansterGuy wrote:The game is open ended, randomly generated and the universe is plastic in that asteroids can be put on a collision coarse with a station.
Faster than light travel is much slower than SPEC, but planets are all unrealistically close to compensate
And meaningfully throwing rocks requires a peculiar scale too, no? So that it won't take them eleven forevers to hit anything.
That's right, though if VegaStrike was a much more advanced in the way it handles relativity, then with a tracking system that showed long distance paths of objects in real time like in Kerbal Space Program, the attackers could put many objects into a high speed collision with an enemy station or planet base to set up a space siege. Then when the collisions are detected, the defenders would come out in force to put the rocks off course or at least stop the pushers from making coarse corrections. The station may be able to dodge, but if enough properly sized rocks and enough thrust is available they could outmanuver the station that want's to avoid going too far off orbit. It could be a way to make diversions too.
TBeholder wrote:
IansterGuy wrote:Ships are all modular
Well, yeah. That's how it should be. We'd have it years ago if bugs in subunits were slightly different. ;)
I would not have main ships modular, just some additional custom ships, many ships are better as one piece. Though it would be nice to have external addons attached as visible pieces.
loki1950 wrote:They keep thinking that they are flying a plane :lol: very few people really understand close maneuvers in micro-gravity.
That is what I think is the greatest appeal of games like this. It is a completely foreign experience traveling in space.
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