So the first steps in adding this big part of the game are in. The game will have elements from multiple game genres: commanding ships like in an RTS, ship to ship combat like in a space sim, economy and base management like in an empire game and repairing/upgrading the player’s command ship like in a RPG.

First off I added a new model to the game thanks to Solcommand.

Click to see full size.

Click to see full size.

This is a placeholder model since my “vision” for the end result is a bit different. First off the ship will need a more distinct heavy weapons placement towards the front. The ship will also need to be able to accomodate more turrets and have a small hangar bay. The ship will also need a neat looking bridge.

After adding this ship I gave it a “is critical” flag. So from now on when this ship is destroyed the game ends (prior to this the game would end when all of the player’s ships were destroyed). So after almost 2 years in develoment I’ve started on the “game over” screen when the player’s ship gets destroyed. The game now doesn’t instantly end and return to the main menu. Instead the camera gets positioned to look at the critical ship being destroyed and a “game over” screen is displayed showing some statistics (work in progress).

Things still left to do: make a autorepair type ability (otherwise the ship is far too big a liability). Add functionality for repairs and upgrades to the ship. Add functionality for using some unique abilities eg: firing of heavy special weapons, speed boosts, shields, etc. Add some sort of a warning system when the ship is under attack and/or low on health (since the player may often be in control of another ship this will be necessary to bring the attention back to the command ship if needed).