| Submitted by , posted on 02 January 2002 |

Image Description, by This is a montage of screenshots from a game is called 'The Colony 3 Chronicles' that I have been developing. I have allways wanted to see a strategy game that combined the four major combat environments. So, about a year ago I set out to write the game that I would like to play. So here I am a year (and I dont know how many thousands of hours later) and I have now got my game to the beta testing stage. It takes place in space, air land and sea. The game engine supports : 24 hour daylight profile editor. Sun moon cycles, animated clouds and water, specularity and shadow, alpha blending, blurring. Powerful AI and Motion dynamics for underwater craft, surface craft on land and water, air craft, space craft and fixed defensive turrets. Flexible camera options allow the player to set up optimal zoom and FOV, Cameral modes include Tower, Target, Chase, Tactical, Pilot, and Padlock views. Weapon dynamics cater for bullets, shells, lasers and missiles to be assigned to any of the four craft. Upgrades for fuel capacity, damage, speed and strike points. Proviion is made for up to 8 sides with a maximum of 100 'units' per side. A maximum of 1000 objects can be brought into the game although, it must be stated that a 16 frame explosion effect uses 16 objects. Not all objects are displayed simultaneously. Usualy there are about 50 or so objects in the field of view at any given time. There are 16 combat unit types. 4 sea (sub, ptb, cruiser, destroyer) , 4 land (soldier, truck, apc, artilery) , 4 air (fighter, chopper, bomber, transall) and 4 space (fighter, corvette, destroyer, shuttle). Each combat unit has a maximum of 16 loadout slots. It is on to these that the weapon systems and craft accesories are attached. and this is where the fun comes in. There are a variety of weapon systems that can be 'bolted' on to each craft, and upgrades for each. Example, The machine gun is fixed. Then it can be upgraded to a tracking gun, then to predictive targeting and then you can upgrade the firing rate and the damage points.
The game scenario setting is AD2550, when a group of colonists upset a bunch of baddies and all hell breaks loose. The battle takes place in space, on two colony planets, Mars, the Moon and Earth. The result of a hyperspace jump from the outer colony worlds back to earth is a negative time shift and the battles around earth occur 10 000 years in the past. The screenshots below are from the Atlantis scenario. The process of creating 'maps' is very easy and i'm sure that players will start creating their own worlds real soon. The game engine will be liscenced will sell for about $10, but I am going to make all the artwork public domain. I estimate that I will be releasing the game in about June 2002. The game is written in Visual Basic, using direct X8. The models were created in 3D Studio Max, the 2D Artwork was done with Paint Shop Pro 5. My development system is a P3 733, 128 Meg ram, Riva TNT2 Pro. The Compiled game engine .ExE is 2.4 Megs and the total directory size with all artwork, meshes and audio files is 1.25 Gig. . For more info, you are welcome to visit my site www.cybermike.za.net or u can mail me . Pop in for a visit or a chat.
Best regards,
Cybermike.

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