Fleet Strategies

Fleet Strategies

Over the last couple of days I've spent a good amount of time playing many, many quick battles to get a better feel for the optimal strategies for each fleet.

So far I have worked out what seems to be a good strategy for 4 of the fleets.  Unfortunately I didn't write it all down so some of this is from memory, however there are general principles which apply to each of the fleets AI settings which I discovered yesterday.

All of the fleets require a combined arms approach to defeat the opponents - there are no one trick ponies, however certain fleets have particular strengths.

EarthHope

With all of the fleets it is the settings for the fighters and bombers that make the most difference since these form the mainstay of the fleets. EarthHope is no exception.

EarthHope's fighters and bombers have very regular continuous fire weapons that are of low to medium damage.  Their weapons have no special effects other than simply outputting damage to enemy ships.  Their fighters and bombers mainly differ in that the bombers are heavier and slower but have a greater damage output.  

What I discovered was that a good first principle to apply when assigning AI behaviours to their fighters and bombers was to engage enemy at long range. Set the Extreme Range setting all the way to the right, and the Retain Target to a value somewhere near the middle.  Avoid enemy at close range. This allows the EarthHope smaller vessels time to lock on to their targets and get the most number of shots at their opponents.  There is no need to specify larger or smaller vessels.  Targeting vessels to the rear is a good option as well since it means that the fighters and bombers will change direction more often.

Their Cruisers and Capitals should be treated differently from each other as they are very different types of ships. The Capital is worth setting to engage enemy at close range, directly to its front. The Capital is a good focus for enemy fire that can be used as a distraction and so charging directly into the midst of combat is worthwhile especially as it has flak cannons that can fire in all directions.

The Cruisers are great at taking out enemy capital ships and should be used as such, set them to target larger vessels and less agile vessels.  

It is vital to keep the EarthHope fighters and bombers alive for the duration of the combat - at least before their Cruisers go down and by being moderately aggressive but not too aggressive with them they can survive long enough and do damage to enemy ships.  

AioSenti

AioSenti are a difficult fleet to get right.  They have a very mixed bag of ships that requires a bit of thought to get right.  I've found that by setting the fighters to engage at close range, enemies that are not approaching and to have a low value for retain target will keep their fighters alive long enough for you to do damage with the bombers.  Setting the bombers to engage at long range for a long retain target value will allow them to do damage to enemy ships while the fighters keep the enemy distracted.  

Cruisers can be set to engage at close range, to enemies directly ahead. This will force the enemy to engage them since although the AioSenti cruisers are not all that deadly having one fly directly at you with its mix of long and short range weapons will not allow them to be ignored. You will likely lose a pair of cruisers in the attack but at least one should survive.

The Capital has the best beam weapon in the game but rather than flying aggressively with the Capital - set it to engage enemy at its rear at optimum or extreme range. This will cause it to change direction fairly often making it harder for the enemy to bring their weapons to bear.  You will likely keep your capital for the duration of the battle, should you win, as the enemy will not be able to bring its weapons to bear upon it. 

AioSenti do not win battles quickly.  

Hushami Corp

Hushami Corp's fighters and bombers are its main strength.  They are one of the few fleets who can afford to set their fighters and bombers to behave extremely aggressively.  Set them to target approaching enemy who are targeting you. Set their fighters to engage enemy fighters by setting target larger vessels all the way to the left, and agile vessels all the way to the right.  Have the bombers target damaged vessels and enemy at optimum range. Also target enemy who are approaching.  Hushami Corp's fighters and bombers have low damage against capitals and cruisers but against enemy small vessels they can easily outmatch them in a direct firefight. Use that your advantage.

With the capitals and cruisers, set them to avoid enemy - by keeping them alive for as long as possible they remain a distraction for enemy fighters and bombers. To do this - set the approaching enemy and enemy targeting us sliders all the way to the left.  

Outlanders

Outlanders have to make use of their EMP weapons on their fighters to win and are really a combined arms force.  Set the fighters and bombers to target enemy larger vessels at close range and to change targets rapidly.  Expect to lose many of your fighters midway through the battle however by focusing on the larger ships their EMP weapons will prevent the enemy cruisers and capital ships from being able to take out your own capital and cruisers.

Set the Cruisers for Outlanders to the default middle settings. This means that they will target their opposing cruisers first.  Set the Capital to target enemy to their front and at extreme or optimum range. Also set the Capital's 'Target Larger Vessels' slightly to the left, and the agile slider slightly to the left. This means that the Capital will prefer enemy cruisers to capitals in general.  The reason for this is because EarthHope has the best means of countering your fighters and bombers EMP weapons by virtue of the fact that their Cruisers are great at taking down capital ships.  Typically with the Outlanders - if you are winning your larger vessels should survive but you will take heavy damage to your fighters and bombers.

Pics from cafe

As said in previous post I played in a cafe on Saturday.  Here are some of the screenshots.

Star Dancing in the local cafe

Greetings to any who bothers to read my development blog.

Once again I find myself in a local cafe on a Saturday morning, drinking a couple of short blacks and enjoying epic space battles on my mobile.

No..this is not marketing talk.  I've played a lot of mobile games in the past 24 hours and I played a bunch before I made my game. None of them have held my interest like Star Dancer.

Now, I may be in a significant minority - in fact a minority of 1 when I say this - but i love my game Star Dancer.

The space battles are truly mesmerising to watch.  As the beams zap, the explosions burst into space and the fighters and bombers dodge and weave I can't help but be hypnotised by the slow dance of death the ships fly in through space.

Mobile games are well known for being install, play 10 minutes, uninstall but Star Dancer (perhaps because it is my own game?) has kept my interest for over 12 months.

Now - I must be fair here to other games and other users - I am an exception to the rule.

When I look at my game's stats I can see that the majority of users play 1 battle if that. For many of them it is complex and hard to fathom.  But for me, the creator - I enjoy and love every minute of the action. I understand what the decisions I make in the AI section do to the flight patterns and I know how to adjust my settings to defeat the opponent. Also - I simply love to watch.

Like the old guiness ad - "I like to watch" - this game has everything I want from a space battle.

Getting back to the stats for the game - it is obvious to anyone who checks the numbers that I like my own game.  With over multiple hundreds of battles played by me, and the next nearest having under 20 and the majority being a single battle - it is clear that this game resonates with me quite strongly.

I admit I am an odd individual. I am different. I am unique, like everybody else as a friend likes to add.  But this game contains a part of me, I've invested myself heavily into it over the course of 12 months - even spent time in hospital as a result.

It is a joy to play and watch for me.  Others may disagree. Although the ratings do suggest it is well liked by the few who've played it.

No, for me this game is beautiful to watch and play.  I can play for hours at a time - and often do on a  Saturday morning when I'm drinking a few cups of coffee at my local cafe.

Whether you enjoy it or not, whether it gets downloaded once or one million times - I am well pleased with how it plays. It is my favourite game of all time I think - and I created it!

Not bad eh, to be able to be the maker of your own favourite game.

I must give credit where credit is due however. Brandie, the artist who worked on parts of the game I am indebted to very much (I did pay her however!) - her work has made the game really shine with the additions to the interface she has made as well as the little icons here and there in the game, gui elements and animations.  Without her work the game would be much less interesting to look at.

Personally I think it is a visual feast.

I am glad I made this game, and I am actually quite glad I've made it completely free - free for anyone to play and download.  I would love it if others found it as riveting as I do but no worries if not - the only person whose opinion really counts is mine when it comes to this game.

I'm planning to going out for a bit today and spending time with other board gamers, I may even bring a couple of phones along and play it on my own if I get bored at the game place.

These days I no longer, to use a bit of french, I no longer give a fuck about what most people think or about pleasing/impressing others with my efforts - and that's how it should be. Comfortable in myself.

from Matt

Free At Last

Free At Last!

I feel like my game should be one of those old movie cliche's where the lead character exclaims after being locked in a dungeon for several years that he or she is 'free at last' with whoops and hollers for joy.

In January 2015 when I designed the game I originally intended for it to be free.

Completely free.

No Ads.

No In App Purchases.

Just plain old free.

I had no monetisation strategy - it was purely about making something really cool, really good looking and hopefully fun for me to play with my mates.

I achieved that.

But along the way I became side tracked by the lure of making money off the game.  A number of friends and family spoke to me about the chance of making it big with the game (after being impressed by early builds). 

I allowed myself to deceive myself about the potential to make an income off the game.

I ought to have listened to my inner voice that told me that money is not made from android apps.  I ought to have listened to my own set of values that told me that it was not what I really wanted.

Instead I fell for the lure of potential wealth.

If anything - I'd rather make a name for myself (positively) than wealth in any case. But I know that neither of these are likely to be realities.

Anyway.

I hope everyone who plays my game enjoys it greatly. It is a great fun game - if you like watching space battles.

from Matt

App Reception

My game was generally received well by users.

The ratings were quite high.

It was a pity therefore that it received so little attention.

Some have suggested the app was lower quality than I thought but while the usage bears this out the ratings do not.

I am very pleased with how the game has been received by users.

Costs

Costs

Here are the development costs of the game. All figures are in Australian Dollars.

Apart from marketing everything was accounted for back in January in my budget and I ended up finishing the game within budget. I did have to leave out professional voice acting however but all the other components were approximately as I'd projected in January.

Game making can be expensive.

Note I have not included my time spent here - I class that as 'free'.

Expenses	TYPE	$ Cost
Sound FX	Audio	$88
Jason Livesay Music	Audio	$360
Classical Music (unused)	Audio	$360
Menu Music	Audio	$104
Shutterstock 2d Graphics	Graphics	$49
Font Licence	Graphics	$27
Brandie 2d UI	Graphics	$894
Turbo Squid (Ships)	Graphics	$524
3D Artist (Failed To Deliver)	Graphics	$311
CG Textures (Unused)	Graphics	$84
Skyboxes (3dRT)	Graphics	$160
Brandie Animations	Graphics	$1,925
Speakers	Hardware	$15
MHL/HDMI	Hardware	$20
LG Mobile	Hardware	$200
PlayTab	Hardware	$100
Wifi Dongle	Hardware	$36
Huawei Phone	Hardware	$169
Server Upgrade	Hardware	$261
Leadbolt Advertising	Marketing	$620
Ad Printing	Marketing	$20
Google Advertising	Marketing	$246.00
Facebook Advertising	Marketing	$56
Leaflets	Marketing	$77.60
TShirt	Marketing	$44
Translation	Marketing	$208.00
Website Ads	Marketing	$350.00
Maccas Cybercast Ads	Marketing	$50
Box Hill Tech Market	Marketing	$33
TOTAL		$7,391

Free as in 'free beer!'

Free at Last

I have now released my game (full version) for free for anyone to download from any country who has access to google play.

About a week ago I decided to give up marketing and promoting the app further. It was an extremely unsuccessful venture - even for the free app.

I will give some figures about both the free and paid versions of my app.

The approximate release date was October 1st for the game (both free and paid).

I did release earlier while I was in hospital and was not quite with it - I published and unpublished multiple times during this period. I was not well and didn't really know what I was doing. This was a mistake.

As mentioned elsewhere I tried very hard to promote the game through a variety of means.  I personally think it is a lot of fun - but I admit it is not everyone's cup of tea.

However even the free app managed a total of about 3 or 4 installs per day - which even if I earned money from them would never have recovered the development cost.

The development cost of the game was about $6000 and the marketing cost was about $1500.  All in all I recovered about $25 from sales.  

The free game hovered around 100 users most of the time in its lifetime.  I could boost it by about 50 or 60 if I paid for google ads - assuming the google ads weren't being all consumed by bigger fish in the pond which from about December onwards it was impossible to get even a handful of impressions or my advertising budget.  Basically I lacked the funds to promote it meaningfully.

The decision to cancel the paid version and release it as free was not too difficult in the end. It meant that I forfeit about $8 per month in income but it meant that the game may actually get a handful of people to play it.  

I doubt very much whether it will gain any users though. Not because of its quality but simply because it is so low on the charts that it will never manage to be visible to anyone.

The difficulty in the play store is that it is very hard to be visible.  

I expect that come about April or May the full version will have maybe 100 users installed for a total of about 20 using it each day.  

My server can handle that so I'm not too worried about the load.

The full version had the sum total of about 10 installs over the 3 months. The free version supposedly had 600 but I could only measure 200 from my metrics.  

I will post another blog post shortly with my full costing shown for people to see, in the event that there is any interest. However I severely doubt anyone will read my blog for the simple reason that I am a relative unknown in the world - there are millions of voices crying out for attention and only a handful ever really become known. Not that that was my reasoning behind the game.

My original intention was to make a space battle game I could play with my friends who enjoy strategy games.

Unfortunately most of them it turns out had non android devices which I didn't discover until long after I started development. Either way, I doubt they would have played it anyway.

My own tastes in gaming are very different from the mainstream. You're reading a blog from someone who doesn't like chocolate and has very little interest in mainstream entertainment...so yeah...I'm odd.

It does sadden me a little that my efforts went unrewarded. I'm not really fussed at all about the money -I'd budgeted for it as if it were a holiday just like some people go to Europe I would spend it on a game.  I'm more upset about the fact that no matter what efforts I put in to promoting the app it never gained any traction.  Nothing I did seemed to have a substantial effect.  It had a measureable effect, just extremely low.  

I put my heart and soul into this game. I spent 20-30 hours a week on top of a full time job for six months and even ended up in hospital for three months as a result.  I wrote pages and pages of design and testing.  I gave a lot of myself to it, in the end for basically no return.

It was hard work. It takes a lot out of you to develop something like this, and for it to fall on completely deaf ears was hard.  

I will still play it myself in coffee shops when I go on a weekend.  

I did notice strange behaviour in terms of user analytics.

My users activity spiked during the week on weekends.  I had roughly 40% of my total users engaged with the app on a Saturday or Sunday (free app) but then during the week it dropped to around 8-12%.  

It tells me that someone somewhere enjoys the game.  

The game was originally designed as multiplayer but what was more disheartening was that in the entire 3 months it was available as the two free/paid versions - only 1 group of players ever played it (other than me) multiplayer.  I noticed a couple of users (with my metrics) playing it all one night against each other but other than that - everyone else played singleplayer.

I also noticed that the majority of users played 1 battle - if any - and never played the campaign for any duration.  That was sad too.  

I went to a lot of effort to create this game and it turned out to be not really anyone's cup of tea.

I once joked, as a single bloke, to a good female friend that this game is almost a microcosm or reflection of my relationship status - a lot of effort at certain times of my life all for no result.  There is some truth to that...but that's a bit maudlin.  Honestly I don't really care though about being positive online.  

Sometimes things in life are hard, sometimes efforts are not rewarded. Sometimes people get lucky, other times people put in  a lot of effort for little reward.  It's the luck of the draw some times.  Generally effort is rewarded in many fields but in some - it's very difficult.

If you play the game - good on you - I hope you enjoy it.  A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this product.

The nice thing about no longer caring about income from the game though is that I couldn't give rats arse anymore whether it gets 5 star or 1 star reviews. Admittedly it has mostly had 5 star reviews. Although the day I received a 1 star review with no comment was a little upsetting as I could not communicate with the user to find out why they were upset with the game. There was no way of interacting to help resolve whatever issues they may have had.  Most likely they simply got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.

Oh well. Back to regular life again.

I'm not happy with how it turned out but what can I do.....oh well.