Squadron: Mercenaries

Moonshot goal

Squadron Mercenaries is a thrilling spacefaring epic that blends the adrenaline-pumping space flight combat simulation of 'Wing Commander' with the intricate personnel and material management aspects of 'Mechwarrior Mercenaries.' In this immersive game, players will not only engage in intense dogfights and grand-scale space battles, but they'll also assume the role of a resourceful commander, managing a crew of diverse characters, upgrading and customizing their spacecraft, and navigating a dynamic galaxy filled with contracts, alliances, and political intrigue. With its seamless integration of strategic management and action-packed combat, this game offers a uniquely captivating experience that caters to both die-hard simulation enthusiasts and fans of deep, story-generating gameplay.

Direct Path

What you need to do is make a beeline for your target. With a basic plan and understanding of where to go, you can start with strong fundamentals and then, when you have that fun core game, expand on it all you want! --GridSagaGames

[How to make a roguelike]

Our first goal is to build the systems for the core gameplay loop. Dogfights in space combat that mimic the feel of the original WingCommander series, aiming for the gameplay of the 2.5d era: WC1&2 & Privateer.

Goal

Rebuild the WC1 arcade/simulator gameplay loop.

• Fight waves of enemies in an empty field.
• Fight against wave-groups of the same fighter, from waves of 1 to 3 fighters of the same type.
• Reset your plane's damage after clearing a wave group
• Move on to a harder enemy type after clearing a wave group

Features

We will build out the same space flight and combat features as classic WC

Damage Model

• Locational Shields: fore and aft
• Locational Hull: fore, after, port, and starboard
• Locational System: damage to guns, weapons, radar, power plants, engines, thrusters...

Damaged systems effect the behaviour of the ship.

• Thrusters: turn speed
• Engines: max acceleration & cruise speed
• Power Plant: weapon energy and shield recovery time
• Shield Gen: max shield value
• Radar: displaying enemy type, damage, and distance
• Targeting: if the player can lock onto a target, increase time to get missile lock
• Guns & Weapons: removes capability to use them
• Fuel: afterburner fuel

Flight Model

• independent pitch, roll, and yaw rates
• independent acceleration, velocity, and direction
• current speed up to max "cruise" speed of the ship always follows direction of ship
• brake to temporarily slow down to make tighter turns
• "drift" using afterburner slide. Afterburner acceleration and velocity over the cruise speed limit of the ship does not match the direction of the ship
• "drift" by cutting off the lock between direction of the ship and "cruise" speed

Controls

Mouse controls: Left-Click to fire guns, Right-Click to fire weapons

ACTION	Gamepad	Keyboard
Afterburner	LS	Tab
Brake	LB	Alt
Drift	Hold B	Z
Camera	Up
Speed Up	A	0
Speed Down	B	9
Weapon Fire	X	Enter
Weapon Select	Left	W
Gun Fire	RT	Space / Ctrl
Gun Select	Right	G
Lock Target	Y	T
Pitch	LS Y Axis	Up / Down
Yaw	LS X Axis	Left / Right
Roll	RS X Axis	Shift & Left / Right

References

• Sound effects generated from https://pro.sfxr.me/ and https://pixwlk.itch.io/bleeper
• 3d Models of ships from Kenney https://www.kenney.nl/assets/space-kit
• Crosshairs from https://opengameart.org/content/64-crosshairs-pack-split
• Skybox generated from https://tools.wwwtyro.net/space-3d/index.html
  

Source Code

Squadron: Mercenaries is open source and CC BY-NC so you can take it, remix it, add too it, contribute back, or just see how things are done

https://github.com/abraini-Nascent/wingmercs