{"id":5032,"date":"2011-09-01T02:38:27","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T06:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/?p=5032"},"modified":"2013-03-15T15:44:37","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T19:44:37","slug":"beyond-beyaan-indie-4x-space-strategy-game-inspired-by-master-of-orion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/beyond-beyaan-indie-4x-space-strategy-game-inspired-by-master-of-orion\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Beyaan: Indie 4X Space Strategy Game Inspired by Master of Orion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond Beyaan<\/a> is an indie 4x space strategy game currently being developed by Brent Patterson.<\/p>\n

Beyond Beyaan\u00a0is heavily inspired by the 4x classic Master of Orion series.<\/strong> When you start playing you can easily tell that many aspects are inspired by MoO1<\/a> (the sliders, ship design and research for example) and others by MoO2<\/a> (some parts of research and ship design also). The starmap and ships movement also remind you of MoO.<\/p>\n

I’ve been following Brent’s work for some time now. Considering that he’s working almost by himself (and that this is his first game) I think his progress is amazing. I believe there’s much still to be done and polish but I think the game is already solid enough to be looked at more closely.\u00a0There is no release date established yet though.<\/p>\n

Next follows a brief hands-on preview of the current development\/alpha version Brent was kind enough to share with me.<\/p>\n

Game Setup<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When you start your game you can choose the players (Human or Computer) and some galaxy generation parameters. When you’re done with that you generate your galaxy.<\/em> When you’re happy with your galaxy you click next and start your game.<\/p>\n

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Beyond Beyaan: Game Setup Screen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The game\u00a0customization\u00a0screen is probably not finished yet. It needs a bit of polishing but it already contains the basic stuff, and looks fine. There are only two races currently available to choose from: Humans<\/em> and Zero People<\/em>. Brent will probably add more races in the future.<\/p>\n

In-Game<\/h3>\n

When the game starts you’re presented with a starmap. You can see your star system containing your homeworld and probably other planets of different types. I already saw Tundra planets, Desert, Terran, Asteroids, Jungle, Steppe and Dead, and all of this diversity in a single system. Amazing!<\/p>\n

You decide your planet’s output by adjusting sliders to manipulate\u00a0what’s to be produced. Here the similarities with MoO1 are striking, but also in Sword of the Stars, although SotS got inspired in MoO1 in the first place :)<\/p>\n

By adjusting your sliders you can choose to allocate funds to Agriculture (impacts population growth), Pollution (impacts max pop, not fully implemented yet), Commerce (not yet implemented), Research (implemented), and Construction (implemented).<\/p>\n

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Beyond Beyaan: Colony Screen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From what I could tell 1 population unit standing on a planet generates 1 BC (billion credits if I’m correct). You then allocate the amount of cash generated to areas like research, pollution containment, construction, etc.<\/p>\n

Planets have special characteristics I believe, since some feature an icon representing some kind of treat. I could not tell which types of bonuses are offered though (tip: tool tips always help a lot).<\/p>\n

To move ships around you click on your fleet (represented by a bunch of small ships next to your systems), set the amount of ships you want to send and then right-click on a location.<\/p>\n

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Beyond Beyaan: Ships Movement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To colonize planets, if I understood correctly,\u00a0you transfer population by building transports. At least that was what I did since I could not find a colony type of ship. So, to colonize, you send your transport(s) to an ninhabited planet, in the same system or in a different one, and choose a planet to land.\u00a0Multiple empires can inhabit the same system (something that also made me remember MoO2).<\/p>\n

On the bottom of the galaxy screen there is a “taskbar” with 9 buttons that contain the menu options. From left to right: Game Menu, Galaxy View, Diplomacy, View Fleets, Design Ship, View Designs, View Planets, Research, and End Turn.View Designs isn’t implemented yet.<\/p>\n

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Beyond Beyaan: UI Menu<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Brent confirmed that ship Design is fully implemented, but the UI layout isn’t final. Here again the similarities with MoO1 and MoO2 are evident. You can choose weapons, hulls (the models resemble MoO models a lot), number of mounts and special equipment like computers, engine, armor and shields.<\/p>\n

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Beyond Beyaan: Ship Design<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Although you can tell that the models are heavily inspired by MoO I don’t remember\u00a0seeing\u00a0them exactly as such in MoO games. Some of the models are quite cool\u00a0actually.<\/p>\n

Research is implemented, you can already research stuff. You allocate the research points you generate from each planet throughout the different technologies you want to research.<\/p>\n

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Beyond Beyaan: Research Screen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The research mechanics feels also very MoO’ish. You manipulate sliders (and can lock them) to distribute your research points, which is clearly inspired in MoO1 (other games also use this mechanic like Armada 2526<\/a> for instance), and you can choose from\u00a0multiple research options in the same “field” (which resembles MoO2 way of choosing \u00a0from multiple alternatives).<\/p>\n

Nothing seems to be left\u00a0out; there is also diplomacy in Beyond Beyann.<\/p>\n

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Beyond Beyaan: Diplomacy Screen<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The options presented are pretty much standard, maybe the reconcile empire<\/em> and harass empire<\/em> are two innovative options on this topic.<\/p>\n

So, what’s new or different about Beyond Beyaan?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

So far my experience playing Beyond Beyaan was not so different from playing a mix of MoO1 and MoO2, but subpar. I also had a few flash experiences from other space strategy games.<\/p>\n

Beyond Beyaan’s\u00a0major strength though resides on its high moddability.<\/p>\n

Brent states that the player will have the ability to modify different aspects of gameplay.\u00a0You could mod galaxy generation to create custom galaxies for example.<\/p>\n

But the biggest things that you will be able to modify are the technologies. \u00a0From Brent’s own words:<\/p>\n

“This game will focus on space combat and technologies, so you can create your own technologies and plug them in. \u00a0For example, if you want a torpedo to bounce off a ship towards another ship, you can script that torpedo’s “OnHit” function to tell it to bounce instead of disappearing.\u00a0Or perhaps you want a missile to split into multiple missiles (not just internal code, but visibly splitting), you can script that in “Travel” function after a certain time amount has passed<\/em>” – Brent Patterson.<\/p>\n

This sounds great so I asked Brent how players could modify the game. He replied the following:<\/p>\n

“At main menu, before starting a game, there will be a drop-down showing different game files that you can load, the normal gameplay would use “Default”. \u00a0You can add new folders, and create your own races, technologies, AI scripts, galaxy generation scripts, artwork and sounds for the game. \u00a0The game will allow you to select one of those folders and load it, so you don’t have to overwrite any of the game files. So in theory, it’d be possible to mod the game to be similar to older 4x games, or create your own game.<\/em>” – Brent Patterson.<\/p>\n

Pre-Order and Donations<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Brent has plans to set up\u00a0a Pre-Order service soon in order to try and raise money to fund art work and other resources of the game. Currently he has set up donations<\/a> on his website.<\/strong> He explains what he plans to do<\/a> with the funding. There will be perks involved to donors.<\/p>\n

Brent would be delighted, for sure, to hear your comments on what you’ve seen so far. If you want to support his project, then feel free to do so!\u00a0You can reach Brent through his\u00a0blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Good luck on your project Brent. I will watch it closely.<\/p>\n

About Brent Patterson<\/h3>\n

Brent shared his motivation on developing Beyond Beyaan with SpaceSector.<\/p>\n

Brent is a professional programmer and a space game\u00a0enthusiast\u00a0that wants to see a worthy Master of Orion successor.<\/p>\n

“I was not happy with the new 4x games being released, that I find to be too complicated or in real-time. So, I decided to create my own game, picking up from the features I liked best from MOO1, and some other 4x games<\/em>” – Brent Patterson.<\/p>\n

Brent maintains\u00a0a blog<\/a> where he keeps his advancement on Beyond Beyaan up to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyond Beyaan is an indie 4x space strategy game currently being developed by Brent Patterson. It is heavily inspired by the 4x classic Master of Orion series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,198,70],"tags":[86,482,778,484,67,539,104,95,117,36,229,483,487,31,30,192,115],"class_list":["post-5032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-first-impressions","category-game-previews","category-games-under-development","tag-4x-game","tag-beyond-beyaan","tag-indie","tag-indie-4x-game","tag-master-of-orion","tag-mods-2","tag-moo1","tag-moo2","tag-pc-game","tag-research","tag-ship-design","tag-space-game","tag-space-game-preview","tag-space-strategy","tag-space-strategy-game","tag-tbs","tag-under-development"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spacesector.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}