What game engine is suitable to make a Starflight game?

[Astralogic]

I'm thinking of Unity but I have no knowledge of such things (nor programming either) but I want to make my own SF game, I'm gonna try to do it in Unity if that's a suitable engine.

I'll be using free graphics and sounds because I'm no artist, but basically I just want to know if Unity is suitable or not.

Thanks

[Steve]

After experiencing all the headaches from going to start line to the finish line, here's my two cents:

The majority of professional games create their own engines in order to optimize for speed and feature customization. Computer games require so many features and advances are often made in the engine, especially in sequels, so not being locked into an existing package is standard practice in the industry.

For those with less than a professional development studio, I can't recommend anything better than Unity. There are gorgeous space graphics libraries "space graphics tool" etc. that cost a reasonable bid of money, so graphics are usually not a problem.

If you want to learn something the best way is to use rapid prototyping. Figure out how to make the simplest possible game, moving on a black 2-D background or something, and make it. Add a few features and repeat. After certain stages, you'll throw out everything and start over.

Spend no time at all on design ideas. Draw two circles in your mind: a huge circle of impossible ideas which seem reasonable in theory, and a very small circle of practical ideas. Then tell yourself that you have no clue how to tell the difference between the two. Try to make the absolute minimum number of requirements possible, and only implement things you've experimented in and know can be done (from your rapid prototyping)

[Astralogic]

Thanks for the advice Steve that's very helpful indeed. I really like the idea of rapid prototyping, it's motivated me even more to do this.

Again, thank you.

[Astralogic]

Hi Steve, I was wondering how (eventually) I would go about generating the starmap and planet surfaces in unity. Are there things I can buy for this or is this one aspect that will need a real programmer?

Thanks

[Steve]

In our case we just had good programmers. I would definitely suggest some internet research to see if something better is out there.

Also if you plan to do anything with open source or a community project, I strongly recommend reading this first:

Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project by Karl Fogel
http://producingoss.com/

[JosiahMutt]

That's a great resource for anyone looking to get into open source projects. Well worth reading.

[aaronfranke]

Keep in mind that it also depends on what kind of things you want to have in the game. For example, I personally would be interested in a Starflight game with 3D graphics and possibly multiplayer support, I would love to venture around the galaxy together with friends. Some engines are great for 2D, some for 3D, some for both, and some engines are great for multiplayer, some aren't.

[Blake00]

If this is still of interest to you there is already a Starflight remake being made at the moment in Unity by a super talented ex-bethesda employee. Best of all it's open source on Github meaning you can grab and copy and do whatever you want with it (eg make your own thing). Although it's probably better to wait untilk he's finished before started your own project.

He's got starbase, galaxy, stars, planets, alien encounters all done.. he still needs to do combat and planet surface landing and probably a couple of other things I'm forgetting.

https://bravearmy.com/starflight/