
Space Frigates - nbrempel
https://www.spacefrigates.com
======
Neverending
If you're interested in a free game that has had this core functionality
(online multiplayer Asteroids) since 1995 - visit
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum/)
(edit: replaced with Steam link)

There has been a dedicated community of thousands of players, many of which
have been playing well over a decade. Plenty of videos on youtube under either
"Subspace" or more recently "Continuum".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubSpace_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubSpace_\(video_game\))

Also - a plug for my favorite Zone: HZ. www.rshl.org.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Extreme Games is my favorite (large CTF game with a bunch of different bases).
Unfortunately it wasn't one of the default zones on the client last I checked
and you had to go into the client's server view to add it. Really is one of
the best zones. Much more interesting than Trench Wars.

If anybody played Infantry, the EOL zone was based on Extreme Games. Though it
would blow my mind if anyone knows what I'm talking about.

~~~
Neverending
EGFL has created some of the tensest gaming experiences in decades with
teammates from across the globe. Regular 8 or 9 hour games that were hotly
contested.

Lag-attaching as a strategy is an incredible example of how innovative gamers
were given latency restraints. :) Shout out to Explosive, my first EG Squad.

~~~
rvoje
I dont remember that many drawn out games in EGFL. Longest one i know of was
imp vs mut, which was 12+ hours long. Lag attaching was a dirty bug which just
added fun :)

------
ani-ani
Some playing tips:

\- Never keep any controls pressed down. Consider each single keypress as a
discrete action that consumes energy. The more conservative you are with
keypresses, the more energy you keep.

\- Because it's busy, you have to accelerate right after spawning, otherwise
you're in the hellzone and people will actually spawn inside you, causing
instant death.

\- The down arrow will brake/stop your ship, no matter which direction you're
pointing. This is handy when you approach the edge of the map.

\- Try cruising along the edge of the map at a leisurely pace, avoid the
center, and pwn slowly.

~~~
Fnoord
I figured. Game registers a single keypress as multiple (Firefox / macOS).
Keypresses register late (I can notice this especially with brake). Nearly
unplayable for me.

~~~
lucb1e
Same here, even when I'm alone in the arena. Unplayable. Feel like the packet
has to go to the server and back before I see a response in my local craft.

Edit:

Pinging 13 times I got: rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 125.981/217.330/322.054/63.585
ms

>200ms ping average, 64ms median deviation, yeah I bet the packets have to go
to the server before it responds and that explains everything. The weird thing
is that it was still an issue while I was alone on the server so it can't have
been overloaded.

To my own website that's 37.490/39.462/41.610/1.199 ms, so it's not my
connection.

------
nbrempel
I’m suddenly reminded of this game I played the hell out of back in the day:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_Nova](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_Nova)

~~~
mLuby
Endless Sky is a well-polished FOSS version of the same thing.

[https://endless-sky.github.io](https://endless-sky.github.io)

~~~
Jowsey
Was just about to mention this game. Glad other people still play it, an
absolutely incredible game and open source project.

------
dhardenb
Sorry all, wasn't expecting the traffic.... spinning up some more servers
now...

~~~
mLuby
While the servers are down, do you have a demo video you could post?

~~~
archgoon
They're up!

~~~
bamboozled
It's still down.

------
r3dk1ng
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPilot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPilot)

~~~
dspillett
Was about to suggest that myself (but searched and found you already had).
I've not looked in recently so I don't know how much development is going on,
but I wasted many a bit of time playing this and its variants with a group of
friends while at Uni two decades ago.

Key-words for those searching: cross-platform, open source, multi-player, fun.

------
waltbosz
Does anyone remember Netrek ?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek)

~~~
sliken
Heh, yes. It played WAY WAY WAY smoother in the late 80s than space frigates
plays on my 3+ GHz desktop.

At the time netrek was near unplayable on my 386. But I got the optional 387
FPU and a S3-801 (that had hardware support for vectors) and suddenly netrek,
xpilot, and similar vector games played great.

------
FriendlyNormie
Wanting something to be good and usable based on its name being exciting to
you isn’t the same as it actually being good or usable. It’s astonishing that
this was upvoted by 179 people. There are already hundreds of multiplayer .io
browser games that are actually playable. Some of them are space games,
microgravity.io for instance.

Why is no one giving their honest opinion on Space Frigates, which can only
possibly be negative? I suppose there is a culture of fear in HN comment
sections, people are afraid of pointing out when something is obvious amateur
hour garbage because they don’t want to get spanked with downvotes or a
shadowban for hurting someone’s feelings. Is this really necessary? Why
protect someone’s feelings? Sometimes people need to hear what they don’t
really want to hear, otherwise you’re just enabling their delusion and they
never improve themselves.

------
contingencies
Unplayably superjerky in Australia, Firefox 72.0.2, OSX.

~~~
twic
Video game difficulty levels:

1\. I'm too young to die

2\. Hey, not too rough

3\. Hurt me plenty

4\. Ultra-Violence

5\. Nightmare!

6\. NBN

------
c0restraint
503 error now. Hug of death. What was it? Sounds like a game from some of the
comments...

------
dhardenb
Sorry all, wasn't expecting all the traffic. :-)

------
vector_spaces
I love this. This reminds me a lot of my first experience with teeworlds[1],
which came pre-installed with LXLE (a sort of hipster Lubuntu derivative). In
both cases my emotions transitioned from "oh, another one of _these_ games",
to delight as I realized the ships around me were controlled by other players,
to being thoroughly amused by the wonky physics. I love lightweight games
where it's super low friction to launch, interact with other players, and sign
off.

[1] [https://teeworlds.com/](https://teeworlds.com/)

------
cypherlh
Twitter of the dev...

[https://twitter.com/spacefrigates](https://twitter.com/spacefrigates)

------
beamatronic
Used to play a game like this on Amiga. Think it was called Spacewar and you
could play against a friend via modem.

------
hardlianotion
This brings back unpleasant reminders of my early gaming days, my middle
gaming days and my later gaming days, in which I am sitting at the controls
struggling to move in a voluntary manner. Fortunately there are other folk
there who are kind enough to put me out of my misery, speedily.

------
mortenjorck
I like the conservation of angular momentum, a nod to physics realism
relatively uncommon in classic space shooters. The "brakes" (down arrow key)
seem like they should follow the same rules, though, that you should start
moving backward if you fire them too much.

~~~
dhardenb
Yes, you are correct! Nice catch!

I left the brakes as is for now because the game was very difficult with out
them.

However, to retain the level of realism that I was hoping for I plan to rework
the brakes such that they show the ship slows to a stop properly.

For example, the onboard computer should calculate the actual thrusters needed
to stop the ship for the player.

------
jonathankoren
Linking turn to fire makes the game no fun. I kind of like the idea of limited
resources, but this makes all the ships degenerate into spinning drifters that
occasionally in a spread. There's no skill at that point.

------
rolandog
Nice game! How do you refuel or collect debris? Is that discarded when another
player dies?

Edit: Nvm. It seems I wasn't noticing debris being generated by shooting it
instantly.

~~~
dhardenb
Yep, when ships explode they drop debris which can be picked up for energy.
How much energy you get depends on how much energy the ship had when they
exploded.

------
justinclift
Oops. Using "Alt" for a key isn't good here, as on Firefox it pops open the
top menu bar (eg File, Edit, ...), changing the window height too.

------
MrGilbert
The "ALT"-key will toggle the context menu in Vivaldi, and thus steal the
focus from the game when activating the shield. ;)

------
compscistd
Opened this on mobile safari, wondering why I can only see players and
movement while drag-scrolling the screen...

------
bullen
I made this in 3D: [http://aeonalpha.com](http://aeonalpha.com)

------
platz
[https://airmash.online/](https://airmash.online/)

------
swiftcoder
Feels like this needs some latency reduction. Client-side prediction and
server-side input replay. Etc.

------
smcameron
Interesting mechanics. You can't spam the controls. Well, you can, but you
won't do well.

------
fctorial
It's unplayable on my computer.

------
NikolaNovak
"503 Service Unavailable"

\- I guess enough people here thought it was worth a try

~~~
dhardenb
Yea, sorry about that.

If you want to give it another try now that traffic has died down the
performance is a lot better.

Thanks!

------
sequoia
Is the fact that steering is almost impossible a bug or a feature?

~~~
inkeddeveloper
It's space. There isn't really steering; you have to use thrust to modify your
vector.

~~~
FriendlyNormie
Computers can take input and handle it however the programmer wants in order
to replicate ordinary steering. This is true in both games and in actual
space.

Why is everyone in this comment section seemingly unable to say anything
negative about Space Frigates? This deserves its own 2 hour documentary.

I’m tempted to submit a random .io game and see how people react.

~~~
dhardenb
Hi!

Yes, you are correct. In fact, this has been something I have gone back on
forth on myself.

I do actually have an “on board computer” That sits between what the player
tried to do and what the ship actually does.

For example, the on board computer will only allow the pilot to fire the
rotational thrusters to a certain max angular momentum.

I’ve also experimented with having the on board computer automatically stop
rotation by firing the opposite rotational thruster for the pilot
automatically.

The thing is, it was a pain because whatever we that degree turn was was never
just right.

So, when you tried to fire at another ship you would often rotate a little too
much or a little not enough.

Having it the way it is now we’re the pilot has to manually control angular
velocity gives the. More precise control.

So that is why that is the way it currently is. But, many people have had the
same feedback...

What I am thinking about doing is having a control on the HUD where pilots can
choose manual versus automatic and also set the amount of predefined degree of
rotation they want when in automatic.

I think that might be the best of all worlds?

~~~
sequoia
My issue is just "I'm not going to spend the time to figure this out." I know
how to use vim, I know how to drive a manual transmission car, I learned those
things, it is possible.

But if you ask me to apply even a fraction of the effort spent learning vim or
stick shift to learning a lo-fi space shooter, my question is "why" and my
answer is "no thanks." It's not that it's impossible, it's that the juice is
not worth the squeeze, at least for me.

~~~
dhardenb
That's fair and I appreciate the feedback.

I admit that the controls are not intuitive for somebody who has never played
the game.

I do enjoy the controls and find that they make the game very challenging but
I do understand that it will drive away many potential players.

I think that the "why" will eventually be that there will be a lot more
content. My long term visual is to grow the game into more than a simple
shooter. I eventually plan to have larger ships with more components to
control.

I hope that as the game progresses the content will justify more of a learning
curve. For example, many people have taken the time to learn Dwarf Fortress
because it is an awesome game with tons of content.

But I'm a long, long way from that.

So, to your point, I may need to make the controls more intuitive until the
content justifies a larger learning curve.

Thanks for the feedback,

Dave

------
nickthemagicman
What tech stach are you using? This is really cool.

~~~
FriendlyNormie
Can you explain why you think this is cool?

~~~
nickthemagicman
I find multiplayer websocket games cool. Can you explain why you want to know?

~~~
FriendlyNormie
It’s unplayable and barely functional. Do you actually like it, or you just
like the idea of what it could be?

There has been a multiplayer websocket .io game renaissance ongoing since
2016. Hundreds of multiplayer websocket games have been released in that time
and they’re all objectively better than this, tech stack included. People like
you are acting like this never happened, and I don’t know how you could
actually be unaware of it. Some multiplayer websocket games such as slither.io
are a worldwide phenomenon on par with Pokémon Go in terms of popularity.

In light of all that, I’m asking why you think this is cool because it doesn’t
make sense to me.

------
z-cam
503

------
gameswithgo
feels like authoritative server with no client side prediction?

~~~
dhardenb
Hi!

It does have client side prediction. What it is lacking is a working sync when
the updates come back from the server.

I’ve tried and tried to get that part right but it has been difficult.

I recently found the Lance engine and may just port to that since they seem to
have figured it out.

You can follow my progress at:
[https://blog.spacefrigates.com](https://blog.spacefrigates.com)

------
trinny
safari gave me a seizure. Otherwise, fun!

------
oerb
So nice!!

------
oerb
So nice :)

~~~
dhardenb
Thank you!

You can follow along with my progress at:
[https://blog.spacefrigates.com](https://blog.spacefrigates.com)

