Build Your Own RTS With the Sudden Strike Next7 Engine
Did you ever want to make your own RTS game and lack the programming skills to do so? Well now is your chance with FireGlow’s new Sudden Strike Next7 engine!
Fireglow publishing today announced its plans to use Sudden Strike Next7, the engine behind the upcoming Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory title. This engine will allow a variety of products to be created. Some of them will be announced soon.
Sudden Strike Next7 is a generic RTS engine to be used in subsequent games in the Sudden Strike series and other games from Fireglow. Fireglow is also developing thorough documentation in order to license the engine to third parties. The public version of the editor is being prepared and will be released with add-ons.
Here is a trailer showing how microAI works in Sudden Strike Next 7. After the Player gives the units a single command to unload, they can be left on their own to defend, supply and fight without orders from humans and without having to be managed.
Highlights:
- The editor allows to process maps in range from 250 by 250 meters up to 2 by 2 kilometres. You can specify a level of detail for the landscape.
- The editor allows bending the landscape. Objects are adjusted by the landscape’s height, unless marked by a special flag. Landscape and objects on the ground have different passability. It is taken in account in pathfinding or when destroying an object upon collision. Each object also has it’s own transparency. Together with the height of the ground, the transparency limits the unit’s sight of view.
- The editor has a built-in splines processing mechanism. It allows creating a long twisted fences, roads and trenches. Any spline can be easily readjusted, and its size or elevation changed.
- Any object may be placed at any place of the map. If you wish, you can use the Automatic Placement feature, which helps optimizing the path finding grid.
- You can quickly place a number of objects, randomly taken from the list. You can change, store, and load the lists. Any group of objects may be rotated or moved.
- Any part of the map (landscape, objects, units, or all together) may be exported, and then inserted into the same or any other map, using an arbitrary angle.
- Current parameters of any unit (or a group of units) may be easily changed. Some of the parameters are: health, experience, fuel, primary and secondary ammo, crew and passengers inside (for guns & vehicles), broken parts (tracks, turret, hull etc).
- The editor allows to create and edit surf waves of different shapes. You can specify direction and force of the wind, which blows away smoke.
- The built-in visual scripting tool with an intuitive interface (you don’t have to be a programmer to handle them) and independent AI behavior templates allow trying various gameplay ideas within minutes.
- Any object or unit has special zones that receive damage. Damage in different zones cause different consequences. Damaged tracks immobilize tank, fire in the engine compartment causes tank to loose hit points for some time.
- In the editor, you can run your mission inside the editor and test the gameplay without further ado.
