Fraxy.

[Obeliskos]

You must be registered to see the links

It's in jpneez, but just download

>> fraxy_20090204be.zip (1.68MB) (English only)

Typical process to get it. In the folder, there are three different applications: One to play, one to make your own boss, and one to screw around with the settings. Share the bosses you make. You can't do it through attachments, the enemy files are saved as .fed which isn't a valid file extension. Instead, you'll probably have to make a new folder, put the file for your boss in the folder (the file name will be the name you gave your boss and will end in .fed), make the folder an archive, then upload it using MegaUpload or whatever. To download and play other's bosses, download the file, then take the .fed file and move it to the "enemy" folder in the Fraxy folder. The address should be something like

(wherever you downloaded the fraxy folder)\fraxy_20090204be\fraxy_20090204be\enemy

I've only made one enemy so far, but it's a doozy.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Fraxy.

So, I've been doofing around with this game, and your "Ultimate" enemy, for a while.

Game comments:

Rather an interesting concept - provide gamers with the tools necessary to create enemies and levels from a provided set of premade parts. All-around shooting is neat, and the arrow-key-movement/mouse-aim function ought to be familiar to any action gamer. The recharge system is nice to have.

Still, not without its flaws. Almost all of the weapons are variations on guns and cannons, with no beams, missiles, or "option" modules. Player upgrades are limited to various numerical upgrades, with essentially no graphical changes (I think the Bullet weapon changes from blue to green when you upgrade it, and that's it.). Some of the provided enemies grow extremely annoying to kill, due to invulnerability use.

Some hints for the new player. Pressing the right mouse button increases the power to your thrusters, causing your ship to move faster at the cost of energy. You can change the weapons on your ship by starting the "config" program and selecting the "Player" tab. Ingame, you can select different weapons by using the mouse wheel. "Charge Blaster" (second from the bottom in the dropdown box) is possibly your most important weapon - hold the trigger down to charge the blast, and release it to fire. You can charge the Charge Blaster to two loops - the energy ball will shrink and a noise will play when the second loop is complete, and then when you fire it, it'll continue spraying energy over whatever it hits for quite some time.

"Ultimate" comments:

Hrmph. Everybody always has to make a ship with the maximum number of components when they first start editing. It only took me four or five tries to beat a level 1 Ultimate with a default fighter at Normal difficulty - and that was my first time playing Fraxy. Still, there's some creative bits.

First, the pluses: The doubled-laser effect is very neat, especially combined with the random spinning and ramming motions the ship gets. The mix of Homing Lasers, Bullet-Twins, Vulcan-Twins, and Power Balls lays down a hectic amount of fire, especially at higher difficulties.

Then, the minuses: The gigantic number of Plate-4's are unevenly spaced around the perimeter, and don't look like they're the outer armor they're supposed to be. Maybe use Plate-3's or Plate-9's? The durability on interior components is way too high, especially the core. By the time we can shoot the core, we've blown through at least one column's worth of lasers, guns, and armor. The core shouldn't be this tough. Maybe put in a second layer of Plates, between the first and second layers of Laser-L's, instead.

Some of the weapons are "chained" together in a Parent-Child relationship, while others aren't. Blast a Parent weapon, and the Child weapon(s) explode. Make these relationships consistent - it doesn't make sense for all the Sonic-Wave-L's to explode if I happen to blast a particular Bullet-Twin, although it does make sense for the Sonic-Wave-L mounted on that Bullet-Twin to explode if its mounting does.

Maybe add some turreted weapons to the mix. Add some Vulcan-Aim-Player's, or add some Panel-Aim-Player's with bullet, needle, or vulcan weapons attached to them.

Tuck a Barrier-1 around the Core. Attach a few hidden Recovery, Regeneration, or Repair parts to the perimeter armor. Lower the durability of such parts if you do, though; don't want people thinking the blasted ship's invincible.

 

[Obeliskos]

Re: Fraxy.

He was always so easy for me because I usually go into Player Status in the menu, get overdrive, get shield, and energy recharger, then pump everything up to make level. I never took into consideration how fucking long it would take to pick away at him with level one everything.

And yeah, I was really messy with the outer shields..

 

[Host]

Re: Fraxy.

Ah, I suck at this game, even though I’ve had it for ages. I’ve made two different strikecraft and made three enemy sets with them, which I feel are reasonable fights… well, for me anyway. You’ll all probably find it too easy. Just don’t fight any of the encounters with Cosmo Zero’s in them at rank 100, I made it get too fast so it’s just a chore to fight. That being said, I’ve beaten the EDF Strike Team at rank 100, although only after I added a way to slow the enemy down.

(The units included are an attempt at replicating the Black Tiger and Cosmo Zero of Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato. Yes, I know the Cosmo Zero doesn’t have all the stuff I gave it for the later ranks. It’s meant to be a lead fighter, and I couldn’t find any core AI’s capable of fighting ‘smartly’, so I had to upgrade it instead. I was going to do other Yamato ships, but they are proving difficult to get working...)

You must be registered to see the links

Black Tiger:

(That first one’s actually a fairly inaccurate picture, but it’s closer to how I remember them. …Now that I look at it, my version’s wings are far too big. Going to have to change that somehow. …AND I’ve misplaced the weapons, apparently. They’re supposed to be on lumps between the wings and the main body. …Although, I think there may be guns at the front as well…)

Cosmo Zero:

(Should have probably shrunk that)

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Fraxy.

Very cool. I love these user generated content games. The editor on this one makes things especially easy to create. No messing with your own sprites or trying to translate text files. Made some five distinct creations so far, though with some 5 more variants between those.

Download:

You must be registered to see the links

​

I actually think the rough armour on the 'Ultimate' has a certain style about it. Still looks a little cheep, but not that bad. I can agree that the weapons could be better mounted, since half of them and the armour blow up in a rather strange fashion once you squeeze a few hit in under the armour. (Then again without that the fight would take forever...)

I might make something similar myself. Here are mine so far...


The Proto-Cruiser
As in prototype. My very first design, though the picture is of the MK-II. The original had zero defences at the rear, rather than the light defences seen here, and a mounting error fix at MK-II. Otherwise mostly the same. There's also a MK-III, which is ironically weaker due to using a block core instead which makes its movements much less aggressively and easier to out manuver. Added two more spot lights too because they're fun. =)

The Sonic Tank
Second design. Turns out sonic weapons are less deadly than I imagined, which is probably a good thing since it's not easy to escape it's 360 degree turret. I might add some extra aimed/homing weapons to liven it up. Has a Hammer Head variant which uses orbiting drones. They used to have missiles which proved a little over effective. I've forgot what I replaced them with...

Attack Bomber
Plays a bit more like a missile gunship really. Aggressive and reasonably armed, especially at higher ranks when the missiles start coming in volleys of ten or so. Very easy to destroy with a few good shots. Works well paired with other bosses.

Grid Bot
A cluster of laser platforms that form an interlocking grid. Turreted needle guns fire at those caught in the grid. Only tested once. The rotation speed seemed a bit extreme and they also seemed bizarrely resistant to damage, so they need a little work still.
(picture 50% size)

Defence Station UF3
Dunno what the name means, but I felt like making a big station style thing. Armed with dozens of turreted needle guns, and a few turreted 'bullet' guns that are actually double layered to increase their effective damage. Fun to dismantle.
(picture 50% size)

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Fraxy.

Whee, because rather than make my own ships, I feel like nattering about others':

Black Tiger Squadron
Um... okay, that one guy who fires continuously is annoying, the others are just sorta target practice. Maybe add a few more Boosters or Thrusters, so they move faster? Possibly a Missile launcher or two? I've never seen SB Yamato, so I don't know what these fighters typically can do.

Cosmo Zero
Okay, this guy likes to get ridiculously fast at higher levels and as he loses parts. The lifebar is distracting and doesn't really add anything. The drop-missiles are kinda neat, but they're not that likely to hit the player. Dunno what to do about that.

EDF Better
This is basically Cosmo Zero plus Black Tiger Squadron, so there's really no further comment to be made.

Proto-Cruiser
After playing with the three variants, I'd have to agree that the Block Core seems more appropriate for this vessel, even though it does make it weaker. The only weakness in the design I found, was that if you blow up two parts on a side (ID# 48 and 46, on the Mark I), you blow up all the turrets on that side - nearly half of the ship's turreted firepower. Maybe move the Wing-L and all its child parts (ID# 52 in this example) from being a child of the outboard strut (ID# 51) to being a child of the inboard strut (ID# 18)?

Sonic Tank
AFAIK, Sonic weapons don't DO any damage. They merely push the player away. So they really belong on something similar to, say, the Arena or the Clock Prison - trying to push the player into a wall. Maybe swap 'em for a powerful-but-slow weapon, like Power Balls or Slow Rays.

Attack Bomber
Eek. I just realized that none of the example enemies employed missiles. I'd never faced them before. Now I don't like missiles. Can you imagine a "Try" level including wings of Attack Bombers, Fighters, and similar ships?

Grid-Bot
This is... surprisingly easy. I don't know how you found this guy "bizarrely resistant" to damage, but they tended to blow up real easy when I flew up and pounded some bullets into 'em. The large number of powerups a single Grid-Bot grants is nice.

Defense Station UF3
Okay. I like Needle guns. I think they're great for turrets. But GOD there's a lot of 'em on this thing. I'm getting actual SLOWDOWN from the number of shots. Maybe switch some of them up with Vulcan-Smalls or Ripples? One major vulnerability that appeared to me, was that two small parts are responsible for each holding almost half the station - Brick-Rectangle2B's #2 and #97. And what's worse is they can be shot without any previous part-destruction. I admit, making those shots with the Lasers and Needle turrets blazing away at you is, um, well, hard. But when you realize that if you blast one, you take out almost half the station, it becomes quite a bit more valuable. Maybe up the durability on those parts?

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Fraxy.

All good analysis I'd say. =)

Ideally for the station a way to limit target acquisition range would be helpful, but alas. I wanted lots of guns to dodge, but the way it went they just all fire an unavoidable wave of fire-power at once every cycle. Only safe way to dodge most of the time is to boost way back and then in again as the shots fade. I'll figure something out. Though fun to take out half the station by hitting those weak points, I probably will add some armour/durability there to force the player to dismantle things as I generally intended. I'll work on it.

The Bomber (probably will be renamed) will see some new variants and similar craft, but is good as is I think. The trick with the missiles is that although deadly, unlike homing lasers they can be shot down. Could make things quite interesting if used right. (other wise they're evil. The original missile spraying version of the Hammer Head was horrible.)

I had the same thoughts about the Proto-Cruiser, though I'm more likely to go onto a second design and leave it as an exploitable weakness. It's a prototype after all. Yeah, that's a good excuse...

I'll be sure to share any relevant updates I make. The thing is it's hard to force myself to go back and fix things when there's so many more new designs I want to make. ^_^'

Coming up, more cruiser types, a super battle ship, "station ⑨", and who knows what else. I'll have to try making a "try" too sometime. (weird sentence...)

 

[Obeliskos]

Re: Fraxy.

I haven't played against any of those yet but holyfuckingshit do those look awesome.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Fraxy.

Cheers man. =)

 

[Host]

Re: Fraxy.

Um... okay, that one guy who fires continuously is annoying, the others are just sorta target practice.

That’s pretty much what they’re for. The Black Tigers are just fighters that hold up other strikecraft from attacking the real ships. I intended to use them in a try, but there’s probably not much chance of that ever happening… Also, at my skill level, they’ve killed me a couple of times. Fraxy might not have any real smart AI’s, but giving them different engine levels certainly makes them move more uniquely – I find that if you focus on attacking the constantly firing one, the constantly boosting one will come from behind you.

The lifebar is distracting and doesn't really add anything.

That’s there for when I was testing, to see if I was damaging the core from the outside (and also to see how the bars worked). The ones that appear on a rank 100 Cosmo Zero are so that you can actually tell you’re doing damage, because otherwise it’s fairly difficult to notice. Stops you from being totally consumed by the boredom involved in fighting something with large health that’s also faster than you.

Squid, I’d play yours, but they aren’t working for some reason. I load them up and I get some moonspeak error as soon as the unit tries to appear. =(

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Fraxy.

So I finally got up off my fat duff and stuck a ship together. Meet the Battlecruiser Mark I.

Ideally for the station a way to limit target acquisition range would be helpful, but alas. I wanted lots of guns to dodge, but the way it went they just all fire an unavoidable wave of fire-power at once every cycle. Only safe way to dodge most of the time is to boost way back and then in again as the shots fade. I'll figure something out. Though fun to take out half the station by hitting those weak points, I probably will add some armour/durability there to force the player to dismantle things as I generally intended. I'll work on it.

Hmmm... while I was tinkering around, I discovered that the different "Panel-aim player X" items aim differently. Loosely speaking, the ones with angles for X have a field of fire that's X degrees to either side of the starting aimpoint. So a "Panel-aim player 090" will only aim up to 90 degrees from its startpoint. Maybe using those on selected turrets would help - the player would only get directly shot at by some of the turrets some of the time.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Fraxy.

check out my constructions.

the artemis and the astomire

i doubt they will be easy to defeat. especially multiple times.

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Fraxy.

check out my constructions.

the artemis and the astomire

i doubt they will be easy to defeat. especially multiple times.

Hmmm...

Artemis
So. At level 1, it's almost faster than you are, it's got turreted spread lasers, it's got homing lasers, it's got missiles, it's got turreted vulcans, it's got turreted needleguns, it's got grenades, and just in case that wasn't enough, it's got TWO Barrier-2's, placed far enough apart that a single stun-blast can't take both of them down. *sigh* You WOULD use the Barrier-2's...

On the plus side, the turreted spread lasers are a neat idea.

Suggestions: Swap out the permanently-active Barrier-2's for intermittent Barrier-1's. Choose Attack Action 3 or above to make the barriers larger. At this point, basically any attack on the ship requires either shields or a suicide run. And if you've got shields, it only goes from "suicidal" to "freaking impossible". And yes, I did manage to beat two in a row - jumping from level 1 to level 28 and then the level 54 guy which came next got me with "death-bullets" and me not paying attention to how much shield time I had left.

Astomire
Now this one's a neat one. Charges at the player with an array of interlocking blades, laying down homing lasers, missiles, and even a remote blast for the inattentive. It's sorta like the Blazer series. Problem is, it's got one gaping design flaw - almost everything's tied to that Wing-L at the front. Blast that (and there's nothing, really, covering it) and you take out everything except the homing lasers.

Suggestions: Tie the Tip-2's directly to the core, and move some of the Booster-M's to the Tip-2's. That way, you force the player to whittle away more of the ship as it's circling around him, instead of him picking off the Wing-L and then killing the rest at his leisure.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Fraxy.

good points...

anyway my newest creation, the mortimer class battleship. you may recognize a piece or two that i've stolen from other ships.

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Fraxy.

Oh, yeah, something I forgot to mention. In the editor, on the little window on the left, there's three buttons under the heading "info". "detail" (on by default) tells you more about the status of the selected part. "event" tells you more about what the part is doing. And "action" tells you more about the possible actions (the Move Actions and Attack Actions) which the part is capable of doing.

S'really helpful in choosing what various parts are gonna do.

Mortimer
...think you got enough guns on there, Nunu? 296 parts, probably 2/3 of which are weapons. Oi. Did you WANT to force Fraxy into slowdown, or something? I kill one of these at rank 1, and the next one shows up at rank 73, thanks to the sheer amount of stuff that's there to be killed.

Hrm. Aside from removing every second weapon mount (do they ALL have to be multiply-duplicated?), I'd suggest putting in one more Barrier-1, attached to Big Core #5. The way I eventually beat the rank-1 version was to use Charge Shot from long distance... putting on a Barrier-1 will force the player to come in close if he doesn't want his shots sometimes bouncing. I personally feel that the originating core should be the least mobile one (Block Core, IMO), but that's more a matter of opinion.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Fraxy.

I spose your right, i gave it one of them big shields and removed a few superfluous things from its back as well as switching it over to block.

 

[DeMatt]

Re: Fraxy.

I spose your right, i gave it one of them big shields and removed a few superfluous things from its back as well as switching it over to block.

Yeah, I think it's harder now. It's less likely to take off and expose its rear, and the large barrier "encourages" the player to stay in close - where he's got less time to react to the masses of turrets and missiles.

I still say it's got twice as many weapons as is appropriate. Particularly places where you've duplicated a mount on itself - for example, Tank #137 and Tank #140 and their child Bullet-Twins.

Question for you all... what difficulty setting do you use, when you test your creations? Which fighter (Normal, Attacker, or Tanker)? What weapons, and what levels?

Well, I did some fine-tuning - meet the Battlecruiser Mark II. Anybody got any comments?

 

[Nunu]

Re: Fraxy.

i double up the weapon mounts and set their firing times to slightly different
it roughly doubles their rate of fire i think.

thats also how it puts out a constant barrage of missiles

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: Fraxy.

Haven't tested the Mortimer yet, but those first two are seriously brutal Nunu. Cool and fun to dodge, but ridiculous to actually take down safely.

I can see that you really tested out the events system for the Battle Cruiser Dematt. I've only scratched the events so far, though looking at this gave me some helpful hints. Tried adding some of those nifty damage effects to one of mine, did some, but it got pretty confusing pretty quickly (partially because mine was huge, but tricky none the less...). It's a nice one. A bit easy going even at higher ranks, but seems very well made. (And was refreshing after Nunu's onslaught. >_> )

I've got quite a few to share, but I want to polish them up some first.