This week has been all about getting docking working. As trading will be the focus of the game, a system for docking at places to trade is pretty much essential. Along side the docking process comes the HUD. For now, the HUD shows some basic information such as ship hull damage, fuel level, throttle indicator, speed, grid reference etc. I have also created a radar system that centres around the player object. This radar gives a nice accurate system for showing where you are in relation to other objects in the room (hat tip to 3030 Deathwar for that idea).
Additionally, I have created a test system for changing the players ship. Object inheritance and changing is possible in Game Maker, but not something that I have found easy (until I finally started to read the GM Manual!), so now you can switch between 2 different ships that have different stats on the fly.
Docking has been a complicated affair as im still learning GML, but It has forced me to restructure a lot of the code in the process, producing a more organised application structure.
Wont say any more at the moment, but heres some screen grabs:
the HUD display with docking ring active
More ship sprites
Tags: Game Development, game maker, space trading game, top down 2d game