Depot Games: The Beyond

Current Version: 1.1.3

Project Status: Completed

Highest Popularity: #5 during December 2005

Links: Web Site, The Beyond

Category: Space Shooters

Developers: Phr00t

Ports: Windows

Source Code: Not Available

Author's Description: This is an action/exploration/strategy space game. You must allow your race to survive lost in space. Take missions, ally with other races, engage in war and mine numerous planets to live.

NEW STUFF: When the resources are bright white, that means the planet still has some of that resource left to mine. Titanium is the best defense and technology building resource. Plutonium recharges shields, uranium allows HyperSpeed, and the rest supports life and defense building. Oh yeah, don't forget the fuel to move your ships around! Use the (K)nown list to point you at planets for HyperSpeeding, AND when HyperSpeeding (primarilly with followers), learn to tap the spacebar to slowly ease off on your speed so followers and you will not overshoot your destination.

IN RESPONSE TO ULTIO: Read the documentation on the races, they do have differences; however, I kept a class structure to each ship so the player would not have to much trouble handling each race. If you want to see more, try exploring and conquering other planets, or try some missions from your home planet. The battle graphics, AI and sound I believe are very good, just give it some time and read the documentation - there is alot to this game. Thank you for the input

IN RESPONSE TO INPHERNIC: There are 250 planets! Explorers that are automatically spawned from your home planet will be the primary source for finding planets. You will be notified by a message, and that discovered planet will be added to your (K)nown list. It should take about 1-4 minutes to find your first planet; you simply must have not given the game enough time or a chance. To get a mission, you hit M (did you check the (H)elp?) while selecting a home planet (with the mouse), and you have to wait a minute before one becomes available, and 4 minutes for another one to become available after completing the previous one. I put in those time restrictions so you couldn't keep accepting and declining missions just to get the mission and reward you want. Forward and backward does not break after hyperspace, you probably just thought you were stuck because you were lost in space, and you didn't see any stationary reference point moving; however, if you look closely, the stars will always move according to your speed. You didn't see any action because you didn't give it any time or chance... everything is there, believe me. Give it another shot, don't be afraid to spend an extra five or ten minutes getting into the game, and read through the documentation (if there is some confusing part in the documentation, let me know). Thank you for your input.

Downloads

Name	Comments	Size	Date
Beyond113.zip	The Beyond (ZIP format)	1,983,143	11/23/2005 9:28 PM

What's New:

1.1.3
* Now the tutor mode will default to disabled when loading a game.

1.1.2
* Now the briefing and tutorial messages won't overlap.
* Now the tutorial is at a good stage where you should be able to learn everything to get you started. I still highly recommend reading the documentation supplied.

1.1
* A radar zoom level is now shown next to the radar.
* Your planet will not be considered under attack now when going on a mission to protect a researcher drone.
* Now you can experience the start of the tutor system, press (U) to disable/enable it.
* In the brie(F)ing menu, you can hold down (P) to point you in the direction of the mission destination.

1.0.1
* Now the (K)nown list only scrolls through known planets!
* You can use the ESCAPE key to get yourself out of the (K)nown list.
* Added tutorial engine, but no tutorial mode yet...

1.0
* Now planets that are unclaimed will not mine or build defenses.
* Shield and cloaking status messages will now always be shown.
* Made some small additions and changes to the documentation.
* Slightly reduced the rate at which planets attack others.
* Made the population and defenses of different planets upon universe generation a tad bit more random.
* Removed all the debugging code from the compilation.

0.9998
* Now planets will not attack others unless they have a population of at least 8000.
* Reduced the rate at which planets attack others.

0.9997
* Seriously improved and simplified the drawing code, allowing for much better efficiency and speed.
* Other garrisonned planets will actually attack you and others correctly now.
* Included complete game documentation.
* This version is a release candidate for Beyond 1.0!

0.9992
* Fixed yet some more stability problems. Changed all the _putpixel16 calls to putpixel.
* Greatly increased the efficiency of the game. Now it should running on slightly slower machines better.
* Small balancing changes.

0.999
* Now you will be automatically spawned 10 seconds after death if you do not select a ship to become.
* Fixed a nasty bug that would allow ships to survive at 0 health. This bug also caused many frozen player and battle problems.
* Balanced the ships some more: Made the Rabbit a bit stronger, and reduced the defense cost of the Blitzon by 50.
* Many small improvements to the code.

Version 1.0 will include documentation.

0.998
* Refined the code for performance and stability.
* Changed the speed throttling code, so now it should play the same speed very reliably on many computers.
* Reduced the number of stars in the background to improve speed.
* Fixed a bug that made the lost allies fly away during a mission.
* You cannot ally with planets while cloaked anymore.
* Made the research drone destination closer to the home planet so it won't take as long for it to return.
* Removed some more useless sound calls.

0.997
* Grouped all the images and sounds into a datafile.
* Converted all the images to 16 bit, so no further need for in-game depth conversion.

0.9968
* Added sounds for wormhole jumping.
* Added another sound for explosions.
* Removed some useless sound calls.
* Tweaked the sound engine so sounds are slightly more louder.
* Added a 2D effect to the sound, so now sounds will pan according to where they are on the screen.

0.9966
* Fixed a major loading bug that didn't allow Enradicators to be loaded.

0.9965
* Loading and saving should work much better. I suggest not saving in battles, because projectiles and targets are not saved.
* Changed it to (1-5) save slots in the help screen.
* Made food and water mine better, so you won't have to worry about it as much.
* Now planets that cannot spawn defenders that are under attack will quickly and reliably become claimable.
* You can now (D)eclare-War you can attack and claim planets without a defender spawned.
* Random tweaks and fixes here and there.

0.996
* Fixed MANY stability problems. Now the keyboard will not lock up, and crashes should not happen.
* Added a SAVING and LOADING feature!! The (H)elp menu says 1-9 to save, but it is actually 1-5 (5 slots to save in). You can load these 5 different slots on the Main Menu. NOTE: Loaded games are not fully tested, but theorectically should work very well.
* Fixed stuff, updated stuff. Check it out!

0.994.7
* Added sounds! About 80% done with the sounds.
* Made many balancing adjustments, especially with cargo space.
* May have improved the efficiency of the program.
* Many fixes and updates!
* Population increases much faster, and now population can be a mission reward.
* Following works even better!

Still having problems with stability... I have done many things in attempt to improve stability, and you may notice it to be more stable, or to be more unstable.

0.988
* Fixed a nasty array problem upon loading the game that was causing memory leaks, this problem also may have been preventing people to start the actual game.
* Reduced the loading time by 80%!
* Now Skyranians will be spawned on other planets.

0.987
--- I will now be posting Updated EXE files, so you will not have to download all the images again to simply replace the EXE. I will include a full RAR again when I add sounds. ---
* Improved the starfield drawing code greatly; this should speed up the gameplay.
* Made the Rabbit ship have less shields for balancing reasons.
* If your home planet gets captured, your old ship will not return to the captured planet when you spawn to another planet.
* Reduced the amount of planets revealed by 1 in mission rewards.
* Made the 'Protect Researcher' mission a little easier to complete by adjusting the drone's shields to how many ships it needs to be protected from.
* Reduced the defense cost for the Visioneer.
* Made a few speed improvements you may or may not notice.
* Added a yield_timeslice(); in the main menu, story screen, and during the paused state.
* I rewrote the HyperSpeed following code, and now they should follow you near perfectly.
* Made planet population growth faster, but a now planet cannot exceed 250,000 people.
* Explorers will come back home after finding enough planets, and that planet will not launch any more explorers; this is to reduce worthless numbers of explorers flying around known planets. This should also increase gameplay speed later in the game.
* Possibly more that I can't think of now!

0.984
* Fixed some very important code that improved AI engaging enemies.
* Improved efficiency of collision and nearby hostile checking.
* Added a new race, the Skyranians with a great special ability ship. Thank you Steve!
* Hostile planets and ships will become neutral if left alone for a bit (unless they are naturally aggressive...)
* Planets will automatically spawn 2 less ships to protect a planet, 8 was a few to many.
* Made some important balancing adjustments to all the races.

0.970
* Added ability to start as either Pure Energy or the Humans.
* Added a storyline to the beggining.
* Fixed the bug that would allow a planet to spawn next to Earth.
* Fixed the Help information offset when selecting a neutral planet.

0.965
Insane update from the last version. Too many updates/additions/tweaks to list. Now includes mission generator, two races, ship images, and much much more.

0.7.4
Mostly bugfixes, but a taste of some new stuff. Website, of course, for all the details.

0.7.1
Check out the website for update information and downloads.