Level Map Concept

Admittedly from first glance, this may seem quite chaotic and unclear but it is my intention to produce this into a short animatic that would correctly show the flow at which the level unfolds.

For stages 1 to 2 of the player ships waypoints, the capital ship and friendly fighters are absent (as well as the enemy vessels).

It is upon the appearence of the asteroid en route for the orbital relay station (upon completion of stage 2) that they jump in to assist the player in destorying it (stage 3).

Shortly after this happens then the enemy vessels turn up (stage 4) and the player (along with the friendly fighters) must make their way over to combat them.

An enemy capital ship appears (stage 5) en route to the friendly ships/stations and it is up to the player, the friendly ships / capital vessel, to destory it before it has a chance to strike at the defenceless stations.

This purpose of this 'evolution' of stages for tasks for the player is so that they are steadily required to use more of what they are learning in the game environment.

The flow is progressive, with players initially destorying static enemies to understand firing the weapons, then destroying a (albeit slow) moving target to understand aiming correctly to hit a moving target, and then they must deal with enemies that move in a similar manner to themselves with similar firepower and finally it is the culmination of all these skills in a boss battle against a capital ship, whereby the player must shoot at critical points to cause enough damage before they reach/destroy the friendly ships/stations in orbit around the planet.

 

As this is the first level in my game, it is appropriate for the fundamentals of ship-to-ship combat to be a priority in teaching the player. 

It is expected that after this, the player can dock with stations to repair/buy/sell and then either continue on with story missions or utilise a map function to begin flying around and exploring other regions of space.