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Game developer Brilliant Skies sent word that their game From the Depths is getting ready to finally leave Early Access on November 7th. It's been in Early Access since August 2014, with a Linux version arriving a bit later.

Much like Robocraft, the design and building in From the Depths is done block by block and you can create all sorts of incredibly weird and wonderful tools of destruction. Unlike Robocraft though, From the Depths seems to have a huge amount more depth to the building and the available game modes with much bigger battles too.

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Key features:

  • Design and build your fleet, fortresses and structures however you want. There are currently over 1000 unique components blocks, not including 38 different components for making missiles, torpedoes, depth charges and bombs and 34 different components for making the ultimate cannon shell!
  • The sky's the limit, you can equip your vehicle with cannons, lasers, mines, bombs, missiles, torpedoes, propellers, rudders, jet engines, wings, hydrofoils, hot air balloons, anchors, fire control computers, blueprint spawners, repair bots, air pumps, automated control blocks and many, many more!
  • Realistic physics - every block destroyed or added affects the vehicle's functionality, physics and control. Drag, inertia tensors, buoyancy and sealed compartments are all updated based on the design of your vehicle and the damage sustained.
  • Be part of a fantastic community with new releases made on average once a week. Community organised challenges and blueprint sharing make it an extremely friendly place to hang out!
  • Loads of single player and multiplayer content in which to use your designs (campaigns, co-op campaigns, missions, adventures)
  • Design your own planets/campaigns/missions/multiplayer maps using the planet editor or add your own mods easily using a fully integrated modding interface

Personally, I forgot about this game completely. A shame too, looks pretty incredible. The developer has thankfully sent over a key to our Steam Curator, which I am currently waiting on them fixing an empty download so I can take a proper look ready for the release.

You can find From the Depths on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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5 comments

riidom Oct 3, 2019
How is the multiplayer? I see currently 338 ppl in game, thats even less than Robocraft.. is the match making done in a way that the low numbers doesnt matter much?
Colombo Oct 3, 2019
Quoting: riidomHow is the multiplayer? I see currently 338 ppl in game, thats even less than Robocraft.. is the match making done in a way that the low numbers doesnt matter much?

Don't think Robocraft. From the Depth is as similar to Robocraft as it is to Minecraft in the sense that you build stuff from block. It is more similar to Factorio that you build complex machines (that can move).

Robocraft is like pew pew game where you can build your vehicle, but it is primarily pew pew game about using that vehicle to combat other people.

From the depth is about building complex vehicles. You don't just plop laser or gun on your ship/tank. You need to construct the gun from dozen of part *types*. Depending on how you assemble your gun, the number of reloaders, gun chambers, ammo magazines and many other parts, then your gun will perform, you can build it as a minigun-type cannon firing really fast, but fairly weak. You can build a howitzer type cannon with huge shells with shaped charges that will make serious damage to slow and well-armored ships, but won't hit anything fast. You then put AI computer on your ship and configure it so that it behaves like you want. You can even script your own AI in LUA (which you probably should if you want to do some well-honed airships that dodge shots, missiles and stuff thanks to their fast and chaotic fly patterns).

Similarly, every vehicle needs engine that most often runs on oil/gas. Right there you get stuck into complex engine patterns that do various tradeoffs (and some are just better than others) with space, power and efficiency (which you will get by pumping hot air back to the engine cylinders or so, forgot the details). The place where I stuck a lot is that your engine might be just bad (compared to the well-honed designs). Thats still fair. Problem is that your gun might be bad becuase there are some breakpoints and so on... a lot of stuff to know and experiment.

So the game is mostly about SP and building your stuff. Campaign is that you go against several predesigned factions that have different ways of building ships (slow armored vs fast flyers). I believe you can play the campaign in MP as coop or design stuff together in vehicle tester. But don't think about competitive multiplayer.

In fact, this game won't work in competitive multiplayer. Is f-ing compex. I wanted to say that you need PhD to understand it, but I have PhD and still got lost (by flying ships flipped for some reason, didn't flip X version ago though, probably different design, I went for single-turbine before instead of multiple ones).


Last edited by Colombo on 3 October 2019 at 8:51 pm UTC
Purple Library Guy Oct 3, 2019
Quoting: Colombo
Quoting: riidomHow is the multiplayer? I see currently 338 ppl in game, thats even less than Robocraft.. is the match making done in a way that the low numbers doesnt matter much?

Don't think Robocraft. From the Depth is as similar to Robocraft as it is to Minecraft in the sense that you build stuff from block. It is more similar to Factorio that you build complex machines (that can move).

Robocraft is like pew pew game where you can build your vehicle, but it is primarily pew pew game about using that vehicle to combat other people.

From the depth is about building complex vehicles. You don't just plop laser or gun on your ship/tank. You need to construct the gun from dozen of part *types*. Depending on how you assemble your gun, the number of reloaders, gun chambers, ammo magazines and many other parts, then your gun will perform, you can build it as a minigun-type cannon firing really fast, but fairly weak. You can build a howitzer type cannon with huge shells with shaped charges that will make serious damage to slow and well-armored ships, but won't hit anything fast. You then put AI computer on your ship and configure it so that it behaves like you want. You can even script your own AI in LUA (which you probably should if you want to do some well-honed airships that dodge shots, missiles and stuff thanks to their fast and chaotic fly patterns).

Similarly, every vehicle needs engine that most often runs on oil/gas. Right there you get stuck into complex engine patterns that do various tradeoffs (and some are just better than others) with space, power and efficiency (which you will get by pumping hot air back to the engine cylinders or so, forgot the details). The place where I stuck a lot is that your engine might be just bad (compared to the well-honed designs). Thats still fair. Problem is that your gun might be bad becuase there are some breakpoints and so on... a lot of stuff to know and experiment.

So the game is mostly about SP and building your stuff. Campaign is that you go against several predesigned factions that have different ways of building ships (slow armored vs fast flyers). I believe you can play the campaign in MP as coop or design stuff together in vehicle tester. But don't think about competitive multiplayer.

In fact, this game won't work in competitive multiplayer. Is f-ing compex. I wanted to say that you need PhD to understand it, but I have PhD and still got lost (by flying ships flipped for some reason, didn't flip X version ago though, probably different design, I went for single-turbine before instead of multiple ones).
Whoosh. That sounds good, and yet I'm not sure I want to invest the time it would take to get good at it.
Colombo Oct 4, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library GuyWhoosh. That sounds good, and yet I'm not sure I want to invest the time it would take to get good at it.

Thats exactly summarize my problem with this game. Its amazing, but require a lot of time investment.

Especially if you require your stuff to not suck. If you can accept that your engine would be inefficient, that your ships might be seriously underperforming, its fine. I have problem with not being efficient enough. I want to understand stuff, not just slap a few things together.

So yes, the game requires serious time investment. There are however mods, one that concentrates on WW2 ships and provide a lot of prebuild "simple weapons" -- weapons that you just place and works. You can also download templates -- weapons/engines/hulls that were created by someone else and you can just place them and they will work.

Also I haven't played it for year maybe coz I run out of time and patience. (same with Factorio, at least in factorio the complexity builds over time)

For fans:
You can design rockets as torpedos, anti-missile, flares (with heat signature against heat-seeking torpedos), frags, impact, high-explosives. You can set them to be short or long-distance based on how much fuel they have, how nimble they will be depending on how many wings you put on them. They can be stupid, even without propulsion as a bomb, buoyant so they float (water mines). Or they can be heat-seeking, laser-guided, either by themselves or through lasers on your ship. You can even have them tied to a rope and work as harpoons.

And then you have two (or three with coilgun?) types of artillery and lasers, each of those can be set up in many different ways for many different purposes. Sooner or later, you will need to think about layered armour, protection against missiles (active, such as minigun, or anti-rockets that destroy enemy missiles, or semi-active such as flares), lasers (through smokers) and so on.

If you have time and like to fiddle around, go for it. Its very creative game.
TheRiddick Oct 4, 2019
looks like a bit of fun
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