Yes, it's not hard to make rotating planets on any engine :D This is very old project with almost no mechanics, there's just 1 player ship and many randomly generated AI ships who just blindly flying around at random positions. Galaxy is randomly generated with stars choosing random position with proximity checks and then nearest are randomly connected by 1-2 lines, thus creating random chains of stars. The only thing you can do in this "game" is to tell your ship where to fly and then skip turns one by one and all ships are flying at the same time. It does have working field of view (ships outside radar range are hidden), and has parallax effect nebulae making star map look very 3D and volumetric which destroys my framerate, but it looks cool when you drag camera around.
The idea was to make turn based space RPG where player is just a ship, I had no animating/3d modelling skills at that time, couldn't even edit existing meshes, because I thought that 3d is something magical and beyond understanding. So space game with static meshes was my only way.
I'm not 100% sure if it'll be a full game, but yes, plans are for a full game.
Yes, ranged attacks, overwatch and cover. Basically I'll "upgrade" AoW3-copypasta combat into AoW:Planetfall-copypasta combat. And characters won't have any "perks" or "feats" or whatever, just stats like in old X-COM or Jagged Alliance 2, while all "abilities" will be on items, like jetpack will allow you to jump, or grenades are basically AoE abilities, etc. The reason is - I want permadeath and non-fixed party, so if I make leveling controlled and complicated (like in Fallout or D&D), then death will simply act as "go back to level 1" which makes no sense, since player will simply again create absolutely the same character and will again make the same leveling decisions. But if characters will start with randomized stats which slowly improve themselves like in old X-COM soldiers, then permadeath makes sense.
The general idea of the game for now is to be similar to Dark Matter TV series - you'll start on your damaged space ship in the middle of nowhere with 0 memory of who you are, then you find out that you're a crew of dangerous wanted criminals. The game will have galactic map with stars and planets you can travel to with your ship. Basically something similar to Pillars of Eternity 2, but instead of sailing ship on water you'll have space ship in space. Quests will be given by different corporations and they will send you to do dirty work, like kidnap a scientist or steal something or intimidate/kill locals on mining colony. Basically I'll take episodes from that serial and turn them into generic repeatable quests. Then I'll need to make some main story, but that's only if the game reaches more or less playable state with at least those generic repeatable quests and all other mechanics.
Edit: oh, and space combat will be in the game too, similar to Space Rangers or Master of Orion 1-2, in other words it'll be turn based too. And ship boarding of course, so you can roleplay space pirate.
Edit: btw, some years ago I was making Space Rangers clone and I still have this project, I'll use some stuff from it, so "world map" will probably look something like this:
Danimal, I sent link as personal message. You can also do whatever you want with it, I don't mind. I could send it right here on OGA forum, but unfortunately my project uses animations from Mixamo, they're completely free and can be used anywhere even in commercial projects, but... their license forbids distribution. It means that if i openly upload the project - I'll violate license, unless I remove all animations. This is really stupid, but I have plans how to avoid it for future open source projects - I'll probably just change those animations so much, that they will be unrecognizable and then I'll be like "Mixamo? Whos that? Never heard of him!".
Edit: I use Unity 2017.2.5f1 but it's personal choice. I use it only because it's the last version that supported DX9, which means games made with this unity version can be run even on old windows XP, which no one probably even uses today. Newer Unity versions use more advanced shaders, so if you're planning to use someone else's shader or may be some unity plugin, then you better use newer version. For example my open world game uses custom shader with radial fog rather than liner fog and this shader is based on 2017.2.5f1 standard shader, so I don't know if it'll work on newer version, but it still may work. I know there're some cool free water shaders you can find on different places and they won't work with this old unity version, so if you're planning to make some AAA quality 3D game with all these cool effects you'll need to either find some old shaders or even create them yourself. Although Unreal Engine is probably more suitable for AAA 3D game. If you're not planning to have really beautiful and complicated visual effects, then Unity 2017.2.5f1 is ideal, as it's fast, I have low end machine and it runs perfectly smooth, while newer versions of Unity are very slow for me, and has anything I need.
Another problem is Unity Asset Store, it works really terrible. For example if some guy uploads 3D mesh or textures there using new version of Unity, then you'll also need that version or higher to download it... yeah, that's stupid, asset store simply won't let you download it saying that your version isn't suitable. But.. it's just 3D mesh and textures! You don't even need Unity to use them! That's why if you're planning to use something from their asset store, you'll need newest version of unity installed on your machine anyway, just in case.
As for tutorials... when I started with Unity, it was 2015 (when Unity 5 appeared), I simply used its official tutorial, but after few videos I started to do everything myself, simply because I already had some experience with game modding and pseudo code before. I then used microsoft's C# doctumentation + Unity's documentation to see what I'm even capable of with these tools. My first game was a MMO with Unity's built-in networking, I even made it and played it with my friend! It had only flat plane and characters looked like cylinders who would damage other cylenders in front of them! They had stats and inventory and you could even register characters with passwords and they were stored on my machine! This is also the reason why I became so obsessed with performance and optimization, because I had crazy idea to make a MMO which can be hosted from home computer and home internet. Yes, sounded absolutely mad. And then I started to experiment with all kinds of approaches and tested performance speeds for anything. So in the end I'm mostly self taught, so I can't help with tutorials much, sorry. But I can help in discord if you need help with something.
Griswold, I can help you with turn based mechanics, I have a project with 1:1 copypasta reverse engineered combat from Age of Wonders 3 on Unity with engagements, attacks of opportunity and flanking.
And here are screenshots from it too :D
It has 10 dnd classes, dndish stats and skills, rebalanced for AoW3 combat mechanics. If you want, I can share the project with you.
WithinAmnesia, here are screenshots of open source Fallout4 clone with a focus on settlement building and strategic gameplay. It took me like 2 days to make, until I realized that the idea is actually stupid. There's no combat implemented, but it's not hard, I can just copy paste it from my previous project and change it for 3d. The game is also uses 2d physics a lot, but it supports heights and non-flat terrain, similar to RTS games. Resources are implemented, but they're just integer values which are displayed, although building maintenance is also implemented and is even shown as negative income. Farms, factories, laboratories and generators give slots of workers which you can assign and these workers will improve resource income. You can see in two screenshots that player doesn't really move in open world, it's the world that moves from time to time, when he walk away too far from center. You can see that 2 structures are moved from -1 (central sector) to north east sector, because player moved south west. Same happened to characters. Each sector knows what structures and characters it has, characters can also transition between sectors and the game will never spawn the same structure or character twice.
6-7 shitty incomplete broken games too crap to launch with irreparable fundamental engine issues
What "irreparable" Unity engine features you had? I also had some problems in the past with interface, but I fixed them myself, Unity isn't a game you mod, it's an engine, you can do anything you want.
Looks like a scam to me, I can recreate it on Unity from scratch in less than a day. Physics based WASD movement with blending animations, weapon mesh appearing/disappearing in right/left hand depending on what weapon equipped, animation changes depending on what weapon equipped, shooting projectiles with raycast checks, swinging weapons with raycast and distance checks, 5 years old child can do this.
Unity does indeed has a problem - it's very easy to use (C# and a lot of documentation). And that's why ~99% of the games will be shovelware. Unreal Engine is much harder to use (C++) and requires good hardware (my machine will barely run it with a lot of lags) and that's why you don't see that much shovelware made with that engine. Yes, this is the only reason. Unity's problem is not Unity but its users. Just look at their forums or Q&A site, look what questions people post there. I can't even imagine what broken bugged horrors they will release.
Another problem can be Unity version. New Unities (~2020+) are very slow and clunky. But personally I don't see a reason to use them, unless you really need new features from there. It's just human brain often thinks that highest version = best version. It's not always true.
And possible third problem can be availability of paid assets. I don't know that, since I prefer to do everything myself, so it's just a guess. Third party tools/plugins will always be unoptimized, since they're general purpose solutions, and I'm obsessed with optimization, so I'll never use someone else's code in my game. The only other people's work I can use are animations/textures/meshes/audio, and even then I'll edit it and make more optimized (meshes/textures).
Edit:
Here, everything you'll use to recreate this on Unity, either A or B, depending if you want true 3D game (A), or fake 3D game using 2D physics (B). The difference between the two is:
A - any Witcher, any Elder Scrolls, any modern shooter.
B - Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, Doom 1-2, Neverwinter Nights 1-2. These games are 3D, but they use 2D flat space for positions with height being fake axis.
It means with A you'll use 3D physics, and with B you'll use 2D physics (and 3D too for stuff like rag dolling and shooting), which is much faster, because it deals only with 2 axes, means much easier calculations. But it matters only if you're true optimization fanatic or if your game will have hundreds characters and is more strategy than action.
this is all you need to know to recreate everything you see in your link + you'll need animations.
The the rest are details, like booleans for swinging weapon / drawing bow / blocking / dodging checks, which may affect the logic, like - don't allow WASD movement if player is dodging or don't allow running if player is blocking.
+knowledge of C# and Unity, like when and how to abuse local variables the most with coroutines for max optimization, how to design code structure for max optimization, e.g. use static arrays for all character values inside your main class, instead of creating hundres of classes which will slow down your game and skyrocket system requirements. Deactivate and reuse characters and objects instead of destoying them, etc. Basically you should fight the same NPCs, shoot the same arrows over and over and cast the same fireball. It all can be done with a simple array or list (arrays are ~x8 times faster than lists in C#) which will contain deactivated stuff, an array for every type - character, projectile, house, whatever, then reactivate and move them. Open world - again easy, just create either a hex grid of cells or square grid, if player moves too far from center, change meshes of those cells, move player in opposite direction back to center, deactivate NPCs who are too far and move other NPCs like player, load NPCs in new cells (activate deactivated NPCs and change their values/appearance and move/rotate them where needed), deactivate houses/trees which are too far, spawn/reactivate new ones. Use LOD - low quality meshes for static objects far away and even low quality armor/body/clothing for NPCs who aren't near camera. Creating open world ARPG with boring WASD raycast combat on Unity is a matter of few days. The problem is idea and environment, character development designs and other stuff like story and atmosphere.
Coppercube6 has its own forum and tutorials. Using OGA forum for this specific engine isn't very good idea, as you may get an answer only if some OGA user, who also happen to use this engine, looks at this thread. You'll have higher chances at their forums or whatever else means of communication they may have. They also have documentation and tutorials on their webiste. I never used that engine so I can't say if they're worth watching/reading, but you can try.
I tried to add tactics to it with pause-anytime-at-will and manual full party control. You even played that game on OGA jam judging from your comment there, so you can even say if it worked or not. But I think it didn't work, as it was mostly melee oriented game (typical fantasy setting) and it was just mindless slaughter. Melee + tactics may work only if you add more mechanics like flanking and zones of control and that's turn based mode or something similar to neverwinter nights or pillars of eternity, but real time + zones of control is very clunky and feels wrong, like a turn based converstion to real time. So in practice it should be turn based only mechanic, which isn't ARPG.
So in the end my plan failed, that's why I asked how to solve monotonous ARPG combat. Btw, even 1st/3rd person melee ARPG combat suffers from stupid combat mechanics - from primitive games like The Elder Scrolls to more "hardcore" like Dark Souls - it's all about AI abuse. At first it's look fun, then you learn enemy/mechanics behavior, then you wait until AI does something stupid and then you act - the essence of every 1st/3rd person ARPG combat. Playing 1st/3rd person ARPG is like feeling like you're the only sentient being in the world and you just abuse everyone you meet, because they all have 0 IQ. Again, only ranged combat will solve this.
In what way does "monotonous combat" as a negative invalidate "progression of power in a great world" as a positive?
If ARPGs are mostly about combat (otherwise it's a walking/dialog simulator and thus shouldn't be called ARPG), then if you don't solve this rather important problem - other positive factors will be wasted, because the game will be a failure. It's like creating a shooter where you forgot to implement guns, but made really beautiful scenery and realistic sounds and other effects. Yeah, sure, it's cool, but people won't be able to enjoy the game, because its main mechanic (shooting) is terrible.
WithinAmnesia, but how will you solve monotone ARPG combat? Progression and exploration won't matter, if everything you do is moving from point to point clicking moving 3d meshes (or 2d sprites) of enemies with your cursor. Just look at all these ARPGs, they're all the same, in Diablo1 you moved from temple level to level, clicking on demons, in more modern ARPGs you choose some skill or whatever and just spam it like regular attack. Nothing has changed since Diablo1. People laugh at cookie clicker games thinking they're not serious, but ARPGs are cookie clicker games, just more beautiful, usually, and with fake complexity.
I managed to play Path of Exile for a long time only because I played summoner witch (later necromancer). I was just walking from room to room, while my army of zombies, skeletons, spectres and a golem destroyed everything. This was long time ago, before all those nerfs and when summons dealt damage even if you're dead, so I could kill any boss in the game, even if the boss killed me, by just lying there on the floor, waiting until my army kills it. Then I tried to play non-summon build and got bored in less than 1 hour, because I was too lazy to click on every walking 3d mesh on the screen to force it play death animation. Literally cookie clicker game. Summoners at least play walking simulator, it's less annoying, just pointless.
I abandoned that game due to inability to design adequare and interesting ARPG combat mechanic.
As for death, I planned: players would respawn possibly losing highest skill rank on death, and if all skills are 0, then losing XP, even going into negative, unless player pays in soul gems (alternative to gold currency, which would also be used for enchanting, respec'ing and may be something else). Also whole inventory would drop on death. As for player party's NPCs - their souls would stay at town for some time allowing player to pay in soul gems to resurrect them. But you'll never see that, since I'm making Fallou4 clone without quests (at least for now) and with complex settlement management and AI controlled factions who will also manage their settlements. With some neutral hostile factions (raiders, mutants) being in between and causing trouble for everyone. Technically it's not hard to make such game, the only problem is to optimize meshes and textures and armature skeletons for my low end machine, so I can play my own game myself. There's a lot of 3D free-to-use meshes for armors and clothing which I can reshape into needed body shapes and then optimize them, then there're post-apo buildings meshes, etc. Another problem can be animations, mixamo has them, but most of them look ugly and even silly, e.g. there're literally 0 adequare female walk animations, they're all either too clumsy or too exaggerated, I can edit them and mix them, but I'm not very good animator. So if we ignore animations and 3d optimization, then everything can be done pretty fast and easy.
Once basics are done, I'll share this project here on OGA with instructions how to set everything up and build it into standalone game. I also comment everything in the code to explain stuff, and later may be write some documentation. So even if I again abandon this proejct for some reason, at least people will have an access to open world walking simulator where you can spawn NPCs, buildings, directly control NPCs like in RTS, and shoot things.
As for usernames, due to generic nature of my current game (there will be no story), the idea of using OGA users is no longer relevant. May be later, once the basics are done, I'll add some non-generic NPCs and pre-built settlements similar to cities in Fallout4, where OGA users can act as NPCs.
Edit:
If you want to look at my abandoned project, it's on current OGA jam:
NPC control will look the same like in this game. With the only exception that my new game will be 1st/3rd person and you'll be able to pause game and use strategic view whenever you want and during that time you'll be able to control friendly NPCs, thus making it a tactical shooter. Strategic view will also be used for settlement management and structure building, just like in RTS games.
Yes, it's not hard to make rotating planets on any engine :D This is very old project with almost no mechanics, there's just 1 player ship and many randomly generated AI ships who just blindly flying around at random positions. Galaxy is randomly generated with stars choosing random position with proximity checks and then nearest are randomly connected by 1-2 lines, thus creating random chains of stars. The only thing you can do in this "game" is to tell your ship where to fly and then skip turns one by one and all ships are flying at the same time. It does have working field of view (ships outside radar range are hidden), and has parallax effect nebulae making star map look very 3D and volumetric which destroys my framerate, but it looks cool when you drag camera around.
The idea was to make turn based space RPG where player is just a ship, I had no animating/3d modelling skills at that time, couldn't even edit existing meshes, because I thought that 3d is something magical and beyond understanding. So space game with static meshes was my only way.
I'm not 100% sure if it'll be a full game, but yes, plans are for a full game.
Yes, ranged attacks, overwatch and cover. Basically I'll "upgrade" AoW3-copypasta combat into AoW:Planetfall-copypasta combat. And characters won't have any "perks" or "feats" or whatever, just stats like in old X-COM or Jagged Alliance 2, while all "abilities" will be on items, like jetpack will allow you to jump, or grenades are basically AoE abilities, etc. The reason is - I want permadeath and non-fixed party, so if I make leveling controlled and complicated (like in Fallout or D&D), then death will simply act as "go back to level 1" which makes no sense, since player will simply again create absolutely the same character and will again make the same leveling decisions. But if characters will start with randomized stats which slowly improve themselves like in old X-COM soldiers, then permadeath makes sense.
The general idea of the game for now is to be similar to Dark Matter TV series - you'll start on your damaged space ship in the middle of nowhere with 0 memory of who you are, then you find out that you're a crew of dangerous wanted criminals. The game will have galactic map with stars and planets you can travel to with your ship. Basically something similar to Pillars of Eternity 2, but instead of sailing ship on water you'll have space ship in space. Quests will be given by different corporations and they will send you to do dirty work, like kidnap a scientist or steal something or intimidate/kill locals on mining colony. Basically I'll take episodes from that serial and turn them into generic repeatable quests. Then I'll need to make some main story, but that's only if the game reaches more or less playable state with at least those generic repeatable quests and all other mechanics.
Edit: oh, and space combat will be in the game too, similar to Space Rangers or Master of Orion 1-2, in other words it'll be turn based too. And ship boarding of course, so you can roleplay space pirate.
Edit: btw, some years ago I was making Space Rangers clone and I still have this project, I'll use some stuff from it, so "world map" will probably look something like this:
Danimal, I sent link as personal message. You can also do whatever you want with it, I don't mind. I could send it right here on OGA forum, but unfortunately my project uses animations from Mixamo, they're completely free and can be used anywhere even in commercial projects, but... their license forbids distribution. It means that if i openly upload the project - I'll violate license, unless I remove all animations. This is really stupid, but I have plans how to avoid it for future open source projects - I'll probably just change those animations so much, that they will be unrecognizable and then I'll be like "Mixamo? Whos that? Never heard of him!".
Edit: I use Unity 2017.2.5f1 but it's personal choice. I use it only because it's the last version that supported DX9, which means games made with this unity version can be run even on old windows XP, which no one probably even uses today. Newer Unity versions use more advanced shaders, so if you're planning to use someone else's shader or may be some unity plugin, then you better use newer version. For example my open world game uses custom shader with radial fog rather than liner fog and this shader is based on 2017.2.5f1 standard shader, so I don't know if it'll work on newer version, but it still may work. I know there're some cool free water shaders you can find on different places and they won't work with this old unity version, so if you're planning to make some AAA quality 3D game with all these cool effects you'll need to either find some old shaders or even create them yourself. Although Unreal Engine is probably more suitable for AAA 3D game. If you're not planning to have really beautiful and complicated visual effects, then Unity 2017.2.5f1 is ideal, as it's fast, I have low end machine and it runs perfectly smooth, while newer versions of Unity are very slow for me, and has anything I need.
Another problem is Unity Asset Store, it works really terrible. For example if some guy uploads 3D mesh or textures there using new version of Unity, then you'll also need that version or higher to download it... yeah, that's stupid, asset store simply won't let you download it saying that your version isn't suitable. But.. it's just 3D mesh and textures! You don't even need Unity to use them! That's why if you're planning to use something from their asset store, you'll need newest version of unity installed on your machine anyway, just in case.
As for tutorials... when I started with Unity, it was 2015 (when Unity 5 appeared), I simply used its official tutorial, but after few videos I started to do everything myself, simply because I already had some experience with game modding and pseudo code before. I then used microsoft's C# doctumentation + Unity's documentation to see what I'm even capable of with these tools. My first game was a MMO with Unity's built-in networking, I even made it and played it with my friend! It had only flat plane and characters looked like cylinders who would damage other cylenders in front of them! They had stats and inventory and you could even register characters with passwords and they were stored on my machine! This is also the reason why I became so obsessed with performance and optimization, because I had crazy idea to make a MMO which can be hosted from home computer and home internet. Yes, sounded absolutely mad. And then I started to experiment with all kinds of approaches and tested performance speeds for anything. So in the end I'm mostly self taught, so I can't help with tutorials much, sorry. But I can help in discord if you need help with something.
Griswold, I can help you with turn based mechanics, I have a project with 1:1 copypasta reverse engineered combat from Age of Wonders 3 on Unity with engagements, attacks of opportunity and flanking.
And here are screenshots from it too :D
It has 10 dnd classes, dndish stats and skills, rebalanced for AoW3 combat mechanics. If you want, I can share the project with you.
WithinAmnesia, here are screenshots of open source Fallout4 clone with a focus on settlement building and strategic gameplay. It took me like 2 days to make, until I realized that the idea is actually stupid. There's no combat implemented, but it's not hard, I can just copy paste it from my previous project and change it for 3d. The game is also uses 2d physics a lot, but it supports heights and non-flat terrain, similar to RTS games. Resources are implemented, but they're just integer values which are displayed, although building maintenance is also implemented and is even shown as negative income. Farms, factories, laboratories and generators give slots of workers which you can assign and these workers will improve resource income. You can see in two screenshots that player doesn't really move in open world, it's the world that moves from time to time, when he walk away too far from center. You can see that 2 structures are moved from -1 (central sector) to north east sector, because player moved south west. Same happened to characters. Each sector knows what structures and characters it has, characters can also transition between sectors and the game will never spawn the same structure or character twice.
What "irreparable" Unity engine features you had? I also had some problems in the past with interface, but I fixed them myself, Unity isn't a game you mod, it's an engine, you can do anything you want.
Looks like a scam to me, I can recreate it on Unity from scratch in less than a day. Physics based WASD movement with blending animations, weapon mesh appearing/disappearing in right/left hand depending on what weapon equipped, animation changes depending on what weapon equipped, shooting projectiles with raycast checks, swinging weapons with raycast and distance checks, 5 years old child can do this.
Unity does indeed has a problem - it's very easy to use (C# and a lot of documentation). And that's why ~99% of the games will be shovelware. Unreal Engine is much harder to use (C++) and requires good hardware (my machine will barely run it with a lot of lags) and that's why you don't see that much shovelware made with that engine. Yes, this is the only reason. Unity's problem is not Unity but its users. Just look at their forums or Q&A site, look what questions people post there. I can't even imagine what broken bugged horrors they will release.
Another problem can be Unity version. New Unities (~2020+) are very slow and clunky. But personally I don't see a reason to use them, unless you really need new features from there. It's just human brain often thinks that highest version = best version. It's not always true.
And possible third problem can be availability of paid assets. I don't know that, since I prefer to do everything myself, so it's just a guess. Third party tools/plugins will always be unoptimized, since they're general purpose solutions, and I'm obsessed with optimization, so I'll never use someone else's code in my game. The only other people's work I can use are animations/textures/meshes/audio, and even then I'll edit it and make more optimized (meshes/textures).
Edit:
Here, everything you'll use to recreate this on Unity, either A or B, depending if you want true 3D game (A), or fake 3D game using 2D physics (B). The difference between the two is:
A - any Witcher, any Elder Scrolls, any modern shooter.
B - Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, Doom 1-2, Neverwinter Nights 1-2. These games are 3D, but they use 2D flat space for positions with height being fake axis.
It means with A you'll use 3D physics, and with B you'll use 2D physics (and 3D too for stuff like rag dolling and shooting), which is much faster, because it deals only with 2 axes, means much easier calculations. But it matters only if you're true optimization fanatic or if your game will have hundreds characters and is more strategy than action.
A:
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rigidbody.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Physics.Linecast.html
B:
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rigidbody.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Physics.Linecast.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Rigidbody2D.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Physics2D.Linecast.html
Either A or B:
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Input.GetKey.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Vector2.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Vector3.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Animator.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/MonoBehaviour.Update.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/MonoBehaviour.FixedUpdate.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Coroutines.html
this is all you need to know to recreate everything you see in your link + you'll need animations.
The the rest are details, like booleans for swinging weapon / drawing bow / blocking / dodging checks, which may affect the logic, like - don't allow WASD movement if player is dodging or don't allow running if player is blocking.
+knowledge of C# and Unity, like when and how to abuse local variables the most with coroutines for max optimization, how to design code structure for max optimization, e.g. use static arrays for all character values inside your main class, instead of creating hundres of classes which will slow down your game and skyrocket system requirements. Deactivate and reuse characters and objects instead of destoying them, etc. Basically you should fight the same NPCs, shoot the same arrows over and over and cast the same fireball. It all can be done with a simple array or list (arrays are ~x8 times faster than lists in C#) which will contain deactivated stuff, an array for every type - character, projectile, house, whatever, then reactivate and move them. Open world - again easy, just create either a hex grid of cells or square grid, if player moves too far from center, change meshes of those cells, move player in opposite direction back to center, deactivate NPCs who are too far and move other NPCs like player, load NPCs in new cells (activate deactivated NPCs and change their values/appearance and move/rotate them where needed), deactivate houses/trees which are too far, spawn/reactivate new ones. Use LOD - low quality meshes for static objects far away and even low quality armor/body/clothing for NPCs who aren't near camera. Creating open world ARPG with boring WASD raycast combat on Unity is a matter of few days. The problem is idea and environment, character development designs and other stuff like story and atmosphere.
Coppercube6 has its own forum and tutorials. Using OGA forum for this specific engine isn't very good idea, as you may get an answer only if some OGA user, who also happen to use this engine, looks at this thread. You'll have higher chances at their forums or whatever else means of communication they may have. They also have documentation and tutorials on their webiste. I never used that engine so I can't say if they're worth watching/reading, but you can try.
I tried to add tactics to it with pause-anytime-at-will and manual full party control. You even played that game on OGA jam judging from your comment there, so you can even say if it worked or not. But I think it didn't work, as it was mostly melee oriented game (typical fantasy setting) and it was just mindless slaughter. Melee + tactics may work only if you add more mechanics like flanking and zones of control and that's turn based mode or something similar to neverwinter nights or pillars of eternity, but real time + zones of control is very clunky and feels wrong, like a turn based converstion to real time. So in practice it should be turn based only mechanic, which isn't ARPG.
So in the end my plan failed, that's why I asked how to solve monotonous ARPG combat. Btw, even 1st/3rd person melee ARPG combat suffers from stupid combat mechanics - from primitive games like The Elder Scrolls to more "hardcore" like Dark Souls - it's all about AI abuse. At first it's look fun, then you learn enemy/mechanics behavior, then you wait until AI does something stupid and then you act - the essence of every 1st/3rd person ARPG combat. Playing 1st/3rd person ARPG is like feeling like you're the only sentient being in the world and you just abuse everyone you meet, because they all have 0 IQ. Again, only ranged combat will solve this.
If ARPGs are mostly about combat (otherwise it's a walking/dialog simulator and thus shouldn't be called ARPG), then if you don't solve this rather important problem - other positive factors will be wasted, because the game will be a failure. It's like creating a shooter where you forgot to implement guns, but made really beautiful scenery and realistic sounds and other effects. Yeah, sure, it's cool, but people won't be able to enjoy the game, because its main mechanic (shooting) is terrible.
WithinAmnesia, but how will you solve monotone ARPG combat? Progression and exploration won't matter, if everything you do is moving from point to point clicking moving 3d meshes (or 2d sprites) of enemies with your cursor. Just look at all these ARPGs, they're all the same, in Diablo1 you moved from temple level to level, clicking on demons, in more modern ARPGs you choose some skill or whatever and just spam it like regular attack. Nothing has changed since Diablo1. People laugh at cookie clicker games thinking they're not serious, but ARPGs are cookie clicker games, just more beautiful, usually, and with fake complexity.
I managed to play Path of Exile for a long time only because I played summoner witch (later necromancer). I was just walking from room to room, while my army of zombies, skeletons, spectres and a golem destroyed everything. This was long time ago, before all those nerfs and when summons dealt damage even if you're dead, so I could kill any boss in the game, even if the boss killed me, by just lying there on the floor, waiting until my army kills it. Then I tried to play non-summon build and got bored in less than 1 hour, because I was too lazy to click on every walking 3d mesh on the screen to force it play death animation. Literally cookie clicker game. Summoners at least play walking simulator, it's less annoying, just pointless.
I abandoned that game due to inability to design adequare and interesting ARPG combat mechanic.
As for death, I planned: players would respawn possibly losing highest skill rank on death, and if all skills are 0, then losing XP, even going into negative, unless player pays in soul gems (alternative to gold currency, which would also be used for enchanting, respec'ing and may be something else). Also whole inventory would drop on death. As for player party's NPCs - their souls would stay at town for some time allowing player to pay in soul gems to resurrect them. But you'll never see that, since I'm making Fallou4 clone without quests (at least for now) and with complex settlement management and AI controlled factions who will also manage their settlements. With some neutral hostile factions (raiders, mutants) being in between and causing trouble for everyone. Technically it's not hard to make such game, the only problem is to optimize meshes and textures and armature skeletons for my low end machine, so I can play my own game myself. There's a lot of 3D free-to-use meshes for armors and clothing which I can reshape into needed body shapes and then optimize them, then there're post-apo buildings meshes, etc. Another problem can be animations, mixamo has them, but most of them look ugly and even silly, e.g. there're literally 0 adequare female walk animations, they're all either too clumsy or too exaggerated, I can edit them and mix them, but I'm not very good animator. So if we ignore animations and 3d optimization, then everything can be done pretty fast and easy.
Once basics are done, I'll share this project here on OGA with instructions how to set everything up and build it into standalone game. I also comment everything in the code to explain stuff, and later may be write some documentation. So even if I again abandon this proejct for some reason, at least people will have an access to open world walking simulator where you can spawn NPCs, buildings, directly control NPCs like in RTS, and shoot things.
As for usernames, due to generic nature of my current game (there will be no story), the idea of using OGA users is no longer relevant. May be later, once the basics are done, I'll add some non-generic NPCs and pre-built settlements similar to cities in Fallout4, where OGA users can act as NPCs.
Edit:
If you want to look at my abandoned project, it's on current OGA jam:
https://vrs1.itch.io/oga-fall-game-jam-2022-arena
NPC control will look the same like in this game. With the only exception that my new game will be 1st/3rd person and you'll be able to pause game and use strategic view whenever you want and during that time you'll be able to control friendly NPCs, thus making it a tactical shooter. Strategic view will also be used for settlement management and structure building, just like in RTS games.
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