Goal: Survive.
Evasion: Use [SHIFT] to accelerate and dodge incoming torpedoes. [A] and [D] will torque your spacecraft left and right. Try not to get blown up.
Defense: If you can't dodge a torpedo, don't give up hope just yet. You can press [E] to enter "targeting mode" (which slows down time to help you aim) and try to shoot down the torpedo with your point defense cannons (PDCs). Right clicking the torpedo will increase your accuracy. Hurry up, though - you can only spend a few seconds in targeting mode.
Offense: Your main offensive weapon will be torpedoes. To fire them, right click on your target and press [SPACE] to fire. Each torpedo tube on your vessel will need time to reload, but you have an unlimited number of torpedoes to fire. You can also fight in close quarters with PDC cannons, but they don't do a lot of damage.
Allies: Every round you'll be greeted by a friendly vessel which will tag along with you and help you fight. Don't shoot at them! You need as many as you can get, since you can use them as meatshields against progressively harder waves of enemies. Additionally, they serve as extra lives in the event that you are killed; a GAME OVER occurs when you and all friendly vessels are destroyed.
This is a small game I made. It is heavily inspired by the TV show The Expanse, which now ranks among the best shows I've ever seen. It features some of the best and most grounded science fiction space combat in any sci-fi IP. You should go watch it, by the way. All of the combat mechanics, vessels, and even the title of the game ("The Big Empty" is the title of the S1E2) are directly copied from the universe of The Expanse.
This project was also inspired by an excellent paper I recently discovered on steering behaviors by a magician of a computer scientist named Craig Reynolds. He's spent his whole glorious career researching ways to simulate natural phenomena, especially motion, in a programmatic way. All of the AI-driven vessels, both friendlies and unfriendlies, use the behaviors laid out in his 1999 paper, which centers around the idea of altering a vehicle's trajectory by calculating and applying a "steering force".
If you haven't heard of Coding Train, you're in for a treat. It's a YouTube channel run by Daniel Shiffman, the Bob Ross of programming. Ultimately he was my inspiration for learning about steering behaviors in the first place. Here's one of his videos on the subject.
The music is "San Fran Interlude" by Strobotone.
Is this game too hard, or do you want to suggest a feature? Yell at me about it here.