Hi all.
So a year has passed since the announcement of the big update. To be honest, I didn't think it would be, uh, so eventful. In addition to global changes in the world, a lot of things have also happened in my life. So sometimes I didn't develop a game for a couple of months in a row. But even this gave its positive results.
At some point, when I did not work on the project for a long time and returned to its development, I realized that I simply did not understand how it works. During the development, several generations of systems have changed, my developer level has also grown significantly and the old code turned out to be like pasta. It was a difficult decision, as I would like to roll out the first announced update that really changed the game, but I still decided to rebuild the project before that. We must remain honest with ourselves and the people who follow the project - I could not ensure stable operation of all gaming systems, for the reasons described above, and it is better not to release anything than to issue a crookedly working game that cannot be played.
What am I doing now:
1) I broke the project into separate systems, in particular, it is a repair system, an economy system, a physical model of a car, a character's life support system.
2) Rebuilt the car repair system so that it is now based on nodes rather than individual parts. This means that now you can separately assemble the entire rear axle of the truck, the front axle and install it on the frame. The nodal system required a fastening system, so now in order to remove a separate spare part or a whole assembly of parts, you must first unscrew it.
3) Next, I began to put the economic system in order. I've brought back contract orders so you don't have to look for lower and higher prices on goods to make money. In turn, contract orders are provided with the needs of enterprises. The most important thing is that an enterprise is not necessarily some kind of factory for the production of goods, it can be the construction of a house in some city, and the house under construction itself can place a contract for the supply of goods for its construction. So far, the contract looks like the delivery of a certain amount of goods to the unloading site, within a certain period. Relatively speaking, to build a house, you need to bring 100 tons of cement within 1 game week. The contract will be considered completed when the player delivers these 100 tons of cement under the contract. Accordingly, the house will be completed.
The contract system makes it possible to develop the game economy for a dynamically developing game world, you can build roads, road junctions, buildings, enterprises, or simply repair the road surface.
4) Physical model of the car. So far, a third-party solution is being used, but in the future, I think I will have to make my own system. The thing is that as an auto mechanic by education, I understand how a car works on a mechanical level and I don’t like the causality of third-party solutions. Clutch overheating problems, rear axle divider, pneumatic springs, power steering, engine cooling system, etc. All this requires certain knowledge and experience from the truck driver. I would like the player to be able to apply this knowledge in the game. But, until I got to that, so there is nothing to write here yet.
5) The life support system of the character. While in development, but the basis will be to justify consumer goods.
I also bought a new traffic system that in theory allows you to create a dense flow of cars. The first tests are encouraging. If everything is as the system developer claims, then it will be possible to increase the traffic density to the extent of road congestion and the formation of large congestion and traffic jams.
Also, at the moment, character development is poorly expressed, due to the lack of well-developed car models. At the moment there are three different trucks, but similar in purpose. I hope that we will not start cosplaying Fallout and by the time the global update is released, I will resolve this issue.