This week we have mostly worked on AI and explored the potential adding of factions. The following is a list of things we have worked on:
Skirmish AI
A very basic skirmish is already operational. This week we worked on refining it. We have done the following:
- Ai enemy interception
- Fixed Skirmish Ai missile defense
- Fixed shield texture bug
- Fixed health networking
We aim to use several of the Skirmish functionalities for the Campaign as well, so right now this is one of our highest priorities.
Factions research
This week I've done a lot of research into factions. A solid plan began to form on how to add the factions, how to incorperate it into the ship editor and what bonuses each faction should have.
The general idea was to have two playable factions, The Explorators and The Purists. Purists use human-technology only, while Explorators aren't afraid of using alien technology as well. These differences in techniques would create variations in ship designs for each faction and generate faction-wide buffs. One faction would have 10% extra health for all ships for instance, while the other faction would have cheaper ships that move faster.
Because we are working on this project with just two people however we have to make choises and set priorities. Neither of us a 3D artist, but we attempted to overcome that by having existing ships incorperate different textures and materials next to the already existing materials. I was not satisfied with any of the results on any of the experiments we conducted. We would have to hire a new 3D artist in order to make the changes we wanted and since we can barely pay our rent as it is we are currently forced to scrap this idea.
Another things to consider is the amount of work adding factions would cost and how much extra value (fun!) it would add to the project. I've thought about this and while I do think that the more factions there are the more fun a game can be I also think that a poorly added faction is more detrimental to the games quality than having more than our current human factions. For now it is better to spend our time on the other cool things we have planned such as unit veterancy, bigger shield buildings, more weapons, sound and visual tweaks. New factions might still be added in the future though. A neutral pirate faction with a whole new shipset is another idea we had.
General bugfixes and things we have done
- Fixed resource networking
- Fixed menu navigation bug
- Talked to potential business partners about marketing the project to create a bigger playerbase
- Made a bunch of youtube videos
- Tweaked ingame bloom
- Added sound to building selection
- Added 3 new weapons
- Added a new ship
Summary and plans
That's about it for this week. I will try to put as much time as I can into this project again next week. It's sometimes hard to find enough time while also trying to make money in other ways in order to keep paying rent, but all in all I think we did some good things this week. You can help us with this by supporting us via the links underneath the youtube videos by the way.
I'm not quite sure what we will work on exactly next week. But these are some of the things on our short term todo list;
- Update loot tooltips
- Mouse on edge of screen should behave like ASWD camera controls
- Perhaps revert healthbars back to rectangles
- Add options to the ingame menu to set the various control speeds
- Add health upgrades to all buildings
- Add shield upgrades to all buildings
- Add sounds to the unlocking of various tech
- Re-evaluate and tweak gameplay
- Continue fleshing out the current lore
- Add some ship designs as rewards for patrons who support the project
See you next week!
Ps. please subscribe to the youtube channel if you want to be kept in the loop more frequently; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvYClYMPAkPeHtjZyCwIi5g