Hey everyone!
After last week’s unfortunate dip in update quality, I am happy to report that John is busy working on the villager bodies, and I am back in charge of writing the update.
As briefly mentioned by John, last week saw the release of a patch just ahead of the blog, and a second smaller patch to fix some MacOS issues the day after. The patch included the Quest System (which you can check in the new Tutorial), the Localisation System (which you can’t see yet), and the first parts of the new soldier/pirate behaviour. Considering we wrote about the first two before, I’ll focus on the soldier behaviour today. In the process of writing this, I got a little carried away, so consider this part 1 of 2!
Soldier behaviour before:
Those of you who have played the game know that the behaviour of the soldiers and pirates used to be a bit of a weak point of the game: Pirates across the island were stationary, and would shoot you when you got into view (mind you that they had eyes in the backs of their head and would “look” through shrubbery). Pirates in attack waves and your soldiers were a little better, insofar as they at least had a target to move towards when they weren’t shooting.
Soldier behaviour now:
At this point, we have entirely revamped the soldier/pirate behaviour. Most importantly, soldiers/pirates now have a field of view toward their front. If you approach them from behind, they won’t be able to see you, unless you make a lot of noise. Noise is dependent on how you move (crouching makes the least noise, running makes the most noise), what you move through (avoiding shrubbery is your best bet to not make noise), and how you act (shooting or cutting down trees makes noise).
If one of the soldiers/pirates hears a noise, they will go to investigate. Depending on how close and how loud the noise was, they may lose interest sooner or later - but if they see you, they will start shooting. If you manage to escape, they will pursue you up to the last location where they saw you. Visibility is blocked by trees and (partially, to different extents) by shrubbery, so if you are crouching or not moving at all, foliage becomes your friend. Once the pirates have not seen or heard you for a while, they will return to their original location.
(As you can see in this sketch, trees will block vision, shrubbery will partially block vision, with multiple bushes giving you full cover, and noises will be investigated only if they are loud enough)
Overall, this has already made the world a lot more organic and interesting. Fighting in the middle of the jungle can become a lot more dangerous, as pirates from a wide area can hear you exchange gunshots with a solitary pirate and come to his aid. If you find a solitary pirate close to your base or soldiers, you can now bait them into walking right into an ambush - simply get their attention and stay ahead of them.
We will dedicate the next weekly update to telling you more about the soldier behaviour, so you have something to look forward to ;).
Until next week!