Hi everyone,
I had a licensing exam last week, which took up almost all of my time over the past 2 weeks. As you may have noticed, that also meant that I forgot to upload the post last week. Unlike the last time I failed to upload, I won’t do two posts today (last week would only have been an intermission), but I will use today to give you an overview of what different workstreams we are currently working on.
First of all, I am now working on re-writing some of the soldiers’ code. At the moment, a lot of the distinction between melee and ranged units is blurry. For example, melee units get an initial volley with a short range weapon, and ranged units are able to abort their reload to fight in melee. This may make sense from a “realism” perspective, but it makes commanding these units a little frustrating. The same type of unit may behave differently depending on proximity to their opponents, and our intended “soft counters” work a lot less effectively than we would like.
The current rework is meant to change this, by embracing the behaviour of soldiers a little more as a video game, and a little less as realistic. Melee units, for example, won’t get an initial shot with a firearm anymore. They will simply run into melee range to fight there. Ranged units, on the other hand, will behave more predictably as well. They will take a few seconds to aim, and will always reload directly after firing. This should make them quite devastating if their opponents are far away - and a lot weaker if they are caught in close quarters.
Secondly, John is continuing to rework the tutorial map. This is a slow process, so we are also planning out the tasks and missions we want the player to go through to learn the game. I will keep you updated on the progress.
Finally, we are also continuously improving on models and materials. I have been working with an additional artist, Tom, for the past few months, who has been helping me improve a lot of the more foundational parts of the art. At the moment, Tom is focusing on optimising my placeholder buildings, and is creating new materials for them to look better.
Until next week!