Hello again everyone!
For this quarter I focused on improvements to the existing systems that have been causing confusion and instability. The main focus was around the Drydock and Marketplace mechanics.
As Trading and looting items is one of the core ways to get rich and build your fleet and armies, it was important that I spend some time rebuilding these systems. I added a few new features and rebuilt these two mechanics from the ground up. It is now much easier to traverse and manage your ships inventories and crews, as well as purchasing items and hiring crewmates to fill them.
Testing has intensified and a great amount of bugs were reported and fixed as a result. This is a non-stop effort and I appreciate all involved.
Reflections within Rise of Piracy bugged out early last year and was neglected since. I finally figured out what was wrong there and fixed it up. This has made a great improvement to the visuals within the game and its something I'm very happy with.
Tutorials were improved, and a dossier / encyclopedia was created. The dossier will make it much easier to find information on all the various mechanics, without having to complete an entire tutorial.
I have enlisted some help on the artwork within the game. We have worked towards improving the visual feel of everything UI related. All of our tradable items now have proper artwork associated with them, and many other bits and pieces have been improved upon.
Everything Loot related has been improved and a lot of the systems that were in place have been redone. This will effect how you capture ships or prisoners, and how you gain resources if victorious in a fight. In the case of defeat or retreat, the punishments have also been re-imagined.
I also invested a bit in tooling over the past few months. These were mostly around generating scenarios and re-balancing.
Main Items
Here is a full list of the main items that were worked on during these past few months. There is a much more exhaustive list available on the discord for those interested - discord.gg/kBq6C2bBZh
- Redone the spawning on the battle maps.
- A lot of the bugs reported by testers were actioned.
- Redone Drydock & Marketplace.
- Added a dossier / encyclopedia holding all the tutorial information - hopefully will get that cleaned up a * bit more before release.
- All the tradable items and perks have proper artwork now.
- Redone the Loot Screen / Return to campaign screen.
- Prisoners & Pressing captured units to crews, also capturing ships & end game logic/data stuff was all * redone.
- Re-added win condition to the campaign map. (contains placeholders)
- XP / Bonus system was re-balanced a bit.
- Added Abandon Ship logic & non-occupied ships claiming mechanic.
- Fixed some options screen stuff. Missing options, broken preference settings & UI glitches.
- Removed a tonne of warnings - log file went from like 32kb to 7kb.
- Improved ship avoidance logic.
- Added a nice utility for generating scenarios.
- Fixed issues with Reflections on Water.
- Replaced a bunch of transition code for scene switching and fade outs/audio stuff.
- Added a game summary screen for after battles in scenario or campaign mode battles.
- Added animated Victory/Defeat UIs etc after a battle map is finished.
- Redone the Ship Upgrades screen (on drydock)
- Replaced the color system on Flag Customization.
- Included an early version of the Pickups that spawn on campaign map.
- Bunch of tooling & prep work for the captains update & voice lines.
Upcoming
Now I'll tell you about the plans for this coming quarter and the prep that has been done so far.
I have some big plans for the Captains Update which I've been collaborating on over the past few weeks. I'm very happy with the progress so far and am looking forward to including whats being done. There is quite a bit of work involved but its shaping up to be a really nice addition.
Over the past week whilst the release candidate was getting its final testing in, I have received the first batch of voice lines. I've put some of these in the game and it really does add a lot to the atmosphere. I'll be looking at getting much more audio work in this quarter but not entirely sure yet what will be achievable so going to play that by ear.
One of the most core pieces in the game is the control of the players view. I have never really been happy with the various view modes and transitions between them, so I have enlisted more help in that area. We have made steady progress since and I'm delighted with how that is turning out.
Ship avoidance in Rise of Piracy is built on a system that was built in the early days, and not really modified much since. It uses a complex physics and pathing mashup to control how the ships react to orders, and follow plans of attack. This is something I'm currently not happy with. I hope to invest a lot more time in this space over the coming months. No one wants to invest a huge amount of their plunder into purchasing a large military vessel, only to have it sunk by a pesky bug in the pathing.
Other than that I will continue to listen to feedback, fix bugs, and keep chipping away at it. I'm very happy with this update and am looking forward to the next one.
Remember, you can follow along with the development live @8PM GMT daily @ twitch.tv/irishjohngames
Thank you all again for your continued support.
- John