Greetings, Captain!
Since our recent update to Challenges, we have resumed work on the Campaign at full speed, and supply flow, patrols as well as Assaults are our next subjects to tackle. Much background work has happened on them in the last two weeks, but there remains a great deal of testing and implementation to be done. Given this is the Christmas update, we figured we would keep it short and sweet, and share our observations with the system so far, while keeping the full report to a later diary.
Now let's get into it!
Observations:
Firstly, we have noticed that the supply mechanics work fine if supply units drop a flat value to every place they visit, instead of taking expenditure into account. A detailed backflow calculation doesn't seem to be necessary either, greatly simplifying the flow calculation.
Now this does mean that we will have to give up on our initial conception of smart supply allocation rather than simply dumping the amount as decided by development, the effects of which we expect will be achieved by focusing on the way supply routes are formed. Between having multiple routes and reliable backflow, we expect that this reduced complexity in design won't actually affect the outcome.
We have also decided to standardize many actions to be activated on in-game time ticks for several reasons. Firstly, development and supply mechanics work better if done on a tick while draining supply rather than immediate usage of supply on docking. Repairs on bases work better with a supply draining tick as well. Overall, this is a fairly uncontroversial decision in the context of game design, but we figured there would be no harm in pointing out where this helps us specifically.
Moving on, Assaults often encounter supply groups, and will quite reliably kill inbound supply. So an Assault will effectively act as a blockade force. Population cap and spawn rate may have to be quite low for assault units for the player to have any impact in determining the fate of an Assault, though this is something that can also be regulated through the cost of units being mustered for an assault. Assaults are meant to be expensive, irregular affairs even if not rare ones, and they are the sledgehammer blows to your scalpel. As testing continues, we will investigate ways in which the player can meaningfully help the assault, both directly as a part of them, and indirectly through intercepting reinforcements and supplies.
Finally for this week, we have noticed that simulating a year actually takes quite a while. Our base speed is x20 real time; accelerating to x60 on top of that, it would take 7.3 hours to finish a year. About a year is probably how long the campaign should last, give or take a few months, so we can see that the timescale is on point.
Goals for the Next Cycle:
Being a Christmas diary, as well as one caught in the middle of a lot of background work that is difficult to present being done, this one has been a shorter diary. As a result, we hope to have one of those a lot more visual diaries next time, possibly having completed the work on Assaults.
Closing Remarks:
We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year in advance, Captain!
Take care!
T.T.