Hello Captain,
We're here with another show, don't tell, kind of Developer's Diary. The implementation of base defenses is almost complete, so let's take a look together!
First off, we have the shore obstacles that are little more than a pile of rocks held together by barbed wire and stakes. Such improvised fortifications were cheap and effective, and as such are a common sight on fortified beaches in Boat Crew. They generally don't stray too far out into the sea and should not affect your mobility appreciably, but they contribute to completing the look of a fortified base.
In the next layer up, we have the shore fortifications, generally wooden bunkers or sandbag gun positions overviewing obstacles made of wooden stakes or barbed wire. Wooden bunkers are a step up from mere sandbag positions in terms of survivability, and higher ranked bases where the enemy had more time and opportunity to dig in will feature them in greater proportion.
Wooden bunkers will not merely disappear after being shot, but will instead remain as defunct husks that act as shot blockers, giving some directionality to engaging a gun position with direct fire. Explosives, such as the mortar or rockets, will be your friends here, being more or less unaffected by this mechanic, though wooden bunkers will still be vulnerable to direct fire for the most part.
Inland mortar pits are being added, coming in a variety of either triple mortar pits or heavy mortar pits. They will attack you at high angles much like your own mortar does, and will generally outrange you, but neither variety should be too difficult to dodge unless you stand still. They're mostly there for flavor, and to give the enemy the ability to fire back when you're besieging them with your mortars, so even an unlikely hit from them will be quite dangerous so watch out.
Finally, concrete fortifications will also appear in mid to high end bases, increasing in proportion with base development level. These will be quite the tough nuts to crack without artillery of your own, so come prepared if you want to take them out.
On top of all of these, there have also been some improvements behind the scenes. The foliage renderer has been updated, allowing us to get smaller and better scaled trees while making them notably denser. Trees will now react to wind as well!
Perhaps most importantly, the bug we had where some players sometimes ended up with a sea of floating trees should now be fixed. End of an era, this notorious bug has previously given us much headache and is hopefully gone for good now.
Shoreline detection and defense placement systems have already been updated to enable us to generate cohesive bases as well.
Finally, waves have been updated to match the shore, and you may feel a difference in severe storms.
Last, but not least, you will see all of these changes and possibly more on the Experimental Branch due to release next Friday!
That's all we have to share for now,
Captain,
T.T.