Pilots! Oh do I have an update for you. Let's get right into it. First, feast your eyes on this lush jungle scene. We've picked up production on chapter 2 and it is feeling great.
Is that a rock or are you happy to see me
We are working on a jungle mission that will involve destroying some key enemy locations along the coast, and liberating some weapons caches.
The mission has a mix of bases with helipads that allow you to repair your helicopter once you capture the base. This creates a nice hub and spoke gameplay where you capture a base and then can return to it for support.
The mission also features a new enemy type to contend with...
Kamikaze Drones
In Travis' own words: "I hate these little f($)ers". They are persistent, quick, and dangerous.
These drones pursue their target and then go into a high speed attack phase. They attack both air and ground targets. If you have friendly NPCs in the area, you'll have to defend them.
Drone Control Room
There is one twist: the drones are being controlled by operators in a drone control room. The drones will continuously spawn until you find and destroy the control room and kill the operators. We are hiding them around the map, so you'll have to track the drones back to the source.
Once you find them (and oh does it feel good to kill the operators) the drones fall out of the sky.
These fill a nice gameplay niche- they are threatening to both the player and the allied ground forces. In a few missions you'll be protecting your allies from drone attacks. The drones are especially deadly against ground troops.
Well, thank you for ... wait a second... I almost forgot...
"The Modding Initiative"
Ok I'm going to say it... we are adding mod support!
We are now writing our mission logic in Lua script, which means that modders will be able to modify all future missions, and eventually create their own.
We don't yet have a delivery date for any of this, but we want to share info and take suggestions as we build it. If you're interested in helping us develop and test our mod support, fill out this Google Survey.
Short Term
Tweaking mission logic - objectives, spawning times, locations, etc
Changing unit configurations - for both enemy and friendly units
Long Term
Visual editor to place units in an existing terrain
Support for placing any prop in the game
Packs of pre-made bases to use and modify
Steam Workshop support
What's NOT Included
Being able to modify the terrain is not included, for technical and license reasons. We will provide all the terrain files from existing missions, and some placeholder ones, for you to use.
No way to make mission logic without writing Lua code- this is more technical, and we can't support a full "super mario maker" style editor.
Chapter 1 missions- those were created in Unity and at this time we aren't going to re-write them in Lua.
Explain Like I'm 5
The mission logic used to be inside Unity (our game engine), not accessible to players.
Now the mission logic lives in Lua code, in a folder on your computer.
Anyone can modify the code, either for themselves or to publish as a mod for others.
Lua Scripting
We use the MoonSharp C# interpreter to embed Lua into the game. In Unity, scene objects get referenced by IDs. So you can write a script in Lua that references the things in the game / mission.
Each mission is defined by a .lua file that has a list of reactions. Reactions are pretty much what they sound like- a reaction to something that has happened. The flow is like this: Something happens -> if some condition is true -> do these other actions.
The "something" is an event, like a unit died, a zone was entered, the mission started, etc. These are hooked in Unity/C# and we pass the events to Lua. The actions are what you do in response - spawn units, complete an objective, play dialog complete the mission, etc.
An Example
Below is a simplified snippet of how our Survival mission works. Things will change through development but this should give you an idea of how you define counters, objectives, and handle reactions.
Thank You!
I've been having a ton of fun working on the game lately. Cooking up new content and adding modding support has been really exciting.
Join the Discord if you're not there already; we'll be sharing more jungle development soon. https://discord.com/invite/XmMTqEjpQg
Sometimes you almost get too close to your own game to see all the possibilities, so I'm stoked to open things up to you guys to make your own changes.
Thanks for helping us get this far, and for your continued support! Y'all make it all possible.
- Colin "cfinger" and the Cleared Hot team