It has been so long since I have posted an update here that we have gone straight from update 15 to 17. It would be easier to list the things that haven't changed than what has. But I will be listing a general overview of what has been added and the significant changes to the game.
What has happened:
All 36 ships have been completed. 4 of each class (fighter, heavy fighter, bomber, corvette, engineer, gunship, destroyer, carrier, frigate). I'm sure I will add more later, but this was my initial goal.
4 maps complete. 1 small (Lone Station), 2 medium (Nexus Array, and Boneyard), 1 large (Deep Space).
5 game modes complete. Elimination, Team Elimination, Cruiser Battle, Capture the Station, and Skirmish.
Significant changes to the hangar and ship customisation with more coming soon.
Added a test area from the hangar in the main menu, so you can rapidly build new ships and test them, then return to the hangar and continue building.
Lots of new equipment, especially for the engineer. Engineer can now deploy walls that block enemy fire, deploy mines, and turrets.
Completely reworked the engineer repair weapon to be a new nano beam laser that feels much better to use, people actually seem to like playing as a healer/support now!
Re-imagined the carriers and how they work. Now instead of spawning squads of snub ships, the players can send individual snub ships out on missions that last 30 seconds. After this time the ships return to the hangar.
New shield types, directional shields, and active shields.
Reworked how bombers work, or more specifically how their bombs work. Now they can fire bombs in a 180 degree arc instead of directly ahead of them, allowing to do fly-bys and hopefully reducing the bombing run mortality rate.
Added plenty of quality of life for in game such as a better spawn helper that prevents players from spawning on top of each other, and also disallowing players to fire whilst inside an ammo depot zone to prevent cheese.
Made ammo depot zones heal you, though very very slowly. Hopefully this helps in free for all when you have no other way to heal aside from dying (or picking an engineer to auto heal).
Implemented a loading screen in between the game lobby and the game scenes, complete with tips and a player list to see who is in the game and their loading %.
Re-imagined the game lobby scene completely. Now you can finally adjust settings in the game such as: game timer, points to win, initial supply. I will add more settings as they become relevant.
Implemented a robust tooltip system for both in menus and in game. There are many more places where I need to actually add the tooltips, but the system is ready.
Lots more than I can't remember.
What is next:
I am finishing squashing the last few bugs which were brought to light during my latest playtest.
I am preparing a public demo to be released as soon as possible.
I am planning on submitting the demo that I create to Steam Next-Fest in June.
Lots more content. I try to avoid only doing the fun stuff (just adding ships and guns all day) but I will be adding lots more as I go along, just spaced out in-between important other features.
Developing interesting new play-styles and encouraging team-play more.
Constant balance of everything as I go. Ships, weapons, equipment, Ai ships, maps, game modes.
Improving the Steam page for the game to make it actually marketable.
Putting together the first trailer for the game.
Fun, quick, and efficient tutorial.
Small optional tutorial/challenges for each weapon type to help players learn the equipment, while also being rewarded for it. And adding a completionist aspect to it.
Proper Steam achievements!
More voice acting!
More play tests!