Interface Improvements
Since the baseline mechanic framework is now in place, I’m focusing on improving the interface. This week, I reworked the action targeting pane to (hopefully) be more consolidated, comprehensive, and understandable, while still not requiring too many mouse clicks.
The player is listed first, with vitals, mana, and actions displayed. (Note that vitals includes calories, which fuels health and stamina regen.)
All zones the player has spotted are listed next, both the player’s zone and remote zones. (You can click on remote zones, get information, and use ranged abilities.)
The selected zone shows information on the zone, such as terrain type, ambient mana, concealment, cover, distortion, and environmental conditions. Terrain, mana, and environment are color-coded.
Next, spotted targets in the zone are listed. They are also color-coded by opening, object, and character hostility. Objects can have custom colors, so a Graffit lore object may have a different color from a Ratweed growth object.
The selected target shows its type, health (if applicable), effects on zone (whether increasing terrain difficulty, or modifying ambience), or conditions. Obstacles in openings are also displayed here, with access status and information on whether you can spot through the obstacle to the other side of the opening.
Possible actions on target are then listed, including actions that failed because you lack a requirement (such as a high-enough stat). These actions now include direct attacks on objects in the zone (so you can try to use your combat abilities to bash down a locked door, for instance, or destroy a monster growth object providing ambient mana support to those monsters).
Other changes included many low-level improvements.
Screenshots
This is the base core (test status), with Builder and Engineer NPCs, the System Pylon turret, System Shop access, elevators, and so forth.
You can see through the Recessed Blast Door to the Surface Tunnel (allowing you to shoot any incoming monsters before they break through the door). Note that you can't easily see from the tunnel into the core.
Here we've left the safety of the base complex and are now on the surface, in a junkyard (a good place to get scrap resources to fuel the base fabricators).
You can see that we have a locked Blast Door obstacle. We can pick the lock (slow, but gets us exp), break the lock with our Fire Touch ability (quickest), or simply attack it with Fire Touch or our other abilities (much less effective). We can't scavenge the door, our skill isn't high enough.
Here we're in an anomalous zone with a Giant Rat spawner. We can't teleport home from here due to the spatial disruption. We've selected Ratweed, which is a growth object providing death and dark ambient mana, which the Rats like.
We can extract resources from it (which slowly burns it HP), or just attempt to destroy it (probably much faster). Or, maybe we like the extra death and dark mana. :)
Note that everything here is alpha test, and is subject to change, but I'm happy with the foundation.