Another update, Commanders! The campaign keeps moving forward. This update brings mission 7 plus a pass over the early missions that were giving some of you trouble.
Campaign Mission 7: Stolen Arms
A set of GDA bases has been captured by the Rebels, and they have been pumping out weapons of war ever since. Your job is to recapture them and defang the Rebels before those factories turn against us.
Fixes and Balancing in Missions 1-4
I went through the first four missions and fixed the main blockers that prevented some players from progressing, or simply from having a good time. If you bounced off the campaign early on, this is a good moment to jump back in. More polish to come!
New structure: Bridges
We finally have bridges! They reinforce the logistical dimension of the game. You can build them over any ocean area. They DO NOT block naval movement. When you click on a bridge segment, it auto-selects the whole thing, so you can quickly salvage or destroy your own bridge, to make a new one. If you get attacked, only the attacked segment is destroyed. You can easily repair a partially destroyed bridge by hovering over it while in bridge mode. Of course, if segments on different ends of the bridge are destroyed, the middle section collapses because it can't float in the air. Disclaimer: if any units are on the bridge while it's collapsing, they will be killed ːsteamhappyː
Vehicle Trails
I added vehicle trails (v1) to the tanks. I just need to improve the look a little bit, specially make them biome specific and blend better, and then generalize them to all vehicles.
New building: The Powerplant
Abdel has finished modeling the powerplant, and I aim to integrate it by the Automn sale on October 1st.
Powerplants only interact with the processor buildings (foundry, refinery, etc.). They give them power to operate more efficiently, so they are technically not required, they are optional, but you make them to quickly boost certain industries, without having to rethink your logistics and worry about starving foundries or building more mines.
They can't be built anywhere, they must be in range of the buildings they power. This is to ensure they remain strategic targets and relatively exposed, as we don't want players to stack them deep inside the base. And they are also a bit easier to destroy than other buildings.
So the main benefit of powerplants is giving a more granular way of controlling industry, with the drawback of being strategic targets. Still, if you destroy an enemy powerplant, you hurt it way less than by destroying their factories, as you just slow down the production, not bring it to zero. I think this will make the games more elastic, as base raids will be less fatal and easier to recover from.
Briefing Room Coming Soon!
Gnio has done a great job on this, which will greatly improve the immersion when entering campaign mode. I can't wait to properly integrate it in the game!
2nd Faction
I gave a list of cool things regarding the 2nd faction to Alex. And he gave me a design proposition, which I have accepted. It defines all the units and buildings, with a lot of suggestions that will guide the art and the development of the 2nd faction. This makes me feel comfortable that it will be fully playable for the winter sale on December 17th.
I have to figure out a good process for producing the campaign missions, because the first campaign has been a nightmare to integrate. If you are a game designer with a track record of making missions in other RTS games (not an idea guy, but an all-in-one designer and integrator, who can design and integrate the missions from end-to-end, and can ask the right questions on the tools that you need to achieve it, please get in touch with me! (my name is Amine and I am in the powerplay discord)
Version 0.2.52
campaign mission 7: stolen arms
polish winter biome: new trees
tactical pause: don't play motion sounds
add settings to disable camera rotation using swipe
can set rally points on enemy buildings in edit mode
make shadows work in far distance
add fog in far distance
artillery rocket doesn't miss even in sped up mode (thanks @x )
fix crash in skirmish (thanks @x )
Version 0.2.54
new structure: bridges
add unwalkable cells around trees, greatly improves pathfinding
greatly improve unit multi-selection accuracy (thanks @x )
opening maps in edit mode is now non-blocking (multi-threaded)
tanks trails (v1) - will improve and will generalize to all vehicles
better tree contrast in snow biome
make ocean bottomless looking
mission 7: require recapturing all stolen bases
nuclear explosions and bombs don't affect airplanes anymore
See you soon Commanders!
-Amine