Hello everybody!
I would like to share some information with you in regards of the upcoming update and my plans for the next couple of weeks.
Personal Announcement
As I mentioned in one my previous announcements, for the past couple of weeks I was working on expanding the camp management gameplay elements, crafting mechanics / recipes and several other gameplay features, including the construction of the city map. I would like to share that development progress with you.
New Features
During this last engagement I was able to implement several new features that I am personally excited about:
Camp Management Missions
The camp management interface now have fully functioning missions that allow players to use the survivors favors. There are different mission types and each type has different survivor skill requirements, such as diplomacy, scavenging etc.. These missions will yield rewards based on the performance of the squad assigned. New items were added to the item database that are required for the mission control management.
Camp Management Economy
Another expansion of the camp management is the new economy type feature that allows players to choose their marketplace economy. Players can now choose what type of trading goods the marketplace produces, such as ammo, resources, fame or actual currency.
Crafting
I have also updated the crafting tables for existing and new items. Players can now craft melee weapons, new armor and other equipment. Another cool feature that I was able to work on is the assembly mechanic. Player can now break down resources into components that can be used for crafting. I will be expanding the assembly even further in the future.
Weapons
As a part of the item database expansion, new weapons were added and upgraded with new features. The new equipment (armor, weapons, trinkets) now have new stats that influence a character. New armor types focus on melee or ranged combat. Trinkets now have additional stats that influence combat, character stats (stamina and health regeneration) and several other stats that will be used in camp management gameplay.
Rarities and Specializations
The new weapons added to the database now have different rarities that influence weapon stats and performance. Additionally, several weapon variations were created to allow players to choose how they prefer to approach combat in the game. For example, three different variations of an AK-47 Assault rifle were created, one is a classic balanced weapon, the other is focused on critical chances and damage and another is focused on aggressive close combat with extended magazine and higher rate of fire. Other variations were created for different weapon types.
City Map
I am currently working on expanding the city map and designing a quarantine zone that will become a part of the city. I will be talking about the quarantine zone in more details in one of the future announcements.
Upcoming Update - Scheduling
I would still like to invest additional efforts in finalizing the development of the features that I mentioned above. It is a lot of work and a very time consuming process, but I am very happy with the results and keeping the development tight to the estimated time frame.
I will be splitting the update into two parts and releasing the new camp features update by the middle of this week. And the city map expansion update will come shortly after, I estimate it to be ready by the end of this week or early next week.
Summary
Overall, the development is going very well and I was able to implement a lot of features during this last engagement.
We are getting closer to the main branch merge with every day, but there are still several outstanding items that I would like to address before the main branch merge.
Some delays might be expected, but I have no reasons to believe that they will be drastic. Once the next two updates will be released, I'll be able to sit down and evaluate the next phase of the development to put together a schedule and time frame estimates.
Feedback
Please leave your thoughts, feedback and ideas in the following thread:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/427950/discussions/0/2741975115076574273/
Please feel free to ask questions in that thread as well.
Thank you!