Affliction,
Hey everyone!
Today I had great success and got a ton of things accomplished. From finishing up the npc models, finishing the ai, almost completing the ai sound effects, to enhancing ai combat behavior and so on.
These were some things that have been on my to-do list for a very long time but now I can comfortably say that everything that has to do with the ai or npcs is almost completed. If I had to give an estimate, I'd say they are 90% fully completed.
As of right now, there are over 25 different human enemy types and over 25 different monsters to fight. They are not just retextured versions either. There are several distinct monster and human enemy "classes".
The stock ai that comes with the engine by default isn't the best, but it is decent, so I have been going through each and every script and changing the code to be much more reactive, smarter, and more challenging. I wanted to make it unique of course as well.
Enemies can react to sounds (not necessarily the player) and sight of course. They can also react to "situational awareness" like sitting behind an enemy while trying to sneak by but taking too long.
Certain enemies also have a "territory" radius which will cause them to become aggravated if the player enters.
Human ai will use cover, patrol, suppress, and flank in order to create a realistic and challenging combat simulation.
Monster ai will use all sorts of different tactics to kill their prey including charging, sneaking, leaping, and even pretending to be dead in some cases.
One of the major things I wanted to focus on with Affliction was sound effects. Since the graphics are not AAA quality, atmosphere and sound are extremely important in a game like this so I have gone out of my way to purchase and create dozens of sound effects that I feel will really serve the game well. I can't wait to show everyone!
I also finished up the HUD and made it look really good, if I do say so myself. It fits well with the theme of the game. I'll have pictures soon and new videos soon.
The last thing I wanted to mention was optimization. To help with performance and keep the game running smooth, I've made the decision to make slightly smaller maps, but make more of them. This will make it necessary to have more loading screens, but it'll reduce overall loading times, and also help keep a steady fps. I will continue to work on optimization and hope to further improve performance as time goes on.
The game should be ready for Early Access players soon!
As always, please stay tuned for more updates and let me know what you guys think.
-Corrosion :CStudios: