Greetings everyone, today we will discuss the development plans for Goblin Storm and CAOS-2 moving forward. Xenophon will be continuing Goblin Storm development as a personal project with programming support from Archimedes when necessary, while work on CAOS-2 continues as quickly as numerous professional and personal commitments will permit.
Summary:
- More regular update format.
- Planned steps for the unit diversity and unit mechanic focused Spring Content Update.
- Quarterly progress reports/Q&As called “War Councils.”
- Update on CAOS development.
More Regular Update Format:
In the past, we have released large, but infrequent content updates with many months between releases. Moving forward, we intend to make series of updates based around a common theme, such as unit diversity, game modes, map mechanics, etc. The series of updates that form the 2020 Spring Content Update will focus on unit diversity and unit mechanics.
2020 Spring Content Update:
Goblin’s 2020 Spring Content Update (SCU) consists of three planned parts between now and late June. Broadly speaking, the SCU focuses on unit roster additions/rebalancing, including megabeasts, and the addition of special unit mechanics such as regeneration. These new units and unit mechanics serve as a prelude to deeper system changes in future content updates. Here is a brief list of the SCU’s design goals, and the rough order in which they will be approached.
2020 Spring Content Update Broad Goals:
- Megabeasts.
- Unit strength regeneration trait.
- Hardiness trait (passive cohesion regeneration).
- New units.
- Quality of Life/UI improvements.
SCU Part 1: (Already released)
- Named leaders/leader HP.
- Diversify goblin clans and unit rosters.
- Fort rebalancing.
- Starting point overhaul.
SCU Part 2: (Expected release late April 2020.)
- Megabeasts, including first player-owned megabeast for the Gothrang tribe.
- Additional human/goblin unit diversity.
- Named leaders/lore for undead.
- Quality of life/UI improvements.
Here's a quick glimpse at the Gothrang's coming Razormaw Hydra, and the distinctive octagonal unit counter style shared by all megabeasts.
SCU Part 3: (Release date to be decided, June 2020.)
- Unit regeneration trait.
- Hardiness trait.
- Additional AI improvements.
War Council Reports:
To improve communication between the dev team and player community, we will be posting quarterly War Council reports for both Goblin and CAOS-2. War Council reports will serve as updates on current and future design goals, a forum for devs and players to discuss future features, and Q&A sessions.
Additionally, during times when other professional and private responsibilities prevent us from working on Goblin or CAOS, we will keep a post a discussion thread announcing the rough time frame we expect to be away. The objective is to prevent long periods of silence.
CAOS-2 Progress Update:
As many of you know, we also have a second project, our World War 2 operational simulation, the Combined Arms Operation Series 2 (CAOS-2). While we were radio silent throughout most of 2019, we were not idle. The orders of battle for the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Soviet Union, Italy, and France, totaling 33 orders of battle from 1939 to 1945 are complete and tested. The equipment for each nation has been fully implemented. The combat resolution, artillery, and mechanical breakdown, systems work flawlessly. Similarly, the bulk of maps planned for release have been completed. The crucial bottleneck is programming. Specifically the AI, net code, UI improvements, and of course, bug fixing. There is still much to do before CAOS can enter beta, but work continues.
But for now we will close out this dev blog with a glimpse of the rugged island of Sicily in CAOS-2.
