Work has continued on the new wearable item system, along with combat improvements. V3.3 is shaping up to be a more complex update than previous ones, so we may finish it a bit later than usual.

Cooldown support for actions

Actions can now export a cooldown value, visible in the toolbar:
The teleport action was the first one to test, and it's here to stay, to balance it better vs. walking orders.

Active wearable items from squad members now display an action

A first new piece of the combat update was added to the UI:
The action bar will display all the available actions for the selected entity, plus the action of the active wearable item of the squad members, as long as they are in the squad selection. This makes it possible for the player to interact directly with those actions. Which leads to...

Auto and player mode for officer active items

It's finally possible for the player to disable the attack AI and take control of an officer attack. The player can shift-click an action to toggle auto AI behavior, or change the option in the combat info panel for the officer. The UI will also automatically pick a shortcut key for the manual actions.

Healing items and healing AI

Active healing items are now possible, both targeted and untargeted. The attack AI was adapted to also be able to track friendly hurting entities and to try to heal them, with the same support for range, line of sight and chasing behavior.

Combat exclusive mode for squad

Having an active squad doesn't mean they will *only* do what the player wants. The AI is still active and may make an officer go work on a nearby task, for example. This may be fine in peaceful times, but when there's combat going on in the station, it's better to make sure your squad focuses only on fighting invaders.
This new mode will prevent any officer currently in the squad from going away to work somewhere, or to satisfy their vital needs. Remember to disable it when the danger is gone!

More item art

Max has drawn dozens of new items:
The new art is meant to represent of implants (passive items that enhance damage or healing actions) and support active items (for healing and damage shields).

Starting work on the wearable inventory for officers

Officers can now equip passive items in addition to their active item:
This is very much a work in progress and there's still no formalized stat model for them, this goes next. But the basic model work and UI is now in a good shape. Hovering the mouse over the item slots displays a full info tooltip:

[ 2016-09-29 21:06:54 CET ] [ Original post ]