Hi It's been a while since I posted a Dev Diary or uploaded a new patch so I wanted to share what I'm doing, what I'm planning and what's a bit delayed in case you want to know what's taking so long (Warning: Text Heavy Article).

New Urban Environments:

I've been hard at work making new modular assets for urban scenarios. This has consumed most of my current time because a good sci fi urban scenario has lots of stuff going on besides roads, sidewalks and buildings. I have a base ready but I still need to add props like holograms, more building types, more vehicles and even interior props for some buildings that you'll be able to enter during combat.

I wanted to add urban scenarios not just for extra variety but also to deal with new mission types like Raiding and Bounty Hunting that would work better in a place where there's a constant stream of enemy reinforcements so you can't stay to loot everything like current missions do.

New Class:

I mentioned that I wanted to make a "Krell'Sha Raider" class some time ago but I only had a basic model done at the time. Now the final model is ready, it has 3 heads and 3 texture sets for basic customization and I just need to configure special skills for it. I'm thinking this one should work as a regular raider but with some extra skills like: "Blood Rage" (lose 1 HP, gain 1 AP once during combat) and "Ritual Execution" (a melee attack that terrorizes every close enemy if it kills). I'm also thinking I could add class specific items, in this case a Krell'Sha Raider could equip bloody "trophies" gained during combat.

New Enemies:

A new type of enemies I want to add are "Pirate Hunters", currently I have a single unit ready but I would like to add at least 2 more and the idea is that these enemies are more oriented to counter your soldier's skills (example: some could equip shields to counter melee attacks and others could even have gear that intercepts rockets). There's lots of potential for these enemies but I'm still planning what to add.
Regarding existing enemy groups, I'm preparing some extra enemies for the Scavs and Security Forces. Basically I would like to add alien variants and extra droids for the Scavs and some Corporate Mercs and Armed Civilians or local militia for the Security Forces.

New Mission Types:

Two new mission types I'm preparing right now are "Raids/Heists" and "Bounty Hunting/Assassination".

Raids/Heists:

These missions present you with a map filled with loot boxes/chests that you need to manually grab with your soldiers and then take (as a backpack) back to an unloading zone while you deal with present enemies and incoming reinforcements. These missions will constantly generate reinforcements so how long you decide to stay to grab loot is up to you.

Bounty Hunting/Assassination:

In these missions you'll be tasked with eliminating one or more specific targets in a map and then retreat. These missions have a chance to have constant reinforcements and also a chance for the target(s) to try to escape or stay and fight (chances are random but are also affected by your progress in the campaign). I would also like to create similar missions to deal with deserters and traitors that you have tracked. Both these mission types are a W.I.P. but should add a necessary layer of variety to the game once they are ready. To trigger some of these missions you'll have to get a contract/quest in a local space station but some could appear randomly too.

New "Tone" and Minor Changes:

This is something that I'm just pondering for now but I would like to change the current music for some industrial/rock/metal music I have, this would change a bit the "tone" of the game to make it a bit less dark but I think it would be worth the effort (hard to explain with just words, you'll have to hear it during the next patch and let me know what you think). Other minor change would be to tweak lighting for the whole game, this would be a very subtle change but right now I have problems because some sections are too dark (with "crushed blacks" in some cases), which in turn forces me to use hard colors to compensate, which also in turn makes details like damage, stamped designs, etc. harder to see. If I tweak lighting to make things clearer then I can maybe make details on characters and environment clearer. I also think I could tweak the Fog of War so it's less black because right now it makes the crushed blacks issue worse. Before I forget: a minor feature I have planned is to add "Time Control" during combat so you can speed up the enemy turns (or everything). This is something the game desperately needs.

What's giving me problems right now:

Right now, what's been challenging to me is to finish the Space Combat system, the High Ground mechanics and adding big enemies to the game. The Space Combat has been pretty challenging because the combat system is an original idea so I had to start from scratch but the fact that's original also makes it a bit vague to implement. If that keeps giving me problems I might settle for a proven turn based system to get it done or just release the previous mentioned content and postpone the Space Combat for a future patch. The High Ground works fine, the problem comes from animations, I'm trying to use animations of jumping down and vaulting when leaving a platform but while it works fine it looks too janky. The problem is that I use store animations (because I'm really mediocre at making my own) so these never fit 100% to my needs. Still, this is not as bad, I think I can fix the animations and make them less janky with enough time. The Big Enemies is a new feature I experimented lately, basically I would like to add big robots, power suits, a Xenobeast Queen, etc. to add more flavor and danger to the game. The problem is these enemies use more than one cell so pathfinding is being a bit tricky right now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is it for now, I wanted to post this Dev Diary since the new patch is taking way longer than the others and people might get impatient. The point was to show there's good reason for the time it's taking, not only a lot of content is being made but I'm giving a general look at the game's tone, lighting and style and even experimenting with new features even if these can get challenging sometimes. Thanks for reading and see you soon! Jorge

[ 2022-08-30 05:47:55 CET ] [ Original post ]