This week was spent on a number of improvements with a goal to get the build into playtesting soon. I've also created a road map for the development up until PC and Console launch.
I wasn't happy with how the enemy interactions were so I reworked the behavior coding on how they react to bullet hits, seeing the player, and pursuing the player. It's getting better day by day. Here are a few of the things that were completed this week:
Turrets
Moving along to the turrets! I want to have the base turrets in the game and upgradable within the next few weeks, which include:
- Projectile Turrets (laser bullets, physics-based)
- Beam Turrets (continuous laser beam, hitscan)
- Tesla Turrets (shock turret, hitscan )
- Rocket Launcher Turrets (rockets, physics-based)
- Glue Turret (Coming Soon!)
I hope to have the VFX done in the next few weeks to show this one in action!
Environment
There are also a few new variants to the plant life on Mars, as seen here:
Looks like the terraforming activities paid off! I wonder if these can be harvested for use ...
Performance
I've also further polished the IK Conversion to be Data-Oriented and am seeing great results. Here is a test showing the performance difference between the traditional game object/object-oriented paradigm coding and data-oriented focused coding:
Development Road Map
As promised, here is the roadmap for development:
And More
Next week I am going to be implementing more enemy behaviors, focused on the ground enemies.
Ground enemies take more damage from most damage-based traps while being more resistant to physics-based traps such as force traps and other movement-altering traps.
After that I will be introducing combining enemies, a new enemy type that gets stronger with units packed closer together.
That's it for this week, another update on progress next week!
Take care,
-Jake
