Enemies and Interaction

At this point basic enemy AI, basic weapons, and health are implemented. This includes point defence guns (light weapon) and railguns (heavy weapon) (shown below). 

Missile are implemented for enemies but not yet for the player.   Health is implemented as hull + armour. It was done this way rather than just having one health stat in order to give the player a 'saving grace' as when armour is low and a high damage attack happens, it will only destroy  the armour and not affect the hull. Hull is affected when armour is at zero. Another reason for this implementation is that when future levels and repair are added hull is going to be non-repairable whereas armour will be.

Enemies can spawn in and attack the player (shown below). A warning system for enemies spawning will be implemented in the near future. Enemies are programmed to keep a preferred distance from the player (with a buffer zone so they don't move as soon as they are out of range). Missiles take into account the player's velocity in order predict where the player is moving so that they can more easily hit their target. Possible improvements to the AI include dodging the player's projectiles, and having an element of randomness to their movement when at their preferred range rather than just staying still. Another improvement would be for the enemies to dodge incoming obstacles, at the moment they just phase through them.

In addition to enemies and interaction, thruster effects have been added which can be seen on the player, the enemy, and the missiles in the above gifs. Missiles also have their own explosion effect. Thruster effects work by taking into account the rigidbody's previous velocity and its current velocity and then activating the correct thruster particle systems. An alternative approach would have been to just tie it into the movement script and activate the thrusters depending on the key pressed. It was done using velocity so that the slowdown areas near the edge of the screen also activate the thrusters.

Feedback

At the point when feedback was collected the only thing implemented regarding enemies and interaction was the point defence guns and destruction of the barriers at the start and end of the level. Positive feedback mainly mentioned the particle effects from destroying the barrier. Another piece of positive feedback was that the gun turns towards the direction you are shooting. Other feedback mentioned having a way to restart when at the end of the level. A restart button has been added. Other pieces of feedback mentioned not being able to destroy the circles. The circles in this level will likely remain indestructible and just serve as obstacles; however there are still enemies that can be attacked. Finally, a bug was pointed out where you could keep shooting when dead, this has been fixed.