Update #3
I keep a running list of each change I make any day I touch code. Unfortunately, I don’t keep a running summary which would be fantastic for updates like this!
Let’s check the notes.
I worked on the line breaker ships, the ones that specialize in high damage at long range. I wanted them to have both visually and practically very different weapons. One of them shoots a large plasma projectile that does area effect damage and has a proximity fuse. The other ship features a twin-barrel railgun which can pass through multiple ships. You’d think this wouldn’t happen in the vastness of space, but little test combats show that it’s more common than you’d think.
For a while, exploding ships would have small explosions randomly spawn in their collider box. I felt that it lacked oomph so I added a final large explosion to each ship death. I think I need to scale the debris up and add more outward force to make them scatter more.
I finally added a resource counter to the bottom of the screen and animated it to reflect any changes (from destroying ships, building platforms, etc).
I added sound effects to most of the weapons! I’ve had to play around a lot with the spatial variables to ensure that weapon sounds from half a map away aren’t so prominent. That’s still a work in progress as ships that are farther in the map lose sound far too quickly.
The last change I made today was to begin fine-tuning the player ship variables and adjusting weapon variables to balance everything. I was having turrets fire at targets 2 screens away and ships flying around targets from too great a distance. Not exactly conducive to landing successful hits.
My next set of tasks are:
- to actually create the rest of the weapon platforms to go along with the player ships
- finish the collider event system that will be used in the objective system
- adjust the ship movement system. Right now ships can move too far beyond the camera’s bounds which makes it hard to select them and to see their glorious battles
While testing the new ship and weapon variables, I was able to get some pretty cool screenshots for your viewing pleasure. There’s also a short video showing the 2 generalist ships and a fire-support ship taking on a small fleet of hapless enemies.
