Skip to main content

Bombs away!

You can see the latest progress on the project in the most recent video diary here.
A lot of work has been going on trying to get the AI to work well, without causing too much drain on computational resources. Trying to get AI states to be more flexible so that an artillery weapon might use normal attacks if the enemy gets too close, instead of trying to do long ranged attacks on a target the other side of the map. And so on.

I also finally got around to adding an effect to the air support actions so they have an actual aircraft fly in and drop bombs or reveal the map.

It's a bi-plane because the current version of the game is set in 1936, with early war technology. The current plan is to get this one finished with a basic set of game-play options and then produce expansions or sequels with all the other great stuff I want to do; custom vehicles, procedurally generated missions and so on.

The tactical side of the game is maturing right now, with the introduction of four different types of radio set;

1. Individual radio set. This gives access to some extra actions such as aimed shots or rapid fire. It's used to reflect the extra flexibility that radio equipped tanks enjoyed.

2. Tactical radio set. This is used for offensive support actions such as marking targets (get a to-hit bonus) or identifying them (get an armor piercing bonus). It can also be used to jam enemy radios so they can't benefit from them for a time. Needs line of sight.

3. Command Radio. This one is used for defensive support actions. You can give a direct order to a friendly, radio equipped unit so that they get an extra action point, or remove shock points to improve morale, or you can change frequencies, removing the effect of radio jamming. You can also order a unit to quick march, doubling their movement speed for one turn.

4. Air Support radio. Used to call in paratroopers, air strikes or spotter planes.

Depending on how the playtesting turns out, I may include different variants of the radios (Tactical radio mkii for example) with access to one or more of the special actions at the expense of size or weight or just technological advances. In any case, more special actions are likely to be included in any expansions to the game as I tackle future eras (Vinland: 1939, Vinland: 1946 etc...)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Automating Level imports from Blender to Godot

  Recently I've been making some levels in Blender an importing them into Godot. There are only about 7 or 8 shaders for each level, not counting dynamic objects which will be added later. But to improve rendering performance, it can be a good idea to split the meshes up into sections. At that point you might be faced with a list like this: Or it might be even more chaotic, if you didn't use simple names for the objects in your level. So it can take a long time to sort out all the meshes, make them unique and add textures and so on. Blender imports with simple Blender textures, or with placeholder materials. This is sometimes OK, but if your Godot shaders are very different to those used by Blender, it means applying new materials to every mesh object in the level when you import the scene. I found that during the design process, I was importing and readying a level several times before I was happy with the final layout. So at first I was wasting a lot of time. In Blender, I us
3 comments
Read more

Upstairs / Downstairs.

I've decided to make my prefabs multilevel. Later this should allow me to add pit traps and other great stuff. It also makes it easier to line up stairs so that you can exit them on the same co-ordinates where you entered them. The prefab editor is pretty much finished, it just needs some code for loading up prefabs from a saved dictionary, so that they can be checked or edited. The entries will need to be forwards compatible, so I'll be loading each tile and then translating the indexes to a new array, that way if I add extra indexes or extra info (like traps or puzzles) I'll be able to update existing prefabs to work with the new standard. Click for a video.
6 comments
Read more

Advice needed on tilesets...

I need some advice on which is the best way to handle building the dungeon. Right now I'm using prefabs for my dungeon, they have a north south east and west section for each "room": The basic tileset. This has several advantages, and also several disadvantages. Firstly I can have curved rooms, I can have tunnels and other interesting shapes. The tilesets can look quite nice with a little work. On the other hand I can't easily get the navigation data before building the map and once the map has been built I can't make changes to the layout, like having active pit traps or believable secret doors. Although the rooms are interesting, they are quite repetitive, and it takes a lot of effort to make even a few different variations. Also rooms are constrained to one size. A newer version of the tileset with a lot of variant parts for making more interesting rooms. To create a tile set is a real headache too. Planning how to lay out the UVs, trying to cra
7 comments
Read more