[Week 3] Energy, weapons, and salvage

So here's my thinking- start with single player rollout. I'm still building for massive-multi-player, but EA needs only provide for the general play experience - and solid PVE will be crucial. The core loop I have in mind looks like this:

Home → fly to belt → fight/dodge drones → salvage blocks → fly home → build better ship → repeat with harder content.

It's scoped for reasonable dev completion, and it will force me to focus on goals tied to this EA deliverable. Once the core is in place I can turn more of my attention to audio, visuals and general play feel.

Energy is done:

• Collectors collect at a steady rate
• Batteries store and charge/drin in parallel
• Motors drain at a rate according to their thrust
• Passive drain for any cell
• Energy is divided during fragmentation according to batteries

Fragmentation looks good. Multiple pilot cells mean you can build a ship like this, break it apart and have two flyable ships.

Breaking more stuff today:

• Physics engine changes for better collision dynamics
  • Breaking forces on edges
  • Minor debris-handling changes
• First Weapon cells - kinetic/projectile
• Salvage (magnetic) as a stretch

First take at blasters is decent enough.

Plenty of refinement still needed, and the reticle clearly needs work. Fragmentation is a little off too, possibly a precision issue between server and client.

Next up is the grapple cell for scavenging. Core to the planned initial game loop, the idea is that the player will be able to magnetically attract nearby active blocks/fragments for salvage and reuse.

(PM)

Grapple came together relatively painlessly and is close to the final effect I want which is an added bonus. (Most of the art you see currently in the game was pulled only for testing).

This project is starting to get fangs the further I scope out my EA deliverable-aligned goals. My TODO lists are spawning TODO lists.

Last night was spent ironing out some minor issues in fragmentation and stationary bodies. It's looking solid now with interpolation (client<->server frequency at 20hz) and all features enabled at 120hz refresh with ~30,000 cells and thousands of structures. I was able to squeeze in some contact and fragmentation effects as well as volumetric smoke.

Today is continued work on 3PV feel. It doesn't have to be polished perfectly, but the foundation needs to be solid; so focus is refining reticle, camera and controls.

Third-person and orbit views feel solid. Today it's on to the cockpit/FPV:

• 3D cockpit frame, tinted glass
• Semi-restricted look around ability inside cockpit
• Simple floating console panels

As a stretch I'm hoping to integrate a working component, such as the tactical view or system minimap.

Consoles interfaces and chrome today. The objective (clearly) isn't to make it perfect or beautiful, but to get a solid foundation in place. Focus on usability and good code patterns for continued development.

The first few consoles I'm focused on:

• Status (ship damage, active cells)
• Nav (system map to become navigation display)
• Tactical (nearby area, ships & structures)