Tomorrow is the day, M.A.V. launches on Steam Early Access!
I have to be honest, I don’t really know what to expect from it all. I am fully prepared with an energy drink incase servers start catching on fire and things are going crazy and everyone is yelling, and, well you get the idea. Hopefully, everything just silky smooth. Hopefully. 🙂
I have been ‘working the phones’ drumming up all the press I can, so I have been pretty swamped in emails and searching out peoples email addresses. (And as I was writing this, Google suspended my email account. yay!)
But hey, you don’t come here to hear about boring press emails and steam launches, right? You want development news!
Well, I got you covered!
Since the last snapshot and the addition of the new map system, I now have the base commander systems working. Here you can see what it is like currently to have the CommSys part equipped.
Now, enemies are hidden from the map unless they are within the range of your “Uplink Area”. Currently, these areas are shared with your entire team, so everyone gets access to the same data. Soon, the commander will get access to additional data and features, though this base level of data will be available to everyone on your team. This already makes a strong case for at least someone on your team having a CommSys equipped. Also, like all parts in M.A.V., the commander modules are destroyable, so you will want to protect it if you plan on taking a lot of fire.
Also, I started work on a new deployable item. I don’t have the part model done yet, but here you can see the “Uplink Relay” deployable item:
This item will allow scouts (or anyone that deploys it) to extend the range of a Commanders CommSys Uplink Area.
Next items up on the list for the commander are to start giving them unique information, like the role type of detected MAV’s, measuring distances on the map, setting waypoints on the map, and issuing orders to AI MAV’s.
Well, that is all for this week! Here’s to an exciting weekend! Also, be sure to check out the next M.A.V. podcast, hosted by RestfulSHADOZ on the message board.