State of the Game #201: Bug bashing begins

Last week I promised you blown up parts and we delivered it, Live on Twitch!

Now when you blow up a part, you get a nice visual reward for it. The parts that fly off hang around in the level for quite some time, though they do stop smoking. This makes areas where large battles took place to littered with broken parts all over!

I also updated the bullet flare VFX to much more visible at all angles and ranges. Before, it was only really visible if you had fired it or it was coming right at you!

I also completely reworked the AI movement system. This means not only did they get a full path-finding update to help them with navigating the more complicated levels, but they actually got an update to their ‘where do I move to?’ logic as well.

It’s not entirely finished, but already the AI show a much greater challenge in arena mode and can make some interesting and compelling siege games. Of course one of the primary goals of this update was to make them more reliable in general so you could eventually issue them orders and have them do a decent job of following those orders. Hard to do if they can’t walk to the correct spot!

Also, last Sunday I worked on ‘ragdoll’ death for the M.A.V.’s, which lead to some amazing bugs and laughs.

I was never actually able to get the system to be stable and provide the results that I wanted, so I ended up having to remove it for now. Tonight I want to try a different method, which will have more parts flying off! If you have any ideas, join me on twitch or hop into the teamspeak server [ts3.knolif.com] and tell me about them!

In between streams I have been hammering down on my massive bug list. No fun, but critical to get them all done. Right now I really feel like I should be wearing this shirt!

Also, the Chromehounds memorial battle has it’s own website now! http://www.chromehoundsmemorial.com. Make sure you submit your stories and celebrate with us on January 6th!

That’s all for this week!

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