Another month has passed and with it the time for the next update has arrived as the 0.29.0 update is now out and ready for testing.

What’s New?

As the focus of this update, much like the previous one was on ground combat this is where as you might expect most of the new content can be found. In this case for once I do mean new content as first and foremost a set of 4 new planetary outposts have been added for each of the remaining factions. Each planetary outpost will now be spawned correctly in custom battles depending on which factions are participating in the battle instead of each faction just using the one for the human faction. While in the case of the campaign map the option to build a planetary outpost now reflects which faction is trying to build it with only the outpost belonging to said faction being an option.

In addition to new planetary outposts a whole slew of new units have also been added for the purposes of filling out the roster in ground battles. As a result this means that each faction now has 3 units to pick from ranging from the small jeep, a more medium sized light attack vehicle and finally a large heavy attack vehicle with the number and size of turrets they have increasing as the size of the unit also does so. In total 14 new units were added in this update bringing the total number of units in game to a respectable 52. Much like the units already present in the game, these new units are meant more as place holders with which I can continue to build the rest of the gameplay systems around and which will be swapped out slowly over time for more refined and balanced versions.

As I’m sure you can imagine, adding 14 new units and 4 new buildings along with all their 3D models and campaign map counterparts wasn’t exactly a small amount of work and so much of this update pertains to just them. There was however one other area which saw a small amount of work done on it, that being the 1 v 1 ground battle map. Unlike before the 1 v 1 ground battle map is now modelled with some basic terrain features such as hills, mountains and areas for water. Speaking of water, this update also includes a simple water shader which I had been working on for another project but can now be seen in the aforementioned areas of the 1 v 1 ground battle map.

Last but not least as with all my updates there was a small number of more miscellaneous changes made throughout development, these include. Updates to ensure the images for the old planetary outpost and jeep unit show the updated and textured model, a change to how the game version is saved and displayed on the main menu to ensure it is updated automatically and a fix to a bug on the campaign map which meant that ground based units could be built at no cost.

Update 0.30.0

As you could probably tell a lot of 0.29.0 was spent on adding new units for use in ground combat which meant that the amount of actual coding I was able to get done was minimal. As a result of this 0.30.0 will first aim to add some more logic and complexity to the ground battles, with the first of these being the introduction of the previously mentioned squads. I have an idea for how I want them to work and I’ll probably also take this opportunity to redo the squads in space battles which have always made use of a kind of hacky and inelegant method for getting them to work. It is my hope that my new method for getting them to work should make them a little more fluid and allow for easier scaling should I want to add smaller or larger squad sizes in the future.

Beyond the addition of squads I’ll also be adding more logic to when ground units are actually called into ground battles, such as more dynamically limiting where they can be called in and adding a drop ship animation so the unit doesn’t just appear once you have selected a desired location. As vehicles are currently the main and most abundant unit in ground battles I’m also hoping to add some animation support so that wheels and tracks will rotate and turn while the units which make use of repulsors to hover over the battlefield will get support for tilting to help better show said units in motion.

Continuing the trend of adding more logic I’ll also be adding support for units to automatically attack targets that are within range as well as the ability to make use of the unit specific buttons such as for attack moves, setting a patrol point and manually aiming the units turrets. The vast majority of these features may or may not already work and in theory they should be easy enough to implement as most can be copied from their counterparts in space battles. Though as I haven’t actually taken a look at them yet I won’t make any promises for how much I’ll be able to get implemented in time.

Finally for the 0.30.0 update I’m also planning on adding a selection of new maps so that ground battles can support up to 5 v 5 battles. In addition to just getting the basic maps added I’ll also be working on adding a selection of props to be used on said maps such as trees, bushes, rocks, fences, roads and perhaps more importantly some more complex ground textures. The single shade of green currently in the game is better than having no texture at all but the mountain and water areas could really use some better ground textures to better sell their illusion.

Closing Thoughts

In the end 0.29.0 turned out to be a much more content focused update than I originally planned. Though thanks to that I’m now more prepared to get stuck in with adding more logic and gameplay polish to the ground battles. I have a lot of ideas in mind for what I want the ground battles to ultimately look like and now that one of the more time consuming parts of the process is complete; for now at least. I can focus on implementing some of those ideas and start bringing ground combat up to a similar level to the space combat already found in the game.

Such ideas however will not implement themselves and so I’ll end this devlog here and get back to working on them. As is ever the case I’ll be back in around a month's time with the next update, 0.30.0 which if everything goes to plan should include the changes necessary to help make ground combat a more complete experience.

As always if you have any questions or queries then don’t hesitate to ask and similarly if you have any feedback for existing systems. Or indeed if you have any ideas, features or changes you would like to see implemented then also don’t hesitate to let me know.

As with all of my updates a full list of the changes made can be found in game, with the changes and additions pertaining to this update listed below:

• Added a new planetary outpost for use by the Astel faction
• Added a new planetary outpost for use by the Kessoni faction
• Added a new planetary outpost for use by the Shin faction
• Added a new planetary outpost for use by the Pirate faction
• Added a new planetary outpost for use when testing ground battles
• Added a set of campaign map variants for each of the new planetary outposts
• Added a new ground unit for the Astel faction, the astel jeep
• Added a new ground unit for the Kessoni faction, the kessoni scout
• Added a new ground unit for the Shin faction, the shin scout
• Added a new ground unit for the Pirate faction, the pirate jeep
• Added a set of campaign map variants for each of the new ground based small tier units
• Added a new ground unit for the Human faction, the human light attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Astel faction, the astel light attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Kessoni faction, the kessoni light attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Shin faction, the shin light attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Pirate faction, the pirate light attack vehicle
• Added a set of campaign map variants for each of the new ground based medium tier units
• Added a new ground unit for the Human faction, the human heavy attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Astel faction, the astel heavy attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Kessoni faction, the kessoni heavy attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Shin faction, the shin heavy attack vehicle
• Added a new ground unit for the Pirate faction, the pirate heavy attack vehicle
• Added a set of campaign map variants for each of the new ground based large tier units
• Updated the 1 v 1 ground battle map to use a modelled terrain
• Updated the 1 v 1 ground battle map to have water
• Updated the original planetary outpost to belong to the Human faction
• Updated the ground battles to load the correct planetary outpost based on the participating factions
• Updated the version label on the main menu to pull the current game version at runtime instead of updating it manually
• Updated the dev mode label to be placed in the bottom left corner instead of the top left corner on the campaign map GUI
• Updated the image used by the human planetary outpost to show the textured version of the building
• Updated the image used by the human jeep to show the textured version of the unit
• Fixed a bug where the ground units on the campaign map could be built at no cost despite them having a set cost