Greetings Pioneers!

This week we have started prototyping an important weapon for defeating the smaller A.I. foes. It will be one of the first of our ‘makeshift’ items that can be constructed from found materials in the world, before you are able to build gather up the materials to make fabricators and construct more complex tools.

Lauren has all the info on that in her write up! Here’s what we’ve all been upto:

John – Lead Designer

The newer creature classes have undergone scrutiny by the A.I. team, so we’re now more confident that the system will be robust when we introduce the new types planned. I’ve mainly been putting this into motion by getting the visual process rolling.

There are a lot of solid designs in the background for the rest of the game systems as you’ve seen with some of our major blog posts (and what is currently playable) Although the improvement work is taking time, this thorough approach is ultimately going to making the game far more enjoyable for everyone. Again, we really appreciate the patience on the communities side.

Matt – Art Director

Mainly working through task planning for the vehicles and new creature models this week. Some modelling updates coming up for those soon! Me and Tom have also managed to get the level work in place to start adding in Lee’s revised spawning system. So expect to see lots of visual progress on the lead up to Christmas.

Lee – Technical Director

This week I have been trying to refine some of the AI’s perception so that they can now pick up the points of interest that they are only interested in. I’ve also made a few optimisations to how often the perception updates run.

I’ve also been working with Marcin this week trying to get our turrets working correctly with the AI and trying to understand a crash we are having with destructible foliage.

Sam – Concept Artist

Working on some silhouettes for our new ‘Mite’ critters. We want a variety of forms for a variety of behavioral archetypes, but the key is to make them distinctly different in silhouette.

Olly – Junior Programmer

This week I have been refining the feel of vehicles, working with the design team to make the controls feel right. Initially the entering and exiting mechanic will be simple but we’re already making plans for there to be a walk in back entrance to the cockpit for the larger vehicle/vehicles.

Marcin – Designer

I know I am making progress with the AI, and a lot of it at that, but whenever I am to talk about it I always draw a blank. What did I accomplish since last week? And is it interesting enough to even mention. It’s usually a 50/50 situation. We had a few meetings, we gathered references for the new creatures we want to see in the game, discussed ideas, revised, and started the task breakdown from implementation and animation work. Riveting, I know 🙂

However on the “lots of progress” side of thing, Lee and I have integrated the AI to interact properly with turrets, finally. The creatures vs structures combat is very important part of the game and it was broken in our development for far too long, so it’s good to see it back.

Oh yeah, there was another thing – target switching. I wanted to improve that logic for ages too, so I’m excited it’s finally working. The logic you know from the current version of the game on steam is gone. Now the creature can switch “aggro” between entities attacking it according to damage received, priority and distance. The goal was to give you more control over the AI so you can be more effective at protecting your base by “tanking for your turrets”.

Lauren – Lead Animator

This week I have been getting stuck into more AI designs with Marcin. We have several of the base enemy archetypes nailed down with designs for the base behaviours, attack sequences and animations. The next step will be creating these new animations and getting them into game.

I have also been animating and prototyping the new spear weapon this week, a simple melee weapon that can be used to jab and stab enemies at close quarters or be thrown for a bit more of a range.

Andy – Lead QA

Testing plans going in for next week as we introduce some additional craftable content (the spear). All early game stuff including some of the new creature classes, but it has to feel good before we can check it off against the designs.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix