He everyone!
Once again, I’m going to follow this more informal essay format. Next month we should return to the normal three-part system.
This month we have made good progress. We now have the code that registers last month’s hit boxes as damageable compartments laid and ready for testing! These compartments are the core of the damage system and will work across all types of entities, ranging from ships, to planes, to buildings! Along with that the basic math that calculates damage has also been built (explanation of the math in a second). We also added the system that spawns a shell to be fired once cannons shoot, and we have the collision shader laid out for the collisions to occur. I wasn’t able to combine/test all of these independent systems by the time this article is being released; however, we are still on track to having our first closed testing this month. So, the first part of this month will be pretty much the finishing touches on the core Milestone 1 code and get a few more particle effects made (ship wakes and shell splashes in the water). The second half of the month will go towards putting together the test environment and getting everything ready to go for testing.
To take a moment and explain the damage system’s math. It’s fairly simple, but should allow us enough control to create an immersive experience. A piece of ammo will have a base damage amount (let’s say 50). Each compartment will have a protection rating (let’s say .2)The damage inflicted will follow the formula: ammoBaseDamage – (ammoBaseDamage * compartmentProtectionValue) This means that we will then be inflicting 50 – (50 * 0.2) damage to the hit compartment (this equates to 40 damage). Every compartment will have a set health. Once a compartment is destroyed(has 0 health) it no longer gives its protection, and instead all damage delivered will be spread across all the other compartments in the entity, without removing the protection modifier. So in our example, if the ammo hit an already destroyed compartment, it will deal 50 damage total to random compartments. The total health of the entity is the sum health of its compartments. Each entity will have a “critical point” or “critical health” which if the sum of its compartment’s health drops below, it will be considered destroyed. This is the basics of it, obviously later we will be adding in more detailed elements to this model, but this simple overview will be what we test in Milestone 1. Obviously if testing shows this to be a bad model, we will definitely change it.
Overall, we are making very quick work of things, and once again, once this milestone is completed it’ll speed up development in other areas as well, since the core of the engine will be laid. We’ve also got some cool stuff that we are going to be revealing later this month as well. Some of the latest work this last month hasn’t been shown or discussed at all; we’ve been keeping it secret specifically as a reveal to go along with milestone 1, so I hope you guys are excited to see some of the other stuff we are working on!
As always, thank you all for your support and let me know your thoughts! I know this update is kind of short, but it is basically an extension of last months, so hopefully you all won’t mind.
Final note, I plan to put a FAQs section on the website for the game, so if any of you have good questions to ask for that, please to let me know!
Let the Storm Begin!
God Bless,
WWJD