Hey everyone, WWJD here!

 

As promised, I’m starting the monthly updates for the community!  I plan to use the same format for all of them, starting with an introduction, then leading into what we have accomplished in the past month, then talking about what progress we hope to make in the new month, then finally any issues or delays we have had that are hindering the progress.  My hope is that you guys in the community will be able to experience the development with us.  This will also be a great way for us to answer common questions community-wide.  Some posts may include images or videos describing specific things we are working on, or even showing off something we have gotten working, so I hope that this will prove to be a great way of improving the communication from developers, to you the community.  You’ll probably notice that it is very informal, and that’s how I want it.  I want it to be like I was sitting down with you and we were just talking about the game and its development.

With that being said, let’s get into it!

 

Things we have completed:

 

This month development was a bit slower than previous months, but the engine has seen improvements, and I have been able to add in a selection system.  The selection system is the code that allows the user to be able to select individual entities to issue them commands.  This was needed before we could move forward with our movement, and really, any other entity system as it will allow us to now directly interact with a specific entity that we are testing. 

Along with this I’m working on adding “target selection” to the main system.  This will allow us to be able to issue a command to the entity, and have it perform a task directed at a specific location on the map.

We also have a new flowchart and concept for showing off our development!  The entire development process will be broken down into milestones, from there each milestone will be broken down into smaller tasks.  The first major milestone will be shown below and is entirely engine based.  There are a few test models that we will use, but those won’t be the major focus of this milestone.  Plans can change, but this will give us a good graphical idea of what we are planning on doing, and how we are tackling development.

 

Things we are going to work on:

 

Next month should be a big month for us if everything goes as planned.  The primary task is to get movement for our naval ships in the engine and game.  There are several different parts that go into making this one system work, and I want to make sure the design is well implemented before moving on.  I hope we can get the destroyer textured as well.  Once those two things are done I’ll be packing up a test environment to send to the patreon supporters so they can mess around with it for a while, and depending on their feedback it may go public.  Who knows, maybe we can even have a “best screenshot” competition if you guys want!

 

Things we are having issues with:

 

This is never a fun thing to talk about honestly, but it’s important all the same.  It’s important to own up to our own shortcomings and important to let you all know what’s going on. 

Our main issue now is lack of people on the team.  The people we have are great, but this is a big task with so few. I don’t have the money to be able to pay anyone to help, but at the same time there isn’t even a prototype to show off that can help inspire outside people to join the development team.

I’m also having some issues with the rendering system.  Not that it isn’t good, or doesn’t work, but it’s taking me longer than expected to learn how it is put together.  I’m using a 3rd party library that handles the rendering, and that means I must learn how they put their code together to be able to use it properly.  This is one of the reasons movement wasn’t completed last month like I would have liked.

 

 

Well, that will do it for this month’s community update.  Let me know if you like this format, and if you want me to keep doing it.  I’ll post the first milestone’s chart below for you guys!
And as always, I’ll see you here, there, or in the air.

 

Let the Storm Begin!