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One of the most game changing updates in Sector Six history is coming in two days featuring:
Hang in there! This week I was working on stuff that is not interesting to write about, so instead I'm going to evaluate current status of the game.
I am almost done with the graphical update and that means Sector Six is going to enter beta soon! And this is with what the game will enter it... Music: 95% Left to do: Implement two tracks. Sound effects: 80% Left to do: Some sound effects could be replaced with better ones. Graphics: 90% Left to do: I'll think of something. Interfaces: 85% Left to do: Map interface rework, avatar customization. Combat: 40% Left to do: Chaos mechanic, 12 abilities per class, 4 classes, unleashed ability effects, passive abilities, modified enemies. Spaceship building: 70% Left to do: Part set effects, more part properties, calibrating, item stacking, part filtering. Region missions: 20% Left to do: More mission types. Region bosses: 25% Left to do: More bosses. Region enemies: 40% Left to do: More enemies. Story missions: 10% Left to do: 30 story missions? Story bosses: 0% Left to do: The Machines: Astrail, Numinor, Hivind, Ourend, ???, ???, Ligwitch, Malasmor. Achievements: 20% Left to do: More achievements Features: 40% Left to do: Shops, secure regions, modular difficulty system, crafting system, the Router, endgame, controller support, local co-op mode. Total: 48% Beta: 2016 August Full release: 2017? Core of the game is done, Sector Six will no longer drastically change. Almost all upcoming updates will be content updates! Get ready to fight the Machines, get ready to make game ten times harder, get ready to craft quad weapons, get ready to master goliath and nomad classes, get ready to enter mysterious regions outside borders through the Router... Get ready for beta! This week I was polishing various parts of the game!
One thing that I learnt about making games is that nothing in game should disappear. So now missiles that go off-screen explodes. Enemy missile didn't hit you, but it hit something off-screen, instead of vanishing without a trace. That makes combat 0.1% more enjoyable. Also, now when enemy is destroyed, the explosion destroys nearby projectiles. Like it would happen in real world. Missile #1, missile #2 and missile #3 is released. Missile #1 hits enemy and destroys it. What happens next? In Sector Six 0.5.9, missiles #2 and #3 will go through the space where enemy existed few milliseconds ago. In Sector Six 0.6.5 and real world, missiles #2 and #3 will explode together with destroyed enemy. That's another 0.1%! The next 0.1% comes from improved Death From Above ability, now its missiles are much faster and it feels more powerful and aggressive. In Sector Six 0.5.9, if your spaceship is destroyed, you are told that the Elder Mechanism will recreate it. In Sector Six 0.6.5, if your spaceship is destroyed, the spaceship is actually recreated. It's not much but... 0.1%? This week I have also made few changes to escort missions. Defending carrier was awkward and barely possible with minions like veteran and dreadnought, so now you no longer need to defend it. That makes escort missions into same boring destroy X minions mission with a cosmetic carrier above your ship, but hey, at least it works. And I can always make carrier more interesting by making it blow up minions! Oh, and about dreadnoughts... Now they start appearing when you reach level 15. What else? I added sounds for selecting/deselecting abilities, tweaked region entering/leaving animations, moved upgrade/downgrade buttons slightly... And that's pretty much it. I made Sector Six like 1% more fun and it makes this week good! Until next week! PS.: I decided to postpone update for a week or two, since update is not going to be released on July anyway. This week was quite productive!
First of all, I have made unleashed Missile Strike ability effect. Old unleashed Missile Strike was shooting one big slow missile instead of many small ones and in some cases unleashed Missile Strike was weaker than regular one. Now unleashed Missile Strike simply summons additional missile, that deals 100% of total relay damage, if Missile Strike is maxed. It's not very powerful effect, because I couldn't make it any more powerful for balance - Missile Strike has really low cooldown and so it has much higher unleash chance than other abilities. But that additional missile, summoned by the unleashed Missile Strike, makes pretty explosions, so despite the fact that it deals little damage, I really like new unleashed effect and I hope you guys will like it too. After making pretty explosions, I have improved spaceship building. I have made a simple part installing/uninstalling animation. I imagine that the weapons, processors, engines and other parts of futuristic, modifiable, city-sized military spaceship should have pretty complex programs in them, so I think that installation animation is a must be! Changes to the spaceship building weren't just cosmetic. When building spaceship, parts used to fail to be placed in the building field and that made spaceship building slower and slightly irritating, especially when building large spaceship. That's fixed now! I have also fixed other old problem. Players had been telling me about armour and ether bars being in wrong place for long time. I have finally relocated them, now bars are closer to screen center. Lastly, I have began working on better ability interface. I have made upgrading/downgrading animations and cleaned up ability description screen. It still needs some polishing and I hope to have it done next week. Next week I'll work on many different things, because I'll try to make the update ready by the end of the week and I have a lot of things on my list! Until next time! I have confession to make guys. I didn't do anything with Sector Six this week, except for one thing.
Most of the time I wasn't at home or I was working on other game for competition. But the good news is that I am done with competition game, so now I will work as much as always and hopefully update will be out by the beginning of next month! Anyway, that one thing, that I did this week, is actually pretty big. It took me like 20-30 minutes to make, but it will have large impact on gameplay. It is not possible to move back away from enemy to avoid getting hit anymore. Attacking enemies from safe long range is also a history! I have attempted to fix retreating many times, but all previous methods didn't worked. This one works. Whenever player moves spaceship out of enemy range, the enemy uses its long range weapon system to purge the area. Basically screen is filled with missiles and player spaceship is destroyed, if it isn't moved back to enemy range. So, evil laugh, works great! Until next week! Next week's echo is going to be nice, I promise. PS.: Check out that competition game! Link... This week have made several improvements to backgrounds, added new region leaving/entering animations and implemented loot box.
Loot box is in results interface, that appears at the end of every mission. Its purpose is to show parts player got during mission or as a mission reward. Currently loot box doesn't show more than 17 parts, it should be enough for now, but later I am going to make loot box show more parts, because in future there will be very long missions with a lot of kills and a lot of drops. Another change is that the parts received for completing region missions are now displayed in a same way as the armoured colony seeker rewards. These changes has been made to make part looting more noticeable, more real. That's the same reason why I made region entering and leaving animations. Entering region with unleashed engines is more badass than just appearing in the region. Next week I am going to finish updating backgrounds and after that I'll continue working on new interfaces. I'm planning to make main menu and credits more interesting, clean up ability interface, improve spaceship building and maybe make few changes to tooltips. That's about all I need to do to be able to release the update! Until next week! This week I have added backgrounds for Ityl and Nebula.
Now all regions in Sector Six have their backgrounds! Ityl background buildings - see screenshot below - are actually from the old Sector Six. During Shatterer war, Sector Six was completely destroyed. But after winning the war, the Almadi have resurrected it. Normally resurrection would recreate everything perfectly, but it wasn't regular resurrection. All regions in the Sector were properly recreated, except Ityl. Resurrection process has restored Ityl to time not before it was destroyed, like with other regions, but to a moment before Sector Six has collapsed, after Shatterers ruined it. Ityl has been untouched since the resurrection, it is a sacred place for the people of Sector Six. They go there to remind themselves about the final war in Sector Six history... Nebula's background is unique - it has animated elements, check GIF below! It was pretty challenging to do it, but I think it was worth the effort. Over time other backgrounds might also get their animated elements. Objects in Nebula's background are particle procession plants. Nebula's particle procession plants, also known as nemezium plants, accumulate nemezium particles that circulate in Nebula's atmosphere. Nemezium comes to Nebula from Ityl, from the decaying remains of the Shatterer spaceships. It is the only source of nemezium in Sector Six, besides the Machines and their minions, as it is Sector Seven element. I am putting these lore fragments here because of two reasons. Reason one is that some weeks I just don't have anything to write about, sometimes my progress can be described with one line. Reason two is that I am going to make 25 new achievements, one achievement for every region on Sector Six. And these lore bits are going to be the reward for completing region achievements. So I'm getting both additional content for the echo and lore for the achievements! Anyway, this week I have also began working on new region entering and leaving animations. Next week I'm planning to finish these animations, polish backgrounds and maybe start working on something I call loot box. Loot box is going to show all parts player has found during the mission. So, I guess this is the end of this echo! Until next week! Since this is last echo of June, I am going to write a bit about my plans for next month!
But first about this week! I have did a lot of progress with graphic update! I have updated projectiles and added Sailemar background. Only 1 background to go! Projectile flares now look... better. Check screenshots below! I have also improved floating damage text, since I have noticed that it's quite popular feature. Floating text now should be easier to see and look better. Plus, damage numbers now merge, showing how much damage in total was dealt. Text merging can be turned off in settings. These and other changes should come out in one massive update on July! For graphical update I still need to tweak backgrounds, update interfaces, main menu and add few animations. After graphical update, I'm going to work on modular difficulty system! The idea of modular difficulty system is to allow players to make Sector Six harder for great rewards, that will allow to further rise difficulty, to get even better rewards and so on! It will be vast expansion to hard mode that should heavily change gameplay. It's also going to be first beta update and largest content update ever! But for now, I need to finish graphical update! Until next week! This week I was updating graphics as planned!
I have made few pretty large changes to backgrounds. It's not visible from screenshots, but illusion of depth is a lot stronger now. Backgrounds now only move when player moves, so it's more realistic now. I have made backgrounds for Eolutch, Venerion, Spiral and Tridenkor regions. Two more backgrounds and all 25 regions will have backgrounds! Also, to make backgrounds more varied and interesting, I have given them slight tint. Last three months didn't changed game as much as this week did! Hopefully next week will be as good! |
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