Development Update #32

version 0.0.32a

Hello all !

Another month, another round of updates! You may find the Development Progress Highlights at the end of this message. 👍

Dev Progress Tracker (Roadmap)

• Although not yet available - A development Progress Tracker (aka roadmap) has been in the works and will be published in two areas when ready:

  • Rotoscope Studios Website

  • Within the game itself.

The Dev Progress Tracker provides the following value:

• Clear list of what Features to expect for Early Access.

• Clear display of each feature's development progress.

  • Displayed as a percentage.

  • Includes additional details of the scope of each feature.

Ultimately, the game will be ready for Early Access once all the respective Early Access features are complete.

As with all major information, the community will be notified when the Progress Tracker is released via email, discord, and here on Patreon.

Devlog and Cadence

• The goal of the devlogs are to:

  • Provide high level updates of what features are being worked on.

  • Share some of the thought process behind the objectives for features.

• After the game's release I would love to share even more detail on how certain features and art style are achieved. However, the current priority remains the game's development.

• I will be working to keep a monthly cadence on the devlogs. A month allows a good balance of development time/content build up, along with enough time to put it all together and relay back to the community. Please be mindful that the more time spent on showcases, videos, images, devlogs, significantly takes away from development time. So finding the balance is important.

FAQ

As a quick reminder:

• Please refer to the FAQ and the Rotoscope Studios main website for more information about the game.

  • FAQ

  • Rotoscope Studios Website

• If the FAQ does not have the answer you are looking for then it most likely has not yet been communicated. Everything outside of the FAQ/Website information should be considered unknown and speculative. As before, I will keep updating the FAQ where appropriate.

Development Progress Highlights

• Development Progress Tracker (In-Game - This will be the same tracking displayed on the Rotoscope Studios website).

• Music Player (In game Music player with the ability to cycle through OST tracks)

• Main Menu / Settings (Additions and tweaks)

• Multiplayer Menus (Join, Host, and Configuration Parameters)

• Steam Online Subsystem (Integration with Steam)

• Character Core Tweaks (New animations, Equipment, Conditions, Functions)

• Character Stats and Conditions - Migration and development of stat burn calculators (denoted as 'Decay Factors') and the net new development of the Conditions system (Ex: Character illnesses))

• Character Creation Screen (New separate character creation screen)

• Visual Inventory Bugfixes / Pickup and Carrying (New methods for picking up and carrying entities)

• Welding (First Pass of Development)

• Models and Textures - Character equipment and Game Environment (New and remasters)

• MCV (MKI) - Enhanced Texturing and Modeling for the existing MCV Model (Recognized as MKI)

• MCV (MKII) - New MCV model type and textures.

• World Sky and Cubemap blending (Additional Dynamic Skyboxes along with Texture Blending)

• Weather and Effects (Tweaks and Enhancements)

• Artillery (New Artillery Cannon Model, Sounds, Textures, and Pooling systems for Performance)

• New Companies

• Terminals and Applications (Groundwork completion of Core Applications such as the Centauri Exchange, Allegiance applications, and cloning)

• Holograms

• Performance Considerations

• Packaging and Testing (Regular Cadence of Packaged builds to flesh out any package errors immediately)

• OST Soundtrack (New variety of tunes)

• Changelog/Bugfixes

Closing Notes:

The discord Server has surpassed 22k members! Thank you all for being here, showing your continued support, helping out new users, and answering questions.

Most importantly, take care of yourself, stay healthy, and show kindness and respectfulness to one another - If beta decay can continue to bring people together, send a positive message, and be inspirational - then to me, this is the greatest success and an achievement to be proud of. 🤟Thank you!!

If there are any questions or concerns feel free to reach out at: admin@rotoscopestudios.com

Development Progress Tracker

Within the main menu, a new section exists to view the game's Early Access features, their progress, and overall game development progress to 1.0. (The has not yet been made public, still work in progress and will be released when ready. Ex: Image below provided as an example

• Added primary game features (Early Access Scoped Features)

• Added secondary game features (Arriving during Early Access, or 'potentially' post 1.0)

• Added progress percentages and descriptions for each feature.

• Added rollup calculator that determines overall Early Access percentage complete.

• Added icons, images, and logos for each feature.

Music Player

Within the Pause menu a toggleable drop down music player exists on the main menu screen.

• Allows the ability to Play, Stop, and switch songs.

• Added a visualizer that plays with music (not to the beat... but perhaps a future addition).

Main Menu / Settings

There have been several changes and additions to the main menu and 'settings' sections.

• UI Formatting - The entire Main Menu has been reformatted to fit all resolution scales. Previously certain resolutions would cause the UI formatting to not be visible on screen. For example: shrinking the screen horizontally a significant amount would cause several UI elements to disappear or appear off screen.

• Resolution Confirmation Dialog - Within the settings screen - Added a pop up dialog box when changing resolutions and when changing Fullscreen/Windowed modes. The prompt will ask to accept the settings, otherwise a countdown timer will revert the screen to it's previous state. This is an important function otherwise the game can easily be stuck in a 'bad' resolution state that may be difficult to revert.

• Change Resolution Button - A New selection button for changing resolutions has been created. Previously, the button for cycling through resolutions was buggy and didn't always set the resolutions properly.

• Welcome Messages - When you start the game for the first time you will be prompted with a welcome message, messages about early access, and indicators to check out the 'Development Progress' section for what features are available and the game's overall progress.

• Settings integrated with Character Save data - Game Settings are now integrated within each player character data save.

• Sound Effects - Replaced all menu button sounds to be more unique and to better fit the aesthetic (instead of generic/standard sci fi button sounds).

Multiplayer Menus

Within the main menu, a new multiplayer section exists to either Host or Join a server. Selecting the Join sub menu will display a server browser list. Selecting the Host sub menu will display the following dialog with server configuration parameters:

• Server Host configuration parameters :

  • Server Name

  • Server Description

  • Lan

  • Password

  • Allow TPS

• There are more planned configuration settings that will be added over time. Provided are the first development pass settings.

Steam Online Subsystem

Creating multiplayer servers is now compatible with Steam's online subsystem. This means, amongst leveraging several other Steam functions, that clients will connect using the host’s Steam ID instead of the host's dynamic IP.

There is still much testing to be done with Steam compatibility. What has been accomplished so far is preliminary/first round. This is a core task that needed to be tackled early on to minimize any development surprises moving forward.

Character Core (Additions)

• Added ability to 'Zoom' the camera at any time by pressing default key 'z'. This aims to remediate issues reading/understanding in game elements that may otherwise be difficult to see due to pixelation.

• New Primary Walk animation and Jog animation.

• Tweaks to backwards run animation.

• New Sneaking Animation when aiming while walking. Footstep audio also lowers in this state.

Character Stats and Conditions (Decay Factor)

Core character stats, conditions, and calculators have been migrated to the new build.

The 'Decay Factor' relates to how quick or often a character's stat will decrease over time. This functionality is similar to most RPG's 'stat burn'.

Several of the 'Decay' calculators have been migrated. For example:

• Stamina Decay Factor - The rate at which your stamina decreases. In other words, if you sprint all the time, you will run out of overall stamina faster resulting in your need to rest.

• Stamina Thresholds - How long you can sprint for

• Bio Energy Decay Factor - Rate at which your internal Bio Energy decreases (Replenished by consuming Bio Cells)

  And so forth..
  

  Calculators/Decay factors have also been migrated for

  • Health Regen

  • Heart beat Rate calculations

  • Thirst

  • Hunger

  • Restroom

  • Hygiene

  • Mental

  • Overall wellness

A net new system for Character Conditions has been introduced.

• Conditions relate to illnesses or player status' that also directly influence decay factors.

• The character may have multiple conditions that compound to significantly increase/decrease decay factors.

Character Creation Screen

• A new separate character creation screen has been created and is prompted on the game's first start. Listed below are the customizable settings:

  • First Name, Last Name

  • Gender

  • Weight

  • Height

  • Face

  • Hair

  • Hair Color - (5 Shades, light to dark)

  • Skin Color - (5 Shades, light to dark)

• Character creation is now segregated from the main menu.

• Players have the ability to create a new character in the following scenarios:

  • At the start of the game for the first time.

  • After you delete (purge) your existing character and data.

  • After your character permanently dies.

• All player customization data is saves into the master game data file.

• A few Intro credits are present during the character creation screen along with new music and audio overlay effects.

• Your character data may also be viewed at any time through the main menu 'character' screen.

Visual Inventory / Pickup / Carrying

Within the ECS System, each entity can be picked up/carried/or moved in some way.

• Small Sized/Weighted Entities - Carried with one hand.

• Medium Sized/Weighted Entities - Carried with two hands.

Small and Medium sized entities can be equipped/mounted into the Visual inventory system after picking up.

• A next major task with the Inventory and carrying systems include network synchronization.

• Overall the visual inventory system and manipulating entities with the character has been a major challenge, and even more so with network synchronization. This is forecasted to continue being a highlighted development item.

Welding

Welding is a core game feature, and goes hand in hand with the ECS system. A first pass of welding has been in development and functions as a starting point for how entities behave in the game world. Welders assist with entity upkeep and placement which is needed for all entities, including lights, generators, terminals, and eventually spaceship components.

All entities have the ability to be picked up, carried, moved, and then placed in the game world.

• Entities are able to be put in a 'Welding' State with a welding tool. This will 'lock' the entity in place. This may be as simple as placing a shelf in your apartment, and welding it in place so it will no longer move.

• Entities are able to be 'repaired' via welding tool. Since all entities have a 'durability', using the welder on them will repair their durability back to their max amount.

Models and Textures - Game Environment

Many new 'debris' related models created, and old models reworked for the Strata ('Topside Surface') environment. This includes:

• Destroyed truck models

• Foliage (Trees, grass, bushes, branches, rocks)

• Detailed Rubble (Concrete Slabs, bricks, metal beams, fences, tarps, barriers, tires, beams, czech hedgehogs, rubble piles, barbed wire, destroyed truck variants and more)

• Hangars, Greenhouses, Pipes

• New 125mm Shells (HEAT)

• A new tree texture type (more brownish) and a few tree models. The subtle addition of different tree colors drastically changes the tone of certain environments and helps out with too much saturation.

• One new Poplar (ish) Tree type

• Created new smaller grass meshes.

• Created one new bush foliage mesh.

Models and Textures - Character Equipment

As before, new character equipment models and reworks

• Previous MCV Helmets are now labeled as 'crewman' helmets. The goal of having them be cross-functional for tank crew and MCV crew.

• New Cap, Flat cap, and Backwards Caps can be worn.

• New Pilot helmet

• New Turban type helmet

• Reworked the IR/NVG Goggle model

• New Sunglasses type - Windsor

• New Scrim Helmets (Foliage Helmets)

• New SSH-68 styled helmets

• New delivery worker Hood with Cap

• New texture for throwing knives.

• Darkened the Flare textures

• New detailed harnesses model

• Other various character equipment model and texture tweaks.

MCV's

A goal for the MCV's is to have a unique 'set' of 'Torsos' and 'Legs' for each Allegiance (Factions, Corporations, Syndicates). Below describes the extensivity of customization for Mecha:

The MCV chassis is comprised of two primary components:

• Torso

• Legs

In addition, there are 5 equipment / weaponry mounts:

• Left Arm

• Right Arm

• Left Shoulder

• Right Shoulder

• Fuel Storage (Back)

• MCV (MKI) - (Displayed Above)

  • Time has been spent towards texture and UV map corrections as well as complete retexturing of several areas.

  • Additions and corrections to the torso and leg models such as cables and foliage.

• MCV (MKII) - (New Model (Not yet displayed)

  • Created new/secondary legs for MCVs consisting of a new model and texturing.

  • Created new/secondary torso for MCVs consisting of a new model and texturing.

  • Created a new Artillery Cannon model. (This was previously the large cannon that could be seen on the left shoulder of the MCV)

  • Created Radar Equipment for the Shoulder/Arm Mounts.

  • New texturing for the Rocket and Missile Mountable Weapons.

• Early Access of beta decay will be using the core components and mounts listed above as the baseline. However, there are plans for several more sub-components/mounts as it relates to MCV maintenance.

World Sky and Cubemap Blending

Previously a single static sky/cubemap was used as the artwork for the planet skybox.

• There are now additional skybox/cubemap textures.

• The sky texture will change based on the weather.

• The change is a blend between the textures. This is a low performance cost, a retro effect that simulates a dynamic sky.

• Reworked the Planetary Cloud Texture and Material. Previously there were wrapping issues with the texture where you could clearly see the seems where the planet's spherical cloud texture started and ended. The Spherical based clouds that wrap the planet are now seamless and slowly move. They will also darken depending on atmospheric light.

• Reduced the Stars skybox texture size from 32 mb to 8 mb.

Weather and Effects (System Tweaks)

• The weather system has been expanded to allow ease of use (From a developer perspective) to quickly create varieties of weather. The system takes a list of basic input parameters that will generate a weather conditions . Previously, each type of weather condition was hard coded.

• Each weather condition has its own set of properties such as:

  • Rain / Amount of Rain

  • Fog / Thickness

  • Wind / Speed

  • Lighting and Thunder

  • Debris / Other particle effects

  • Weather Audio / Ambience/Rain/Thunder/Etc

• As mentioned in DevLog #30 - Wind speed affects several in game elements such as foliage, debris, character clothing and hair, and other cloth elements.

Artillery (Major Enhancements)

Artillery functions as important immersion factor for the topside strata (planet surface). The goal is to provoke a sense of fear/suspense at the moment artillery can be heard firing, and a reaction to immediately evacuate and seek cover. Artillery had already existed in previous builds but several enhancements have been made.

• Portions of the previous artillery system have been migrated to the new build.

• Artillery now uses a pooling system similar to the ECS system. This should help with performance since artillery barrages do happen often. This means instead of creating and destroying explosion effects over and over, we initially load entire artillery systems/effects and can re-use them over and over. This should help alleviate any spikes/hiccups when artillery systems are triggering.

• Artillery barrages are successfully are synced over the network.

• All new sound effects. Incoming shell whistles, explosion hits, and more distant shell sounds.

• New, much larger explosion effects have been created when the shell collides and explodes. These effects have also been stripped down to be more lightweight and performant. Previously there were several components within the particle system that had to be loaded/spawned causing noticeable hiccups.

• After impact smoke particle effects now last longer creating a stronger dust sensation

• A long term smoke stack will remain at the location of an artillery strike for several minutes. This functions as another immersion to provoke a feeling of walking through a scarred/active battlefield.

• As before, distant artillery shell fire sounds can be heard prior to an inbound artillery barrage.

• A future task is to illuminate the sky for each fired artillery shell as another indicator of the start of a barrage.

New Companies

A goal for the Centauri Exchange is to build a significantly sized company index to trade from. This means building up the company list is an ongoing development task (As also noted in the previous devlog #31). Each week or two a few companies make it through the pipeline into the Centauri Exchange. This includes unique names and logos.

Another Example Company below:

Terminals and Applications

Completed core functionality for several major terminal applications. These were hinted in DevLog #31. The majority of the work remains with network testing and bugfixing (mostly around how the player interacts with the terminal itself. (For example: What happens if the player gets moved/killed while using a terminal, or if the terminal itself gets destroyed, etc) There is much testing needed around this feature.

Terminal Models and the following core applications have been developed:

• Allegiance Terminal

  • Allowing the ability for users to register their own Custom allegiance (Faction, Syndicate or Corporation

  • Ability to Set the Name, emblem, and description.

  • Network testing pending.

• Centauri Exchange Terminal

  • Displays all publicly tradable companies along with their individual metrics.

  • A company's value is dynamically calculated from a variety of metrics and simulated.

  • Every transaction event changes fundamental company values such as revenue, expenses, assets which in turn influences the price per share of the company.

  • Trade events remain in development as well as network synchronization.

• Contract Board / Employment Terminal.

  • The contract terminal and first pass of it's application have been created. However, The entirety of the contract system is very early in development and there is much work to be done here.

• Cloning Terminal

  • Allows the ability to purchase clones and or clone insurance.

  • An important note - I have been using the word 'cloning' to describe the character respawn/replication process but the correct word for the game's cloning system has yet to be been communicated (as it is significant). It will be revealed upon Early Access release.

• Terminal Screens will now disable when the player is far enough distance away. Rendering the terminal screens is very performance heavy so this is necessary.

• Banking Terminal

  • Allows the ability to deposit and withdrawal Centeks

Holograms

Holograms function as a form of information and entertainment. More to come in future updates!

Performance Considerations and Package Testing

• Build Size - The build size has slightly increased, and will continue to do so as the game develops. In a future update, I will do a review of where the updated packaged build size stands. This is part of a regular technical audit / cleanup that is performed to keep the development environment lean, and to maintain a efficient workflow (This even includes simple things such as organizing files and folders).

• Package Testing - Regular Cadence of packaging development builds to ensure fixes/adjustments are regularly made as close to production ready as possible.

• Camera Lean Event Based - Camera rotation on lean now uses a an event based system rather than constantly forcing camera rotation on update saving on calculation time.

OST (Soundtrack)

• More new tracks including - House/Dance, Bumps, Cinematics, 'Alert Mode' Cinematic Type tracks, and more.

• Several of the new tracks have been selected to be featured within the Music player on the pause menu.

Changelog / Bugfixes

• Bugfix - Fixed a critical bug with the ECS highlight system that would completely break when Terminals were spawned. The result was entity highlight text components visually remaining on the screen and not clearing. Unfortunately, this consumed a lot of hours to resolve :(

• Bugfix - Player could not move left/right in cover mode - Bug caused by an attempt to normalize diagonal movement speed.

• Bugfix - Fixed bug when exiting the pause menu with a keypress, the menu was still locked in the 'paused' state.

• Changelog - When a new entry is logged within the DevCon, the display will automatically scroll to the end. If manual input is detected the devcon will not auto scroll and maintain the location.

• Changelog - Set a limit on the rotation angle for cables and clothes lines affected by wind. Previously these elements swung to aggressively in high winds.

• Changelog - New CRT Monitor Meshes

• Bugfix - A Terminal 'Mouse' icon now renders on top of everything. Previously it sometimes appeared hidden behind UI elements.

• Bugfix - Characters will now 'lose focus' on the terminal they were using when looking away. This prevents unwanted input detection on the terminal when no longer interacting with it.

• Bugfix - Clotheslines and Cables now blow in the correct direction of the wind.

• Bugfix - When using input/keyboard on a terminal the character will no longer move.

• Bugfix - Fixed a critical issue with the DevCon, that was creating multiple instances over the network and not displaying logs properly. The logging now works as expected in stand alone and networked play.

• Changelog - Added quiet footstep noises for Sneaking and Crouch sneaking.

• Bugfix - Fixed several bugs where the DevCon couldn't be referenced in standalone/singleplayer mode.

• Changelog - Added a secondary popup dialog on the character screen after clicking the 'purge' button to delete you character. This is a doublecheck/safe. This is important!

• Changelog - Male and Female 'naked' textures and UV maps have been re done resulting in better texture alignment, detail, and colouring.

• Bugfix - Several bugfixes to the weather system such as rainfall sounds continuing to play when rain storms had stopped, fading in/out sounds not working properly, and improved look of cables and tarps that are effected by wind speed.

• Changelog - Added debris and different paper types that also move with the speed of the wind outdoors.

• Changelog - Created new radiator model and texture.

• Changelog - Created new game start loading screen with animation

• Changelog - Added an additional introduction message boxe that provides direction to the 'development' roadmap tab.

• Bugfix - Fixed bug where after creating your character for the first time, the default/initial outfit was not applying when loading the character in the new game world.

• Bugfix - Fixed bug where the 'blinking face' was not saving and applying after creating your character for the first time.

• Bugfix - Fixed critical bug that occurred when attempting to start a packaged build, the game would error out immediately on start.

• Changelog - Added check to character creation screen to ensure that a first and last name exists before continuing.

• Changelog - Darkened Hand textures. Also decreased the detail of the hand textures.

• Changelog - Brightened eyes of several head/face textures. Previously you were unable to tell if the character was looking/blinking as the eye sockets were too dark.

• Bugfix - Added a smoothing interpolation for weather/wind. Previously, weather changes would jump from one state to another. There now is a blend and gradual increase of low winds to high winds.

• Bugfix - Fixed an issue with wind strength and turbulence that caused specific foliage (tarps and grass) to react far too aggressively from wind.

• Bugfix - A universal time displays within the game - This display now works correctly on the DevCon and Securities exchange terminals. Root issue revolved around the save/load system - where the universal time was not saving correctly, which in turn caused it to never be loaded when the game started.

• Bugfix - Fixed a critical bug with the startup game logic that improperly set whether the game was in single player mode or multiplayer mode.

• Bugfix - Fixed a backend bug where 'deploying' entities kept adding additional tags onto the entity. The tags now clear first before deploying, so only a single determinant tag exists.

• Changelog - Game now autosaves character and game data every 15 seconds. Additional auto save preventions put in place (For example: during the character creation screen).

Thank you for taking the time to read until the end! :p