Hello guys,
we know, some of you are still waiting for our final update which releases Level 5 and finishes our Early Access phase. With this update we want to give you an insight, what it means to create content for an entire world level:
First of all, there are the buildings
- For each building, we need to create 3D models, three kinds: The part which has the material texture, the parts with the own textures (like windows, or lava) and the part which has the player colour.
- For all parts which have own textures, these textures must be created.
- For each building, the UI must be adjusted by adding a new case to each piece of code which deals with buildings. This also applies to sound effects.
- The collision box for each building must be defined.
- All server-side code must be extended to handle and save level 5 buildings to the savegames.
- The new buildings must be added to the map editor.
- Translations and help texts must be added.
- Some buildings even get their own new logic with a new level, for example the combat values of the level 5 defense tower, including their sound effects and particle effects, or the research lab for level 5
The good news: All Level 5 buildings are DONE
Then, we have the ships
Besides the new ship modules, there are some parts to be done, which are not as obvious:
- Models for Level 5 shield effect
- Models for Level 5 selection circle
- The new ship designer sizes
- Definitions for the creation of ship preview icons
All that is DONE
This means, Level 5 itself is fully operational, it just does not have many ship modules yet. The ship modules are pretty complicate to create, as well:
- As for the buildings, we need the three types of 3d models: own texture, material texture, player color.
- The module texture and collision boxes must be created, too.
- Translations, help texts and logic (attach directions, hitpoints, etc.) must be defined.
For engines, it gets even worse:
- Particle effects must be created and aligned properly
- Sound effects must be created and assigned.
Especially those two points take a lot of time. The good news: All the engines are DONE
Then, there are still other things to do for the ships:
- Weapon ship modules (these are as bad as the engines, with all 3d modules, textures, sound effects, particle effects, and weapon behaviour)
- Harvesting modules (these have particle effects and sounds, too!)
- Other static ship modules like cargo elements, decoratives, and detector elements.
- Build at least one level 5 ship for each major and minor faction in the game, so these guys can spawn at jump portals and appear in missions.
Level 5 will not contain as many ship modules as the previous levels, but there's still stuff to do.
Last but not least, we want to point out, that we're not a game company, but people with day jobs, family and friends, and this is a pretty massive project.
Another cause of delay was all the advertising stuff that has to be prepared before switching from Early Access to full release. That's new screenshots with the upgraded graphics engine and also two new trailers (cf. last update). Especially cutting new gameplay material and recording voices takes a lot of time.
But we are at 99% before finally leaving Early Access, and we WILL finish the last 1% as well. And it will not be that long anymore!
We're looking forward to the final release, too, so just stay tuned a little bit. :-)
Cheers