Hi all,
Here's the reconsidered post-0.2 roadmap, as promised:
Quite a radical reorder there but hear me out.
The reorders are driven by a desire to focus on core gameplay. Focusing on making a polished heavy-feeling and realistic single player tank experience with just AP cannons, RHA armour, good maps, good AI, good audio and a load of immersion. Then all of the other bits can come onto a strong gameplay foundation.
Before getting into that, I'm going to implement deep mod support. This will hopefully let modders temporarily meet the demand for the non-core gameplay but highly requested (and mod friendly) features, until they get an official implementation.
I’ve removed the dates as these long term goals are impossible to predict (as I’ve repeatedly demonstrated). The ETAs tend to invalidate the roadmap and make people think it's no longer the plan, causing confusion. So it's best to just let the roadmap show the order.
GUI overhaul & localization
Adds long overdue support for translations. The UI needs to be reworked before mod support can be added. As mentioned in the 0.2 stable post, this aims to improve the overall GUI graphics and feel, optimize it and increase flexibility for more advanced UI (e.g. graphs, tables, continuous sliders, pop-out windows).
Improved sandbox vehicle spawning (Added)
New on the roadmap but has been planned for a while. This one is very high priority but is dependant on the UI overhaul.
Mod support
0.2 added some important parts of mod support (Part definitions, eras and technology limits). Audio, meshes, textures and scripting still needs to be done however. I'm putting this in early to allow modders to jump ahead on the roadmap, filling the content void while the less mod-friendly stuff (e.g. multiplayer) is sorted out.
Steam Workshop
Moved backwards a bit to prioritize localization and mod support. It's nice to have, but wouldn't exactly allow anything that couldn't be done with primitive file sharing.
Original soundtrack (Added)
Always planned but I wanted this on there.
Small-scale multiplayer
Moved much further forwards as this is one of the most in-demand features and the rewrites have made it more simple to implement.
Machine guns, autoloaders & autocannons
These have a bit more function now with open tops, so they've been moved forwards a bit.
Infantry
Changed from 'Stationary infantry'. I want Sprocket to end up closer to the real role of tanks in infantry support so I'm upping this goal to a full infantry simulation. This one needs to follow machine guns for obvious reasons.
More advanced scenario objectives (Removed)
Still planned but I've removed this as scenarios are going to be added with the features they challenge over the course of development, instead of all at once as having this on the roadmap implies.
Shell Designer
Moved back slightly to behind infantry, MGs and multiplayer, as it's simply not going to have as big of a core gameplay impact.
Anti-aircraft concerns
In the form of AI controlled aircraft. This will introduce scenarios based around creating anti-aircraft and anti-aircraft-artillery guns. This needs special bullets and shells to come with the shell designer.
Oscillating turrets
Support for these was unintentionally added in the rewrites, though it doesn't feel like the proper implementation it deserves so I'm not considering it finished.
Quad tracks
Most of the work for these was done in the rewrites and it just needs to be finished off. Makes some important tweaks to the powertrain system which wheels need too.
Wheels
Staying around the same priority.
Tutorials
Moved way back as community-made tutorials seem be working for the early-access period and it doesn't seem in-demand. These also have a constant maintenance cost from the time their introduced, so better to have near the end.
I'll be keeping this version more up to date in future, crossing things off as they're done.
- Hamish