Hello everyone! Welcome to our first Dev Diary. We will be releasing these at the beginning of each month and cover everything we have worked on in the previous 30-day period. Let’s get straight into what we did in April!
At the beginning of April, the planning tools included four core functions: Queuing path waypoints, adding orders along the existing path, cutting the path, and resetting the path. This was a functional but limited system, and we finally got around to fleshing it out more. We've added the ability to insert new waypoints at any point in the waypoint queue. In this way, you can adjust and fine-tune the path very precisely, making sure every unit walks exactly where you want them to, without the need to redraw portions of the plan. This also allows for quick modifications like detours, interactions, equipment orders, and so on, without losing the plan you had already prepared. On top of that, we added the ability to remove waypoints without cutting the path, which gives you even more freedom and makes iterating plans very easy.
The way the drone interacts with the world is a core component of why this game feels truly immersive, so we want to put a lot of effort into it. Up to this point, AI units could spot the drones and be alerted by them, but nothing more. We wanted to expand this mechanic significantly. Now, when a drone is spotted, the AI unit will raise the alarm and alert all hostiles on the map to your presence. Moreover, if your drones are spotted during the initial Recon Phase of the game (when your units haven’t breached the premises yet, and you are still exploring and planning your operation), you will be on a timer to breach before the enemy manages to leave or foil the operation itself. Additionally, AI units can now engage drones with their weapons and disable them. A disabled drone remains unusable until a replacement reaches the AO. Since you can only have four drones on the map, keeping them intact and unseen is much more important now.
We’ve also been hard at work on the AI side. All their basic behaviors are fully implemented, and we will dive deeper into them in a future post (They still get stuck or screw up cover selection from time to time, but we’re getting there!). Now, we are working to expand and refine these systems further. This month, we improved cover selection capabilities, their responsiveness to contacts, and the hearing of all AI units. Up to now, they could only hear gunshots. Now, they react coherently to many more sounds, including:
Footsteps
Equipment
Screams
Door interactions
With this new setup, the way you decide to open doors becomes much more important, as louder sounds will alert enemies in a much larger area around the door itself, which you can see in the video here:
Speaking of doors, we’ve been improving our destruction effects a lot this month. They are much more detailed than what we had in the announcement trailer and, more importantly, we’ve added a lot of variations based on the type of wall or door that is being blown up and on the type of charge that is being used. A small breaching charge and a larger demolition charge will have very different effects when used on a door, for example. On top of that, we’ve added areas of effect for charges themselves, based on the potency of the explosion. Each charge now has a lethal area in the proximity of the explosion, and a larger stun area that leaves people disoriented for a while. Let us know what you think about the new effects!
On the art side, we’ve been adding the finishing touches on our first two complete levels, adding small details and ensuring that every map feels unique and interesting to explore. We have also created two different lighting setups for each level, one very dense and highly detailed, and one that is much more optimized, so they can be swapped based on the player's quality settings and ensure a smooth experience on mid and low spec PCs. Beyond that, we put a lot of work into the sound design of each area. Having a lot of subtle environmental sounds helps the mood and atmosphere a lot and makes every map feel much more alive, especially while you are exploring it during the Recon Phase.
This is all for this update! If you want to follow us more closely and get more frequent progress reports, sneak peeks, and behind-the-scenes content, feel free to join our Discord or to follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and X!