Hey everyone, as some of you have pointed out, it has been a while since I've provided any official update on development, so I'd like to provide some insight into what has been going on since the last SITREP.
Although there has been a lot of work done on various things, there are a few notable improvements that should be highlighted here.
1. Vehicle Damage Models
A lot of work has gone into making Vehicles generally better and more fun to shoot. The original vehicles (implemented in the currently released version) utilized Unreal Engine's provided vehicle classes that provide a decent foundation but ultimately don't allow much customization from that; particularly in the way Project Gunship required it.
So instead of heading down that same route as before, I built a vehicles class from scratch. This has given much greater control over how vehicles behave and react, which overall has improved them as a target in the game. This includes:
Collision Avoidance: The AI is much better at avoiding objects, without requiring performance expensive tasks (like additional pathfinding or navigation mesh rebuilds in real time).
Damage Models: Depending on the munition type and the location of your hits, vehicles can become disabled, lit on fire, or explode.
Destructible vehicles: You can now tear pieces off vehicles, giving much better feedback for the damage being delt to them. Some vehicles have much more to remove than others, but it's entertaining to pick them apart as they attempt to drive away.
Disembarking Infantry: Something else that didn't exist before was enemy infantry abandoning vehicles as they take damage. Engaging transport vehicles that are full of infantry, that begin dispersing like ants is pretty entertaining and such a small addition makes a big difference.
I think at this point, they are in a pretty good spot, but I'm sure more improvements will be made as I increase the variety of vehicles available in the game. 2. Helicopters have found their way back into the game
Although they haven't had much of a role in prior version of the game, that is changing now. Granted the UH-1 Huey was such a prominent aspect of the Vietnam conflict, it only makes sense to have them be much more incorporated into the gameplay.
They still need quite a bit of work (no damage model for now), but they can fly, orbit, land, and shoot the enemy. I don't plan on having a wide variety of helos available at this point, but that may change as development on the campaigns continues in the later conflicts.
3. Scenario Editor
This is the big one that has been consuming most of the development time since the last SITREP. As I discovered in my initial attempt to build this in the last version, it is truly an iceberg of a task (luckily now it is without all the added overhead of working in "poor" code). What I didn't realize from before however (again, because of that "poor" code), is it really is like the Mount Everest of icebergs.
It is amazing how seemingly simple certain things are that turn out to be insanely complicated. Nonetheless, I've made some really good progress on this (about 100x the progress made from the first attempt) and I'm excited what this will mean for you and the game.
Unlike the training sandbox mode, the general idea behind the editor was to provide a tool that would allow to create sharable scenarios that provide all the functionality used in the official scenarios. This means being able to create objectives and radio calls, spawn infantry and objects, create trigger logic and drive AI action. So far, it has been quite a challenge, but I'm happy with how it is turning out and look forward to a finished product.
It is clear that a scenario editor is probably the most important feature to add to a game like PG, so it is the highest priority to get done. And with that, I intend to release a 0.8 version of the game as soon as it is done. This most likely will be done in separate branches to allow you to retain access to the current version, since a lot of the older scenarios need to be remade and added again to the new project.
I know it's hard to maintain excitement and patience throughout long production cycles, especially in an industry and climate where there are too many people taking advantage of others. It is clear, some feel that way about me and that is understandable. I do intent to prove all these thoughts wrong in the near future, with a game much more worthy of your time and money.
As usual, I appreciate all your support over the years, and I hope you have a good week!
-Sklor