We haven’t posted one of these in a while!
We’ve been chipping away at the game where we could in the recent months. We’ve started doing some internal playtesting, and we’re preparing to publish the steam page. Since all of us are plenty busy with our day jobs, progress is slower than we’d like, but progress is progress.
The gameplay has undergone a slight rework, islands are captured by a specific unit now, the Mobile Command Post. Using it is very straight forward: Build it from one of your amphibious landing ships, small shipyards, or war factories, and send it to the island you wish to capture.
Amphibious Landing Ships can deploy them directly into the littoral waters around your target island, or you can use units like the Carryall and the Hovercraft to transport them to the island itself. Once there, it has to deploy on the capture point, and as soon as it’s done, the island belongs to you.
If the island is already occupied, the existing MCP has to be destroyed first, after which the MCP can be deployed. MCPs are very tough, and can be upgraded with additional armor. Once deployed, they can be reinforced further.
In an effort to bring everything up to the same standards of quality, we’ve remade two of the TDN’s units, the Attack Submarine, which is now the Nereus Missile Attack Submarine, and the Archer, which is their early game anti-air and scout hydrofoil, has gotten a visual update.
Other units have gotten some major reworks too, such as the TDN Battleship, and the Coalition’s Mako. The Battleship has been remade from scratch, with a completely new design, and a slightly different role. We’re calling it the Aegir-class. The old Battleship might still appear in the campaign, however.
The Mako has also gotten a significant remodel. It’s no longer their early-game scout, it’s a mid-game missile attack/hit and run unit, and the fastest naval unit in the game at present.
Next up: Steam.
The Steam page is almost ready, only really missing a couple of graphical assets, and a trailer. We’re hoping to get that done before the year is over.
And the state of the game:
The TDN is essentially done, while the Coalition are only missing their flagship at this point. The Ravagers are being redone entirely. Their original direction didn’t mesh well with the other two factions, and that needs to be rectified. Multiplayer works on two maps.
A number of gameplay mechanics and game systems are still absent or incomplete. Resource collectors, AI, scripting, aircraft carriers. AI is well underway, and needs a handful of functions still, such as using transports and is programming-wise, the largest feature left.
At its core, the game is now playable with the TDN and the CA. The balance is questionable, as tends to happen at this stage, but that’s why we test!
The HUD is being redone entirely, in a consistent stage, and by someone much more skilled at UI design than I am. It’s already looking amazing, and we can’t wait to show it off.
And that is about it for today. As it is IOTY 2021, we will most likely write another update within the week, when we have a bit more new stuff to show off.