VR Designs

Snippet #28: Combat

I am trying to make the Combat Windows in SE a bit more exciting than the ones we have in ATG/DC. And at the same time I would like these windows to become a bit more insightful (in an easy way) for players who want to know the nitty-gritty of the rather complex combat resolution calculations.

Here is a quick screeny of a small scale battle:

Not completely happy yet here. The lavendel colors are not helping either to be honest :) but this part of the UI is still work-in-progress.

What I am trying to do is use the screen real estate better. If there are not that many troops involved then I can show big pictures of all the subformations involved. If the battles get more massive the perspective will zoom-out and/or propose pagination.

I am also adding the option to let the players chose if they want to use ‘auto-combat’ or manually give the order for each next combat round.

Combat is based on a very many variables. Even more than in my previous games.

Factors that play a major role in combat outcome is the Equipment concerned, the quality of the Troops, the Skills of the Commanders leading the troops (Operational HQ and Strategic HQ) and the Posture they have ordered for their Troops. And of course the Landscape and environmental factors.

Other factors include the type of armour versus the type of weaponry used. Low caliber guns will for example perform dismally against really heavily armoured targets.

There are also more exotic weapons to be obtained like Lasers and Atomics. Armour research can provide you with Polymer Armour and furthermore it will be possible to research and construct Shield Generators.

There are many more factors which influence things like Unit Feats, Field Testing and upgrading of your Models as well as your Regime Profile.

I am happy that everything is already in the game and that I am now finalizing the interface and doing a lot of tuning and testing. It is a big game and I need time to polish the rough corners. Hopefully in summer we can move forward to an early beta.

In any case Shadow Empire is shaping up as high complexity sandbox turn-based 4X wargame with plenty of immersion.

Thanks for reading up on this latest snippet and i’ll keep you posted as I progress.

Best wishes,
Vic

Snippet #27: Graphical make-over
Sorry for the long time of absence. I had a rather rough second part of 2018, don’t ask! But I am back in business and trying to catch up on lost development time. At the moment I am working on making the interface graphics in Shadow Empire more consistent and more unique (compared to my other games).

Progress is good, but it has been rather slow going with the modular graphics approach for the Troop Types. Basically each kind of troops, like Light Tanks can have a few hundred different ways it can be rendered. I have also been improving the tech tree.

Anyways I almost finished with the interface artwork phase and will then be moving to map artwork phase.

Let me share a little bit. Here are a few quick screenies from the current progress:

Just some Militia Units exploring the wastelands

The troops inside one of our Militia Units

Info on our starting Zone and its Governor

Hope to show some more snippets soon and thank you for your time!

Best wishes,
Vic

No snippet this time. I have just started on the Graphics & Interface development phase and everything is now in transition. So it is hard for me to post a screenie on what I am working on. This Graphics & Interface phase is quite a big phase, but things are progressing well and I already know this will be a huge facelift.

I am not only tackling the graphics itself, but also the way they are build. I can already disclose I am going for a modular approach for Leaders and Equipment. I figured that even if I would do a 100 or 200 unique portraits for Leaders they would quickly turn stale. So I am now trying out a 2d layered approach which seems to be working very well. This should result in thousands of clearly different faces (and well… yeah… tens of thousands of slightly different ones as well).

Tests so far show I’ll be able to implement the same method for the Model Types. Remember that every time you play the game you’ll research and then design new models, like Tanks for example. Everytime you play you’ll have different equipment. It just felt wrong if in one game you designed a ‘Puncher Light Tank’ and in another an ‘Arctus Light Tank’ that they looked exactly the same. Or if you’d upgrade the ‘Arctus’ to ‘Arctus II’ that it would visually be completely identical. The method I am working on should assure multiple dozens of quite different looks for each Model Type (and well… yeah… a hundred or more slightly different ones). Over 20 different Model Types are planned for the final game, so the total amount of looks for your military equipment should be quite impressive.

Anyways just wanted to tell I am still working hard. My apologies for not visually showing anything this post. My next snippet will probably show a first screenshot of some of the final graphics.

Best wishes,
Vic