By now, everyone has seen the trailer. We’re very happy with it but we also want to let everyone know that there is more to come. We know you’ve all been waiting a while to see something new, and while our teaser was a looker we knew we’d get people clamoring for gameplay footage. This is a more technical post to give everyone a thorough update on all our core mechanics and what state they’re currently in. Some things are were in the gameplay trailer, some things are so new that they didn’t make it in.
The one thing that just came out of the oven is new ship controls. More specifically, we’ve erred on the side of realism and created an honest to god ship thrust model. We have friction, drag, and all the goodies that comes with real-world physics. Of course, we’ve simplified a few things so gameplay doesn’t get too out of hand. The main one is that all ship motion assumes it has a left and right engine. We decided not to try to model a rudder system so having two engines on either side of the ship becomes essential in turning. You can put your ship into discrete levels of forward or backward thrust, so far 7 to be exact (from -3 to 3). This basically means both the left and right side engine(s) are at the same power. Turning the ship lessens the thrust of one side and increases the other. With this, you can expect realistic ship movement. For example, it’ll take some time to come to a full stop but we’ve toned down some of the realism to ensure maneuverability and a fun control experience. But since everything is still based on a realistic system, everything just operates as you would expect it to a phenomenal degree.
You saw some of the repair mechanics in the trailer. While we’ve tested these to a greater degree than the piloting, the visuals are finally in place. Major components on the ship like the engines are able to catch fire and they look spectacular. Things are going to be chaotic aboard your airships. Fire is a particularly deadly status effect so it’s crucial for an engineer to get to the scene as soon as possible before the fire spreads (yes, this is also a thing). Without giving too much more away, an engineer has a wrench (to repair things), an extinguisher (to put fires out), and an axe (to… I wonder?).
There are already some devastating weapons like the flamethrower and gatling gun. One of my favorite effects is seeing those bullet tracers emanating from a ship in the distance. I get a feeling of impending doom, but it also gives me some time to react and prepare my own ship’s weapons for a counter attack. If the enemy makes the mistake of closing in too close, I’ll take unleash all hell with a carefully placed sweep with the flamethrower. Right now, our team is working hard to give all the weapons eye-melting effects. The process is interesting because the same effect must look good from the first person view as well as the third, and be visible from a distance. A ship taking fire needs to know where the shot is being fired from and also which gun its coming from to be exact.
And finally, one aspect that all of us in the office are looking forward to, are the stealth and visibility mechanics. We’ve talked about clouds before but what we may have skimped on is their actual gameplay involvement. Visibility is a huge factor in our in-air battles and clouds will play a large role in that. Obviously, clouds have the ability to hide you. You see a little bit of this in the gameplay footage we’ve posted. There are going to be different types so that you’ll be able to take cover in and take pot shots at someone. Other will be more dangerous and have a role in weather effects.
I’m sure everyone has a lot of questions still. We’ll try to answer them as best as we can while we’re finalizing our systems and putting them under various stress tests in a more finalized form.
Hope everyone had lots of turkey!