A new update has been added to the beta branch. It's been a while since my last update, as I'm quite busy with other things these days. I actually made these changes back in December, but have only now got around to releasing them.
This update is all about the team AI, which coordinates all the soldiers on a team by giving them strategic objectives. The update fixes two problems:
If you follow orders, you typically spend a good deal of the game running between blue spawn points, which isn't all that exciting, and isn't a very efficient use of what is probably the team's best soldier.
Soldiers often pass each other, going in opposite directions between friendly spawn points. That is a waste of resources, as in theory the two soldiers could have saved time and energy by simply swapping orders. Furthermore, the more time soldiers spend moving between friendly spawn points, the less time they are spending attacking the enemy.
This update fixes both these problems by 1) always ordering the player to the nearest enemy spawn point, and 2) reassigning bots instead of having them run past each other. The AI still attempts to spread out the team's soldiers evenly along the perimeter of the team's territory, but it's the bots that are now assigned to the more distant positions.
The upshot of all this is that if you follow orders, you should find that you now experience much more action than you did before.
Update #9
An ongoing issue with Bot War is that games tend to end up in a stalemate, and then drag on for ages. To fix this, I've made the following changes, which are now in the beta release.
The team AI now attempts to surround its enemies in order to prevent them from breaking out. Players will now find that they are often ordered through a series of blue spawn points. What the AI is doing is manoeuvring you to a particular gap in the front line that it wants you to fill.
The bots on the blue team are now generally more skilled (quicker reactions and more accurate) than on the other teams. This causes the blue team to steadily make headway. On the higher difficulty levels, the difference in skill is less, and so the player plays a more pivotal role. So, if you find the game too easy, increase the difficulty level to give the blue team less of an advantage. Note also that there are now five difficulty settings.
The result of these changes is that games now finish in a timely manner. Expect further changes to the AI strategy in future updates, as I have some more ideas for improvements in this area.
Controls Tutorial Added
I don't know how well players have been getting on with the controls in Bot War, as they're quite different from normal. I've been trying to create a tutorial video to explain how it all works for ages, and I've finally managed to create one that I'm happy with. The tutorial video is on the Bot War store page, but I've also uploaded it to YouTube.[previewyoutube="Qy8aGny_vnc;full"]
Update #8
A new update is now on the beta branch.
You're now more likely to be sent to an enemy spawn point that's on the edge of blue territory, rather than one that's well into either of the other two teams' territories.
I also noticed that enemy bots had a tendency to spawn in front of you and then immediately turn around and run off. This has now been fixed. So, if an enemy bot spawns in front of you now, then as long as he sees you, he'll turn around and start shooting at you.
The colour of the light now varies between slightly yellow and slightly blue in order to give the impression of warm and cold temperature. It's a subtle but effective visual improvement that makes the nights and the polar regions seem colder, and the day and the sandy middle regions seem hotter.
Update #7
The beta branch has been updated. The player and the bots now get awarded ranks. There are four ranks, although the number of positions available at each rank is limited. The more enemy soldiers you kill, and the more spawn points you capture, the greater your chances of being promoted. Your current rank is shown in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and the ranks of other soldiers are shown above their heads.
Patch #6
I've added a new patch to the beta branch. There are various minor tweaks and bug fixes, but the main change is that the easy level is now even easier, as my dad reckoned it was still too difficult.
Patch #5
A new patch is finally on the beta branch. Most of my time has been spent making the controls (how you move and look around using the keyboard and mouse) smoother and more versatile. A few bugs where you would end up walking on the spot have been fixed too. The other thing is that you can now set the difficulty level of the bots to easy, medium, or hard.
The difficulty level covers two aspects of bots: reaction time and accuracy. On hard level, bots react instantly, and shoot with absolute accuracy (assuming the speed and direction of the target remains unchanged). On easy level, bots are relatively slow to react, and not particularly accurate at long range. Medium level is what bots have been on up until now. The default difficulty is easy.
Patch #4
Patch #4 is now on the beta branch. This patch mainly focuses on the AI. There are a few bug fixes and improvements, but the main ones are:
Fixed a bug where bots would judder for a moment as they went from running to walking.
Fixed a bug where bots would often walk back and forth, typically just outside spawn points, and never actually go anywhere.
One thing that was quite annoying was that the AI would keep on changing your orders. This is now fixed, so your orders now only get changed if it's really necessary.
Patch #3
A new patch is now on the beta branch. There are two changes. The first is that you can now reconfigure the keys in the menu. The second is that the nights are now shorter and brighter, so it's easier to see what's happening at night. Feel free to let me know what you think, or if something's not working properly.
Patch #2
Sorry for the lack of upgrades for a while. I've been working on tracking down and fixing a load of memory leaks, and this turned out to be quite a massive task. I've now put this work onto the beta branch. Players should now find that the performance remains stable no matter how long they play the game. Please let me know if I've broken anything.
