Parabellum Galaxia
Small Changes - Fixed high rotation bug and adjustable velocity limits for ships
Additions:
*Implemented Velocity Limit - This is based on relative velocity so it may be prone to chaining effects but in short term it should be useful. A default velocity is defined as a value of 5000*sqrt(1/mass) therefore a 7000 tonne vessel should be around 60m/s whilst a heavier vessel of 14000 tonnes will be about 40m/s. These speeds are adjustable per ship by the player in its current form but it should help eliminate overspeed issues (ie. when fleets are heading towards each other at >100m/s and their efforts to slow down are comically ineffective).
*Fixed rotation on initiation bug - Fix is a generous term but ive put a limit on the maximum appliable impulse, in some instances it was applying a rotational velocity change per frame greater than 1rad/s, a limit has been moved from 1000rad/s to a much more sensible 0.5rad/s impulse which frankly is still very high. The real issue is somewhere deep in the maths where its generating these numbers from a zeroed state, the solution here does result in the frame missing rotational acceleration but these seem to be very rare so it shouldnt have a big effect. On plus side for multiplayer the result was always reproducable which means my lockstep multiplayer build should work well at least for like for like cpu types (need lots of players to test all this of course!)
New Menu options and Various Fixs
*Adjusted Grip sensitivity for non Oculus devices - This is untested but is based on feedback that even small touches were enabling grip button to activiate, a threshold value has been placed which should hopefully fix this.
*System Menu and Graphs - This is for power/weapons/behaviour and motion with each item modifiable, only works for a single ship at a time.
- Power = You can now adjust reactor power and you can visually see the effect on Detectability and the lag effect of adjusting power.
- Engines = You can alter the behaviour of motion, all parts are active except Velocity Limit which is to be enabled. If your ship designs are slow to rotate you can rebias them to prioritise rotation over linear thrust.
- Weapons = Defines which weapon types are enabled to fire upon enemy.
- Behavior = Currently defines auto targeting and pursue tactics.
*SubSystem Modification - Here you can select the various components themselves and individually adjust component (turret/missile etc.) Target behavior.
*Adjustable Laser Power - This is useful if for example your turrets are focussed on missiles and you do not need full power and don't want to drain charge as fast. This means you have more shots for taking out missiles.
*Adjustable flight behaviour - individual engine output can be adjusted or they can be altered more globally.
*Updated voxel damage model shader - The Voxel cubes now only render when they overlap the ship model. This should be more clear which area is subject to what damage.
Please give me feedback, if its not working for any of you theres a good chance im unaware and would love to help!
Various Updates
Ship Motion Behaviours now work simplistically.
Raycast based Asteroid evasion. Ships will now travel around asteorids rather than through them.
Ships shouldnt now fire through asteroids. The issue beforehand was colliders for asteroids were there but they werent scaled up to the size of the asteroid (so in effect were inactive).
This includes all the updates included in the latest demo.
Game Update! New assets and behaviours.
- Beam weapons implemented with test assets. These are fixed axis weapons so our ships have to turn to face the enemy target.
- Improved Motion Behaviours. Ships will move towards or away from target or stay passive depending on its assigned behaviours.
- Improved base environment. Updated star, starfield and planet.
- Various bug fixes and VR interface fixs.
- Improved Entity Destroy Behaviour. This should remove issues of entities being destroyed and causing potential crash or error.
This update will form the base for a demo i plan to issue for SteamVR festival which will feature my best ship designs and a single well though out mission (As opposed to the current ones where the dog is normally competing for my attention by destroying my carpet!). Cheers and please give any feedback!
Interim Update - 220616
Having tested with Steam VR I am now very aware stutter on the main frame is not tolerable and will now be my main focus.
Additions include..
*Heavy Armour Type - Graphic is TBC but it should now allow for a heavier armour type for ships with approx x3 the mass and health points of a regular armour slot.
*Beam Weapons - Integrated and working, however as this is a interim build i havnt got round to making a appropiate turret for this and SFX. This includes updates to the damage model to accomadate this.
*Tweaked Meshing - Corrected some meshing errors during ship generation. A more Comprehensive version of this is planed which should make mesh generation far more reliable.