New explosions, decals and damage indicators... so pretty stuff essentially, yeah.
As usual I spend most of the time in the video frantically trying to not lose against the AI so I’ll put down a bit of extra info here.
The first thing I talk about is damage indicators. These are essentially little floating numbers that come off the platform whenever damage is dealt (or repaired). What’s nice about them is it gives you a really nice visual representation of the maths that is going on under the hood.
They make the effect of armour much clearer as you can clearly see a cannon doing 20 against a laser (0 armour), 15 against another cannon or empty platform (5 armour) and only 8 against a launcher (12 armour). This will become more and more important in the Ionage campaign as you will be able to adjust the stats of your weapons by customising them with modules, not forgetting the buffs that upgrades will offer. These little numbers will make it really clear just what effect all the stat changes are having!
The other thing I talk about in the video is the explosions. These used to be single sprite animations but now they are composite animations made up of many smaller ones. They are essentially particle-based as each bit of the explosion is a separate entity with its own randomised speed and inertia, therefore no two explosions are the same.
The final thing I’ve added which I forgot to mention in the video is the damage decals. Now whenever a unit is at or below 40% health they have a damage decal applied. This makes it so much easier to spot your enemy’s (and your own!) weakspots.
Next I’m going to be working on a few interface upgrades based on the feedback my playtesters gave me in the Alpha survey. Thanks guys!
