Missiles and Much More news

Welcome to a new devlog for Assembly RTS, the physics-based real-time strategy game!

Hello guys, it was about time that I wrote another devlog, right?
Could you guess what the screenshot I showed off in my last devlog was pointing at?
If you guessed "rocket pods", you are correct!

Yes, it's now possible for a unit to have secondary armament.
In the future there will be different secondary weapons to choose from for your units.

But for what purpose? The answer is simple - versatility.
Sure, a clear rock-paper-scissors principle is important for every RTS game.
No single unit should be able to counter every other unit in the match.

However, it's good to have the option to add a bit of stopping power in a second category.
This means that if your unit's main weapon is a cannon you can choose a secondary weapon that deals a different kind of damage. For example rocket damage, or bullet damage.

The downside for the player? Choosing a secondary weapon makes a unit considerably more expensive.
I predict that secondary weapons could become a popular choice for well-armored vehicles.

Because an armored unit naturally has better survivability, it makes sense to make it a more well-rounded force to contend with than say, a light-weight, more specialized unit.

After my first overhaul on the infantry visuals I still wasn't satisfied.
The colorful infantry units just didn't sit right with me. I guess it must be because no soldier in their right mind would walk around like that in the middle of an arctic environment. They would stick out like a sore thumb. Of course realism isn't something I'm going for. On the other hand I think that immersion is very important. This lead me to try three different solutions to this problem.

The one thing in common between these approaches was to keep the soldier uniforms neutral and well adapted to an arctic environment, while having a separate visual element displaying the team color simultaneously.

The first approach I tried was to add fake volumetric lights to the soldiers.
That looked fine when close up with the camera, but wasn't visible enough from far away.

The second approach I took was illuminating the infantry in their respective team colors using a special shader. While looking novel from close up, this again wasn't obvious enough from a distance.

The final solution I found was to create a unique billboard shader with a bright 'light'.
At first I wasn't convinced, but after trying different kinds of light shapes this was the definite winner.

Early experiment using the new 'bright light' solution for infantry

It turned out to work really well. Close up and from afar it always looks nice and is clearly visible.

By using various shapes for the bright light its even possible to distinguish different infantry types from one another.

The soldiers to the right use a light with a horizontal flare.
The infantry unit at the bottom has an angled flare.

Keeping user interface interference to a minimum has always been a goal for Assembly RTS and this fits the bill perfectly.
You could argue that these lights aren't really any different from overlaid icons you might find in other strategy games, but I disagree.
The big distinction here is that this novel approach doesn't break immersion.

Additionally, I improved the animations for the infantry.
I found that running infantry tends to look weird. I can't explain why. Now they will walk quickly instead.

Previously when a vehicle exploded it was interchanged with an entirely different vehicle behind the scenes. The destroyed vehicle was without a texture, simply colored dark gray.

The new solution is to no longer switch out the vehicle as it explodes, but to modify the shader properties instead, with the appearance of a cracked, burnt and glowing surface.
Finally, I made the glowing team color blink on and off for dramatic effect as the vehicle is "dying".

Also please notice the new smooth-as-butter recoil animation :)

Trees now sway in the wind.
This is entirely done within a shader that changes the vertex positions of the tree in real time.
I'm not entirely satisfied with how it looks, but it will do for now.

In the future I would like to make it even more obvious that its often extremely windy.
Also I'd like to include realistic snow particles which reflect this.
Yes, this is an inhospitable arctic new ice age and I want that to be as clear as the snow crystals clinging to your face.
I will have to find a solution for the particle effects to reflect the wind intensity as well.

During the past two weeks there's been quite a bit of brainstorming going on in my Discord server with a lot of interesting ideas shared in the new forum section.

I'm glad that I'm no longer the only one thinking about the gameplay design for Assembly RTS.
It's awesome to get input from people who are passionate about helping out with the thought process behind making this game as fun and rewarding as possible.

I'm always looking forward to your much valued input.