Another bite of the elephant
Im always told this saying. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
The same goes for Game dev I guess
Here's what works:
Loadout:
All the guns are all working the way they are supposed to. Rifles, shotguns, flamethrowers, sniper rifles, machine guns, and a minigun
All the weapons work correctly, and have a purpose and a situation were they are well suited
Turrets: Turrets are used where a corridor needs to be locked down for a long time, where nothing comes across its line of sight. I have thrown countless bugs towards a single turret and its essentially fully defends the front of it, for about 500 rounds of ammo
Ranks: you can promote your soldiers to higher ranks. This adds a whole bunch of bonuses to the soldiers stats, including critical damage, accuracy, reaction time. The cost to rank up is expensive so sometime its better to have more weapons with lower ranks, but late game will require ranking up 5 or 6 times per soldier.
Armor is varied and valid. This is important. Heavy armor doesnt always mean superior armor for all situations. Armor increases the soldiers health and stability, but also slows down the soldier. However; some weapons require certain armor such as heavy weapons.
Soldiers will switch to their sidearms when out of ammo. This is the basic pistol, an improved magnum or SMG. These are also used while carrying objects in the other hand. such as the turret.
Environment
Doors. The doors are used to lock off certain paths that the soldiers and bugs take. Strategic opening and closing the doors should prove beneficial for the player and help keep the soldiers safe. Abusing the doors locking tho will result in them getting attacked and broken down; this can buy time for the player, but its better to make a long confusing route the bugs need to take while streamlining the path of the soldiers.
Throughout the level there are doors that need opening, and terminals that need to be used; some doors require power to run and needs fuses replaces in order to syphon power to them. This required the player to think ahead and search the level. Theres stashes of loot in the level for the player to increase their funds, and ammo caches to replenish some ammo.
Shooting the objects in the level does different things. Some objects are destroyed. Some explode. Lights go on, and off.
The levels are immersive and not static. The corridors of the ship have a certain feel to them.
Damage has been balanced and the combat feels good. the player is punished for sloppy play, and rewarded for quick smart decisions. The game plays differently each level and each playthrough. Nothing is scripted and the player has full control over how they want to complete an objective.
All core concepts and mechanics are now complete. Running at a solid 30 FPS on iPad
All that's missing is the grenades… Ill keep you updated on those