BLOG ENTRY 35 9.2.2021

DEV STATUS

Making masters has been quite the adventure, I am tired. But not in a bad way mind you, I’ve come up with some pretty cool stuff. I’m currently working on loot drops, adjusting weapon damage based on rarity, and elemental effects. A lot of it is still getting cooked but once it’s implemented it’s gonna be awesome, I can’t wait to show it off.

COVER SYSTEM UPDATE

I have made a master cover blueprint that currently holds a lot of information regarding the cover itself. It’s a neat little cube with the cover volume attached to it. This way If I have destructible cover, once the cover is the destroyed the volume goes with it. I still haven’t studied the code necessary to make destructible cover, but I’m working on it.

COVER CONSTRUCTOR

I have concocted a cover constructor that I am very proud of. It’s based on a mesh placement vector, so all I have to do is drag the point where I want to make the cover, and it will automatically spawn usable cover, this is going to be such a handy tool for level design. It also works vertically. I’ve still to set up having the player character detect whether or not you are behind low or high cover, but it’s gonna take some serious noodle power, and I think making the weapon and inventory system is more important at the moment.

The best thing about the way I’ve worked in this cover system is the fact that it works with other blueprints as well. So even if the path I made is made up of different components, the player character will still follow the path of the cover. I hope it works the same way when I implement AI that takes cover as well. We’ll see.

NEXT STEPS

I intend to complete the cover system and try to get each segment of the cover constructor to be editable. I’ve already made it so it becomes an array. but I’ve yet to figure out how to edit them. Once I’m done with that I’ve got a bunch of fixes and updates I need to implement before I start spawning weapons. and I have to study and work on the new inventory system.

As I mentioned previously I’ve got a lot of things in the works but they’re still very much in the early stages, I’m trying to take one system at a time so I don’t overwhelm myself like before and end up paralyzed with minimal progress on each system.

In the meantime enjoy a bug on the main menu I can’t seem to fix that turned it into an FPS.

With that I’m out for the day, I’ve got some drawing to attempt and some projectiles to re-parent. I will try to post more often as I’ve left the page a bit blank these past 2 weeks. Real Life man. It’s hard.

Considering boomer shooters.

Daniel “Freaky” Aguilar

Game Designer

Plasmapunk Studios

Constructing Cover and Cover accessories.