Quote:
Originally Posted by Onkel Neal
Yes, the work on Scapa Flow (and the campaign) depends on the map coordinate system and height map system and enemy AI. To get the game in playable shape, time spent on the AI was limited to making it work well in mid-ocean environments. The game AI doesn't know about land yet.
To make land-based missions, work on the map system was begun but the devs discovered the game would need the newest version of Unity to work or they would have to do the work twice.
Also, to speed up the development process to get the game to early access and therefore financially self-sufficient, we bought an off-the-shelf water asset. This asset was good enough for the game to work properly but it had been deprecated so eventually, to keep the Unity game engine current, we had to make our own water element. As you can imagine, the water element is pretty crucial in a submarine game. Every object has to be accounted for on the z-axis, so changing the water element is a major chunk of work. So, create and tune the water asset had to get done first.
Last year about this time, we went through the same process on the network code. The initial version worked, but Oscar learned ways to make it better, more responsive and less prone to drops (a bad thing in MP games). So, even though it's the least glamorous part of the game, the network code upgrade costs a couple of months time.
So, the roadmap was restructured earlier this year to get the core components of the game sorted.
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Neal, if only this info would reach us regularly instead of "working on the water, coming soon..." every week, I would be much more confident in the end result. I know communication isn't the core business of technicians but it would certainly help to be more open. Everyone who love subsims know that it takes time, especially for a two-man team. Just be transparant about it.