Hello and welcome to Devlog #02. In this video we will focus on the most recent and interesting new additions and changes we made in PROXIMA.
We had some amazing feedback for the last devlog and we reached almost 6k views. It really motivated us! We saw that some of you also shared the video on Twitter and Reddit! Thank you for all the great support!
First of all we want to notify you that backers packs are not available anymore via Indiegogo. We did this because we were not satisfied with the supported payment options on there. Moving forward we’re making the backer packs now available through Patreon. Rewards are still the same and tiers too. With the only difference that you can decide how much you wanna pay upfront. So in theory you can support us with very low monthly contributions but still get rewards based on the amount you spent total. And yes Patreon also supports Paypal as a payment option.
Area System & Beacons
We continued to iterate new features for the Terra Control game mode. Our most recent additions are the beacon and area system. They define the base of the core experience of Terra Control. You can place a beacon on the ground and teammates can use it to spawn at the location where it’s deployed. Every player will have one beacon and there will be a cooldown of 1 minute after you placed it.
So make sure to plan its placement carefully and coordinate it with your team. It should be mentioned that you can only spawn the beacon on an area that you have already captured but you can’t do so on an enemy territory. If an enemy captures an area where your beacon is located then it will be destroyed. Besides that enemies can destroy it with weapons or grenades. However it will have a solid amount of HP and also a small shield around it so it can protect you and your teammates shortly after respawning.
Please don’t rely on the basic look of the beacon. The current version is temporary and meant for testing purposes only. The appropriate model will be implemented later down the road.
Going back to the area system it’s important to mention that it will be highly connected with the in-game economy. By capturing or defending areas you will earn strategy points (shortly "SP"). Further you can use them to buy gear and weapons in the shop.
You also get a passive income of points for all the time your territory is secure and in your possession. The area system will be iterated upon in the future and some things might change like the size of the independent areas or where they are located.
Map Tools
We had to develop our own tools in order to define the borders of the areas on the map. The first version was designed to run in a browser and was based on procedural generation of a cell grid using the Voronoi algorithm. After the cells are generated they can be combined into groups. Using this simple app we designed our first test version of areas.
However we were not satisfied that this method requires additional steps for exporting to the engine. So we started thinking about a way of painting areas directly in Unreal. This led us to the creation of the updated solution which uses Unreal's landscape tool for storing map data and further for determining the location of any players that are present on the map. We can edit the map using landscape brushes of any shapes and sizes and all of this is available directly in the engine to make the life of a designer much easier. This is important because we plan to make map tools available for modders so they can design territories in their own way.
After the first iteration of areas was finished we started working on the way of displaying them in game. We implemented both full-sized and mini-map to show the positions of your teammates, available beacons and of course the states of areas in real-time. So you can see the balance of forces and plan your actions accordingly.
The map also has zoom and drag features so you can navigate it better. In addition the mini-map rotates automatically for easier orientation on the battlefield.
Dynamic Time of Day & Real Weather API
For this devlog we also decided to include some rendering updates. We made the first iteration of our time of day system. Every day in the game has a length of 24 hours just like in the real world. The sun position is accurately synced with real conditions taking in account the latitude, longitude and exact date and time of any location on planet Earth. We chose the location of our studio to test how it works. The possibilities of a real-time simulation are not limited with just sun position. It’s possible to simulate real weather conditions, such as rain, fog, cloud density etc. using an online weather API and this is what we’re going to test in later iterations.
We do it because we plan on giving people the possibility to turn on region-specific time of day as well as weather settings on private servers. But of course you will be able to set any conditions you desire manually or even randomize them. You will also be able to customize the length of the day-night cycle.
By the way, we will release server files publicly so everyone will have an ability to run a private server with their own settings.
Regarding our official servers, those that will support cross-platform play as well as progression, we plan to have a dynamic weather setup with real time of day based on a locked region of the server location. We can't wait to show you more progress on these features in the future.
Thanks on behalf of our whole studio for your support and patience. We wanna make PROXIMA the most ambitious and polished game it can be. The support of all our backers and fans is nothing short but breathtaking.
We had a lot of fun preparing this devlog as the Terra Control game mode gets more and more ready for full testing. There are a lot of more features and additions we wanna showcase in the future and a lot of things we haven't even scratched the surface on. Since this is going to be the last devlog of this year we already wish you all a great holiday season!
We will have much more exciting news in the new year. So don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Reddit and Discord. Or if you like emails sub to our newsletter!
By the way, we are running weekly giveaways for Alpha keys on our Discord! Make sure to join it. Also don’t forget to wishlist Proxima on Steam.
We can't wait to return next year and prepare more videos and news for you.
As always, stay human.
