Comments - CountNerdula

Having worked in the space industry for 3 years, I'm hyped, this could be the most detail I've seen in ship systems so far :D If you need to sanity check anything feel free to hit me up, e.g. if I'm not mistaken the closing shot of the trailer shows a galaxy with too many spiral arms for the Milkyway - our latest estimate is it's a barred spiral with two arms ;)

Things are tight with the day job for the next couple of months, but:

Currently functional:
- Armor - reduces incoming damage, so small ships have more trouble against big ones. This makes these more expensive ships more survivable.
- Torpedoes - ships with torpedoes do extra damage to adjacent tiles, so if they manage to get close to armored ships they can still bite hard!

Currently working on (for the next version release):
- AI improvements - smarter balancing of the economy
- Ship upkeep - looks like a necessity to keep the pacing in check, as most matches become one-sided when one player out-scales the other.
- Enhanced economy - there will be tiles that significantly boost resource output, to create points of interest on the map.
- Splash effects

Solidified roadmap (definitely gonna happen):
- Voice lines to play when units are selected, to liven up the game
- Ambient sound effects
- Further AI improvements (flanking, aircraft)
- AA fire covering adjacent tiles
- More particle effects! (flak, tracers flying from ships to target)

Seriously considering but need feedback:
- Adding fuel as a resource. This would be needed for moving units, would be stockpiled (possibly in dedicated buildings to cap the stockpiling), and produced from specific locations.
- Units spawn from fixed entry point. The real-world explanation is very much that you wouldn't produce a ship in the frontline, the in-game reason is that plopping down a port in the middle of the map and having instant reinforcements is overpowered.
- Clouds. Might be distracting, we'll see how ti looks.

Quick dev update:
Development is resuming after a 9-month hiatus, we have added fire particles to the smoke and splashes around units that are under attack to liven up the map and better hint at what is in danger. The next steps include revamping the UI to better match more modern strategy UI philosophy, and finally an enhancement of gameplay mechanics to add some depth both to resource management and combat. Stay tuned for a more detailed post with the current changes available in v1.7 and the progress made toward v1.8!

Quick update in case anyone is wondering:
-The game is not dead, but officially on hiatus. I do not have the time to look into another game engine (and I didn't have the time to keep up with the update frequency of Unreal Engine 4) but believe me when I say this is something I really want to see completed some day.

-There has been another game released under the name Survival Wasteland. I have nothing to do with it, and I'm cool with it, all the best to its developers. I will consider modifying the name of this game to be clearly set apart.

-Yes I have been working on other games (Flotilla WWII), that is because my technical knowledge of the engine I'm using is sufficient to be able to reliably produce results fitting those games, and not because I have "moved on" and abandoned this project. It comes down to how I'm gonna use my time: learn new tools or make something with the ones I know? There is only time for one, and sometimes not even that, so I create stuff because that's what fulfills me, hopefully in a few months I'll have time for both and will be able to resume development of this game too.

Cheers!

BTW for anyone who doesn't want to modify the launch options in steam so they can also launch CoH, I modified the .bat file from Europe at War to launch it, so to create a shortcut do the following:

create a .txt file, open it and enter:
Call Steam.exe -applaunch 228200 -dev -mod GalacticCivilWar

(or the entire contents of the EaW bat file, see at the end) then close it, and change the extension to .bat (you might have to enable the "show file extensions" option, just google "Show file extensions" and you'll find it easily). Now when you run it, Steam should ask you if you want to run the game with these options, click ok and it should run the modded game.

+ Move the bat file to your games folder or the desktop.
+ You might be able to add it to your Steam library as a "non-Steam game".
+ To set the mod's image, right click -> Properties -> Change Icon, browse to the CoH main folder and find the GCW.ico icon, so it has the right icon.

In case the .bat doesn't work, this is the entire EaW bat file:

echo OFF
Call Steam.exe -applaunch 228200 -dev -mod GalacticCivilWar
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 10000 >nul
del steam_appid.txt
:EB
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 10000 >nul
tasklist | findstr "RelicCOH.exe" >nul
IF "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" GOTO EB
IF "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="1" EXIT

Just played the Alpha 0 demo, it looks great! Just one observation, scout troops seem far too effective but I think it's actually the other troops not being very effective at killing, but maybe I've just been playing too much of the Blitzkrieg mod. I can't wait for vehicles to be added, even if for functionality's sake it's the less famous ones, it will be epic!

Fantastic! From step 2 it's already pretty great actually, it's great for long-distance cameras like in strategy games, and all the way to step 8 for closer shots

The experience is best in hotseat ;) Glad you like the rest of the game, and given that I haven't had formal education on AI, I'll take "weird sometimes" as a compliment :P If there are any bug-fixing patches I'll try tweaking it a bit, if you have specific observations I'd be glad to hear them!

Can't believe I hadn't thought of kamikazes during the development months, if there's a sequel they're definitely in though!

I completely agree that UnCodeX offers a lot more, I did not expect advanced or even novice users to prefer this over UnCodeX, only to offer a simple tool which I had already developed for my own use. Yet, it's fun sharing your creations, and since it does what it says it does, there's no shame in it, right? After all, often user engagement is also dependent on existing user activity, so in a way I pay my tribute by adding a little more activity, even if it is far from groundbreaking. Anyway, just thought I'd refine and upload since I am migrating to UE4, maybe someone else may still find it of some use. (by the way, I sort of hoped that my search function combined with the TreeView display covered any hierarchy-related needs, as that's what I first built it for). Cheers!

Summer break: What stops development for a while and when will it start:
-summer vacation: very little time
-studying for September exams
-some studying for a Microsoft certification
-that's it, once these are out of the way, and until I acquire more knowledge of the Unreal Engine and start working on next year's Imagine Cup submission, there will be progress for the V0.6 final pre-alpha and V1.0 Alpha, and hopefully there will be enough time for further Alpha versions, Beta, and final releases. Cheers! -Count Nerdula

Bug detected: crafting recipes related to iron sometimes cause multiple instances of the result. However having one item built per key press, similar issues had been resolved, and the user can benefit from amelioration of this system.

ATTENTION: make sure you create a means of storage quickly, if your inventory is full, you can either use BACKSPACE to clear the selected slot, or you have to move something to a container. Otherwise you cannot craft as it is considered that there is nowhere to place the product.
This may cause you to think that something is wrong with the crafting - as I thought at first - and the issue will be addressed by changing the effect from disabling the presentation of the available recipes to simply not executing, and the playing of an appropriate sound. Thank you.

Issue detected with moving items into inventory: under certain circumstances the item moved into the inventory multiplies by about 42, the issue is currently being addressed, so far the circumstances have been limited and the multiplication has also been limited to 3 times. Once the issue has been corrected the demo will be re-uploaded as V0.35, seeing as V0.4 is to include at least one functional item in the Options menu and 5 new items.

P.S. Instructions are included in the .rar file, as well as the XNA4.0 redistributable by Microsoft since the server is oftentimes down.

Project was entered into Microsoft Imagine Cup 2014 first round.

Demonstration of exchange between player inventory and player made containers. This functionality becomes vital early in the game as the player may only carry 20 items with him, and will thus have to store extra items in crates, stockpiles etc.

Sprites for the bloomery, the basic stockpile, the tree and probably more are temporary and mostly for testing purposes. The game will be retextured after the core functionality is complete.

Top to bottom: blunt rock, copper axe, stone axe, stick, stone hammer, dry grass, native copper.