End of July Update - New Faces

Hello everyone,

July has mostly been marked by continuing to update the game's rendering engine and optimization work, as well as fixing a lot of broken features like netcode, which was previously largely neglected ever since DORF was forked from OpenRA years and years ago. There has also been much in the way of further planning out the story and campaign, and solidifying the unit and structure roster and technology tree. 

We've also decided to adjust way the game's technology progression works; rather than only having technology gated off with structure prerequisites and research upgrades as in most conventional RTS games, we've settled on what we're calling the Annex system. Annexes are structures that can only be built adjacent or directly onto factory structures, which unlock certain units and upgrades or modifies existing ones. For example, if you recall the Tank Destroyer unit, that unit will no longer exist in isolation. Rather, there will be a generic Medium Tank with an autocannon that can be constructed from any Motorworks (Empire vehicle factory) without any Annexes, while applying an Artillery Depot Annex to the structure will unlock a mobile artillery variant of this tank. Applying an Artillery Depot and Steelworks to the Motorworks will unlock an armored Assault Gun variant, and a Hypervelocity Lab and Steelworks will produce the actual Tank Destroyer as a late-game anti-armor unit.

Similarly, certain units will be upgraded with additional weapons or abilities if they are constructed from a factory with certain attached Annexes. For example, attaching an Artillery Depot to an Academy (Empire infantry structure) will let you produce Riflemen squads that include a deployable Mortar as part of the squad. Attaching a Gasoline Tank to the Hand (Warband infantry structure) will let you produce Raiders that can throw Molotov cocktails, as well as replacing a few of the Raiders in the squad with flamethrower infantry. On that note, because of this system, some units in the game will now exist more as unit variants or upgrades to certain infantry squad types, rather than fully distinct units (eg. Flamethrower infantry are an upgrade to basic Warband Raiders rather than an entirely new unit).

We also got the ball rolling on getting some of the high-poly character models replaced with more professional stuff. We've been working with Allan, who has created a bunch of faces for us to use for things like unit portraits and cutscenes. While the original faces created by J.D. were serviceable, they were too literal of a translation of the 2D artwork, and could look pretty wonky. I think these new ones are a major improvement.

Some quick mockups, to show how these would look on the standard Imperial grunt:

We've also got unit deploy logic mostly figured out. Believe it or not, this was actually a weirdly complicated thing to update from how it worked in OpenRA. Since the game will feature deployable field artillery, as well as things like the Consortium mobile bases that must deploy to operate, this is a rather important feature.

(Note: this field gun in the final game will not aim its entire weapon armature while firing, as this was just a test made to see how weapon firing arcs work. Similarly, the glitchy effects on the barrel are a consequence of the ongoing refactoring of the render engine.)

That's all for this update. Next month, we hope to switch gears and focus on piling on new features, as there are still many systems that need work, such as chemical weapons, infantry squads and trains.