Added a scan range to the Mech's sight system. Objects marked with this scan are indicated by blue diamonds on the HUD. The purpose of this is to inform the pilot of potential targets outside their target lock range #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Alongside the change to a non-partitioned level setup, I've optimized ground cover by staggering individual meshes draw distances. Also, I've created variants of destructible actors that use clumps of static meshes to reduce total actor count #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

World partition system was a bit difficult to work with and HLOD generation wasn't working out as expected. Sooo I decided to switch over to non-partitioned levels that use scaled up landscapes. 32km x 32km size (at 8x res) is working surprisingly well #ue5 #indiedev #gamedev

Added in a mechanic that allows you to skip the jump delay - if you initiate an Evasive Boost while jumping at the same time, the Mech will also get an immediate vertical impulse. I think this will help reward more skilled players #ue5 #mech #screenshotsaturday #indiedev

After going over some AC6 footage, I decided to adjust the Mech's aerial idle pose: bent the knees more, and tilted the hips forward. Also refactored the jump: created a new jump animation and added more initial upward impulse #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Added in crosshair bloom to give better feedback to the player for their weapon inaccuracy buildup. Nothing too complex right now, just scaling up the size of the icon. In the final product, will probably have pieces of the crosshair react individually #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Enough with the spacecraft stuff for now - back to Mech things! I noticed players getting confused about the Travel Boost system startup because of lack of feedback. So, I threw some text in their face to get rid of any confusion #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

More spacecraft thangs: added in a simple boost ability. Similar to how the Player's sprint works, using the boost consumes energy and provides increased speed #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

More spacecraft stuff ~ got basic movement functioning with tilt on turning. Ended up being a bit more difficult than expected, but I like how it turned out. Still plenty of things to tweak. #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

I swear this is within scope... I decided last minute that it might be fun to be able to pilot spacecrafts (found a good Fab asset pack) - idk how far I'll take this idea, but for now I'm just gonna send it. Part 1: player can enter/exit the ship, with some vfx #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Really exciting stuff here (mostly UI UX)... I added in the storage system. This feature is what manages how inventories exist on different containers, such as a Player, their Mech, or the garage, and how items can be transferred between all of them #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Feedback I often receive is the Mech movement is responsive, but did not appear responsive. Although this sortof thing is typically later-on polish, I decided to improve it now: I added a lean to the Mech's strafing and Evasive Boosts #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Improved the tutorial's final assessment. Previously the player had to get Regina below half health to pass. Instead, I changed Regina's behavior so she doesn't use her shield until she is below half health. It creates a phase 2 sortof vibe instead #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Finished up the Battle Walkers and integrated them into the existing Mech tutorial. They serve as a good medium-difficulty step before the final part where you engage in Mech versus Mech combat #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Battle Walker implementation continued ~ When destroyed, the Battle Walker plays a destruction VFX and animation. Similar to other Simple NPC vehicles in the game, the destroyed husk remains. p.s. it was fun putting a group of Battle Walkers against a duo of Mechs #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Love how these Battle Walkers function in a group. Still working on the right amount of DPS from them, but so far they have a good consistency when there's like 4-6 of them in a pack #ue5 #screenshotsaturday #indiedev

Finishing up the implementation of what I call the "Battle Walker" Separating legs and top into two movable mechanisms ended up taking longer than expected. Overall worth it though. Two weapons available for use: missiles and burst machine guns #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Going to be adding a medium-sized enemy soon. Had a nice Fab asset from a while ago that I got on sale or through some sort of deal. Should begin implementation tomorrow! #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Made improvements to the pilot weapons tutorial. Removed some of the hand-holding that was there before and most importantly made sure Regina (your instructor) yells at you if you talk to her with your weapon drawn #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Player Booster ability continued ~ Added in weapons functionality so the Player can pew pew while using their new ability. I like how things are turning out so far #ue5 #indiegame #screenshotsaturday

Gave the player a booster ability which pulls from their energy bar. Since much of the game works on the vertical dimension in Mech. I wanted to also give the player some vertical movement capabilities out of Mech #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Overhauled ingame dialog system: from being unskippable timer text delivery in the letterbox (bad UI UX), to an alert-system feel with next dialog on player input. Harder to ignore important text and easier for the player to go at their own pace! #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

More Travel Boost System updates ~ Since the Player can now free look during use (previous post), I finally implemented weapons during flight. This is something I've always wanted to do, but just wasn't feasible with the previous setup. #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Made some improvements to the Travel Boost system: - Can free look around Mech during flight - Can lower altitude - Camera FOV/distance adjustments on windup and activation #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Felt like it was about time to rearrange the HUDs for easier readability and less clutter. I also wanted more consistency between the Pilot and Mech HUDs. New setup has so much more breathing room #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

feedback train keeps a rollin -> people kept noticing a delay on hipfire and ADS. This was because (previously) the crosshair wouldn't appear for hipfire until you started firing. I decided to make the crosshair always visible when your weapon is drawn #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Other important feedback I received from friends: the Mech weapons tutorial was not clear about incremental step progress. To fix this, I added in counters to the overlay so the player knows their progress and what the current step is asking #ue5 #mech #screenshotsaturday

Watching some friends play, I noticed that many of them did not understand the different activation stages of their Travel Boost. To fix this, I heavily modified an animation from Mixamo to convey a windup for the player activating their Travel Boost #ue5 #mech #indiegame

Noticed players were having issues using the Mech Assembly menu during the tutorial, so I made some UI UX adjustments. Most importantly: converted buttons/stats to a readonly look, changed the Sync button color to green and moved it next to the back button #ue5 #mech #indiegame

In previous posts, landscape chunks pop in/out during travel. This was due to forward rendering testing for optimization. Recently, I switched back to deferred rendering which allowed me to regenerate HLODs for that long view distance! #ue5 #mech #screenshotsaturday #indiedev

Some feedback I received and something I noticed was that objectives are not always clear upon assignment. To fix this, I made it so objectives are automatically visible for 5 seconds on assignment and 3 seconds from the tab overlay menu #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Finished up the last piece of the tutorial! After passing the final assessment, you are sent to a distant transport cargo ship to end the tutorial. Next steps: overall touchups after player feedback. (long vid, so I threw in royalty-free music) #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

New tutorial continued ~ Unlike my last post (where I was bad and lost), if you pass your final assessment, then Regina clears you for active duty p.s. - I observed pain points here from players, so this gets improved in the future! #ue5 #mech #ai #indiegame

New tutorial things continued: For the final assessment, Instructor Regina wants the Pilot to best her in 1v1 combat. All they have to do is get her below half-health. It's not the end of the world if they fail though, they get to try again! #ue5 #mech #ai #indiegame

New tutorial things continued ~ After finishing the pilot weapon tutorial, your instructor takes you to a new area for a final assessment. This is where I leverage the new AI pathing feature I posted last week (feat. royalty free music for travel) #ue5 #mech #ai #indiedev

More tutorial work! Working on teaching the player how to use basic pilot weaponry. First up is they learn how to use a pistol with hipfire and ADS #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

In my last post I mentioned a new weapons training area ~ Your instructor for this area is named Regina. I had the opportunity to give her sarcastic conditional dialog when you meet her if you don't properly stow your Mech #ue5 #mech #screenshotsaturday #indiedev

Doing some tutorial work... I created a new area that you are sent to for pilot weapons training. The journey to the area is a bit long so I threw in some royalty-free music for the vid #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Spaceship decor continued ~ Was worried that the ship would be totally invisible at night, so I placed a variety of lights all over its hull and interior. Also found some good usage of a previous VFX on its boosters (sorry for super dark screenshots!) #ue5 #indiegame

Always wanted to have an assembly hangar be on a large spaceship. Luckily, I found the perfect asset on Fab. However... I had to manually recreate all the collisions for the entire ship, which took forever. Well worth it though #ue5 #mech #indiegame

I keep forgetting to post things! Here's some more small improvements on AI pathfinding... When moving through their path, the AI will wait for the player to be close enough (configurable) before continuing #ue5 #ai #mech #indiegame #gamedev

Back from GDC, back to posting ~ Building a new path system for AI Mechs, mainly for tutorials and cutscenes. Foundations are straight forward: the AI does its best to go to each next point (within an acceptance radius) on an assigned spline #ue5 #mech #ai #indiedev

Hey hi hello - have been real MIA lately trying to get a demo build in good shape for #GDC! I'll be there during the week, should be a great time! p.s. here's a repost #ue5 #mech #indiegame #gamedev #screenshotsaturday

Looking at the recent updates I made to the player weapon systems, things are starting to feel pretty good for an MVP. At this point, there's still improvements I want to make for the AI and player, but I need to move on (for now) #ue5 #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #indiegame

Big shoutout to blockout tools plugin - Really cool tool I discovered for greyboxing things out quickly, was able to create a whole practice area for testing out player weapon mechanics #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

Added in directional HUD damage indicators. This ended up being a bit more tricky expected! All indicators light up red when the damage is originating on your screen. Directional yellow indicators will light up if damage comes from offscreen #ue5 #screenshotsaturday #indiedev

During testing, I was not a big fan of chip damage accumulation. To help the player out, I added in a temporary barrier. Dealing damage will fill up this shield, which is indicated by the yellow bar over the player's health (top) #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

More little things ~ Updated NPC pursuit behavior: before, they detected targets based on distance. Now, they will only activate if their target is in line of sight. If they lose LOS, they will continue to the last seen location of their target #ue5 #ai #indiegame #gamedev

Little things ~ When it came to switching weapons, I noticed I was being locked into the animations for too long. So, I updated the weapon swap animations and made them quicker/snappier #ue5 #indiegame #gamedev

I think that's a wrap on player weapons for now (QA pending)! I reached an MVP state in each part: Motion matching, aim offset, sprint, inventory, weapon swapping, character auto rotate, inaccuracy buildup, and blocked LOS warning #ue5 #indiegame #screenshotsaturday