Thorcon Archives - Page 2 of 3

Speed Adjustments and Base Upgrades

If you’d like to try out your survival skills and help us test out the game we’d love to have you join one of our testing sessions. Click the link to join our discord and ask in our “testers” channel. We’ll give you a key and get you set up in the game. See you there!

This is the first full week of Sprint 46, and our main focus will be on bugs, usability, and playtest integrations. The big features this sprint will be the player construction system, world map updates, onboarding, and steam friends.

A number of bugs were fixed this week including foundation stairs ignoring collision checks, construction pieces not being recyclable, a problem with players able to build stairs through totems and totems not always updating proper claims. The best bug award, however, goes to an issue we ran into with our dead AI practicing social distancing and moving out of the way of living AI. We cleared it up so the quick and the dead are clearly delineated again.

The team updated wood meshes, imported metal wall meshes, and updated the decay system for new formulas and materials. We adjusted the time it takes a body to attract cannibals, updated the attack range of our traditional Hawaiian melee weapons, and increased the damage done by your starting weapon, the shark-toothed “Killet.” We increased your base walking speed, the max initial speed of arrows, and made sure that our wolves could outrun players in a straight line. The game’s social hub, the Thorcon Power Plant, recently got a little polish and attention. Players will be spending a lot of time inside the old plant and as you can see below it is looking better than ever.

April 17, 2020

Loot and Danger Zones

We’d love for you to test your survival skills in our version of West Maui and help us make the game better while fighting the horrors of the jungle. If you’d like to join one of our testing sessions just join our discord and ask in our “testers” channel. See you there!

We got things started this week with several AI improvements and fixes. We increased the sight and sound aggro distance of passive AI by a factor of 2 to make them harder to sneak past, and fixed an issue that would find AI moving in a single file line when moving towards a shared enemy. A few bugs that would cause mutants to get stuck in doorways and unable to move on stairs were fixed.

We also turned our eyes this week to the Thorcon Power Plant. With our weekly testing sessions in full swing, the game’s social hub and some group features received some attention. We added accept/reject/cancel invite, add/remove friend, and block/unblock player as well as updated UI widgets to the new friend system. We increased the damage done by the game’s starting weapon/harvesting tool, the shark-toothed pan, better known as the Killet, to make it more useful to players who wander into danger before crafting or finding a weapon with more bite.

There’s no doubt that a more lethally seasoned pan is cool but the most exciting feature this week are the zones we’ve built around the Thorcon. Currently there are 4 different loot and AI zones radiating out from the power plant. Zone one is the area nearest the Thorcon. The loot isn’t great but the AI is relatively easy to kill. The farther away you get the better the loot and the challenge. Zone four has all the things that will make you the envy of post-apocalyptic Lahaina, and the deadliest opponents on the island like bears and our mutant overlord Big Bob.

Here’s a few shots of the Thorcon after getting a little polish this week.

April 10, 2020

Respawning Rooms and Thatch Buildings

This is the first full week of sprint 40 and we will be working on finishing our investor trailer, improving the drone and performance, making another audio pass across the map, polishing up some older features, and adding posters and some personal touches to buildings and roadways. Our main goals will be building on the player construction system, and finishing up some of our gameplay features.

We kicked off the week by fixing many construction bugs including an issue with recycling the final piece of a building not cleaning up memory properly, the permission menu not opening properly, and various problems with floors, walls, and foundation pieces not rotating and fitting correctly. All of our time wasn’t spent on making Maui’s post-apocalyptic code enforcement happy however, we also made some substantial improvements to the system.

The team added curved floor tiles, a door lock actor, and an early version of a door password system, although we still can’t promise it is working well enough to keep out nosy siblings or parents on a cleaning binge. In addition, we imported thatch meshes for windows, walls, foundations, and floors. As you can see from the shots below players can build a great looking structure to house all their friends and loot.

It’s not just player built constructions that got some love this week. We’ve added ambient sounds to a number of our main structures including the Communication Tower and the Thorcon Power Plant. We’ve added a lot of crafting equipment inside the plant and have been discussing further improvements in anticipation of making the huge building the social hub of the game. One of those improvements is adding a respawn area inside. Below you can see a few concept shots of what the new respawn areas might look like inside the Thorcon.

October 18, 2019

Building a Safe Zone

A new sprint started this week and we’ll be focusing on finishing up a few systems that didn’t quite get finished from the previous sprint, more drone improvements, audio support across the map, building out five more world tiles, quests, and a number of AI updates.

The team fixed a handful of drone bugs and made some upgrades to the flying cameras that travel around the island filming anything of interest. We fixed a bug where the drone would get stuck flying backward while trying to fly a long distance towards players. We appreciated how impressive it was to go all that way in reverse but it looked silly. We fixed an issue where the drone would drift away from the refueling station before it was fully charged, and a problem with it crashing when a target was being scanned and died. We worked out a problem with it rotating in the wrong direction and smoothed out the camera so it’s less jittery when changing targets.

We’ve turned the lightning back on so players can enjoy a good light show in the sky again. We’ve also made some lighting improvements to torches, added some new animations, and updated its stats as a weapon, for all of you angry mob enthusiasts. In addition, the team fixed some issues with arrows not being attached to skeletal meshes properly or disappearing when hitting a surface too close to a player that fired it.

This week we added some fencing around the perimeter of the social hub of the game, the Thorcon Power plant. The fence marks the border of the safe zone inside where players can take a break to do some crafting without interruption, or just take respite from the struggles of survival. Below you can see a couple of shots of what the first pass of the fence looks like from the plant entrance.

If you enjoy staying on top of our development process and would like to see what we’ve done on a daily basis versus a bi-weekly one, check out our new Daily Update Twitter feed and see what’s happening every day of the week.

June 11, 2019

Power Plant Makeover

The team is making some improvements to the various ruins across the entire map. We’re regenerating every structure made with our procedural building tool to add a new automated furniture feature. Instead of the barren husks that have dotted the map in the past, players can expect now to find the finest furnishings inside houses from our “Apocalypse Sunrise” and “Lahaina Legacy” lines. The new furniture tool allows us to fill every automated structure with set dressing appropriate for searching for useful items or taking a break from the struggle to survive.

We worked out a few AI issues too. We had a number of problems with mutant movement and spacing. Occasionally they were getting stuck, or caught in a loop when trying to move to specific locations. The whole thing looked a little like musical chairs, with the terrors of the jungle vying for the same attack location when spotting an enemy. We added a slight delay to their overlap resolving, and improved the AI on AI collision performance. Mutants should now murder players in an orderly, well organized fashion.

Much of our work recently has been to The Thorcon Power Plant, the game’s social hub. We’ve put a ton of painting, decorating, lighting, and materials work to make the inside and out look like it had survived a cataclysm. We discussed what players will eventually be able to find inside, and planned out where some of our NPCs will be located.

A crafting/banking spot is already set up inside, including our newest crafting tool, the smelter. Players will be able to build tools and weapons as well as transform ore into usable metal in the area. We talked about a few crafting mechanics and made plans for some future improvements. In addition, we’ve begun working out our tiered items system. In the near future, players will be able to enhance certain item abilities. Things like: damage, recoil, spread, and accuracy will be able to be improved in the crafting area with the right resources.

Below are a couple fly-through videos showing all the hard work we’ve put into making the interior of the Thorcon look great.

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February 21, 2019

Building Better Roads

As the week and sprint 30 come to an end, we looked at a number of decals and concept art for the Thorcon Power Plant and the surrounding areas. As the social hub of the game, we discussed at length what survivors of The Great Fracture would have done to the area, and how they would have taken advantage of existing features like parking lots, onsite apartments, and the building itself. We looked at a number of possible living quarters, defensive measures, and quality of life improvements that survivors could have made in the years after the cataclysm. With all those things in mind, the Thorcon will get a lot of attention in the near future. We’ve also completed the planned zipline from the Communications Tower to the Thorcon, making travel a little quicker and safer.

We’ve made a number of player improvements as well. We did some work on inventory persistence including: Inventory ordering, loading in with persistent items equipped, and automatically setting items to equipped in persistence at pickup time when applicable. We made a few campfire improvements ensuring that you can enjoy your post apocalyptic smores, and we completed the game’s starting harvesting tool/weapon, a shark toothed pan. A tongue-in-cheek homage to the shark toothed (leiomano) weapons in the game, the pan isn’t the best weapon or tool, but is better than nothing in a pinch and is properly seasoned and non-stick.

One of our goals while working on the game is to use the actual geographic features of Lahaina as a guide, including the roads. We take a few liberties in some areas where we’ve changed the land, and to keep players flowing across the map, but for the most part, the trails and paths in the game are where roads really are on the island. They say “getting there is half the fun”, but creating a transportation network for players can be daunting task. So, we’ve been working on a tool to help quickly build these roads, and easily show the toll of time and weather. Below you can see a few examples of that work, making main roads that still hint to what existed before, and those that have disintegrated into nothing but dirt paths.

January 10, 2019

Building a Social Hub and Hunting Bugs

Nearing the end of the week and the current sprint, the team is focused on fixing as many bugs as possible, and adding some last minute polish to already existing systems. We uncovered a number of bugs and pain points while running around the wilds of Lahaina that have been resolved.

We fixed a bug with the bow playing whizzing sounds at incorrect distances and angles. The bow no longer will get stuck in the fatigued state, which was making shooting arrows difficult to say the least. We found that sometimes our aiming down site (ADS) transition animations were unreasonably slow after sprinting. Chances are you’re going to need to aim as quickly as you can after running away from the things lurking in the jungle’s dark places. We discovered that some of our harvesting and impact sounds were overlapping and cancelling each other out. This made it theoretically possible that a player wouldn’t hear a fight if they were harvesting wood. Lastly, we fixed a bug that would cause a party leader to get stuck when putting together a team, which was less than ideal for group play.

In addition to fixing all those bugs, we tweaked a few things and made some improvements to make game play more enjoyable. The team smoothed out the homemade bow pull back and undraw animation sequences as well as improved some un-nocking animations. We added proper attenuation to a number of weapon sounds. The team updated building meshes with proper inversions, collision and simplifications to improve performance and address the multiple stuck door issues we’ve had. Doors are now swinging freely from the little rundown shacks on the beach, to the gigantic social hub, the Thorcon Power Plant. We also added more rocks throughout the game to help bump up the number of available resources for players to harvest.

The web team is busy finishing up their sprint work too. The new navigation on the front page is done and we’re nabbing any bugs as they appear. Jesse is completing work on front page callout/announcement slide templates, that we can use for future contests, events, and game messages. We’re working on a number of messaging initiatives to help clearly explain how our Houses work, as well as the referral system. We also discussed where we could use some tooltips, and incorporating a general site search feature on the front page.

With our trueSKY issues (mostly) fixed, and having a sky above Maui again, we looked at our day/night cycle, and briefly discussed the pros and cons of adjusting the length of our days. The art team is busy working on the art for the new banking system which will allow players a private and secure extension of their inventory to stash away goodies, crafting components, and any junk they can’t part with but is too heavy to carry. We talked a little more about all the neat places we could put these banks since we don’t need to include a drive up window. The team made some improvements to our AI by adding a fleeing module that will allow NPCs to flee to a location that offers cover if they’re being peppered by the slings and arrows of outrageous players.

We looked at a number of concept drawings of the game’s social hub, the Thorcon Power Plant. The art team put together a number of possible options for the reactor room and other places inside complete with: living quarters, stands offering food, water, and gear for the right price, and differing amounts of people seeking shelter, and shady characters. Their work was not limited to the interior of the massive building however. One of their goals this sprint was to fill out the areas surrounding the plant with interesting places to loot and explore. Below is one of these places, an abandoned farm with the remnants of an irrigation pipe running through it, a barn that is still standing for shelter, and numerous chickens for those quick enough to scoop one up.

That’s all for now. Check back the beginning of next week for the latest updates.

November 8, 2018

Painting the Power Plant

As we approach the end of the week the team completed some lighting work. We’ve put a lot of thought into nighttime lighting in the game. We want to make sure that buildings, trails, and other points of interest are noticeable at night, but we don’t want to shred the cover of darkness for players creeping around trying to go unnoticed. To that end, there are a number of lamps, lanterns, and tiki torches, in the game now. They offer just the right amount of light to keep you on the right path, and get an idea of what’s in an area, without making it impossible to hide in the shadows. With the exception of some of the torches flaring up like they’re loaded with jet fuel, we’re happy with the end product, and plan on making the torches a little less vigorous.

We looked at, and discussed a few more options for things surrounding the communications tower. The team has talked about a number of buildings and/or geographic features we could add around the zipline center of Lahaina. We went over some barrier and debris options that could be used to help defend the area until we decide if we want something more substantial there. The team is making another general pass over items and buildings to make them more stylized for the game, and Hawaii in general as well.

The web team continues work on the navigation revamp, and designs on a call to action/contest section. Jesse designed some new icons for use on our social media pages and made improvements to what we already had. We found a bug that would show the wrong navigation colors in some of the preset House themes. That should be fixed in the next few days. Jared is still working through the issues with the live drone feed on the front page. Until they are cleared up, you can always watch the drone’s-eye view of Lahaina on our YouTube page. We talked some more about how to improve the story page, and let visitors know what the game is about. It should be getting a major facelift in the near future.

We made a number of improvements to our mutants this week too. We’ve gussied up a few of the cannibals to highlight their bad skin, matted hair, and blood-stained lips. We fixed a bug that would cause them to sometimes react twice to being shot or sliced, making them suddenly start to twitch. We improved animations to make their upper body move towards the origin of a sound they detected. Previously they’d just lurch in strange looking ways towards a noise. We also taught them that discretion is the better part of valor, and installed a fleeing AI module that allows them to run away when grievously injured. Instead of fighting to the end if they’re getting slaughtered, the terrors of the jungle will be able to run away, and lurk again another day.

We made a lot of progress on the Throcon Power Plant too. We continue to build out the surrounding areas, but this week we specifically focused on the inside of the building. The interior got a fresh paint job, and we discussed the level of inhabitation and stuff we wanted inside. We looked at some concept drawings ranging from: keeping it rather barren with a few sleeping mats here and there, to something more akin to the inside of a big box store on Black Friday. We eventually decided on something near the middle, offering players someplace empty enough to explore a bit, but still indicative of a common meeting place and social hub. Below you can see a couple images of the new and improved reactor room, with players in one shot so you can get a feel of the size of the facility and reactor.

October 25, 2018

New Buildings and Dangers

We made a few audio improvements to compliment all of our recent map work this week. A number of weapons now have improved clicks, twangs, and booms. We’ve added some new character sounds such as crisper footfalls, and rustling while moving through the foliage. We have placeholder voices for NPCs and our monsters as well, although they need a bit of work yet. The trophy hunter’s battle cries sound like they’re trying to decide if attacking is worth the effort, and the NPC voices are reminiscent of something you’d hear listening to an audiobook on the way to work, but we plan on upgrading both soon.

Crafting improvements continue, with a number of ui upgrades. We made a number of drag and drop improvements, and squashed a bug that was offsetting where an item ended up in your inventory. Double clicking an item now brings up its detail page so all of its info is easily accessible. We added time estimates so you know how long your new weapon or part is going to take to build, and made a number of navigation enhancements too.

We’re still working on debugging our live Veil News Network (VNN) drone feed. However, you can still watch a previously recorded stream on the front page until it’s back in the air. We’re working on drone documentation as well, and hope to have the live camera making its rounds across the island again soon.

The latest “refurbish machine” concept drawings were presented in various configurations, states of disrepair, and colors. Designed to allow players to change colors and fix torn clothing and armor, the machine should be ready to go in the near future. We talked briefly about other types of finishing, polishing, and engraving we might include down the road.

Our monsters not only got new voices this week, they got two new types as well. We have individuals with ranged attacks to deal with snipers, and players trying to kite melee fighters into a killzone. We also have individuals who can feed on downed party members, and grow considerably tougher. This makes it important for players to stay together, and keep everyone healed up. We watched a short demo movie of both new types in action, and talked a bit about future iterations.

Jesse made a number of layout improvements to help players navigate across the webpage, and we worked on trails between points of interest in the game. We’re using an automated trail building system to integrate the already existing Lahaina roads, with the network of paths we need to keep players moving around the map. We’re aging and breaking the roads as we move section by section, populating the map.

With all the road work being done, the team continues to add buildings, and structures to explore. We fixed the bugs we ran into last week with the Thorcon Power Plant and it’s back in place. Here you can see it in the midday sun.

The Lahaina Armory found a spot on the map too. We still need to add some weathering and some ground cover, but the wooden building will be open to the public soon, offering a good selection of weapons and ammo. Below you can see the front of the building.

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back with more updates later.

August 2, 2018

Maps, Mockups, and Armor

To finish out the week the web team is hard at work smoothing out any remaining kinks in the upcoming story timeline view. We’re addressing a handful of layout issues, and Jared is still working on overall performance and speeding up load times on the site. They’re reworking the “view more posts” button so stories load in a more intuitive way. In addition, the team added some much needed admin tools so we can quickly edit stories and announcements now, as well as change some layout options, directly from the website.

We dug into our current map, and talked about some different design options, and discussed exactly what we wanted out of it in terms of utility. Jesse continued work on the HUD, and integrating the many components: compass, map, alerts, quick bar, and chat window, without making the view feel overly crowded. We added a marker on the quick bar to make it easier to see what item/s you currently have equipped, and we’re adding some more specific audio assets to buildings.

We did some diving into body armor options and discussed an overall look. Guns, spears, and weapons in general get a lot of attention because it’s fun to blast or slash things, but armor can keep you alive. We looked at some military designs as well as equipment used in extreme sports, and talked about what things would have been readily available in Lahaina after the fracture. We looked at a number of different back and spine protectors available on the market, and talked about how much they looked like space armor from sci-fi movies in the 80’s.

With most of the work done on the timeline, the web team will be focusing on player and House customization next. Jesse shared some wireframes showing off different options for a house banner and player customization system. Before we got too far into the project, we discussed how detailed and how many options we want available to players. We talked about having automated color scheme tools that would pick complementary color palettes for characters vs. leaving everything up to players. Either way, we want players to be able to designate roles inside their Houses by color, add some uniqueness to their profiles, and set up a red-shirt brigade of expendables if they wish.

We continued working on our respawn experience and the areas that players will find themselves in after they die. Chris rolled up his sleeves and dug into the Unreal tools to make a mock-up of what he was thinking for a storm drain/sewer system respawn area. With a few caveats about being a newb, and being unfamiliar with all the tools, he pieced together an admirable respawn mock-up. We talked about specific design needs, and whether or not we’d want these areas to be connected to the larger sewer system at some point down the road. Whether or not Chris has been bitten by the design bug, and starts creating level mock-ups on the weekend for fun and profit remains to be seen.

The art team continues their work on sectioning up the map and adding detail to the remaining large buildings. While there is some lighting work left to do, you can see from the picture below just how huge the Thorcon power plant is.

We’ll be back with more next week.

January 11, 2018

Tag: Thorcon