Bombs and Bullets - a 2D RTS inspired by Command and Conquer

[Smooth Sailing]

The shadows I will need to ask the coder for specifics, but we cast it using data from the front and rear-facing heightmaps, and its a relatively lite 2D GPU process iirc. The floatiness of all the items can be partially solved with turning on and tweaking the AO, but we haven't done anything about it yet. Functionality comes first.

As for the reflections, lighting as well as 2d-esque clipping, which is something that can happen in our game, we're very much emulating what they are doing in this engine here:
https://en.sfml-dev.org/forums/index.php?topic=23751.0

iirc, I don't think we set a limit on how far players can zoom out, but its actually something we should do, because there's zero LoDs or any systems what-so-ever to reduce the amount of rendering when zoomed out.

I can't say what is specifically causing the poor performance. There are also a lot of graphical shenanigans going on in the background, each asset has like 9 layers that determines the final look. Also, our sprites are frame heavy in the extreme.

We have additional optimization plans, but we just did a graphical optimization with the last update, with the goal of freeing up VRAM, and we would like to move back into features for a few months. We plan on implementing multi-threading to fully utilize all available cores, so that should improve the CPU side of things. We will also need to write our our little module for RAM management, which we will need for even bigger maps, so that's just targeting memory. Those are for next year though.

I'm always open to suggestions like these mate. I will have a chat with the coder and see if solving this CPU problem is already part of the plan moving forward or not. I think it's already being considered.

[KayleMaster]

I understand. Don't get me wrong - the performance is not a deal breaker for me, just wanted to give some feedback on it.
Respect for having a clear path forward, that's always important! When you eventually reach the next optimization phase, let me know, I can give you some directions. However as you know, premature optimization is the root of all evil if it doesn't lag on normal zoom, there's no need at this point.
If I find time, I can look more into the gameplay and give you some feedback there as well

[Smooth Sailing]

I understand. Don't get me wrong - the performance is not a deal breaker for me, just wanted to give some feedback on it.
Respect for having a clear path forward, that's always important! When you eventually reach the next optimization phase, let me know, I can give you some directions. However as you know, premature optimization is the root of all evil if it doesn't lag on normal zoom, there's no need at this point.
If I find time, I can look more into the gameplay and give you some feedback there as well

The performance for version 0.03 was bad enough that it forced us to optimize.

I used to think 'hey, let's optimize and do things as correctly as possible', now I'm in the camp of 'well, if you've got the RAM or VRAM, CPU or GPU, I might as well use it all.' I honestly kinda like the thought that my game has the potential of turning any old computer into a thermonuclear device.

Will do mate, although there will be at least two versions before the next optimization updates. I'll loop you in, whenever I make this game's Discord.

[Smooth Sailing]

:: BnB ::
dev :: Commander Rad
tools :: Love2D, Maya, Spine, Photoshop,
web :: twitter.com/GamesBreakfast
progress ::
+ Basic VTOL functions are in (see vid)
+ Tile costs added to all tiles, only affects pathing for now, but will affect vehicle top speed in future.
+ With tile cost, comes the ability to have land, water, and amphibious vehicles.
- Gonna be focused on VTOL craft and boats for a while, lots to do.
+ Went through the stream backlog and edited up some asset creation vids:
- Helipad: https://youtu.be/QXF7-K4sbwY
- AH-1 Cobra: https://youtu.be/djeVuqd0Hzg
- UH-60 Black Hawk: https://youtu.be/uP3EbiIvNkY
- Turret base: https://youtu.be/y7w7bHVa-gw
- I don't think I'll do this for literally everything, but it is fairly low-effort content I can make before my game looks good enough to put out regular in-game vids.
+ Version 0.04 released and is available here: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets
+ I do dev streams here regularly: https://twitch.tv/commander_rad
+ Here is the current music playlist for anyone that wants a listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost
+ Finally, here's the icon and render for the UH-60 Black Hawk

[Smooth Sailing]

:: BnB ::

dev :: Commander Rad

tools :: Love2D, Maya, Spine, Photoshop,

web :: twitter.com/GamesBreakfast

progress ::

+ VTOL aircraft now tilt forward depending on the ratio between desired speed and top speed.

+ VTOL aircraft now bank when turning

+ The whole tilting system was rejigged for VTOL aircraft

+ VTOL aircraft are able to recognize if they are over flat land in order to land.

+ VTOL aircraft spin and crash to the ground when destroyed

+ Attack helicopter added to Swarm AI, which will start spawning them after 6 minutes

+ AH-1 Cobra now has a functioning turret

+ UH-60 Black Hawk can now carry 10 troops

+ Units that can deploy and retract can now be set to only do so on flat land

+ Tile costs are in, and vehicles favor pathing on roads and away from rougher terrain, like sand

+ Vehicles no longer instantly pivot in place and now pivot according to a pivot speed

+ Now that aircraft are in, AA guns now have a function.

+ Male soldier portraits updated with new style

+ Female soldier portraits are in progress and should be in-game by next week.

+ Names for East Asians now have sub-categories for Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Chinese

- This is a test for sub-categories for soldier names, which will be expanded upon significantly when the faction split happens

+ Some hilarious bugs, like buildings just floating away fixed.

+ New music is being made.

+ Version 0.04 released and is available here: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets

+ I do dev streams here regularly: https://twitch.tv/commander_rad

+ Here is the current music playlist for anyone that wants a listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost

[Smooth Sailing]

:: BnB ::
dev :: Commander Rad
tools :: Love2D, Maya, Spine, Photoshop,
web :: twitter.com/GamesBreakfast
progress ::
+ VTOL aircraft spin and crash to the ground when destroyed (vid)
+An additional area that isn't part of the collision box but part of the build area can be added to structures.
- This will make it possible to add empty areas around production and supply buildings.
+ Vehicles will now slow down when going uphill and speed up going downhill.
+ Terrain cost now affects pivot speed.
- This will make vehicles turn fastest on tiles like roads and slowest on tiles like sand.
+ Fixed various VTOL aircraft bugs
+ Fixed some other bugs.
+ Simplified the collision system
- This means I need to re-check and center all visual to the exact center of the collision boxes. Requires some re-rendering of assets.
+ A Dock and Patrol Boat was added.
- Patrol boat just rolls on the bottom of the ocean, so that needs to be fixed in future.
- Updated all the female infantry portraits as well.
+ New music is being made.
+ Version 0.04 released and is available here: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets
+ Here is the current music playlist for anyone that wants a listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Really cool portraits and art I'm seeing

[Smooth Sailing]

Really cool portraits and art I'm seeing

Yeah, they're already in the internal build. Probably release it sometime later in the month or early next month with the choppers.

I have bigger plans for these portraits, gonna mix and match facial features, to generate more. We'll have more drawn in future also, but this is enough for now.

[Smooth Sailing]

:: BnB ::
dev :: Commander Rad
tools :: Love2D, Maya, Blender, Spine, Photoshop,
web :: twitter.com/GamesBreakfast
progress ::
+ supply trucks will now use entry and exit points when gathering and delivering supplies
- this will likely not solve traffic problem, we will have to add in rvo object avoidance to solve that problem
+ added feature to repair / heal, can be limited to certain types of units, can have a price set, etc.
+ vtol aircraft movement now supports having way points.
+ now immobile entities will check for terrain, for vehicles deploying and for building structures.
- this is added to prevent helicopters from landing into water.
+ the empty additional areas in front of production buildings will now also check terrain before being placed.
+ the empty additional areas in front of production buildings will now prevent buildings from being placed.
+ added ability for certain nodes to check the terrain
- for instance, the production point on the dockyards can check if the tile is in water
+ added the ability to sell structures, price returned is the original cost * whatever % of HP remains.
+ added sell icon as mouse pointer when the sell mode is activate
- in future, we will add custom animated mouse pointers
+ switching the modeling and UV portion of asset creation over to Blender
- going to gradually transition each step in the pipeline over to Blender
- this will take time, especially for rendering as well as anything to do with infantry since that needs animation retargeting.
+ New music is being made.
+ Version 0.04 released and is available here: https://balancedbreakfast.itch.io/bombs-and-bullets
+ Here is the current music playlist for anyone that wants a listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-255042164/sets/b-b-ost

[dusoft]

Will be Linux version available?