The Repopulation - Alpha 0.0.4.8 Build Notes and Screenshots
by J.C. Smith · 05/27/2009 (2:11 am) · 9 comments
The big news in this update is that we have upgraded the client to Torque 3D. This is detailed below under the Engine changes. The new engine is much more pretty to look at, and we were able to do it without needing to raise our minimum requirements. We didn't stop there though. The last patch also began on the Control Point, Clan and Siege Upgrades, and this patch finishes up that work, as well as other moves that we made in preparation for beta testing. There's a lot of code cleanup going on. In addition to these we've added a slew of screenshots from the Torque 3D version.
Engine
- As noted above, we have ported to the Torque 3D engine. This brings a variety of improvements, which will be documented below.
- With this move we went from Atlas to T3D terrain, and this results in a huge improvement. Not only is our terrain visual improvement massively improved, but we also were able to increase our zone size by 25%, while having a smaller memory footprint than we did before. Most importantly, our terrain looks better and is more varied.
- Our day and night transitions are vastly improved if you choose to use the Advanced Lighting model. Everything casts a proper shadow, and the shadows adjust properly for the time of day. This does come at a performance cost, however. Users on older systems can use the Basic Lighting, which is similar to what you seen before. Basic lighting doesn't look quite as good, and your lightmaps won't move with the sun, but it will run better on older systems. We've also added an additional option to advanced lighting that will allow users to use advanced lighting without dynamic sun shadows. This is intended as a median option between the two.
- The old cloud system has been replaced with a new and improved one. This offers more variety and better visuals than was previously the case and is hooked into our weather system.
- T3D's advanced lighting system has allowed us to place more lights with less of a performance hit. You'll see many instances where we have taken advantage of this, particular inside of the cities.
- We've got rivers! You can see the first of those, including a waterfall in the new and improved Plymouth.
Character
- Character customization has been implemented and can be chosen when you create your character. You will be able to choose from a variety of different faces, hair, facial hair and skin tone choices when you create your character.
- We have integrated some new time based progression code to Characters. This code will allow you to accrue certain items (such as resources harvested by a player owned workshop) or to increase in certain skills (offline advancement) while you are offline.
- Pet maturation has been moved to the time based progression code.
- Adjusted the Forage item tables to include additional zone specific items.
- Added the following abilities in the Repairing skill tree: Repair Structure and Emergency Repairs. These abilities require the appropriate tools, and are used to repair damage to Control Points/Cities.
- Added the following ability to the Installations tree: Structural Plannning. This ability requires a Construction License, but allows you to increase a control points structure points. These points can then be used by the control points mayor to purchase upgrades.
- Integrated the skills and abilities for our three new advanced (hidden) skill trees. These are the only skills that you do not begin the game with, and offer unique abilities. We don't want to discuss them any more, as we'd rather leave the mystique.
Control Points
- Players are now able to create Personal Shops/Structures inside of their control point of residence, up to a maximum of 5. The number of structures that they can create are determined by the city and the Industrial technology level of that Control Point. Structures are like automated shops which can grant bonuses either to that player or to Control Point. Different structures grant different bonuses and effects. These effects range from being able to manufacture certain items or resources, even when the player is offline, to training facilities which can grant a small increase to certain skills when offline, to things that benefit the Control Point as a whole. Structures are produced by using a structure blueprint. These deeds can be created by players.
- You can modify your shops to add or remove a shop from your current listing by accessing the Control Computer at your control point and clicking the Shop button. You can only manage shops if you are a resident. If a shop button is redded out then this means that the Control Point does not have the industrial level to support this slot. You can still place shops into these slots for the future, but you will receive no benefit until the industrial level is raised to a sufficient level to take advantage of it.
- If your city of residence is conquered by an enemy nation, you will be evicted. Any structures that you owned in that city will be forfeited if you are evicted, including your housing and structures. All of the furniture from your home will automatically be transferred to your new home when you declare one, but your shops will be forever lost.
- Control Points can be conquered via the siege system. You begin a siege by attacking one of the structures in that city. This could be a turret, a wall, or any other selectable building inside of that city. When a siege has been begins, all members of the besieged Clan will be notified that it is under attack. The defending control point is given a defense value that is determined by their defense and technology levels. There is special siege equipment such as the Launchers which is intended to do damage during sieges. These structures can also be damaged by normal weapons, but siege weapons are more effective. As a Control Point becomes damaged, its structures become damaged, and may become less effective. At varying damage levels events will begin in that control point which spawn certain npcs, who will react in certain ways. This varies from city to city. Eventually when enough damage has been done the final event will kick in. This will culminate with th Captain of the Guard spawning. If he is defeated, then the control point has fallen and the defenders will have gained control. The goal of the event system is to allow each control point to feel different and to have different defensive advantages and strategies. The Commanding Officer will be a boss mob, which means that he will have randomly generated special abilities, in addition to whichever unique abiltiies he has for that region.
- Once a city has been conquered, it will have its damagelevel restored to 50%. This gives the conquering nation a chance to repair and upgrade options in case they are attacked again. There will always be some damage to structures during a siege, which will set it back a bit from where it was previously, but not back to ground zero.
- A Control Points damage level can be replenished by using repair skills. These are given to both those with sufficient Installations knowledge, and those with sufficient Repairing. They abilities which replenish a Control Points Damage Level do require resources, however.
- There are special abilities which allow Installation Experts to purchase a Construction License and use it to help a city gain Structure Points more quickly than usual.
Crafting
- Integrated three new Horticulture Recipes.
- Added a new type of tree, which produces materials used in repairing. These trees are found in tier2+ zones.
- Added in the following Installations Recipes: Repair Materials and Emergency Repair Materials. These recipes allow the creation of materials to be used for the city repair tools.
General
- Immortals can now make themselves invulnerable to damage.
- Fixed a bug that was causing players to never become fully visible after they had become stealthed. They were remaining at 99.5% visiblity at all times previously.
- Added mousepad support.
- Sound is again functional, and we've added a number of new effects.
- We've dramatically reduced our alpha clients download size.
Graphics
- Character models now have more hand articulation
- There are now different animation sets depending on the type of weapon you are wielding.
- Added numerous new animations.
- Added the ability for mounted images to be scaled.
- Our old painted on roads have been replaced with new decal roads.
- Added in a new font variation created by Evanion.
Items
- Added 27 new Structures to be used in the player owned workshop system.
- Traps and trigger objects will now tick twice as often as before.
- Fixed a bug that was causing traps or trigger objects not to tick on players in some cases.
- Vehicle engine upgrades have had their speed boost increased.
Quests
- Fixed some text bugs in the Diamonds and Girls quest.
Skills and Abilities
- Added in the new Acrobatics ability: Avoidance.
- Added the Dirty Fighting ability: Arrogant Taunt.
- Added in the Martial Tactics ability: Comeback Rally.
- Added the Shield Tactics ability: Unbreakable Defense.
- Added the Axe Fighting ability: Hurricane Slice.
- Added the Fencing Tactics ability: Evasive Manuever
World
- Added in Turrets. Turrets are slow firing objects that are used in a city's defense. They have a long range of fire and can deal a decent amount of damage.
- Fixed the a bug that was causing turrets to fire at players they were not facing.
UI
- The character creation menu has been altered to provide new character customization options.
And now for the screenshots:
Engine
- As noted above, we have ported to the Torque 3D engine. This brings a variety of improvements, which will be documented below.
- With this move we went from Atlas to T3D terrain, and this results in a huge improvement. Not only is our terrain visual improvement massively improved, but we also were able to increase our zone size by 25%, while having a smaller memory footprint than we did before. Most importantly, our terrain looks better and is more varied.
- Our day and night transitions are vastly improved if you choose to use the Advanced Lighting model. Everything casts a proper shadow, and the shadows adjust properly for the time of day. This does come at a performance cost, however. Users on older systems can use the Basic Lighting, which is similar to what you seen before. Basic lighting doesn't look quite as good, and your lightmaps won't move with the sun, but it will run better on older systems. We've also added an additional option to advanced lighting that will allow users to use advanced lighting without dynamic sun shadows. This is intended as a median option between the two.
- The old cloud system has been replaced with a new and improved one. This offers more variety and better visuals than was previously the case and is hooked into our weather system.
- T3D's advanced lighting system has allowed us to place more lights with less of a performance hit. You'll see many instances where we have taken advantage of this, particular inside of the cities.
- We've got rivers! You can see the first of those, including a waterfall in the new and improved Plymouth.
Character
- Character customization has been implemented and can be chosen when you create your character. You will be able to choose from a variety of different faces, hair, facial hair and skin tone choices when you create your character.
- We have integrated some new time based progression code to Characters. This code will allow you to accrue certain items (such as resources harvested by a player owned workshop) or to increase in certain skills (offline advancement) while you are offline.
- Pet maturation has been moved to the time based progression code.
- Adjusted the Forage item tables to include additional zone specific items.
- Added the following abilities in the Repairing skill tree: Repair Structure and Emergency Repairs. These abilities require the appropriate tools, and are used to repair damage to Control Points/Cities.
- Added the following ability to the Installations tree: Structural Plannning. This ability requires a Construction License, but allows you to increase a control points structure points. These points can then be used by the control points mayor to purchase upgrades.
- Integrated the skills and abilities for our three new advanced (hidden) skill trees. These are the only skills that you do not begin the game with, and offer unique abilities. We don't want to discuss them any more, as we'd rather leave the mystique.
Control Points
- Players are now able to create Personal Shops/Structures inside of their control point of residence, up to a maximum of 5. The number of structures that they can create are determined by the city and the Industrial technology level of that Control Point. Structures are like automated shops which can grant bonuses either to that player or to Control Point. Different structures grant different bonuses and effects. These effects range from being able to manufacture certain items or resources, even when the player is offline, to training facilities which can grant a small increase to certain skills when offline, to things that benefit the Control Point as a whole. Structures are produced by using a structure blueprint. These deeds can be created by players.
- You can modify your shops to add or remove a shop from your current listing by accessing the Control Computer at your control point and clicking the Shop button. You can only manage shops if you are a resident. If a shop button is redded out then this means that the Control Point does not have the industrial level to support this slot. You can still place shops into these slots for the future, but you will receive no benefit until the industrial level is raised to a sufficient level to take advantage of it.
- If your city of residence is conquered by an enemy nation, you will be evicted. Any structures that you owned in that city will be forfeited if you are evicted, including your housing and structures. All of the furniture from your home will automatically be transferred to your new home when you declare one, but your shops will be forever lost.
- Control Points can be conquered via the siege system. You begin a siege by attacking one of the structures in that city. This could be a turret, a wall, or any other selectable building inside of that city. When a siege has been begins, all members of the besieged Clan will be notified that it is under attack. The defending control point is given a defense value that is determined by their defense and technology levels. There is special siege equipment such as the Launchers which is intended to do damage during sieges. These structures can also be damaged by normal weapons, but siege weapons are more effective. As a Control Point becomes damaged, its structures become damaged, and may become less effective. At varying damage levels events will begin in that control point which spawn certain npcs, who will react in certain ways. This varies from city to city. Eventually when enough damage has been done the final event will kick in. This will culminate with th Captain of the Guard spawning. If he is defeated, then the control point has fallen and the defenders will have gained control. The goal of the event system is to allow each control point to feel different and to have different defensive advantages and strategies. The Commanding Officer will be a boss mob, which means that he will have randomly generated special abilities, in addition to whichever unique abiltiies he has for that region.
- Once a city has been conquered, it will have its damagelevel restored to 50%. This gives the conquering nation a chance to repair and upgrade options in case they are attacked again. There will always be some damage to structures during a siege, which will set it back a bit from where it was previously, but not back to ground zero.
- A Control Points damage level can be replenished by using repair skills. These are given to both those with sufficient Installations knowledge, and those with sufficient Repairing. They abilities which replenish a Control Points Damage Level do require resources, however.
- There are special abilities which allow Installation Experts to purchase a Construction License and use it to help a city gain Structure Points more quickly than usual.
Crafting
- Integrated three new Horticulture Recipes.
- Added a new type of tree, which produces materials used in repairing. These trees are found in tier2+ zones.
- Added in the following Installations Recipes: Repair Materials and Emergency Repair Materials. These recipes allow the creation of materials to be used for the city repair tools.
General
- Immortals can now make themselves invulnerable to damage.
- Fixed a bug that was causing players to never become fully visible after they had become stealthed. They were remaining at 99.5% visiblity at all times previously.
- Added mousepad support.
- Sound is again functional, and we've added a number of new effects.
- We've dramatically reduced our alpha clients download size.
Graphics
- Character models now have more hand articulation
- There are now different animation sets depending on the type of weapon you are wielding.
- Added numerous new animations.
- Added the ability for mounted images to be scaled.
- Our old painted on roads have been replaced with new decal roads.
- Added in a new font variation created by Evanion.
Items
- Added 27 new Structures to be used in the player owned workshop system.
- Traps and trigger objects will now tick twice as often as before.
- Fixed a bug that was causing traps or trigger objects not to tick on players in some cases.
- Vehicle engine upgrades have had their speed boost increased.
Quests
- Fixed some text bugs in the Diamonds and Girls quest.
Skills and Abilities
- Added in the new Acrobatics ability: Avoidance.
- Added the Dirty Fighting ability: Arrogant Taunt.
- Added in the Martial Tactics ability: Comeback Rally.
- Added the Shield Tactics ability: Unbreakable Defense.
- Added the Axe Fighting ability: Hurricane Slice.
- Added the Fencing Tactics ability: Evasive Manuever
World
- Added in Turrets. Turrets are slow firing objects that are used in a city's defense. They have a long range of fire and can deal a decent amount of damage.
- Fixed the a bug that was causing turrets to fire at players they were not facing.
UI
- The character creation menu has been altered to provide new character customization options.
And now for the screenshots:
#2
05/27/2009 (4:25 am)
As usual J.C. ... awesome job. :) 
#3
05/27/2009 (5:59 am)
looking niceee :D 
#4
05/27/2009 (11:22 am)
Sixth shot, awesome! 
#6
05/28/2009 (12:09 am)
tenth shot is my favorite. 
#7
05/28/2009 (5:09 am)
That is tight! Definitely looking forward to this! 
#8
05/29/2009 (1:52 pm)
Is anyone else not seeing the screenies? I'm on IE8, and not listening to anyone who tells me to stop it :P 
Torque Owner deepscratch
DeepScratchStudios
that looks awesome, great work!!