Mission loading, locking up, stealing doors - Devlog 19/08

The main focus for this past week has been redesigning the level loading system. If you played the last playtest, you may have noticed that the mission preview images in the intel board mysteriously disappeared. I liked having those previews, but generating them for each level took way too long, so I experimented with removing them.

New mission loading

In the end, I decided it wasn't really worth having the mission preview images. The load times would be far too long once there are more levels in the game, and most people didn't really find them very useful. Instead, I'll implement a new system which will still give the player some insight into how profitable or risky a mission is, without having to load the entire mission.

The new system will generate a series of values for each mission, such as the profitability, security, etc., which will then be used to create the mission itself. This will be slightly less accurate, but allow us to generate missions near-instantly. It will also allow for mission refreshing, to give the players more options of missions to choose from before loading in.

Security?

While planning out this system with the three main mission properties - profit, security, and ease of entry - I realised that there still isn't any variability in the ease of entry area. Profit already varies based on which items spawn, security can be varied by spawning more NPCs. But all windows and doors were always unlocked.

So before I could start implementing this new mission loading system, I had to introduce a way to vary ease of access - by adding locked doors and windows. A lot of this work was already done a while back, but I disabled it because it made development annoying. Well, now it's reenabled, and applies to any windows and doors which can spawn. External doors are far more likely to be locked, though.

Now I remembered why I disabled locking

Immediately after adding locked doors back in, I remembered why I disabled it. It makes development quite annoying, because I have to run around the house to find a way in every time I want to test something.

To fix this, I decided to add a commonly requested feature - breaking doors off their hinges. You can now smash your way through any doors, including locked ones. A hammer will make this easier, as this clip shows.

And of course, once you've ripped the door off, you can steal it! Or use it as a ramp or something.

I'm taking a week or two off from development to clear my head a bit, so you won't be seeing another devlog update until I'm back. I might do a stream while I'm away, but I'm not sure yet. I'll be checking in with the discord every now and then though, so you can reach me there in the patron chat area!