November Update - More Map Tools & Resource Lines

Hello everyone,

This won't be an exceptionally big update, but we still want to show off more progress.

Gustas has been continuing to update the map editor to include more improvements, which now includes some simple terrain LAT painting tools, so no more tediously placing dirt->grass transition tiles piece by piece.

Note that this is something of a preliminary iteration of this tool; the final version will require a few more complex engine changes to get working right. Specifically, the current version works just as it does in Tiberian Sun (and most isometric 2D games), where each terrain transition tile is its own graphic. However, this limits what can be done with terrain. Let's say, as an example, we have grass terrain, dirt terrain, paved terrain, and asphalt.  What if you wanted to create a dirt->asphalt transition, or an asphalt->pavement transition? This means a massive number of potential combinations; 15 terrain transition types, with 2-3 variations each, and even with just a few different terrain types, this already means you need thousands of transition tile graphics. This gets even more bloated if you include sloped versions of terrain and transition tiles as well. Old games like Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 just solved this issue by only including transitional tiles for dirt and every other terrain type, so if you want pavement next to grass, there'd need to be a dirt border in between.

The solution we've come up with is to make it so that transition tiles are generic, and just include semi-opaque pixels, so that, instead of special grass->dirt transition tiles, you have generic grass transitional tiles, and generic dirt transitional tiles, that just get overlaid to create the combination. This system has yet to be implemented, but will allow DORF to have some more intricate terrain types.

Speaking of which, some progress has been made with the new cliff system. While we do not have a working painter function for this yet, some of the preliminary work has been done (please excuse the placeholder graphics that don't fully gel together)

This seems like minutiae, but being able to have some proper varying cliff heights, as well as cliff->slope transitions, means you'll be able to get a lot more map design variation out of DORF than in most older 2D/2.5D RTS games, such as narrow mountain passes alongside cliffs. This will factor into gameplay as well, with infantry being able to traverse narrow mountain roads where larger vehicles can't tread.

We also have a bit more variety in terms of terrain sloping, which includes cardinal-facing "diamond" slope tiles that allow for some more intricate hill formations (again, excuse the placeholder graphics - some of the new tiles have an accidental "quilted bedsheet" effect)

We also have some additional work done in regards to resourcing and logistics; as can be seen in this GIF, oil is pumped from the Pumpjack, transferred through pipes to the Refinery, and then transferred via pipes to the Powerplant to power the base.

Similarly, raw materials are transferred from a Scrap Harvester into its docking bay, are transferred via conveyor to a Steelmill, and then from there the useable Materiel is transferred to an Academy to be spent on infantry units.

Note that you can create a much larger network of pipes/conveyors; a pipe network can be constructed that spreads outwards from a Refinery and moves refined Fuel to your Powerplants, Factories and storage silos, automatically. You can also use ground transports to move resources around, which is less efficient but also does not require the same initial time and material investment that building fixed pipelines and conveyors do.

Also, unrelated to the game itself, but at the request of some backers, we have implemented a $50 support tier. Note that this tier does *not* get you anything special that the $10 tier doesn't already get you, but it exists if you simply want to pledge more financial support for this project.

That's all for today, but we will hopefully have some exciting new developments later this month.