This week I spent some time working on and fleshing out the hero skills and how they fit with the gameplay style of the hero classes. I mentioned a while ago that I have slimmed it down to 3 basic heroes, each fitting a different method of playing. These are Infiltrator (Being sneaky and Spike Damage), Soldier (Not being sneaky, territory control, being a tank), and Diplomat (being a little bit sneaky, changing the diplomatic relations between players, condition damage). All the classes have their own traits and technologies (as well as some generic technologies), and they all have 3 unique abilities to be used in game. The abilities are available to be used as soon as the hero is purchased, and can be augmented by using various technology. The abilities and their corresponding in-game symbols are listed here.
- Infiltrators can:
- Spy on enemy systems. The owner of the system is unaware that the enemy hero is in the system. The hero can have a look at the improvements and output of a system, and can plant bombs on planets. They can only spend a limited amount of time in the system before the owner is alerted to their presence. (Symbol 7)
- Teleport to escape enemies. This allows the hero to teleport to the nearest friendly system if it is in trouble. This can be augmented to allow the hero to teleport anywhere! (No Symbol yet!)
- Attack an enemy hero. The infiltrator will chase the enemy hero, do a significant amount of damage to it, and (hopefully) run away before the enemy hero can retaliate. This does affect your relations with the enemy player, and is on a cool-down timer. (Symbol 8)
- Soldiers can:
- Invade enemy systems. This is pretty clear- the hero can enter a system and start to attack planets. There are some nuances to it but this is the simple explanation. Soldiers are tanky so they are the only really suitable class for this task (especially against powerful systems). (Symbol 5)
- Guard systems. They can bolster the defences of systems if they are located within them. The soldier will take a minimal amount of damage from this, but is not directly involved in the battle (passive ability). (Symbol 4)
- Claim unowned systems. If a system is unowned the hero can claim it, preventing all other players from colonising the system before you. The hero must be present in the system for this to occur. It can have negative diplomatic effects, and the hero is very vulnerable during this time. (Symbol 1)
- Diplomats can:
- Enter enemy systems. This has no diplomatic effects and will not automatically trigger war with the system. Diplomats are the only heroes that can passively look at the improvements and output of systems. However diplomats are unable to enter systems that are set to auto attack intruders. (Symbol 3)
- Promote systems. This increases the resource output of the system, and when performed on enemy systems, will improve the diplomatic relations with that player. (Symbol 6)
- Embargo systems. This prevents the system from producing resources. It will impact poorly on diplomatic relations with that player. (Symbol 2)
In game symbols for hero ablities
In addition to all that I improved the workings of the hero pathfinding algorithm, and some associated scripts. If you have a hero selected, and you mouse over another system, the path that the hero would take to get there is now highlighted. This is not only nice to look at, but will also help to identify systems the hero cannot pass through for whatever reason. In the gif below you can see the algorithm in action (and you can also see that my map generation algorithm isn't working again!).
Pathfinding with style
That's it for this week. Hopefully I can get some of these problems fixed by next week and have some nicer hero stuff to show. My plan is to complete the heroes, then get the empire technology finished, and finally get working making the AI nice and polished. After that I'll be free to polish it up, add some new races, add the win conditions and generally make it a bit more fun to play. See you next time!
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