I am still working on the AI improvements and testing.
There is an issue with pathfinding when the AI is inside a very complex structure (Such as a structure with a complex set of staircases,etc). I am currently working on fixing this.
I have also made various improvements to the performance of the AI system, as well as many minor bug fixes.
I have been focusing on the games AI for a few days now.
In addition to improvements to the random Creatures, I have also made improvements to the Companion AI.
These were minor, and just fixed an issue with the AI sliding slightly when they stopped on uneven ground.
I have also added some more user-feedback messages to tell them when an item cannot be used or combined, etc. The game currently does not have enough tutorials and help messages, I am working on adding more of these.
The next goal is to continue working on the AI, including the AI within cities and buildings, which is a lot more complex.
I am continuing to work on debugging and playtesting the game.
I have fixed an issue with the grass rendering system which causes the grass to render more than once on the same area of ground, significantly decreasing performance.
This was caused by higher level terrain chunks still having their grass rendering when the chunk itself was paged out, in some cases.
This is now fixed.
I have fixed some issues with the scale of ground cover objects. Some objects, like trees, should have a semi-random scale, so that they don’t all look the same. However, other objects, such as man-made objects like cabins, escape pods, etc, should have a fixed scale otherwise they don’t look right.
I also made some minor improvements to the life simulation variables.
I have been working on improving the AI in the game, starting with the AI for random Creatures.
They were sometimes floating above the terrain, and sometimes appearing below it, these issues have now been fixed.
I also made some improvements to the guis that allow the user to scan for different types of items.
In addition, I fixed a major bug with the day/night cycle, which was in the project for some time. I am not 100% if the fix works in all cases, but it seems to.
I have fixed a few minor bugs and made some minor improvements to the project.
These improvements were mostly related to the AI systems and item spawning.
I have also been working on some concept art for some new items for the project.
Vendors in the game now sell more items, and their stock is randomised, so they don’t all sell the same thing.
The art for the fishing rods and fish items is now basically done.
There is a simple, craftable, fishing rod, which can be made from items in the world, as well as a higher-quality fishing rod that can be manufactured (Or, eventually, bought).
There are also some fish types, that can be caught, and eaten raw (with a risk of contamination) or cooked.
I have also added in new traits, etc, for the fishing action.
The next step is to actually implement the logic for the fishing action.
I have used the recent changes to the water detection algorithm to improve the NPC ai in the the game.
AI will now not be spawned on water, even shallow water, and will avoid it when pathing.
There are some minor conditions where this causes issues (For example, if there are many puddles of water on the terrain, they can get stuck) but in general, this massively improves the AI behaviour near shorelines.
The AI used to run into water when moving, this no longer happens.
I am also planning to add a “fishing” action, to supplement the hunting actions that are already in the game. I am working on some art assets to support this now.
All of the tests that I wanted to run have been completed.
There were some bugs found, some minor, some more complex.
The most recent test set involved testing the precise placement of objects and characters across zones and at very long ranges. The core functionality does work, but there are some bugs in it that I haven’t tracked down yet.
I will need to leave this for the future.
Other than that, everything seems to work more or less ok.
I have also made some changes to the game balancing, and I have added some minor new features, such as allowing the player to drink and collect water from large bodies of water.
This was impossible before because I had no way of determining whether the player was raycasing against a water or a land tile, but I was able to figure out how to do this.
There are a few minor bugs left to fix, and then I can think about what to do for the next milestone.
I have finished debugging most of the bugs that I found during the first set of testing, and I have started on the next set of tests.
This mostly went ok, but there were quite a few smaller bugs and issues.
Most of these should be fixed quickly.
There were also some game design and balancing issues that need to be tweaked, such as the chances of certain resources dropping, or of finding certain items, etc.
There is just one more set of testing to go now, and that should be it for the time being.
I have finished the first set of tests that I was working on.
I did discover a few bugs, but there was nothing too serious.
There was an issue with the players inventory being “blanked” under certain conditions, as well as some issues with AI pathfinding, and navigation etc.
Most of the minor bugs were fixed. There are a few issues that I will need to take a look at in the future, but these are not too serious.