Here’s the third and final part of the little miniseries on me implementing the Techs feature in the metagame. Polishing and some refactoring remains, but it works pretty well so far!

I might do more of these uncut programming recordings in the future.. but don’t hold your breath

Sounded like you guys actually enjoyed the first video, so I decided to make it a three-part series.. let’s see if I can finish the Techs system in the next one!

Ever wondered what it takes to implement a small feature in a game? Here’s a sleepy, rambly, and uncut/edited demonstration

Play with it yourself!

AK TURKEY SAYS:

“GOBBLE GOBBLE”

Here’s an idea for a cheap holiday gift to yourself or someone else: Use the code HALFOFFCC on checkout of a regular Cortex Command license and save 50% :]

Our new licensing system uses gift codes that can easily be sent to anyone, giving them DRM-free download access to the current and all future versions of Cortex Command!

This is only valid for a few days, so jump on it!

Yup, a fresh build is out, immediately available here, or on the HIB download page for you dear Humble Bundle customers! Mostly fixes and tweaks in this one, but there’s some new fun content too!

• Fixed broken custom pie menu options; now they work as advertised
• Fixed over-drawing of glow effect on selection cursor and aiming reticules. No more fat glows
• Fixed duplicate team objective cursors added each frame in activities.
• Fixed additional (I think all!) mouse control conflicts with other control schemes.
• Fixed resolution setting issue. The game will now try to use whatever res is set in settings.ini, no matter how high or silly it is. The in-game options menu will still automatically set to 2x fullscreen scaling on high resolutions though. This is a compromise between what will suit first time players, and the power users who want inappropriately high resolutions.
• Gave the Coalition Gatling Drone some more Coalitionish sprites – Lizard
• Added Thumper Grenade Launcher; tweaked Nailgun, Railgun, Scouting Rifle, Annihilator, and a lot of other stuff – CaveCricket48
• Improved Lua AI sentry behavior. Improved aiming at very short distances – Abdul
• The Dummy Rocklet now respond to delivery/stay/return orders properly – Abdul
• Made grappling gun more mouse-friendly – CaveCricket48
• The Lua AI was modified to make it easier to add custom behaviors. Humans try to fly to their targets after losing both their legs. Added a Lua AI for the Gatling Turret – Abdul
• Updated enemy drops in activity scripts, fixed a bug on the Annihiliator – CaveCricket48
• AI now fires the Annihiliator with longer-charged shots. – Abdul
• Heavy Sniper rounds no longer bounce – CaveCricket48
• Balancing of Blast Runner and Gatling Drone and Turrets – TheLastBanana

I am going to add a video and talk about the now playable metagame/campaign here soon, but I just wanted everyone who previously bought the game to not have to wait and be able to download the newest version right away:
http://licensing.datarealms.com/licensing/

Use your email and old license key as password (all UPPERCASE) to get access to Windows, Mac, and Linux variants of Build 25, without any kind of DRM!
You can now play anywhere, anyhow without having to worry about registering license keys etc. If you forgot your old license key, just use the password reset feature on that page.

We worked hard on this one; I hope you enjoy the campaign mode with your friends, even in its current rough state!

As you can see, it’s a very impressive voxel, or ‘atom’-based 3D engine running smoothly on regular medium-spec hardware. The advantages and gameplay possibilities enabled by simulating the interior volume of the game world’s terrain and objects (as opposed to only the surfaces like in most games) should be clear to any fan of Cortex Command, Minecraft or Terraria – games entirely built around freely digging into and building with a world’s atomic matter of different materials.

As challenging as it has been for me to build a custom 2D physics engine to handle destructible atomic terrain in Cortex Command, I can appreciate the very promising progress that Branislav Síleš, sole author of the Atomontage Engine, has made on tackling the third dimension at such high (and variable) resolution! Check out this video where he shows off how the volumetric matter can be removed to expose hidden structures beneath:

Amazing stuff! This is still an early prototype with only a solo man working on it, but I would love to see this technology mature to a point where we could one day use it to develop a future sequel of Cortex Command (3D? ).. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to build an underground bunker in one of those gorgeous, procedural hills and defend it against enemy forces landing from orbit?!

If you’re feelin’ me, then I urge you to consider donating and supporting Branislav’s project here! It will improve the chances of him not having to take on outside investment in exchange for control/ownership of his project – something that probably would hurt the chances of a CC 3D happening. In other words: let’s help him stay indie!

The custom options will show up only when an Actor of a Preset with them defined is selected, or he’s holding a device that itself has extra options defined. The options’ icons can also be of custom size and design. As an example, can you figure out what this modded Actor’s extra Pie-Menu option will do??: (it’s not what you see to the right)

In MyMod.rte/Robots/Robots.ini:

AddActor = AHuman
  CopyOf = Robot 1
  PresetName = Suicidal Robot
  AddPieSlice = Slice
    Description = Detonate Limb
    Direction = 2
    Icon = Icon
      CopyOf = MyCoolIcon
    ScriptPath = MyMod.rte/Scripts/Dismember.lua
    FunctionName = Dismember


in MyMod.rte/Scripts/Dismember.lua:

function Dismember(actor)
  humanoid = ToAHuman(actor);
  if humanoid then
    if humanoid.EquippedItem then
      humanoid:ReloadFirearm();
    elseif humanoid.FGLeg then
      humanoid.FGLeg:GibThis();
    elseif humanoid.BGLeg then
      humanoid.BGLeg:GibThis();
    elseif humanoid.FGArm then
      humanoid.FGArm:GibThis();
    elseif humanoid.BGArm then
      humanoid.BGArm:GibThis();
    else
      humanoid.Head:GibThis();
    end
  end
end


This new modding feature effectively connects the entire Lua scripting interface and all its modding opportunities to the real-time gameplay presented to the player. Custom firing modes of weapons, explosive self-destruction of Actors, mission-specific commands.. you name it; pretty much anything is possible!