Interior Illumination

The past few weeks I've been implementing several new features including procedural hand weapons for crew members. One of the modules that was still in my mind since the begining was the internal illumination module to add deep and mood to the ship, some ships will be more illuminted than others and this will affect also on the gameplay making it difficult for the player to find hidden enemy units in the dark for example. Still many more features will be shown in the upcoming weeks. Here is a sample image of the work in progress illumination module inside ships.

Still small details need to be added like the source of the light, but it is looking a lot better than just a plain illumination.

Hand weapons, pistols, rifles, shotguns and more

Crew members including the player can board other ships to accomplish different missions, and security is one of the key factors, though not all crew members will be able to use all kinds of weapons depending on the security expertise to allow a diverse weapon usage.  Weapons are procedurally generated and here is a quick preview of one of the weapons:

Still many details are still work in progress, and not shown on screen, but those details will make fire arms unique in many different ways, choosing the right weapon will be crucial when defending yourself against enemies and boarding parties.

Quests, status check and how to know more about your crew

Social media also is an important part in the future, whenever you want to get new quests, track how your crew is doing , what do they think about you and others, get requests from the main story, get status,  and other things are all visible through social media in Junkcraft Armada. Here is a concept work in progress screenshot of it.

One thing to remember is that your ship is your home and your family is your crew, you will spend years (in game time) with them in your ship to accomplish your main mission, so knowing them will help you accomplish your mission. Each crew member is not just a replaceable resource that you can use and discard, each one of them interact with each other, like or hate each other so you will have to think how to assign tasks to them to have a more effective team.

Shuttles and many more options

Shuttles can be purchased and stored in shuttle bays as shown before, but now you can also board the shuttle and see the inside of it and the crew inside the shuttle like this:

Shuttles can dock to shuttle bays, airlocks, and other parts. A shuttle can be used to board enemy ships to make a surprise attack or to send help to a distressed ship, also to evacuate ships in danger, there are multiple uses for shuttles, but also you can dock using your main ship. By doing so, you may put the whole ship at risk if something goes wrong, so using a shuttle is an option given to the player, to buy or not to buy.

A space ship have many modules but you will have to choose what kind of modules you may want to have , capacity is limited so better weapons?, more storage? more energy generators, more shields? so many options, and shuttles is one more of them.

Boarding extended - simple concept expanded a little bit more

Not so long ago, the concept of boarding other ships to accomplish missions in a simplified way was created, after many tests I decided to expand it more than just a simple simulation and now you can manage your crew while boarding or being boarded. To board another space ship you can try to use your airlocks or go through space, now you can use also shuttles and soon some more options.

Here is a picture of the evolution of the shuttle inside Junkcraft Armada, from just a simple drawing to a more detailed image at the end. Now besides your main ship you may decide to host shuttles like this.

Little bit or art added to the game..

Still work in progress but decided to work a little bit on sprites and some game art, this is what I was able to do today...

This may become the main game art box to be used in XBOX later...

Inside and outside your ship

As mentioned a week ago, the interface and gameplay inside the ship changed. By adding modules to your ship the inside also changes accordingly, corridors connect different sections of your ship so your crew can walk around the ship, but be aware that if a module is damaged you will start to see holes or broken parts, if a wall breaks completely, who ever is close will be pulled out by the space vacuum.

Assigning roles to your crew will also affect how they behave inside, so a mechanic will try to fix whatever is broken inside your ship, while a security guard will patrol your ship all the time just to make sure that everything runs as expected. Sometimes pirates may board your ship so having enough guards will make sure that you survive the day.

This is a work in progress image, your crew can be manually selected and do tasks like fixing specific areas otherwise they will do whatever they think is better for your ship, or for them.

A space ship is not complete with bunks and a toilet! , bunks limit how many crew members you can have on board, and if your bunks gets destroyed your crew will demand a replacement or they may get angry at you over time, who knows what can happen after!...