[img]https://i.imgur.com/uFRAW4R.png[/img] Hello! I can't believe it's already been a year! Tiny Combat Arena's reception and sales, even in its Early Access state, has wildly exceeded my expectations. I can't say thank you enough to you and the people who made this happen behind the scenes. When I posted the Early Access description over a year ago, I had planned for the Early Access period to last for 12-18 months. We're now at the start of that window. I'm further behind that I'd like to be, but the pace of work has picked up recently for several reasons. [h2]1. Vehicle AI uses real and extremely performant pathfinding[/h2] Vehicle AI pathfinding now has a proper and high performance solution. With this in mind, vehicles are free to move around when before any kind of vehicle movement was buggy and performance intensive. The new AI pathfinding also allows for maps to be much more interesting, since a practically infinite flat plane is no longer a requirement, and they can follow/avoid terrain features such as roads or forests. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40742388/a21f4fb2d5c05affaaf5fbbde663d8d3501e0bd1.gif[/img] [h2]2. New terrain and terrain tools in development[/h2] This is a really big one. In the past couple weeks, I've brought on [url=https://twitter.com/aynik_co]a technical artist with experience and a love for retro games[/url], to help with terrain generation and map creation. Terrains have been, across [i]every[/i] version of Tiny Combat that has ever existed, a nightmare that would keep me up at night. While I was making steady progress on a new terrain, I hit a wall where I realized that I just don't have the time to do this myself. I used to say that tooling for terrains had just evolved in a different direction from what I needed, and that to make the terrains I wanted I'd literally have to make new tools from scratch. That's where they come in! In the past couple weeks, new tools have been developed for Blender to create terrain in ways that I could only fantasize about before. Below are some very early WIP images of a redo of the largest island on the Sand Island map using the new technology. I'm really excited for what this means for future map development. Parametrically drawn features such as flat areas on which bases, towns, and buildings can be drawn. [img]https://i.imgur.com/kdGegsu.png[/img] Parametrically and non-destructively cutting unique features such as canyons into the terrain. [img]https://i.imgur.com/XqGq7pQ.png[/img] [h2]3. The campaign framework is in place[/h2] Long overdue considering that this was meant to be a core aspect of the game. My vision for Arena had been for smaller individual Arena missions to be stringed together across a larger campaign map. With the terrain being taken care of, this lets me focus on the Arena mechanics, their missions, UI, and filling in the missing gameplay features. [img]https://i.imgur.com/RDmpdMm.png[/img] [h2]What's coming?[/h2] The [url=https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1347550/view/5032215335985456872?l=english]old roadmap post[/url] is still relevant, so I recommend checking that out. Almost all aspects of it are in progress to some degree, with a lot of tangential work such as the new user experience, control tweaks, and many other changes immediately post-release to address the most pressing problems, and bugs having been completed in the last year. An update on everything on the roadmap: [list] [*]Expanded Arena Map UI - The Arena map now has a proper camera, but the UI for drawing bases and other strategic information is still in need of a rather large overhaul. [*]Campaigns - The functionality is done. The only thing missing is content. [*]Finished Sand Island Map - See above. A new developer has been brought on to create terrain tools, finish the map, and create new maps. [*]Air defense and Defensive Structures/Units - Internally, these have been called "tactical targets" and are in progress right now. [*]Improved Offensive and Defensive Missile Combat - No work has specifically been done on this since then, but is in progress right now. Flares will get some tweaking, chaff will become functional, new UI has to be created to give the player information to dodge missiles, and finally all the necessary AI to make this fun. Missiles are a very multi-faceted issue. [*]Custom Loadouts - Custom loadouts are already completely possible and supported within the game, it's only lacking UI. Since then, it's now possible to select loadouts in instant action and before flights in Arena, but a dedicated UI for creating new loadouts is still to come. [/list] While still not "strategically" important, I've started working on all the missile related items needed to get AI, both ground and air based, firing missiles. I know it's a year late, but it was one of those things that as [i]a developer[/i] just isn't really wasn't that important to where I was in the game to have them done. However, between player feedback and hitting the point where mission design is going to become relevant very soon, it's time. When it comes to development news, the best and most up to date places to follow or reach me are on the [url=https://discord.com/invite/xyWqGak]MicroProse Discord[/url], or [url=https://twitter.com/Why485]by following me on Twitter[/url]. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40742388/a622744118adaea0d07900d49cae1f17ef72f877.gif[/img] It's nice too that this stuff is really fun and motivating to work on.