Dark Horizons: Mechanized Corps (Classic) News

The staff wanted to share more of what we have been working on over the last month. The team is focused on making some major improvements to the game including SP/MP campaign re-envision, networking improvements, IK/animation updates, new AI, and overall improvements visual quality.

Last Dev Diary we showed some of the work adding IK to the mechs and animations, so this update we wanted to make it short and just share some screenshots of new environments we are working on.









The design team is very excited about the way the new environments are turning out, and are working on several new missions for release later this year.

We will work on giving development updates more often and we appreciate all the continued support for DHMC.

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

Been a very busy month behind the scenes for the team as we work on more Contract missions, internal redesign of how SP and MP will converge to fuel the Faction Wars campaign and some major updates to the games graphics and animations.

We are not ready yet to share the vision that the players have help shape for SP and MP, but we are at a point with some of the new updates to the game graphics, animations and physics.

No more floating mechs!

One legacy issue, we pulled in from Aftermath, was that it was built on a platform made for FPS and lacked the ability to do cool things like IK (Inverse kinematics). We are now in process of implementing IK which is being combined with our animations. This is a big change that will really affect the way the chassis moves and reacts to the environment, including giving them a much more sense of weight.

Example 1 (Viper standing on uneven ground)
Above is old vs new IK on mech

Example 2 (Abolisher)


As you can see the feet and legs of the mech chassis now conforms to the ground instead of floating above the ground. This may seem like a simple thing, but in our next Dev Dairy we will share some video and these changes will become very apparent in how the mechs move.

Higher Fidelity environments

Another part of what we are working on are higher fidelity environments. This includes more detail to the terrain and the objects in the levels, along with larger environments more similar in size to the Arctic Battlefield.

Speaking of that battlefield, here is a shot with the new terrain which really bring to life the feel of being in more of a glacier type environment.



Other larger environments are in the works


Coming next

The above changes are still a bit away from being released, and in the next Dev Diary we will share all the some more of the behind the scenes happenings. Coming in the near term we are focusing on providing more SP contract missions and improvements to current MP missions.

Next Dev Diary will coming in about a week! Look at for shots of the work we are doing behind the scenes, and we will also share with you the player inspired re-envisioning of Faction Wars!

To join the conversation hit the forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions

To keep up to date join the official game group:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/dhmc

We are in process of moving to a new backend server setup this week, and this Sunday we will have a short period of downtime while we switch to the new environment.

With this we will be pushing a patch for the game that will need to be downloaded, this patch will include same fixes and new features for the game. It will also include some more weapons balancing from the last build and some other goodies people have been waiting on.

For questions please go to the forums:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/266470/discussions/0/541907867764472758/