Development Blog #2 [September 2020]
Hello Drakelings!
Welcome back to the second devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. There is not as much to show off this month as other months, as most of the work in September related to getting the Khafji map ready for our upcoming playtests, however, there was some important progress that went into Warfare 1944 that we will be sharing here since it is directly related to O:HD’s development.
If you aren’t sure how Warfare 1944 relates to O:HD, we highly recommend checking out the last devblog in the series for more on how they work together, and what OHDCore is (the underlying framework for both games).
Let’s get into it:
Maps
[h3]Khafji[/h3]
In the month of September, a lot of work has gone into further building out Khafji, swapping blockout buildings with more detailed buildings, and further development of our internal tool sets that will allow for faster and more high quality level creation (such as modular building sets).
Some before and after shots:
A showcase of some of the “final” buildings (i.e. these are for what is called “look dev”, and are meant for conceptual development of the look and feel of the overall level—eventually they will be improved even further):
A display of some of our modular building sets:
And last but not least, some more foliage being worked on for this level:
Objects, Models, and Textures
[h3]FOB Buildables[/h3]
Our 3D modeling team has continued work on creating objects and models that will be used in the FOB buildables feature once that is implemented, including hesco barriers set up in walls and other various arrangements, as well as sandbags:
Deployables Systems
DISCLAIMER: The images that will be used in this section come from our other game Warfare 1944—as stated at the beginning of the devblog, if you do not understand how Warfare relates to O:HD, we highly recommend checking out the last devblog in the series for more on how they work together, and what OHDCore is (the underlying framework for both games).[h3]Rally Points, Ammo Bags, and Med Bags[/h3]
We have now incorporated a first pass/iteration of rally points, ammo bags, and med bags. These same systems will soon be integrated into O:HD, however, at the time of this devblog we only have them ready to go in Warfare 1944. That said, because the underlying systems have now been programmed, it will not take long to put them into O:HD—they will be in by the time we pick up our playtesting sessions again. They still need work to add more depth, but the basic functionality is there.
Textures on the ammo and med bags are not final.Rally points are placeable by Squad Leaders, and will enable the entire team to spawn on them for the life/duration of the RP (for now—once we have a proper squad system in place, only your fellow squad members will be able to spawn on them). If an enemy gets within a certain radius (25 meters), the spawn point will turn red and nobody will be able to spawn on it while any enemies are nearby.
Ammo bags are placeable by the Rifleman class in order to resupply your team. To start, because they do not differentiate between ammo and grenades (yet), the ammo bags will replenish 5 mags/clips every 30 seconds in order to counteract the ability for people to spam grenades. Once ammo and grenades are separated, this will change.
Med bags are placeable by the Medic class in order to heal your team. Now that these are in, we have removed health regeneration, so if you want to heal back up you will need a medic. We are also currently discussing how to handle revives and buddy medical systems internally, so once we have a more concrete idea of how we want to create these systems we will be sure to do so in future devblogs.
All values for the deployables will continue to be balanced and adjusted over time as these systems become more advanced.
Upcoming and WIP Features
[h3]Swimming[/h3]
We now have basic swimming in Warfare 1944, which means this system is not far out from being implemented into O:HD as well. Once again, at the time of this devblog we simply do not have this system integrated into O:HD yet, so I am using an image from Warfare to demonstrate this:
[h3]Bots/AI[/h3]
Work continues on bots/AI. Right now, the programming team is working on merging this system into OHDCore so they can see a first implementation into the game (even if they are not very good/smart). I hope to have a preview of this for you all by next devblog!
Warfare 1944
Other than the work that was shared above (which I have separated from this section since those are systems that are also directly relevant to O:HD) the Japanese faction is now right around the corner! The animation team has finished creating the remaining third person animations that were needed in order to add them in, which means the multi-faction system (which will also be used for things like the Russian faction in the future) can now be implemented. Soon we will finally have the proper factions on our Pacific Theater maps. Keep an eye out for future Warfare 1944 playtests to see when we will be testing them out!
—
That’s it for this month, thank you to everyone who took the time to check out our updates! We will keep you all posted on when the next Operation: Harsh Doorstop playtests begin—the team is working extremely hard trying to get the game to a state where we feel it will be ready to start playing with everyone again, and we can’t wait to show you all of our progress in a real, tangible gameplay environment.
Make sure to join the DRK Discord, and/or follow our Steam announcements to know when this will be, and if you would like to support us early on in development don’t forget you can always pick up a key for O:HD on our Patreon! See you all next time!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager
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