Warspite DevLog 3 - Map design, Particles and AI

Several builds down the line and now there are many new features.

I finally got the turret rotation to work how I wanted it to, with the rotation clamping properly working when the ship itself rotates, and smoothly transitioning rather than snapping to the other side of the deadzone if the mouse crosses the gap. Pretty happy now with how the ship handles and shoots although I might continue refining the ships movement to feel better as currently it feels a bit off

Another big addition since the last devblog is functional enemies rather than mysterious grey monoliths. Enemies now have their own functioning turrets which will face towards the player and continuously shoot with a few second delay between shots. In addition they also move on a course to intercept the player, trying to ram the player if shooting doesnt kill it first. Still using the same placeholder sprite for the enemy hull, but hopefully by the next devblog they should have a proper sprite.

Also visible in the two above gifs are the (admittedly basic) tilemapped background for the water, aswell as a water texture there is also an island object to be placed around the map to act as both an obstacle and also cover for the player to work around. Crashing into the island is currently instant destruction for the player, but this might be changed if it plays better to have it damage but not kill the player.

 Example of one of the islands that will be placed around the map. As with most sprites its fairly low detail, I will focus on making sprites better after I have gotten the core gameplay loop to a satisfactory level. Also considering having some islands have static enemies on them that need to be destroyed, potentially by some means other than just shooting at them.

A fair chunk of this weeks work was dedicated to playing around with particles and getting them to look how I want. As it is currently there is a particle effect every time a ship is hit by another ships shell, a ship collides with another ship, and a ship gets destroyed. Fairly basic at the moment, I plan to make more detailed sprites for the explosions. There is also an enemy torpedo which has a particle effect of bubbles following it to make it easier for the player to spot.