It’s been about a month since the last update of Auto Fire, and I’ve been focused on the content arc.  In between hitting “refresh” on the Kickstarter page for Car Wars Sixth Edition (really excited to see car combat come surging back), I managed to assemble a build with a good chunk of stuff.

The upcoming goal is to really focus on content generation, bulking out how sectors are laid out and how quests are encountered within them.  This helps draw players through the various sectors and really gives some needed context and narrative to the play arc.

Some notable elements below are a larger emphasis on characters…  They are more prominent in encounters and they now are equipped to refer to each other in dialogue (which will continue to grow).  The player’s “feed” takes the place of a traditional Roguelike combat log, fielding tweets by your opponents as well as residents of the current sector.

More gameplay-relevant is the introduction of highway maps between the various overworld sectors.  These will continue to evolve and reflect the hazards of traveling long distances.  Eventually they will be the setting of convoy missions, but first things first…

As always, you can download the work in progress at Itch.io…

Gameplay

• Rockets from watch towers now take a number of turns to reach their targeted destination.
  • When you’re trying to take them out, make sure to keep moving!
  • Rockets will aim for a spread around the intended target when sighting in.
  • Some (but not all) delayed projectiles can even predict where you’ll be when they hit, forcing you to keep maneuvering.
• Various world objects are now destructible and break apart using physics.
  • Guard tower, water tower, trash pile
• Line of Sight for firing now properly checks sight rather than actual blocking which means that crates and little things won’t block your shots (finally!)
  • Added Line of Sight blocking to several buildings and entities that were not blocking.
• Extended the sight radius for vehicles. They now check in a square radius rather than a circle…  which results in cars pursuing you from a good amount away.

Visuals

• The overworld no longer slows time because it’s already an abstraction and doesn’t need even more… this is only reserved for combat maps.
• Occupied (combat) locations show explosions and smoke to help players know that they will be driving into a combat zone.
• When a player clears a map of hostile forces, they are informed with “Cleared!” upon returning to the overworld.
• Adjusted the camera so it lags slightly when moving.  Is it good? The jury is still out on this one…
• The machinegun muzzle flash ejects bouncing shells.
• Adjusted where rockets come out of a watchtower.
• Adjusted the default quality level, which was for some reason defaulting to ultra-low Atari 2600 mode.
• Revised overworld explosions since they are, again, abstractions.
• Lowered some mountain terrain that was poking up through the fog of war.

Environment

• The map generator works with maps chopped into multiple terrain chunks rather than a single one, helping performance on some larger maps.
• Fixed the placement of the highway in highway entrances.
• Highway entrances are now skinnier than they would have been.
• Revised environment items:
  • Skid decal for danger zones.
  • Added some new shacks for the desert to replace some of the trash ones I was using.
  • The watchtower and other points of interest in the desert have been beefed up a bit with some new breakable elements.
  • Barbed wire is chunkier and easier to see.  It breaks with physics also.
  • Ground decals under watchtowers, outposts, garages and homesteads are more transparent and hopefully less… ugly?
• Fixed some issues with setpieces when they are laid out in desert combat maps.

Content

• The tutorial is spread out to include special encounters where you can get instructions on how to play.
• Overworld sectors are now connected by long highway maps that must be traversed, which have some barricades and watchtowers along the way.  
  • More to come with these.
  • Highways now generate appropriate names and state highway numbers.
• Population is now more aggressively associated with faction, so that dropping a new gang into an existing map changes the experience.
  • The boss quests are also determined by the faction, so each faction can have its own quests based on what location they might find themselves in.
• Overworld enemies now explode immediately after you finish an encounter rather than one move later (which was confusing)
• Introduce a new intro encounter for bosses when encountered in the field.
• Camera zooms in on intro boss when played.

User Interface

• Added highway signs indicating what sector we’re heading for.
• The Highway designation is seen when entering a highway map.
• The combat log is now the equivalent of a social media feed, bringing in more of the publicity elements that will ultimately define your quest for fame.
  • The feed contains information about kills and items that are acquired.
  • Boss barks now manifest as Tweets (or “Toots”)
  • Added new citizen tweets about various agents and parties.
• Adjusted the encounter portrait to use large portraits now.
• Improved the ability of quests and encounters to refer to you, locations and other characters.
• Improved the automap title information to show the map and its current difficulty level.
• When a contested area is defeated, display CLEARED! floating text.
• All popups use black borders rather than metal.

Balance

• Adjusted weapon drop rate down in general.
• No weapons dropped at tutorial.
• Tutorial cars and tutorial level crates no longer drop weapons.  The only weapon you get at the very start is the single weapon you get after beating the first battlefield.
• Adjusted the bosses after the tutorial so they don’t kick you in the nuts.

Audio

• Properly called TargetSpotted when a vehicle spots the player.
• Spotted sounds now use a cooldown in general so there aren’t honks all over the damn place.
• Adjusted the default music volume, which was previously too damn loud.

Miscellaneous

• Cleaned up a bunch of stuff to reduce the size of the game on disk and memory.
• Fixed bugs with returning to conquered maps.
• Fixed a variety of bugs related to killing things before their projectile lands.
• Fixed issues with tossing loot
• Added collision to city road tiles so physics works properly with them.
• Fixed a variety of issues with grass
• Added killall and noclip console command for development.
• Try to avoid accidental triggers of entrances.