Iron Assault Remake (Demo Update 2.5)

[ReformedJoe]

Yes, it only happens when starting a new game and not switching weapon groups.
Would a video help explain it better?
...
This isn't a big issue, because it goes away permanently after switching weapon group once, but I wanted to report it, just in case.

I still can't replicate it, even duplicating the exact series of events in the video. I have a vague suspicion as to what might be causing it though. I'll make some blind changes and we'll see if the next version sorts it out.

[Jarewill]

I still can't replicate it, even duplicating the exact series of events in the video. I have a vague suspicion as to what might be causing it though. I'll make some blind changes and we'll see if the next version sorts it out.

After getting a fresh GZDoom install with a fresh ini, the issue no longer was happening.
It seems to have been an issue in my ini rather than one in the mod.
I am sorry for taking your time.

[ReformedJoe]

Quick update.

So I've gone ahead and reexported all NPC and object sprites in a new palette. It's very close to the edits suggested by Lagi previously in this thread.

Pics:

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Old:

New:

I think only NPCs will use the new more vibrant palette, and all world objects/textures will remain in the old. This allows you to see enemies more clearly.

If anyone has thoughts or further suggestions, please let me know.

[Captain J]

Huh, is that it? I thought they added a lot of mech sprites for different variants. It's weird, but acceptable!

[ReformedJoe]

Huh, is that it? I thought they added a lot of mech sprites for different variants. It's weird, but acceptable!

That's everything which is in the game so far.

Here's the full mech lineup in the new palette, plus a heavy tank I included just to round out the image.

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I'm 99% sure the tanks hull is a backwards M4 Sherman with some extra stuff glued on

The names are from the original game, and some of them are kind of dumb ("GORT" ).

There will probably also be a few variants which are just recolors. Some of these are also not usable due to animation issues, and will have to be reworked by hand.

[Captain J]

Oh wow! So they made a lot of sprites for the game, after all. Thanks for clarifying that. They all look neat.

[Ringman]

This is so cool. My son just recently got into Mechs, mostly because he got a toy of the power loader from Aliens. We were actually playing the original Iron assault and Mechwarrior 3 the other day, and I built him a Sunder 2 Ed209 style mechs and a madcat out of duplo blocks (yes duplo). Anyway, I have a weird request. And you can easily say no, but could you make it possible to have a melee option for a mech that has a chainsaw arm? His powerloader has a chainsaw arm a back-mounted minigun and a claw. Everytime he was playing the mech games and he got up close, he asked how to use the chainsaw. I kept telling him not all mechs have a chainsaw arm or even a melee function. And ever since Doom, he thinks the minigun and the chainsaw are the 2 most powerful weapons in the world, so it was kind of a cooincidence that the power loader had a chainsaw and a minigun. Yeah he has a toy chainsaw too and I plan on getting him or making him a toy minigun at some point. (We are good parents.)

Oh and GORT is the name of the robot from the Day the Earth stood still, and he's also one of the more powerful robots from the Game that Nobody Played™ Cholo.
Cool mod, can't wait to give it a whirl.

[Captain J]

Chainsaw arm eh? That sounds clever as adding mech a lightsaber. Ahem, anime mech stuff.

[ReformedJoe]

... Anyway, I have a weird request. And you can easily say no, but could you make it possible to have a melee option for a mech that has a chainsaw arm? His powerloader has a chainsaw arm a back-mounted minigun and a claw. Everytime he was playing the mech games and he got up close, he asked how to use the chainsaw. I kept telling him not all mechs have a chainsaw arm or even a melee function...

how can I say no to a request like that? I'll see what I can do, though the art situation makes my options limited.

[Captain J]

Well i guess it's okay to take some resource from other game since you used some duke 3d textures for the lobby!

[Ringman]

Awesome! Thanks.
For art, the cheap way is to just use a hud way of showing that the chainsaw is active and then making the chainsaw noise and the chainsaw "puff" effect. The old game Metalhead for the 32x does something similar to this when using the hammer knuckle weapon. You just see a smoke "puff" and hear an impact noise.

[4shot]

Here's the full mech lineup in the new palette, plus a heavy tank I included just to round out the image.

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I'm 99% sure the tanks hull is a backwards M4 Sherman with some extra stuff glued on

Might be a dumb question/partial request, but is that tank going to be featured as a playable mech? It'd be cool to have a giant pilotable equivalent to the Assault Robot enemy present in the game and something of a reference to the HK-Tanks from the Terminator franchise, and just something to diversify the mech roster with something a bit different from the others.

[ReformedJoe]

...
Might be a dumb question/partial request, but is that tank going to be featured as a playable mech? It'd be cool to have a giant pilotable equivalent to the Assault Robot enemy present in the game and something of a reference to the HK-Tanks from the Terminator franchise, and just something to diversify the mech roster with something a bit different from the others.

I hadn't planned on it to be honest. Not ruling it out, but it's also certainly not a priority right now.

Anyway, here's a general update for everyone:

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Melee weapons!

Close range melee options come in 2 broad forms: Impact drivers with slower fire rates but high alpha damage, and hellsaws with greater damage over time. These will both come in small, medium and large flavors. Melee weapons can only go into melee slots, and not every mech is going to have such a slot.

Note: these aren't balanced right now so the weapon data in the image is not final.

To properly implement these some minor changes have been made to projectiles/weapons. The biggest improvement has been the ability to define looping weapon sounds with start, run and end components. FX are not yet complete, but the framework is there.

Unit database!

Special infobase entries for units. Gives you more details and a little bit of flavor text. Author fields have also been been added to infobase entries. A small touch that helps with worldbuilding, IMO.

Other stuff
Some minor background changes and polish. A lot of the art for new mechs has been imported and made game ready, along with the start of the new environment art. The next op is going to take place in the arctic, so expect a lot of snow and ice.

I've also put down the start of the ECM system. This will help defeat enemy lockons (and the same goes for yours as well, if the enemy has ECM). I may also add a chance for missiles to lose their tracking if they are seeking a target with ECM. However this might overlap too much with a planned missile defense module, and I don't want to put too much attrition on missiles as I feel it would make them lose their overall usefulness.

[ReformedJoe]

Hey everyone.
If it wasn't apparent, I'm trying to get some kind of dev log or progress report out roughly every week.
This helps me:
1. Stay motivated and focused.
2. Collect my thoughts.
3. Collect valuable feedback and criticism. (the improvements to the washed out mech art is a prime example of this)

So with that out of the way, here's whats going on with this dumb project:

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Scaling system:

This was pretty trivial to implement. Basically now NPCs can be scaled to arbitrary sizes. Every FROG here is fully functional, even the little guy on the left.

What this means is that there will be more apparent size differences between mechs. It's not going to be too crazy, but there will be a noticeable difference between a light mech, and a medium mech. And the same goes for heavy mechs. My philosophy so far has been to keep pixel scales 1:1, with some exceptions for special effects. In this case, I think having non uniform pixel sizes is a small price to pay for increased "readability". What I mean by that is the ability to quickly differentiate and identify enemy mechs and their capabilities.

First Medium Mech


The MAR is in as the first of the medium machines. My current goal is to add 8 new mechs, most of them mediums. There will be new light mechs as well, but these will probably not be playable as they are redundant or so weak as to be useless to the player.

A current frustration is the segregation of player and NPC mechs. These use completely different paradigms and I don't know how they can be easily merged. Essentially there is an NPC version of a mech, and a player version. This means a lot of duplicated effort.

Other Stuff
Some more work on the arctic environment has been done. New textures and props, etc. It's not ready enough to be shown off yet, but it will be soon.

Enemy ECM system and lockons are in and fully functional. There are some new UI widgets that will inform you of incoming guided missiles and whether or not a target has ECM.

I also discovered a really nasty bug with enemy target acquisition. Lets just say the fact that it worked at all is a miracle. While fixing it I took the opportunity to make some minor tweaks to enemy AI. There is now a small delay between an enemy seeing you and being able to shoot you. This helps to cut down on getting shot in the face the millisecond you poke your head around a corner. Overall the enemy is much more aggressive now, so a rebalance is necessary.

I'm planning on one last demo version. 1.03 will include the fix to AI, the new mech art for existing mechs, and the new melee weapons. This will hopefully be the last release for a while.

Thank you for reading my self indulgent bloggery.

[Cherno]

When I write a system that has the A.I. and the player be able to control the same kinds of vehicles, I commonly code the vehicles to have a generic pilot variable, which is a reference to any actor. In the vehicle functionality, I would then check if the pilot inherits from PlayerPawn or not (which would indicate a monster/A.I.). Giving commands / controlling the vehicle would need some duplication because it has to be part of the player pawn class as well as the monster pilot classes. However, this can be minimized by writing the code in such a way that players and monsters only give general commands to the vehicle, like changing it's movement direction and angle, and the vehicle itself would read these changes on it's own side.

To clarify: The vehicle has no mind of it's own, it ist just an empty shell that can be used by players and the A.I. in the same way.