Personal Update

Nothing much, just cruising along. I sold a few more copies of my Floating Combat Text asset for Unity. And I've been playing a lot of Battletech online through MegaMek specifically the 3025 campaign MekWars - MegaMekNet.

Development Update

I made really good progress on an inventory system this week. I started by downloading several free assets just to get some ideas, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer mass of code that was in each of the different modules. Some of that was some interesting stuff for editing item and crafting entries, but tons of stuff was just scattered around in different files. I started to worry that I was taking on too much for 1 week when I saw dozens of files in each Inventory System.

Turns out, they were just crazy because I now have a fully functional Inventory. It took a little more effort than I thought it would, but now I have lots of features:
* Picking up items with your mouse and moving them to different slots.
* A shared party inventory with 24 slots
* A trash slot for destroying items
* A selected character profile with typed slots: Primary, Offhand, Head, Chest, Legs, Feet
* Typed items that only fit in specific slots.
* Item stats.
* A tooltip window that shows you item stats
* Equipping stuff adjusts your characters' stats



I put a little bit of polish on it using some of the assets from Inventory Master, and it has a long way to go before being "DONE", but for now it's a fully functional system.

I'm not really happy with my game's unit stats yet:
* Movement - how many squares you can move
* Attacks - how many attacks per round
* Health - derp
* Melee Offense - Bonus to hit / Damage
* Physical Defense - Enemy's penalty to hit / Enemies Penalty to Damage

I was thinking about a Ranged Offense, Magical Offense, and Magical Defense stats as well, but I think that might be overkill. I wanted there to be a difference between ranged and melee fighters, but it seems a little complicated. I might change the names of the stats to something more standard like Strength, Dex, etc. And just use the stats where appropriate.

The basic mechanic is pretty simple.
Roll to hit + attacker.Accuracy - defender.Avoidance >= a target number
Roll weapon damage + attacker.Strength - defender.Soak

Next week, I think I'm going to focus on a little eye candy. Movement animations, particle effects, monsters, etc. If I make excellent headway there, I'll start data driving some elements like items, classes, monsters, etc.

Tip from your Uncle Eck

When working on a new system, download a few of the free or cheap assets from Unity for some ideas. You might get lucky and it may be just what you need. And if not, it will likely be a good source of inspiration.