Bullet Hell ADVANCED: 2023 Roadmap

Let's throw down everything going on with Bullet Hell ADANCED and the ongoing Unreal Engine 5 upgrade.

Everything now compiles. The .EXE is stable and launches. Boom. We're in business. Unfortunately so many features are being added that the Unreal Engine 5 update will not be available till later this year. What we have in the pipeline for you: Solar System Mode

When you're not engaged in combat at the fleet level, you'll play a turn based movement game where the minimap is an entire solar system. Heavily inspired by the Mass Effect map and the works of Robotech/Battlestar Gallactica/The Expanse/Ender's Game: Is a moon between you and another planet's long range line-of-sight fleet detection satellite with linked orbital heavy-laz-cannons? Is there a fleet behind an adjacent moon you're about to move to? Should you use scarce fuel resources to fold space to anywhere in the same solar system or use engines or silent gravitational assists? Your fleet and the enemy fleets can all receive a "Prepared", "Neutral", or "Unprepared" status when entering fleet combat based upon how everything plays out here. Being of a Prepared status lets your fleet reposition/rotate before combat and also fire anti-capital-ship weapons at round start, have all your allied AI Fighters and Frigates already deployed, FTL spun up and possibly more gameplay buffs!

New Areas of Operation Feature Three Areas of Operation are now featured to separate ship to ship combat specializations.

Mothership AO:

The Mothership is now seen at the bottom of the gameplay area. Civilian/Colonist/Unarmed Escorts also reside here. Only Motherships can fire at other Motherships. Escorts can't be attacked. A player's entire fleet combat escort must be destroyed for the Mothership & Unarmed Escorts to come up to the fleet level and be exposed to normal weapon fire.

Fleet AO:

Your Fleet Battleships/Destroyers/Carriers/etc reside on this level. Fleet to Fleet combat happens at this level. The Player's Superiority Fighter and the Enemy's Superiority Fighter's (max 3 per side) may also fight on this level. Extremely dangerous for Superiority Fighters to fight on this level as they can get hit by powerful anti-capital-ship weaponry. Land Mechs may attach to friendly capital-ships and boost firepower.

Fighter AO

This level takes place high above the fleet. Fleet is slightly blurred out and a hex grid becomes visible. Special HUD option available to make all enemies on level exceptionally visible. AI Fighters, Bombers, Drones, Frigates and Superiority Fighter's may play at this level. If one side loses 80% of units here, the AI's will attack the fleet from above. ONLY short ranged chainguns, anti-fighter missiles and flak cannons may fire from the fleet into this level. All units that can play at this level may respawn from the fleet Carrier/Mothership they spawned from, save for a time delay penalty. Destroy the parent ship and the deployed AI Fighter/Bomber/Drone/Frigate will not respawn.

MULTIPLAYER

4-Player ad-hoc multiplayer gameplay is going to be our goal, but has no official ETA. Gameplay will consist of Player 1 in control of "Fleet Command" and 3 players in control of individual Superiority Fighters. This will be the true ruleset of the game whereas the single player game will have a significantly easier difficulty to makeup for multi-tasking Fleet Command and one Superiority Fighter.

Exodite Colony Simulator

Lots of thought has gone into the possibility of a lite population simulator to represent all military personnel, workers, colonists and refugees that live on the Mothership, her fleet and protected civilian vessels. The loss of a civilian science ship with food production capability should be felt as much as the loss of a heavy cruiser. Training new refugees into scientists/engineers/military personnel takes time. Keeping veterans alive becomes wise. Repelling ship boarders becomes important. Every turn is measured by population and resources.

All in all, Bullet Hell ADVANCED is moving forward. As much as there are things not rendering at certain distances, gameplay trial and error, AI suddenly not working, all errors are eventually being fixed while we create new errors from new features ;) Next update will still be this "Mid-Game" level gameplay, then we'll head back to level 1 and flush out the entire tech tree from beginning to end. Tech debt is being kept to a minimal. The gameplay is being held as the core. The graphics are are still the afterthought.

' What happens after the core features are in place? 'When the game is fun and the gameplay loop is to a point of my liking, we will start a Patreon, look for Kickstarter-esque funding and keep the Steam cost priced low. I think truly successful games are fun because they are fun and don't need exuberant price tags ;) I have an entire style-guide already in place for a 3D Artist if money is ever made. And an entire story if a team is ever assembled. As for now, it's happily funded personally by the solo programmer, for our enjoyment.

Lastly, thank you for everyone posting feedback on these forums and stopping by the Discord! You rock! https://discord.com/invite/WNCAPrwfAS I look forward to showing you new milestones. Happy Everything -Artificer Cascadia Development