Concise Development Diary #1

I just finished a task I'd been procrastinating on for way too long... mostly because I needed to gather the courage to tackle it, knowing I'd have to go through dozens and dozens of files all at once: ( But at least it's done now : )

I completely reworked (code wise) the ammo system: a necessary step to allow each weapon to use different types of ammunition, such as Medium Caliber Armor Piercing, Medium Caliber Hollow Point, etc. Weapons now have an actual "magazine", regardless of how much ammo you have in your inventory (which makes perfect sense, but up until now it wasn't this way, given the gradual evolution and changes from the original EMPTY SHELL).

This means that when you find a weapon, now you'll also find some ammo loaded inside it. For this reason, now you'll have 2 new actions while browsing the inventory: an "unload ammo" action, for example to loot the ammo from a weapon before throwing it away, and a "change ammo type" action, to actually load a different ammo in the equipped weapon (if you own multiple compatible ammo types).

Ammo type will primarily affect two variables: flesh damage and penetration power. The first is the standard damage (the one that's always been there), while the second comes into play when facing another new feature: armored enemies and armored enemy variants.

You'll encounter some enemies and bosses with armor that works pretty much like the volunteers' armor (absorbing around 80% of damage until it's depleted). Armored variants of enemies, depending on the type, will start appearing during the mid and late stages of exploration.

There will be variants for bullets and shotgun shells, and likely for other types of ammunition too (for example, modified energy cells, nails made of different metals, etc.). Here's an example of how the new ammo types work:

STANDARD AMMO: flesh damage x1.0, penetration power x1.0 AP AMMO (armor piercing): flesh damage x0.78, penetration power x2.5 HP AMMO (hollow point): flesh damage x1.35, penetration power x0.65

Carrying multiple ammo types will therefore be very useful, to be ready to face any type of enemy, but switching them during combat will require reloading the weapon.

I hope you like the idea and, as usual, I'll give you more updates in the coming weeks : )

Speak soon, volunteers.