DevLog: Ballista, Raid/Enemy, Pathfinding...

Here's this week's Devlog, and what I'll be working on next week, as there's a big job in progress!

Ballista

I've added the 1st stationary defense weapon, the ballista. It lets you fire bolts that do great damage to enemies (for the moment, it one-shots enemies, and I'm thinking of making it so that the bolts can pass through enemies to kill several at once).

The tiles must be crafted (from wood, stone, bone, gold or iron), and the ballistas recharge automatically if bolts are nearby, so it's advisable to build a stockpile nearby :)

Raid/Enemy

Goblins and Cyclops now have their own sets of armor and helmets. Nightwalkers can use any armor or helmet, but the material used will always be “dark leather” (goblins and cyclops use classic materials such as wood, stone, gold or iron).

I've also increased the number of enemies in each raid, as there will now be more powerful means of defense (like the ballista).

Name generator

I've added a name generator for each enemy type, for example:

• Goblins: Grimrak, Kragmok, Thrakzub, Drakmur, Zarrok - Cyclops : Baadum, Throrag, Gromol, Uggbog, Maazug - Night Walkers: Necgor, Morath, Xarith, Vhorak, Zahlor

I'm still thinking about worker names.

Pathfinding

The current pathfinding system works well, but is performance-hungry. On a small map (100/100) performance is acceptable, but on a large map (200/200 or more) and if there are a large number of enemies on the map, performance drops drastically.

The system is very poorly scalable: the larger the map and the more enemies there are, the worse the performance.

So I've decided to completely overhaul pathfinding, by implementing another, more efficient algorithm for what I want to do, called HPA*. This new algo should enable me to manage a large number of characters moving across a large map.

It's quite a big job, and should keep me busy for part of next week, if not the whole week.

Thanks, see you next week ;)