#11 Progress is of the Essence

 

SECRET

DigiMastered Works LLC

Office of Development

DMW107IB1011

Date 05/31/2022 11:02 PM

THIS IS FINALIZED INTELLIGENCE

 

To: The People
From: Tanner Fry
Subject: Progress is of the Essence

 

Director's Operation Board

    Fantastic developments have occurred regarding the Director's operation board with more to come next month! The purpose of the operation board is to allow you, the Director, to create operations for your agency. These operations will play a vital role in helping you keep track of what's going on and what you'd like to take action on.

    Diving in, operations can have assigned agents that take actions at your behest. With agents out in the field performing work, they may send back intelligence that you deem necessary to the operation. Here's where the importance of the board comes into play. With the operation board you can pull in your intel, arrange it how you like, and build out your idea of important metrics or information that pertain to the operation.

    In the coming month or so, an operation's board will be scrollable to allow plenty of information on it. There will be quite a bit of different intel that appear throughout the game. This intel will be able to be placed on the operation board as well as text and other information that can be customized.

    Not only that, but you may notice in the video below that there are a few buttons in the top left corner of the operation board. These buttons, and more to come, will provide you with the ability to manipulate the board even more. I'll let you ponder what they may do but down the road they will be explained.

Another UI Iteration

    During May the UI was slimmed down to give players more area for viewing their agents, buildings, and other game objects. The research UI is still being built out but is coming together. Although some UI was changed, there was also a new addition.

    Getting information about what is happening in the world around you is vital. A notifications panel and subsequent UI has been created to hold intelligence reports which currently come in 4 different types, although the actual report generation system is still non-existent:

  •  
    Agency - Reports giving information about the agency or related to the agency.
  •  
    Intel - Reports from your agents or services that you employ.
  •  
    Miscellaneous - Reports regarding any other topic.
  •  
    News - Reports on local or world news.
Key Bindings

    Allowing players to utilize their preferred keys is a great way to keep the learning curve low for those familiar with the RTS genre. In the coming months the system should be polished and working as intended but we will give more updates as they arrive.

Research Center

    Since we're building out technology to research, it's only fitting to have a place to do said research. Queue the research center, where the new and enlightened become the old and branded. With the research center, an agency will be able to learn new technologies as well as lost and forgotten technologies (A little bit of backstory you say?). 

    Such technology will entail the 6 categories talked about in our last article:

  •  
    Communication
  •  
    Electrical
  •  
    Energy
  •  
    Mechanical
  •  
    Medical
  •  
    Transportation

    Examples of some researchable technology are enhanced radio communication, microdot creation, improved compact camera, and even different types of vehicles. Whether its boats, cars, or jets, finding new technologies to enhance your agency's ability to function is vital.

Minor Changes

    Some other less drastic changes have occurred recently that are of importance. A building's placement now takes into account its bounds and special tiles such as water so that buildings do not overlap. Note, in the future this will probably be tweaked so that buildings can be overlapped, to a degree, for added visual depth and immersion. The key to this is to create a bound towards the bottom of a building so that the placed building could be above the bound but still behind the initial building.

    In the future buildings will also take into account roads and other potential objects.

    That's a wrap for May's development update. We're glad you checked it out and if you have any suggestions on certain topics that you'd like to know more about, then head on over to our forums and let us know. You can also email our support at Support@digimasteredworks.com.

Roadmap

Milestones To Do:

  •  
    2022 Q2 - Internal testing of core mechanics and Alpha testing
  •  
    2022 Q3 - Internal testing continued with review of core engine and mechanics
  •  
    2022 Q4 - Expansion of core features and Beta Testing
  •  
    2023 Q1 - Add enhancements from Beta Testing
  •  
    2023 Q2 - TBA

Milestones Completed:

  •  
    2021 Q1 - Initial designs and planning
  •  
    2021 Q2 - Initial designs and planning
  •  
    2021 Q3 - Initial designs and planning
  •  
    2021 Q4 - Development of core engine
  •  
    2022 Q1 - Development of core mechanics and game story

SECRET

Approved for release: 05/29/22 ID: IB1011

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