A lot of background planning went on over Chrissy - particularly in terms of how things fit together and how the story should be tied up at the end. As a game designer, I would very much like the player to still be thinking about the ending for at least half an hour after the game's finished. Very few games manage to pull that off!
Distant scenery.
More dev here - in particular Gorgon's pylons can now be seen in the distance crisscrossing the sector with connecting beams. These are red team's equivalent to blue team's powerlines (see previous dev updates). Take out these pylons to reduce enemy presence in the surrounding areas. (Gorgonopolis can be seen in the far distance in the shot below)
Have also developed a 'giga pylon' which over the course of a game, red team will build close to Gorgonopolis. This is in
order to directly connect with Gorgon's sector. If they succeed in its construction, it's game over. The 'giga pylon'can be
seen fully constructed in the shot below within the central hud area.
Tank interface re-instated. Very happy about this. Managed to hack the SpriteCandy gui lib back to life so that it works with BMax and Xors. It's not pixel perfect but good enough.
Have updated the HUD font to use a nice typeface I licensed called Plan. Suitably futuristic but with good legibility.
A few other small interface tweaks as well - there's now a bolt-on armour indicator above the shield rings (bottom centre) and I added a top border to the viewport (it's dim but it's there - just reminds the player they're in a tank cockpit).
Note the terminal in the archway in the shot above. The player will be able to access the upgrade screen at anytime unlike in TU1 where a powerup terminal had to be found and activated. However once an area is secured, a number of these 'bonus' terminals may appear around a level. These will offer special abilities or other options depending on their location. This one may offer the ability to sabotage supply trains on the strategic map or perhaps give a mini-text adventure (I was quite taken with this feature in Neocore's King Arthur - The Role Playing Game' even if a lot of the rest of that game had me shouting incoherently with rage).
(Note that in TU2 the player will have a limited number of respawns per level. This may be boosted with found bonuses etc)
Finally, bit of a spoiler here, but here's Gorgon's sector as viewed from the northern edge of the Sector.
