Greetings!
We've almost reached a point with the mod that we feel confident in releasing an early Alpha of Lost Dragons for some public testing. It has been a short year for us and there is still so much to do. Competition vise our goal is to be able to show our skill and enthusiasm with a few finished assets and working core gameplay and then keep on improving the assets and features. Have to say these are really really exciting times.
We aim to incorporate some of the core gameplay elements and assets into a first version of a tutorial mission where all elements of the mod will eventually be showcased. Currently our code wizard is working on the intelligence gathering via hacking the datanode/storage/machinethingy and we hope to gain some input on how people feel about the feature.
The hacking is done via hacking tool and custom commandline interface. The hacker then manually inputs certain commands to upload files found on the target and certain files will then grant access to all kinds of intelligence i.e weapons caches, vehicle depots and most importantly the location and access codes for the Dragon.
There is a small minigame simulating the hacking process and the manual commandline operation is meant to give players opportunity to learn the process and thus gathering intelligence faster based on their own skills. System itself is very easy to use and will have full command help to guide you on your first hacks.
We also wish to showcase the Warrior Battleship and gain some input on it, the flighmodel is currently just thrown together and will be overhauled by time. It needs to be flown quite carefully, but it is worth it when you get all guns to bear on your enemies!
Along these two main elements our first alpha will showcase the new characters, equipment and vehicles to give you a better view and feel on what we are doing how our mod will eventually look.
We really hope to reach our goal at the end of the month and we are going to work hard to make it happen.
Also I've got a personal goal to be able to show at least a WIP version of the Dragon Dreadnought ingame! Im hoping that the 900 meters of steel and gun turrets will make even the grumpiest arma purist to smile.
On the feature front we laid down some new ideas on the mission randomization and while we first wanted to make the cities and areas of interest to have buildings and whatnot to be randomized to give more unique gaming sessions we now aim to bring the planned system a step further and randomize most of the building structural layout too.
This will really be a stresstest on how much objects A3 can handle but if the engine allows it we are going to have dynamically generated skyscrapers and military installations that will always surprise you. This way the Hunt will alway feel like a plunge into the unknown and keep players on their toes. This will also bring a quite nice effect to building destruction as all the different parts can be destroyed separately. Shot a bigass missile at a 10-storey building? Now there is a bigass hole in it!
Also this feature as all the others will be usable as a standalone module if someone wishes to expand the building block assets on their own missions.
This is one of the major features on our list and I'll post more about it when we have propely tested the theory behind it. Also if A3 just can't handle it, we can always go bigger in scale.
I'll keep you posted!
-Goat
Sounds awesome!
Glad to hear !