Experiments: Free Build & Multiplayer

With a working game loop prototype it felt like a good time to do some exploration.

I started work on a proof of concept for a base building system of nodes and connections. With one directional platforms for vehicles and characters.

I see potential here, perhaps it'll be for overcoming terrain obstacles, or building defenses with turrets to protect buildings. It would certainly be useful for building moon bases that you can add air generators to. It’s also somewhat odd, and ugly and will need some attention before it shines.

After that work I decided to test the waters on multiplayer.

A long time ago I had integrated a 3rd party solution to mediocre results. I've long since lobotomized that implementation as it would fail to release ports correctly and force restarting Unity with painful regularity.

This time I wanted to stick to a native Unity solution. With their Netcode for Game Objects solution moving from pre release to 1.0 as of the 27th of last month the stars were right for another test.

Here's where I'm at after a few days.

So far multiplayer is buggy, I've only converted a few parts, and everything I haven't converted catches on fire. I'm somewhat pleased with the progress anyway and it’s getting easier the more I work on it. However it does introduce many issues I haven’t solved yet.

I might want to test another more mature network solution or return to my main branch and keep trucking on core features and gameplay. However it does work on some level and may be worth prioritizing now.