Zenith Update II

So, looking back at some of these maps as I'm scripting some new features and fixing some old ones gives me the feeling --or even the realization-- that a have a lot of work to do. That means good news and bad. The good is that there will be a lot more improvements than previously discussed. The bad is that it's going to cost me a lot more work. That said, I'm still expecting to release the update around mid-summer (the end of June, the beginning of July). If you'd like to beta test this version, e-mail xoleras@fxgaming.org or send me a message on Steam.

In terms of what will be new will generally be shown in the release, but I will say that there is a totally new layout design with a lot of nice features. We're setting up a lot of the HUD and overlay interactions to be designer-friendly, so they can be fully customized via Actor subclass. So, for instance, if a mapper would like to have an interactive NPC, he adds this actor by attaching it to the NPC, and when the player goes up to the NPC a series of options, as defined by the mapper, are given. We've also made the HUD more interactive with respect to missions. In the next patch you will be given access to a mission panel wherein you are given a briefing, and your character will note down useful information as you go through a certain map.

Since I'm not able to access my mapping computer at the moment, everything in the past two weeks has consisted of scripting. Atomic Cow is pretty much done except for a few weapon additions, by the way. I'm going to start working on patching up the buggy bot-based ScriptedPawns in the image of Atomic Cow's combat code --which looks pretty nice.