development thread Yuma Wasteland- project diaries

[UndeadMartyr]

Sort a a loose todo list..

Right now I'm leaning towards Downtown, the northeast, and Waterfront, all of which require importing models.  I've got a train locomotive mostly done and a rough cooling tower ready for import.  I'd need to make a warehouse, passenger rail car, western wagon, sign, and officer building for CO State Park (possibly another building or two but vanilla stuff might work fine).  Downtown needs a sign and a theater.  I have existing models for both the theater and warehouse thanks to two now MIA teammates but I need textures for them and there may be issues with conversion, and I may want to make my own models instead.  That leaves a wagon, officers building, two signs, and the passenger rail car, plus texturing and detailing for the locomotive.

Chapter 1 main quest

Req:

Scripting, voice acting, new NPC enemies, B29 takeoff animations, slideshows, new enemies?

Pros:

straightforward, self contained, most assets easily obtainable or exactly good preview, opportunity to do quest work

Cons:

slideshows are wierd, compatibility issues, FPGE integration

Northeast World (Laguna, Rio, V48, Proving Grounds)

Req:

ConTower, possible building assets for Vault 48 City, possibly BoS assets, new creatures, reskins, faction icon(s)

Pros:

mostly vanilla assets, massive map completion

Cons:

need to get model(s) from GECK to Blender, retextures, very time consuming

VR

Req:

Western models, scripting, VR Room assets, new NPC/Companion/minibusses, possibly side quests

Pros:

many vanilla assets, some resource assets

Cons:

open ended, models required

Arena

Req:

Exterior cell, scripting, reskinned abomination minibosses, possible chain weapon, scripted traps/interactables (AI?)

Pros:

Base cells largely complete, fun to play, major story milestone

Cons:

Models, animations, scripting

Train

Req:

Train model details, textures, collision mesh, animation

Passenger car

Tank(?) as turret

Scripted derailing w/ anim.

Pros:

Major setpiece, flashy, one model substantially complete, other models attainable

Cons:

Animation, scripting, exporting .nifs

Southern WorldSpace (Bridge, Dome, college, Fortuna, White's Landing)

Req:

bridge asset, legion faction icon, time

Pros:

Vanilla assets (mostly), need for train, substantial map completion

Cons:

Boring, time consuming, frustrating

Northwest Map (WH slums, Felicity, Araz, Hill, Algodones, Border)

Pros:

Interesting story potential, map completion progress, companion unlock, story relevant, smaller than other map expansions

Cons:

Possible space constraints, somewhat boring, time consuming, may want custom assets

South side

Req:

Lots of buildings and roads, height editing, bomb craters &/or sinkholes

Pros: map completion, some story

Cons: empty, peripheral

Downtown

Req:

Theater model, sign model, buildings, sidewalks, interiors

Pros:

Detail focused, mostly complete already

Cons:

Need to (make?) & import models, lots of interior work

Waterfront

Req:

Models for buildings (warehouse, officer), sidewalk+stairs, water wall, model for wagon and passenger, PP exterior, train model, PP interior, companion, quest

Pros:

Major map completion, story relevant, largely complete, some models done

Cons:

Models need importing, interior work, little progress w/o buildings to anchor

Prison

Req:

Interior, graveyard, scripting

Pros: mostly done, story relevance, relatively quick

Cons:

Interior work, scripting sucks

Edited October 14 by UndeadMartyr

[UndeadMartyr]

Mirror modifier is a bit tricky to use but still very useful.

the car itself is still very blocky, I'll need to extrude the roof, add some windows and doors, and figure out the undercarriage.

[UndeadMartyr]

So activators  npcs, and creatures are kind of annoying to work with sometimes.

I've greatly expanded the MRE plant with the addition of new Fire Ant variants (unique to this particular area) and an npc that will be a companion, plus some robots that she placed around to guard.  It's probably my favorite dungeon so far, both the interior and exterior feel unique and colorful.  Industrial stuff is definitely my jam!

It's not entirely clear to me where robots in pods are disabled.  I tried to use an attached script... now that I think about it I may have used the wrong scope.

Anchoring new and existing locations around story beats is really rekindling my enthusiasm- I feel more like I'm painting a canvas rather than measuring one.

[UndeadMartyr]

Strongly suspect I'm going to use mini worldspaces for areas at the map edge, like Laguna or Los Algodones.  I like the scale in and around Yuma itself, but there's a whole lot of nothing between the other landmarks.

[UndeadMartyr]

I'm definitely going to use mini/derivative worldspaces.  This might let me circumvent the size issues, and definitely deals with the wide open spaces.

 

I made a flag and am finishing up a companion quest, with various interior and exterior cell work.  Tentatively I would like to have a beta release next October- most of what remains involves quest and npc work, plus navmeshing, clutter & lighting, etc.  The biggest outdoor cells in need of work are mostly along the periphery of the playable area, in the southwest and north.  300 hours in, plenty more to go!

Edited October 31 by UndeadMartyr

[UndeadMartyr]

Winterhaven is coming along nicely.  I'm at the point where I want to start adding the main story quest, probably within a month or two.  There are a lot of areas not presently added that might be used in quests- but I'd probably add them in as part of the work on the quests rather than as just more locations.

The discord server has screenshots and the like.

[UndeadMartyr]

Vault Alpha is getting close to completion- I've navmeshed two of the four cells, and added all the quest items- though I need to make a static in place of the quest Item as the box activator I'm using still let's you grab the item through the laser beams.  I'm also having a consistent issue with turrets starting hostile to the player.

I think I need to take a bit of a break though I'm hoping to get a quest preview up before the new year.

[UndeadMartyr]

Quest work is harder to make tangible than worldspace editing.  I've done two full quests and parts of a third.

I still need to finish the arena quest, scripting creature spawns and a dungeon for two quest items.  There's four more segments to the main quest that I need to do which are somewhat vague, which is a problem of game design and plotting.