The problem

Due to the game taking a very different design direction from other acelikes, I noticed a couple of issues with the current enemy lineup. Not only do they not pose much of a threat to the player, but none of them really force the player to play strategically or approach encounters in a specific way. And worst of all, for the average player, there was absolutelyZERO target prioritization created by the enemy design.

Other acelikes fixed this by straight up just making the objectives a couple of specific targets and marking them as a priority. I thought that was a boring solution.

The cooler solution

The idea was simple: an enemy which becomes a larger threat the longer it’s left alive, but also rewards the player for beating it strategically. So I thought of a big flying carrier that continuously spawns additional enemies as long as it stays in the air, with a weakpoint behind it to encourage the player to chase it instead of approaching head-on.

(Additionally, this also served as an excuse to fix big planes, which may or may not have ended up broken after a couple of refactors of some enemy systems.)

Modelling the carrier

I am dogshit at modelling (which is why this game is low-poly, lmao), and I really couldn’t come up with a good design… so I ended up just sorta giving a runway wings and calling it a day. This isn’t meant to be a massive enemy (saving those for later) like Project Wingman’s airships, so I made the wings pretty small in comparison to the body. Whether or not it could actually flyis up to debate.

The core

Now, I could bore you guys with the actual code and implementation of the carrier, but in reality it’s really simple stuff. The hardest part of the carrier (aside from the comical amount of weird-ass bugs it came with) was making the weakpoint not only a challenge for the player to exploit, but also really cool to do and forgiving enough that players will actually go for it even when under fire from other enemies.

If you’ve played Ace Combat 6 (or 7), you might’ve already realized what I did, but I ended up adding a core in the opening of the carrier’s runway.

Destroying the core is an instakill on the carrier. Otherwise (unless the player has a weapon strong enough to bypass the carrier’s high Resistance), the player has to destroy all the weapons on the outside before being able to kill the carrier itself.

This is a fun weakpoint, but it proved to be very, VERY challenging for the player to actually attack - and next to impossible to hit in actual combat. Especially since the opening is only ~60 meters wide and ~30 meters tall. I had to add some trickery to make it easier for the player to line themselves up with the opening and fly through it, but even still, it’s quite challenging to do without grazing one of the walls or the ceiling.

I look forward to seeing players get consistent at destroying the core, though.

Special weapon: V.Launcher

I felt that just a bunch of Launchers (the game’s version of PW SAM sites, which I didn’t call SAM sites because they’re all in the air and “AAM” sounds whacky) would be sorta boring and not enough of a spectacle. So I ended up adding a new stationary weapon to the carrier called the V.Launcher.

In reality, it just fires 8 of the Mech-A’s missiles upwards, and while they’re less of a real threat than the two Launchers in the front, they feel AWESOME to fight. (I also ended up making both front Launchers only fire if the player is in front of the plane, further encouraging the strategy of attacking from behind.)

One last thing: Destruction!

I tried my best to make big planes avoid obstacles as much as possible, but honestly, it’s SUPER hard to account for the wings of the plane. Even with the carrier being a relatively “small” big plane, it occasionally crashes into the odd world pillar now and then. I have no one to blame for this but myself.

I disabled collision damage for big planes because it feels anticlimactic for a miniboss-level enemy to crash into an island and die instantly. But that also meant that… well… see for yourself…

Naturally, this is absolutely stupid. But I had no good idea for how to solve it. Until Arcy suggested:

I mean, it was a decent suggestion, so I added it. The effect is… mediocre (I can’t figure out how to make it look nice while keeping it performant - if you have any suggestions, go for it), but it happens very rarely, so I’m not worrying too hard about it.

This “prop destruction” feature also makes me want to make some smaller props breakable by the player. Maybe through a weapon upgrade or something? We’ll see.

That’s all for this week!

We’ve been working hard on this game. Arcy’s been finishing up a very major refactor of the game’s systems, while I’ve been working on getting a system in place for voicelines and conversations.

Join the newsletter if you haven’t already, and I’ll see y’all on the Discord!