Devlog v0.2-Blocking and AI movement

Figure 1

(Player and AI flying around the gear arena.)

Development Milestones:

• Created two arenas to battle in.
• Added an AI opponent.
• Created pathfinding for AI in the two arenas.

Build breakdown:

Two arenas were added to this build. The first is a empty arena that is comprised of the just the floor, roof and walls. This arena should be good for the more competitive players as there is no arena advantage for either player. The second arena is like the first arena except that it has 5 circles in the air for the player to fly around and use for cover. The second arena is named the gear arena as in a latter build the circle sprites should be replaced with giant moving gears. Having two arenas should add some more variety to the game.

Figure 2

(Player model showing the scale of the empty arena.)

In these arenas an AI opponent was added. This opponent can fly around and chase after the player. For this build the AI's thrusters do not change rotation but this is a planned addition for latter builds. 

The AI chases after the player using invisible nodes placed on the arena. The AI will travel along these nodes and then travel directly towards the player if they are nearby. By using this approach the AI has some variety added to their movement instead of always heading towards the player in a straight line.

Gif 1

(AI chasing the player with nodes.)

The AI movement was also added to the gear arena. This arena was more challenging as the AI pathing can result in the AI getting stuck while flying directly into a circle. Work has been done to improve this issue for this build however the issue is still present. The AI movement was also improved to include more natural cornering than shown in gif 1.

Gif 2

(AI has more rounded cornering but can get stuck.)

Player feedback:

As at the time of writing this devlog no feedback for this build has been provided in the discord, however some feedback was provided outside the discord. This feedback was that the player movement felt natural but that the AI could be easily juked into running into walls and objects. I don't think this facet of the AI is a serious issue as I would want the AI to make mistakes as a human opponent would. However work will be done in future builds to ensure that the AI doesn't get stuck when they collide with objects.