Dev Diary: PANPC 2.0.12 (dev-5)

We're getting there. My original intent was to wrap up 2.0.12 by this weekend, but it has evolved from an update to an overhaul, and a few more issues have emerged in testing. I also had some serious personal life events happen this week that have significantly rearranged my priorities.

The thing about coding is, even when you're not in the right place to be creative, you can always optimize. So I spent a lot of time this week consolidating functions and trimming up game cycles.

Dev-5 expanded the new Real Time Reaction (RTR) subsystem to include responses to many standard vanilla explosions: grenades, oxygen tanks, fire extinguishers, turret destruction, a number of others. The optional car explosion avoidance module  is now an optional explosion response module.

You can see some of it in action in the above video. Supported explosion types now send response data to the AIs, typically driving them to either approach the area or move further away. They're also more likely to engage at this point. In tests so far, these are creating a more fluid and organic combat environment, where enemies are maneuvering in real time to more things that happen.

(This video is also a pretty good showcase of my exhaustion-and-fall mod, Tuckered Out.)

Responses to long range attacks are also on pretty good display there. You can see the new hit and death responses engage when Cryss opens fire from his sniper positions.

The job next on my list is reaction to companion proximity. This actually doesn't happen in PANPC currently - enemies react to the player being close by, but not the companion or Dogmeat - and while this wasn't a huge issue before, the RTR dynamics make it more obvious when it happens.

So mostly what's happening now in PANPC 2.0.12 is just environmental combat reactions and adjusting how the AI copes with the evolving session. As much of legacy PANPC evolved to work around the lack of real time AI, turning things real time has required removing some things and redesigning almost everything else.

The changelog is growing. The differences between 2.0.11 and 2.0.12 are probably something on par with the jump between 1.7 and 1.8-9. (I should just call this 2.1, but I'm going to wait on that decision for a while longer.)

My hope right now is to get 2.0.12 shipped next weekend. That's going to depend on how well testing goes, but I'm optimistic and look forward (as always) to seeing what exactly we can get away with here.

Fly safe,

- G.