Here is an example of the multiplayer with capitol ships firing upon each other. You can see the turrets firing as well as the enemy capitol ship firing and the player taking damage. The shields on both the target and self-damage monitors are showing the damage by showing the blue turning to red. When it is just a red outline, then a shield breach exists. In the last screen shot, the shields are in the process of dropping because the hull was also breached and the reactor was destroyed so the shield can no longer be powered (hence the status of disabled).
So behind the scenes, turrets over the multiplayer now work properly. This is significant because the turret AI therefore also works across the network, which is the first time AI has worked across multiplayer (which you are seeing in the screenshots). A successful test of the ability for the players to select their ships also worked fine. We tried out an ALL capital ship battle, and a fighter versus a single capital ship. This is to help with game balance, and certainly the pulse based ships did better against the capital ship shields. I have code now via the scripting engine that is able to sends messages and activate local scripts. This enables the scripts to detect when a ship gets destroyed, who did it, and then keep track and respawn that ship based on the rules of the scenario. These will be tested during the next multiplayer test. We keep trying to add more clients, but it seems it can handle everything we throw at it without stuttering or lag. The multiplayer is becoming more and more mature, and I look forward to the “King of the Hill” scenario now currently being created.
Original post blogged on Rank: Warmaster Dev Blog.
