Getting Started on BRS v5

I've taken a bit of a break from Black Road Sky to deal with the holidays and other various IRL drama, but I'm getting myself back into the groove this week and looking forward development in 2024. My goal for the year is to finish v5 and get a decent start on v6, which will finally focus on ship systems.

The Plan For Version 5

Ship customization system. This will be purely cosmetic, but I think that the ability to customize both the interior & exterior of your ship will be a cool feature. It's also something that I don't really know how to do, so I'd like to clear the hurdle sooner than later. Customization options will initially be limited, but will be expanded significantly when I get around to fleshing out the 5 provinces in like a couple hundred years.

Input System Refinements. The input system for control bindings needs some love, and it will need room to grow once I start adding more cockpit controls, so it's something I need to tackle now. I'll probably regret saying it, but I don't think this should take too long. The system itself is working pretty well as far as I can tell, but there's UI work to do and some basic features (deadzones and whatnot) that need to be implemented.

Graphics. I plan to spend some time with every update from now on working on making the game look better. This time around I'd like to redesign all of the planets and moons that I didn't get to in the last update (so, most of them) with the new procedural planet generator. Except for the gas giant, probably, which I think will require its own shader. The current planet generator can't handle craters, so adding that feature will be the main technical challenge.

Gameplay. The main new feature here will be a basic pilot reputation system. Reputation will be per-province, basically you'll gain points for timely deliveries and accurate landings and, eventuality, lose points for violating station protocols and whatnot. Reputation will eventually unlock things like new mission types and customization options, but for now it will probably just be something to grind. That's gameplay, technically!

But I Don't Want Any Of That Shit, I Want More Buttons To Push

Me too, dude. We're getting there.

In the coming month I have some cleanup/pregame work to do, then hopefully on to figuring out the architecture and UI for ship customization. o7