So I've gone and FUBARed my lower back.
Current state of development ...
Hilariously this was caused, not by the hike I went on to do some deliveries and check on the welfare of vulnerable people, but by the innocuous action of stepping out of the shower afterwards ...
Least painful position right now ...
This has somewhat stalled progress due to sitting be the most painful position to be in and lying down - away from my PC - being the least painful.
This has led to watching lot's of train cab rides, mostly from Japan, which has some really pretty scenery.
Previous to incapacitating myself, I had continued to work on dogfighter game. I had detailed various datablocks of different fighters and set the AI pilots to slug it out in numerous tests. I had also finally added the player into the mix, allowing myself to take to the skies as one of Blue Team and take on the dastardly foes of Red Team, with each team comprising of a mix of aircraft types - though currently all using the same placeholder model for the time being.
I had also added a couple of different radar resources, one standard top down and the other the 3D style radar from Elite. I found the 3D style to be somewhat confusing and so removed it and stuck with the more simple top down radar. I added toggleable ranges and made sure that different teams displayed in different colours.
I also changed how the aircraft classes handle so that they are obviously more different. Fighters now lose a lot of speed when turning, whilst interceptors lose their maneuverability when gaining speed, and strike aircraft are somewhat midway between the two.
I improved high G stall turns for the player, so if you get them right you can swing the aircraft round quickly, and if you get them wrong you'll stall - hence "high G stall turn".
Basic combat stats for a mission are now stored with assists, kills, shots and hits being recorded for the player. I decided to use the same system as one of the game which inspired this project which was the old space dogfighter Descent Freespace: The Great War.
I made a few other changes, tweaks and improvements here and there, like stopping the Ai from spawning above their aircraft ceiling limits which immediately threw them into a death spin dive.
So next month I think it will be time to actually model some custom aircraft and start to deal with physically showing damage to individual vehicle parts such as having the wings shot off and the such like.
Also probably a good idea to do some exercises to strengthen the lower back when I am able to get up and down from the crapper without needing to lean on two crutches ...
