Every time I thought I’d got it made…

• 16 files changed
• 291 insertions
• 77 deletions

That’s what it took to “fix a few little bugs” in the outfitting system!

After trying unsuccessfully to make the system for buying/selling outfits work, I decided the underlying issue was too systemic and required a complete refactoring of how outfits work. The initial system relied on a lot of assumptions which happened to be true when there were only a few outfits of very limited types, but as soon as I tried to introduce just a tiny bit more complexity, the whole thing broke down.

So, the lessons lessons here are that when you make any assumptions (and you always will) be sure that they’re reasonable and remember (or even better, document!) what they are so that you’ll know what variation the system can or can’t handle.

At this point I feel pretty good about the outfitting system, it should be robust enough to handle more than just the basic weapons+ammo outfits that I have so far (so, things like shield enhancements, engine upgrades, maps, sensor boosts, etc) and everything stays in-sync with the server in real time.

Now, it’s on to more fun things but I’m not sure what to start with next. Here are some things left to do as of today:

• Building the system to create and edit mission threads in order to create more interesting narratives and storylines.
• Make a system for viewing and editing the galactic map/planet attributes so I can name the systems/planets and assign values for what services are available, the description and imagery.
• Add the Spaceport Lounge and options to hire escort ships, view the news, etc. This is also where there will be more multiplayer/social options like chat, forming groups for joint missions, inter-player trading, etc.
• Make more assets. Right now I still just have 3 ship types, and 6 outfits. Also all the planets basically look the same and the imagery for the spaceports are just royalty free landscapes I grabbed off Unsplash etc. So, there’s a lot of (fun, but time-consuming) work to populate the game world.

You’ll find out what I worked on next in my next post – stay tuned!