decepticonfessional

[decepticonfessional]

I’ve been working more on Cybercattle Ranch this week, as well as a shorter prequel game for Hypnovember.

Updates on progress for CCR include:

- Adjustments to the way time progresses. Now at end of day the herd is rounded up and a brief scene for recharging will play out rather than having the player wander around unable to do much for half the time. This shrinks the game map slightly, removes the recharge actions and energy tracker, and helps in keeping track of where everyone is.

- Removed medications and treats as random item drops from kicking the ranchers, eliminating the need for a separate eating function.

- Figured out how to give the bulls a preference in which cows in the area they’d like to mount and in what order. There’s now a cooldown for each cow and a refractory period for the bulls (that can be adjusted by the ranchers). If a cow has been recently mounted by a bull, they will wander off to an adjacent space allowing for any other cows in the area to move up the priority list.

- Adjusted bull movement behaviors so that they will try to avoid other bulls but seek out cows. This will be handy for building future confrontation encounters and also pairs well with the post-overload wandering the cows will be doing.

- The pumping station and wash station have been moved.

- Added a dirt counter in place of previous grime mechanics. When it tops out, the ranchers bring you to the wash station for a bath.

- Biggest shift is in bull/cow transitioning. Previously, there was a single variable determining whether the player or an NPC was a cow or bull. Now I’ve built out two player characters for each mode and will simply have the game switch between them should a transition occur. The same will apply to NPCs that do so as well though not every NPC will be able to. This took a bit of restructuring.

- Status line now adjusts itself based off of the player’s current cognition level.

- NPCs limited to three characters while building out the remainder of the game. These are Bull!Optimus, Cow!Optimus, Cow!Prowl, and Cow!Jazz. Once I’m satisfied that the major functionality of the game is working, I’ll release a version with these three and then slowly add more.

As for the Hypnovember prequel - it will basically just be the ‘cattle conversion’ process prior to being placed on the ranch. It’s very straightforward and doesn’t have many extraneous systems built into it.

That’s my updates for now!

[decepticonfessional]

Still here, just super busy with summer convention stuff so I don’t get as much time to work on my side projects. And I’m gonna be busy until at least mid-November, alas.

[decepticonfessional]

Worked a bit on Cybercattle Ranch this week, mainly to rework the recharge function and address an issue of incubation not progressing.

There is still an issue of some NPC descriptors firing twice that needs to be cleared up and a bunch of little tweaks to be made before I can continue with any of the next major additions.

[decepticonfessional]

Worked a little bit on Cybercattle Ranch today.

Mainly streamlined the food trough dispensers and input actions for examining your bodyparts, extending/retracting your spike, and a framework for self-servicing.

There’s now only one kind of food pellet, which eliminates a duplicate message from the dispensers.

You can extend/retract your spike at will, though if it’s pressurized there’s a chance you might not want to retract it once it’s out.

Examining your valve will have slight variations depending on arousal and whether or not there’s been a transfluid deposit recently.

That’s about it today.

[decepticonfessional]

Still alive, just taking a much needed break from being unhinged about coding robots doing the clank clank to be unhinged about other things for a bit.

[decepticonfessional]

Booping everyone on the timeline.

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What if…I just added another project to my pile of projects. What if…Insecticons?

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Working on Zone Thirteen again. Rebuilding the map and streamlining some of the systems that I figured out improved methods for. Expanding the scope a little bit to include more NPCs, story routes, and encounters. If you’re a fan of Insecticons, you’ll definitely love a certain section I’ll be adding in.

[decepticonfessional]

Taking a little bit of a break from coding to focus on some other projects. Will be back later this month to continue working on stuff.

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Okay, I’ve got…most of the entire mounting -> carrying -> emergence cycle working. Just fucking around with numbers/variables now, for optimal breeding seasons.

Might adjust a few things to streamline the code for the mechabull mounting mechanics as right now it’s at 30k+ and looking a little clunky.

I mean…it technically works? I’m just not entirely happy with how it’s working, like maybe there’s a better way of implementing it.

Anyways, I put some random weeds in the pasture that’ll grow wherever there might be a puddle. Said weeds can be eaten for some fuel though they aren’t as energy dense as the pellets in the barn. The NPCs will eat them too, if they’re hungry.

Updated the leaderboard for the pump ranks to include the top three from last season and the current season rankings. There will be a short scene at the end of each vorn where the top producer will be announced (and maybe given a reward) and the board reset.

Also added an action for kicking! You can try and kick the gates open, but if the ranchers see you they’ll swat you with a switch. If you get caught doing it too often, you’ll get put in hypno timeout.

Also toying with the idea of what to do if the player does not get kindled during breeding season.

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Building an unnecessarily complicated genetics function for all the games that feature offspring so that your sparkling will be a mix of traits, because I hate apparently myself.

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Magnus is my test subject. I make sure every function works with him before copying it over to the rest of the NPCs.

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Coding and testing is going much easier using brief placeholder text in scenes.

Of course, once everything is working as it should I’ll have to go back through and fill in the full texts.

The leaderboard is working. You’ll see the Ranch Ranking versus other ranches and can look up other rankings as well, such as which mechacow produced the most last season (Prowl), which mechacow has carried the most mechacalves, and which mechabull has sired the most mechacalves.

Working on polishing the ‘mounting’ mechanic for the npc mechabulls right now and then I’m gonna spend the evening fixing npc and player descriptions.

A small look into what the code looks like:

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Putting in a leaderboard so the player can compete with the other mechacows to see who produces more fortified energon each season.

You’ll always lose to Prowl…probably.

Might just have similar for the mechabulls and do a rotation. Whoever knocks up the most members of the herd wins.

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Okay, doors are working as they should be.

I'm removing the breeding boxes as they are needlessly over-complicating things. Instead it's just going to be a free roam random encounter type situation, where if a mechabull is in the pasture you might get mounted.

Right now I'm tweaking some things in regards to arousal increases and all that. Gotta go through and make sure all the NPCs have updated stats. Also have to go in and enter in the descriptions for everybody now that I've got skeletal functionality.

If there's any particular bot you'd like to see as a mechacow or mechabull, now is the time to say it.

[decepticonfessional]

Today I’m having problems with doors. I wish I wasn’t, because there’s a few things I need to test out and refine that are not doors. Such as the entirety of the incubation system.