v0.8 Onwards

[Crash]

I'm designing a variable-fighter style Alliance robot. It will transform between ship and 'robot'.There will also be a nice big reactor to destroy at the end, guarded by another big robot.I'm sort of going for the greatest variety in terms of enemy robots. I'm also considering making some smaller (non-boss) robots to defend the Alliance Fortress' interior.I've also been working for quite some time on some interesting new weapons; I built up a testbed to write a kind of ricochet laser weapon, which I was more-or-less able to complete although I had difficulty making a solid, smooth beam reflect perfectly.Anyway, I tore that apart and tried to re-create something even more interesting.In Gundam SEED (yes that again, I admit it's probably my favourite TV show) some beam weapons, when they impact on a shielded object, break around that object, splitting into lots of smaller rays that flow around the object.You can see an example of this at the end of each series when a mobile suit stands in the way of a capital ship superweapon to try and protect its own mothership. A game called Reflex by Siterskain has a tank boss. The beam from its main gun reflects off/around the player's shield in just the same way, showing that it can be done in a game, not just animated in a cartoon. That's probably the coolest thing the game does, actually.Interestingly, their version works in 360'. So far, I've only managed to chivvy mine into working when firing vertically up the screen to simplify certain logic elements.But it is dynamic and splits differently (and realistically) in accordance with the contours of what it hits. It's not just a preset animation.It took a little while to get every little detail all playing well with the others. http://www.xbomber.co.uk/iv/#/content/s ... e-beam.png | http://www.xbomber.co.uk/iv/#/content/s ... m2.pngI've also been making a little more progress with some cool new challenges inside the Alliance Fortress in Mission 16. I'm very much enjoying building that because you never see much of the interior areas of the fortress that are large enough for X-Bomber to fight in. Still got some distance to travel with the whole thing but I know where I'm going.The transforming robot will be the hardest part.

[Crash]

Got The Skull more-or-less fully working as a playable ship.The ship transforms from "Skull" to "Azuris" mode in a slightly ungainly way.I'll see if I can make the ship morph from one to the other and I'll throw in some smoke particles and magic pixie dust to complete the effect a bit.The old Games Factory had a morphing processor but MMF2 seems to have had that surgically removed (???).The Skull Mode has:Two Front Weapons that you cycle with [Shift]:- 2x Pulse cannons that fire the same blue shots as X-Bomber's default weapon.- A red lightning cannon that fires the same stuff as some of my the Alliance ships.(It has been reprogrammed to work as a friendly and enemy weapon and has a new diffusing effect using random positioning, scaling and alpha-blending)Two Side Weapons that you cycle with [\]:- 3x Dual Pulse Gun emplacements on each side that fire rapidly. They fire the same small blue shots that the GunBoys fire later in the game and their shots fan out in three directions from each side of the ship.- 4x Laser MachineGun Turrets per side (pretty much the same as X-Bomber's turrets except you have more of them).Both Front and Side Weapons are fired by pressing [Z] and have a third cycle option allowing them to be turned off. They all run from the ship's Weapons Power gauge.Pressing [X] Fires a barrage of homing plasma missiles from a separate magazine of 512, which is replenished by collecting Missile Powerups.The ship can be rotated clockwise in 45' increments by Pressing [S] and anti-clockwise by pressing [W]. This way, you can fire a broadside up the screen or diagonally-across etc.Pressing [Tab] changes from Skull Mode to Azuris Mode (based on San Ku Kai's Azuris Space Sailer) and back again.Azuris Mode is tougher, slower and has Two different Front Weapons:- A kind of Gatling Gun / Lightning Cannon in its front spinnaker mast thing (I'm not really up on old sailing ships).- 2x Really Heavy forward-facing guns ... and possibly just the one Side Weapon:- 6x Pulse Cannons per side. They unleash a devastating broadside of the same blue shots that X-Bomber fires by default.(I just finished these. Making the shots line up with the sprite's gun positions was a nightmare when the whole thing had to rotate 360' but it works really, really well).- I might put in some timed-detonating shots that fire randomly from the sides. (I can see that being quite good).The Azuris Mode fires an X-Impulse-like blast from its sails on pressing [X].  All of these will probably drain from the Weapons Power Reserve.Pressing [C] will activate the Blocking Shield. This feature doesn't work in Skull Mode because we didn't see it in the show.Both modes include automatically-firing rear weapons and some other goodies.