Private Space Investigators - Devlog #2 : Players and Networking

Current progress

As I stated in my previous devlog I have decided to take a break from the generation of the stations and start working on the player controller and implementing networking for the player. This was to make sure that I would not have to backtrack to add networking functionality later on when the project is more complex and there are more dependencies.

As a result, I've created a player character using the UE5 Shooter Variant as a base class, this allowed me to take some of the logic from this base and adapt it to the project's goals. This included changing the weapons used to raycast weapons, changing the method for picking up weapons from the world and also making sure that these elements were replicated to network players.

Some issues still persist due to the fact that the Shooter Variant was not intended to be networked, however these are minor issues such as aim offset not being replicated and other errors within the animation blueprints - these will be fixed soon but are not a priority as of now.

Fixes have also been made to the station gen as I stated in my previous devlog, these were around the transition rooms that would allow the station to move between types of rooms (Engineering->Residential, etc.). This will still need some refining however it has led to interesting variation within the stations being generated and I'm looking forward to adding more interesting rooms that allow the stations to sprawl in more complex patterns, eventually moving away from simple box rooms as much as possible.

Next steps

My next steps will carry over from last devlog somewhat as I am still working on making items spawn within the rooms, as of now I plan to have storage spaces (weapon lockers, cabinets, etc.) have a chance to spawn within a room and then within that there will be a chance for items to spawn in various "slots" in the storage space.

I will also be adding simple objectives to the map for players to interact with, this will hopefully add some more depth to the loop that will start to shape within the game. These will be my main goals for the next devlog as I don't want to spread my focus too thin and miss my deadline of having a devlog up every two weeks, I feel this would be a healthier way of approaching the development and allows me to work at a pace that takes into account my job.