Development update - October 11, 2023 (Patreon)

Still working on addition of new "T" entity as I do plan to at least use it in few campaign levels. Though, generally, this new entity could be used in many other cases. Meanwhile, there was also entity scaling added and plenty of optimizations (walking in mini-Hound Walker-CS or Jeep-like entity is silly enough experience, yet quite unstable). For the most part, scaling was needed by this new "T" entity initially. 

New "T" entity does not react to driver input yet (except for flipping), but it gets functionally close to what I intended it to be.

You can already see this new entity in the game screenshots and it does behave visually and physically correctly. I guess I'll just keep its' whole appearance non-spoiled just so it could be discovered in the final game. It surely is a vehicle and it surely can hold 4 players inside.

Gameplay

- Made and added physical model of a new "T" entity to the game;

- Added joints that connect all parts of new "T" entity;

- Implemented flip logic for new "T" entity;

- Implemented correct driver position whenever driver is leaving new "T" entity;

- Added model import to be used for all parts of new "T" entity;

- Added textures, written shader for new "T" entity;

- Added dynamic texture shifting/spinning logic where needed for new "T" entity;

- More join logic improvements for new "T" entity;

- Implemented support for entities that use less models than physical bodies;

- Fixed bug because of which body of new "T" entity would appear underground on flip logic;

- Improved new "T" entity shader to make baked-in specular to not appear in completely dark environments;

- Optimized hole position calculations for entities and made them work with scaled entities;

- Fixed problems with models appearance of new "T" entity whenever scaling is applied;

- Fixed step-up logic inconsistency bugs related to walking on top of new "T" entity;

- Added more small details to physical model of new "T" entity;

- Configured background parts of new "T" entity to no collide with most of in-game objects;

- Added logic that removes unneeded physical bodies of new "T" entity as they aren't normally destroyed due to them redirecting damage to other physical bodies;

- Made it so walking on slopes near ground is possible near entities too;

- Fixed issue causing Y-axis inversion for some of bullet holes on entities;

- Added support for hole spawn prevention of certain parts of entities, which is new used by new "T" entity; 

- Implemented inner extrusion for breakable crates - should work as fine for any other kinds of crates in future;

- Made it so dynamic texture shifting for new "T" entity does take entity scaling into account;

- Fixed issue causing certain parts of new "T" entity to be not removed when damage redirected entity is broken;

- Implemented debris scaling to resemble entity scale;

- Improved step-up logic so it does not consider background limbs of entities that player can't collide with to be considered as step-up preventing ceiling;

- Fixed an issue causing arms of a player to phase through thin physical part of new "T" entity;

- Made it so background parts of new "T" entity can be damaged after part they are connected to is broken;

- Added per-limb breaking for new "T" entity;

- More corrections to physical model of new "T" entity;

- Fixed issue preventing new "T" entity from being completely removed once all parts of it are destroyed;

- Fixed a crash that happened when Hound Walker-CS was instantly and completely destroyed while there was a driver inside;

- Added scaling support for crates, "M" entity and Hound Walker-CS;

- Added physical representation for C-shaped geometry (can be seen on screenshots) on new "T" entity and made it not collide with players & projectiles, yet still can be held onto;

- Fixed issue causing collision detection for jetpack trails to be calculated even after there was no visible steps of such trails;

- More optimizations for jetpack trails logic, implemented collision detection caching;

- More optimizations for fake shadows under players and entities;

- Optimizations for physics simulations on levels with high quantity of physical objects;

- Made new "T" entity driver position to be correct;

- Fixed bug causing players to randomly freeze in place due to error in recent physics optimizations;

- More optimizations for create debris destruction calculation logic;

- Made it so multiple drivers/passengers of same entity won't collide with each other;

- Added support for visibility-independent projectile/explosion invulnerability for drivers of vehicles;

- Made it so invulnerable drivers could still take damage while they are being pulled into entered vehicles for short period of time;

- Fixed issue causing loss of critical new "T" entity part to keep entity still "alive" and drivers essentially floating mid-air;

- Added "death" sequence to new "T" entity;

- Added multi-driver/passenger support for new "T" entity (up to 4);

- Fixed issue causing drivers to explode whenever they bleed-out in new "T" entity due to joints not releasing them in time;

- Reworked crush logic for entities by walls & movables to make it work much faster;

- Made it so new "T" entity doesn't phase through characters (and break them violently as a result) whenever flip logic is applied - any characters are moved to nearby safe positions instead;

- Implemented fake shadows for new "T" entity;

- Added fake shadows transparency whenever new "T" entity is rotating;

- Fixed issue where background/foreground parts were swapped for fake shadows;

- Fixed issue causing fake shadows of 3D debris to not gradually disappear together with debris;

- Fixed issue causing new "T" entity and Hound Walker-CS offset debris to not move towards in-game plane together with their fake shadows;

- Fixed issue causing custom depth background walls to not have correct 3D collisions for 3D debris;

- Decreased amount of darkening can be done to parts of entities that can't burn (such as metal);

- In order to prevent parts overlap in new "T" entity after "death" - some parts are automatically broken now.

Level Editor

- Fixed crash in AI logic due to wall slicing in Level Editor;

- Fixed crash that happened as a result of new "T" entity deletion;

- Made it so sound of limbs breaking of removed entities isn't that loud;

- Disallowed object bounds recalculation for entities when game is not paused;

- Fixed bug causing AI shape search optimizations to cause memory leak whenever wall is being resized;

- Made it so surfaces of walls aren't being rebuilt if object was simply selected rather than was moved/edited;

- Fixed crash due to too small entity scaling;

- Improved texture application on 45 degrees angled "simple" surfaces (ones that are just an extrusion from the contour).

Interfaces

- Fixed issue causing main menu to be drawn behind the started game;

- Overheads of drivers/passengers are now drawn relatively to overhead of vehicle they are in;

- Overheads positions transition smoothly whenever player enters/leaves vehicle now.

Star Defenders 2D

I've personally added a bit of optimizations and a new base vs base server config, but there was much more additions from other developers and contributors in terms of new discoverable enemies.

Detailed update log:
https://github.com/Eric-Gurt/StarDefenders2D/commits/main 

Base vs base server example:
https://www.plazmaburst2.com:2053