VR Support & Current Progress

Back at it again with some more information on Strife: The Expanse's release. They key topic today is VR support. Originally I wasn't certain I'd be able to get it to mesh well with the amount of controls needed as VR controls tend to have a minimum amount of input options. That being said after some elbow grease and a lot of coffee, I feel very confident in saying that VR will be available at launch.

The Oculus Rift will be supported and I'm currently very optimistic that with the beta version of Valve's openVR plugin for unity 2020's XR system that the HTC Vive will be able to be used. I have no way to test that, but Steam VR boots properly and my oculus rift works without the Oculus package installed so for now, I'm very happy.  On my rift currently toggling into VR is setup perfectly. The HUD stays with your head and you have lasers coming out of each of your hand to help aim when you select units. Everything functions as if you were in the normal game.

As per the current state of the game, input methods aside, a lot of progress has been made since Christmas despite my hectic schedule. Primarily that units are moving and turns are passing. Players can only move units to hexs that the units should be able to move to, and they can only move once a turn now. Additionally players can toggle between attack and movement so that units will be able to do those out of order.

Even better is the player controller now follows units or looks at locations when game events happen (like placing or moving units). However I'm well aware players dont want to sit through these so I've ensured that:

1) Simple tapping a movement button will stop the following/looking at system.

2) As soon as an action is done players can input their next ones as the final state of the unit is already set code wise. Even if a unit isnt at it's final hex, effectively on the backend it is, so if you want to speed play it should be available without issue (besides perhaps maybe some animations being a bit wonky).

I expect within the next week I'll have combat set up for the placeholder unit currently implemented, and from there I can build the bulk of the game and hopefully run through several rounds of testing. After that is set up it will simply be a matter of setting up various units and game balancing and the game will be complete.

I'm still going to err on the side of caution and say I'm shooting for an April release, however it is entirely possible it arrives sooner. If you want to be the first to find out, give me a follow here, or add the game to one of your collections!