This week we've been modelling weapon-specific modules.
Modelling will likely take until Sunday, with implementation from Monday.
There are more bits and pieces to create after that, which might leave little time before the live broadcast.



Here's a sneak-peek at one of the weapon modules.
It falls under the category called "Amplifier".



Make sure you add Break Arts II to your wishlist to stay up to date with the DevLogs!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/547360

This week we've been modelling weapon-specific modules.
Modelling will likely take until Sunday, with implementation from Monday.
There are more bits and pieces to create after that, which might leave little time before the live broadcast.



Here's a sneak-peek at one of the weapon modules.
It falls under the category called "Amplifier".



Make sure you add Break Arts II to your wishlist to stay up to date with the DevLogs!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/547360

This week we've been working hard on weapon customization.
Here's a quick example:



You'll see some unusual parameters "recharge time" and "exhaust heat time".
Feel free to take a guess at what purpose these serve in the game!

We'll also be making a broadcast to show bits and bobs of the weapon customization.
Please look forward to seeing how weapon customization works in this game.
Guaranteed, it gets pretty intense...

March 18th (Sat) 2016, from 9 PM (Japan Standard Time)
Join the community here

Please note that the broadcast will be in Japanese only.

This week we've been working hard on weapon customization.
Here's a quick example:



You'll see some unusual parameters "recharge time" and "exhaust heat time".
Feel free to take a guess at what purpose these serve in the game!

We'll also be making a broadcast to show bits and bobs of the weapon customization.
Please look forward to seeing how weapon customization works in this game.
Guaranteed, it gets pretty intense...

March 18th (Sat) 2016, from 9 PM (Japan Standard Time)
Join the community here

Please note that the broadcast will be in Japanese only.

We're currently working on weapon customization week by week!
We can't show certain things just yet; so for now we'll finish talking about customization of the robot itself.

----------------------


BREAK ARTS: Cyber Battle Racing (hereby after referred to as BA), currently available as an app for Smartphone, is a game featuring a range of different robots.
Now, a feature of those robots were the parts on the back that opened up or came apart, with their own individual movements.



This is the kind of movement I'm talking about.
There's no chance we would leave out these quirky animations in the second game!
That would take all the fun out of development, too.

That's where "Joint Modules" (parts) come in, which we'll be talking about today.





Here is an example of a Joint Module.

This splits a Connector 2 ways, the purpose being to join Connectors with other Connectors.

Joint Modules allow for the construction of more complex robots.

Among these is a special kind of joint called "Moving Joint", which is how we can implement these animated movements into the game.



At a glance it might look like an extension joint, but this joint is used in the following manner:



You can set the angle and apply other conditions to make it move.
For example when boosting, reloading, or at all times.

We plan to add Moving Joints which do things like extend/shrink, come apart, or revolve.

Please look forward to creating your own personal style!

We're currently working on weapon customization week by week!
We can't show certain things just yet; so for now we'll finish talking about customization of the robot itself.

----------------------


BREAK ARTS: Cyber Battle Racing (hereby after referred to as BA), currently available as an app for Smartphone, is a game featuring a range of different robots.
Now, a feature of those robots were the parts on the back that opened up or came apart, with their own individual movements.



This is the kind of movement I'm talking about.
There's no chance we would leave out these quirky animations in the second game!
That would take all the fun out of development, too.

That's where "Joint Modules" (parts) come in, which we'll be talking about today.





Here is an example of a Joint Module.

This splits a Connector 2 ways, the purpose being to join Connectors with other Connectors.

Joint Modules allow for the construction of more complex robots.

Among these is a special kind of joint called "Moving Joint", which is how we can implement these animated movements into the game.



At a glance it might look like an extension joint, but this joint is used in the following manner:



You can set the angle and apply other conditions to make it move.
For example when boosting, reloading, or at all times.

We plan to add Moving Joints which do things like extend/shrink, come apart, or revolve.

Please look forward to creating your own personal style!

Continuing from last time, we'll be sharing more info on what there is to look forward to with the game's customization system.




Modules are robot parts that look like this.
From the top, we have a Booster Module and a Thruster Module.

This Module system makes game development possible, since we can create and finish just about 1 Module per day.
That's somewhere between 20-30 Modules added to the game in 1 month.

An increase of 20 modules to the game hugely expands the possibilities of customization.
And we can still retain the desired visual quality, which is fantastic.
(It also means a lot of work for the programming side, but that's another matter.)

But considering how expansive customization will be with a large number of Modules, I am sure you are curious to know how these all affect the performance of your robot.
After all, it's no fun when a Module you like has no practical viability.

For that reason, all Modules are set to have the same level of value.


Module performance is not represented by a set numerical value.
All that is set is the rate of parameter increase multiplier.
For example, if we take a Module with a durability multiplier of 2,

Amount increased per 1 durability multiplier: 1000

...this would be a Module that increases your robots durability by 2000.
The Module will also increase the weight of your robot in proportion with the increase.

So a Module with a durability multiplier of 2 would have exactly the same effect as 2 Modules with a durability multiplier of 1.

That said, it is unfortunately not possible to create a light-weight robot AND equip it with lots of Modules.
Each Module applies its own weight, you see.

The merit of this system for me is that I can easily fine-tune the balance by simply changing the base value.


Now we've provided a lot of information on the new customization system, so you probably have an idea of how it's going to work.

In the previous BREAK ARTS, we had a lot of parts that could be fitted to the back of the robot.
We were thinking we could make more robots like that in the new game.
We think those moving parts that don't really do anything are pretty cool.

To achieve that in BREAK ARTS II, we came up with the concept of "Joint Parts".
Stay tuned for more on that and customization!

Continuing from last time, we'll be sharing more info on what there is to look forward to with the game's customization system.




Modules are robot parts that look like this.
From the top, we have a Booster Module and a Thruster Module.

This Module system makes game development possible, since we can create and finish just about 1 Module per day.
That's somewhere between 20-30 Modules added to the game in 1 month.

An increase of 20 modules to the game hugely expands the possibilities of customization.
And we can still retain the desired visual quality, which is fantastic.
(It also means a lot of work for the programming side, but that's another matter.)

But considering how expansive customization will be with a large number of Modules, I am sure you are curious to know how these all affect the performance of your robot.
After all, it's no fun when a Module you like has no practical viability.

For that reason, all Modules are set to have the same level of value.


Module performance is not represented by a set numerical value.
All that is set is the rate of parameter increase multiplier.
For example, if we take a Module with a durability multiplier of 2,

Amount increased per 1 durability multiplier: 1000

...this would be a Module that increases your robots durability by 2000.
The Module will also increase the weight of your robot in proportion with the increase.

So a Module with a durability multiplier of 2 would have exactly the same effect as 2 Modules with a durability multiplier of 1.

That said, it is unfortunately not possible to create a light-weight robot AND equip it with lots of Modules.
Each Module applies its own weight, you see.

The merit of this system for me is that I can easily fine-tune the balance by simply changing the base value.


Now we've provided a lot of information on the new customization system, so you probably have an idea of how it's going to work.

In the previous BREAK ARTS, we had a lot of parts that could be fitted to the back of the robot.
We were thinking we could make more robots like that in the new game.
We think those moving parts that don't really do anything are pretty cool.

To achieve that in BREAK ARTS II, we came up with the concept of "Joint Parts".
Stay tuned for more on that and customization!

From here on, we'll be providing you with regular development updates for BREAK ARTS II.

This time we're going to talk about BREAK ARTS II's customization system.


Originally, customization involved assembling a robot from 5 interchangeable parts: body, legs, back, left arm and right arm.
(Basically like the Armored Core series.)

But for BREAK ARTS II on PC, we came to a wall, in the way of development, that had to be broken through.

Please take a look at this image.



This is a comparison of a robot from the old and new BREAK ARTS.
This is the level of quality we wanted to achieve if we were going to make a new game for PC. If it was only a minor improvement over the original, the visual impact would not be strong enough.

And this is where we hit a wall in the way of development: the first BREAK ARTS has 23 different robots. Even if we were to cut that down to 20, to achieve the level of quality we want for a single robot takes 1-2 months...
That would mean 2 years just to have all the robots in the game; add the weapons and system on top of that and the game would unlikely be finished even after 3 years.

Well, that was a long introduction, but that is what it will take to break down that wall, while providing a large amount of freedom in customization.





Please take a look at this image.
It shows the basic framework of a customizable robot.

The robot has 38 connectors on its body, to which modules (parts) can be attached, in what I call "Module-type Customization"

There are 2 types of connectors: large (Connectors) and small (S Connectors).
(In the image, they are the circular green areas).

Each module shows you whether it fits to a Connector or an S Connector.
There's no advantage to having many Connectors vs having many S Connectors.
It only affects how the robot will end up looking.

Next time, we'll go into more detail about the types of modules available!

From here on, we'll be providing you with regular development updates for BREAK ARTS II.

This time we're going to talk about BREAK ARTS II's customization system.


Originally, customization involved assembling a robot from 5 interchangeable parts: body, legs, back, left arm and right arm.
(Basically like the Armored Core series.)

But for BREAK ARTS II on PC, we came to a wall, in the way of development, that had to be broken through.

Please take a look at this image.



This is a comparison of a robot from the old and new BREAK ARTS.
This is the level of quality we wanted to achieve if we were going to make a new game for PC. If it was only a minor improvement over the original, the visual impact would not be strong enough.

And this is where we hit a wall in the way of development: the first BREAK ARTS has 23 different robots. Even if we were to cut that down to 20, to achieve the level of quality we want for a single robot takes 1-2 months...
That would mean 2 years just to have all the robots in the game; add the weapons and system on top of that and the game would unlikely be finished even after 3 years.

Well, that was a long introduction, but that is what it will take to break down that wall, while providing a large amount of freedom in customization.





Please take a look at this image.
It shows the basic framework of a customizable robot.

The robot has 38 connectors on its body, to which modules (parts) can be attached, in what I call "Module-type Customization"

There are 2 types of connectors: large (Connectors) and small (S Connectors).
(In the image, they are the circular green areas).

Each module shows you whether it fits to a Connector or an S Connector.
There's no advantage to having many Connectors vs having many S Connectors.
It only affects how the robot will end up looking.

Next time, we'll go into more detail about the types of modules available!