Hello intrepid soup-makers. I thought we’d try a slightly different angle today to give you another varied peek at our dev process. For this week, here’s a feature we’re considering that still exists only in the world of concept. I wanted to show you why we’re thinking about it in the first place, and some of the considerations that might be necessary if we end up implementing it.

So how did we arrive at a ‘Vacuum Tank’ (other than it’s kinda cute)? Currently the post ‘early-game’ resource gathering is pretty time consuming. While there’s options for automating the soup creation and shipping processes, there’s no option for alleviating the increasing demands on ingredient gathering. It feels like the kind of player who wanted to invest some resources into this area should at least have an option. The Vacuum Tank can fly for easy scouting/movement, collect ingredients en masse and throw them home with ease.

As for implementation, code-wise it should be pretty straight forward. It’s the design cohesiveness that will probably need some extra thought here. The movement controls of this vehicle will set the tone for all similar vehicle types, as well as the throwing mechanic. These need to be uniform across all features, so we need to consider cases that might not apply directly to the Vacuum Tank (other flying/caterpillar tread vehicles, player’s own throwing mechanic) when designing these 2 controls.

Vacuuming is serious business for robots!