Morning Report - cunning curves for regulating random
Been a busy weekend. Upgrades are in, with collectibles and ships getting the upgrades applied. I also extended the upgrades mechanic to enemy ships, so as you journey deeper, the same enemies can get improvements beyond just more hit points.
For random drops, I had a Cunning Plan. I wanted to be able to define drops as having a value and also definable distribution. This was starting to involve a bit of number wrangling, before I realised I could repurpose an animation curve to filter my random numbers. This gives a visual representation of distribution - the above screenshot shows material drops will be low quality on the whole, with a small chance of a high quality drop.
There are a lot of balancing considerations now. How are upgrade costs to increase? How much should each upgrade enhance the part? How much Monies should it cost per upgrade? And how much of these things should be dropped or earned by the player?
