Tactical

The tactical portion of the game uses an isometric turn-based battleground with a sophisticated rendering and physics engine. It also comes with a highly accurate top-down mini-map renderer with features to hide and show specific things in the display. The rest of the section describes how the entire tactical system works.

Rendering and physics engine

(will be cleaned up later) A standard tile unit is a diamond of 80x40. Every tile is rendered at 4 angles so the player can use 4 angles. The engine has no concept of levels or slices; simply z-coordinates. All tiles are split into the smallest unique units possible, but no more. This keeps things solid, and the physics engine sane. When a tile is deformed (a little hill gets shot by a plasma rifle, for example), A physics engine calculates how the tile will look and what it will do (i.e., explode, shatter, have a chunk vaporized, etc). Everything will be as realistic as reasonably possible, while still using a sprite engine. The engine has a simple raycasting system to calculate new tiles and tile deformities. It can/will use the raycasting for other effects, such as reflections, refractions, lighting, etc.

The rendering system doesn't just take prerendered tiles. It also creates new objects/tiles from deformation as necessary. The most advanced part of it, though, is the environment/terrain generator. An environment/terrain generator creates pieces of an outdoor landscape - hills, valleys, cliffs, etc. before every battle. It scatters textures and objects over a randomly generated (textured) mesh (appropriate to the enviroment) to create many varieties of outdoor landscapes without the trouble of rendering each tile. Every location is tuned for it's own outdoor environment.

The minimap renderer renders a simple 3D bird's-eye view of the known area. It uses a little bit of color and shading to match the actual area. The view can be fully customized to show specific items of interest and markers. It also allows you to preview a small sections or items on the map, as you would see in the real tactical renderer. The most important feature of the minimap, though, shows you what your soldiers heard/smelled/saw during the opponent's turn. This feature also exists on the tactical rendnerer, and you can disable it if the map requires.

Pathfinding

Pathfinding will be affected by the unit's intelligence/stress level. This means dumb units are more likely to run into danger spots (open areas, spiked pit, etc.) because they don't think about where they're going. This also means stressed out units will may also run into danger areas because they're too stressed out to notice.. say, a grenade in front of them. There will also be a mode in which units simply choose the most efficient/quick route. Typically, units will choose the best route based on areas which have been seen, or will soon see. (which means the path can be changed as a unit sees more stuff)

Units

Units are somewhat unique in EDF, when compared to X-Com. Units are (usually) made of individual sub-units, with one or more sub units acting as the master sub-unit(s). The primary purpose of having sub-units is to have the ability to lose limbs. You will be able to rip an arm off someone, for example. The types of sub-units you can make is varied. Some subunits die when ripped off, some die a bit later, and some survive, expecially if they are a "master" subunit, but not always. Like many other things, every subunit has properties.

Weapons

Weapons are done in a general way that works for all weapons in tactical combat. A weapon has a list of actions. Actions may nest for more advanced options. The actions contain a list of properties of the action. These properties essentially define what the weapon can do, what it relies on, and what factors affect it. Properties may nest if needed. Here are the list of properties you may assign to an action.