This dev blog is quite aptly named as I had planned to work on pit stops this month. However, what's actually happened is that I've had to spend time working on other things and not been able to put much time in on Oversteer Racing, so it really has been stop/start. That said, I've outlined my (little) progress below and talked about my plans anyway.
Pit stops
I want strategy and pit stops to be an important part of the game. Pit stops will allow you to refuel, change tyres and, in some cases, fix damage. Managing pit stops generates some interesting issues. For example, do you allow players to reverse in the pit lane - this is a move that, in most forms of motorsports, will see a competitor disqualified. However, if I don't allow reversing then is there a risk that players make such a mess up of a pit stop that they have to do another lap... and will that be fun?
The code I've currently got working detects if a car is in a pit box, works out if it's the correct car in the correct box and also estimates how well the car is positioned. My plan is that, the position of the car will affect the length of time the car is stationary. So, when the player enters the pit box, the game halts (for the player and the opposition cars) and the player can then select how much fuel they want and whether they want to change tyres and fix damage. The changes they select affect the duration of the pit stop and this is also affected by how well positioned they are in the pit box. So, two cars pitting and making the same changes may be stationary for different amounts of time depending on their positioning in the pit box. This reflects real life as a car that stops short/long causes the pit crew to move and the stop takes longer.
Once the player has selected their changes then the game restarts and the opposition cars will carry on around the track. The player car will remain stationary until the work has been completed and will then be released.
Language support
As I've started work on functionality I've had to start adding support for multiple languages. To do this I've been using the popular I2 Localization plugin from the Unity asset store. I've not finalised the list of languages that the game will support at release but it's worth building in support from the start so I don't have to retrofit this later.
Next month...
I'll be working on the menu screens for the pit stop, holding/releasing the car and carrying on with adding language support.
