InDev 5

Hello Community,

Introduction
in the past days, consuming yet another 10 hour workforce, adding up to 30 in total, I made a lot of improvements for the Game.
My favourite is the Evil Ball mode, which really spices things up. The hardest challeng was, and still is, the predictive AI. The reason for those mechanical changes are, that, nowadays, Pong seems really boring. Then there is the map overhaul, where blender really shines with it's Sculpt functions.

New Features:

1. Gamepad support for XInput (like XBox 360/One) Controllers (For Example, my Thrust GXT is 100% working)
2. Touch support (only for Player 1 aka Singleplayer)
3. New predictive AI mode
4. New Evil Ball mode
5. Map overhaul for the first 2 Levels
6. The Camera now zooms in on the ball
7. The floating camera doesn't render the roof of any given Level anymore

New Bugs/Problems:

• the predictive AI is pretty bad, mainly because UnityEngine.Physice.Raycast doesn't always hit, even if it should
• The Evil Ball mod is very hard, especially when combined with Full Ball Speed
• AI-DIfficuilty does not change the Difficuilty but rather the movement Speed of AI controlled Players
• Touch should be aviable for both players, utilizing multi-touch
• On map 2, aka "Pillars of uncertainty", the tracks are stalling the ball on the X-Axis way to often
• The singleplayer camera is not supposed to zoom in on the ball

Let's talk AI

Allright, the Ball has an AI and the Player can decide if he wants it. It works really simple:
If the Ball is moving towards a player and is getting close, it decides to go around on the Y and/or Z Axis to get a goal. So, the whole purpose of the Ball AI is just the goal.
The basic Player-AI is pretty dumb, it just smoothly follows the ball on a Y-Z Plane and takes a speed value for it's movement.
Now the game has a predictiv AI mode, which has a lot more complicated rules. If the ball is not close or moving away, it's ignored.
It uses RayMarching to figure out where the ball is going to hit, checking every meter to a maximum of 60 meters. Checking if the projected Target is close to the goal, if it does hit any collider and even following the collision. The problem here is , that Physics.RayCast doesn't always register a hit, even if it should. It's very unpredictable, ranging from hitrates of 30 - 90 %. That's why this AI is still bad.

Upcoming Changes

Allright, I had a productive brainstorm about the future for this game. I might be dropping the whole Pong system as a whole, or add a Gamemode. I really enjoyed watching my AI draw colorful Debug.Lines all over the map, so that's a definitive new feature. The fundemental structure of a physic-based 3D ball game will stay.