Squad

Designers: Jorian Rutten, Jasper Laureijs, Jonne van Veen

Programmers: Geert Cocu

Artists: Thijs Smits, Noa

Vision
''This is our vision, in a few sentences, for the crew. It describes how the player perceives the crew, and our priorities in designing the crew. This can focus on having a large army, for instance, or the emotional connection between crew and player. Should the player feel sad when they lose a crewmember?''
 * Pillar 1: Description


 * Pillar 2: Description

NOTE: Our vision for the squad needs to be readjusted, since there is a large disconnect in vision within the team on this feature. Our focus can either lie with creating a emotional connection between the player and their crew, or the crewmembers can just be resources.
 * Pillar 3: Description

Basic Information
The squad is a large part of our gameplay loop. The squad consists of multiple crewmembers, that the player can modify by giving abilities. The crewmembers will use these abilities whenever they are ready/instructed to. Maximizing and synergizing these abilities and their conditions is the main source of damage and protection for the player.

The player stars with a few crewmembers in their Squad, which they can expand throughout the playthrough by finding and rescueing humans from the aliens.

Crew Appearance
Each crewmember needs to be memerable and be their own individual part of the squad. Therefore they are given an unique name and visuals to make them stand out.
 * Name: Each crewmember has a generated name that is assigned to them.
 * Gender/Type: Each crewmember is assigned a gender/type based on their first name. Currently supports male/female options.
 * This is used to change the appearance of the crewmember.

Crew Behaviour
The crew need to behave like individual members of a squad, without causing frustration or loss of control to the player.
 * Movement: The crewmembers move faster than the player to make sure they can always keep up.
 * Crewmembers speed up the further away they are from the player.
 * Rotation: The crewmembers rotate towards where the player is aiming.
 * Collision: Crewmembers do not collide with other members of the squad, but they do collide with the environment.
 * Squad Size: There is currently no intended limit to how large the squad can be.
 * There is a functional limit of 12 at the moment, but this can be increased.
 * Formations: For each squadsize the crewmembers will take on a different formation. This means the player might have to adjust the way they approach enemies or encounter differently based on how large their squad is.

Boarding
When the player boards an enemy ship they decide which crewmembers go with them. Taking more crewmembers will mean more power, but it also risks losing more crewmembers. The player will have to make a choice. Crewmembers can only obtain new abilities if they have joined the player in boarding a ship.

Development tools

 * CTRL + E - Add a crewmember to the squad
 * CTRL + Q - Remove a crewmember from the squad
 * NUM+ or NUM- - Change Squad Formation