Orbital Steering Behaviours

An implementation of some of Craig W. Reynolds steering Behaviours Described in Steering Behaviours For Autonomous Characters (https://www.red3d.com/cwr/papers/1999/gdc99steer.pdf) for a top down space shooter modelling simplified Newtonian Physics and simplified (constant force) gravity.

Controls:

• W: Forward Acceleration
• A: Counter-Clockwise Rotation
• S: Braking Force (Against current Velocity)
• D: Clockwise Rotation

Current Demo's:

1. Scene with no enemies for Testing movement mechanics and gravity.
2. Homing 'mine' enemy to test steering behaviour with no steering in vehicle model.
3. Homing 'missile' enemy for Testing implementation of basic vehicle model with steering component
4. 'Fighter' enemy for testing offset seek and aiming projectiles.
5. 'Bomber' variant of previous demo featuring flee behaviour when weapon on cool-down

Possible Future Developments:

• Implementation of (currently debug only) gizmos showing current velocity, targeting vectors, predicted motion through gravity fields etc
  
• Implementation of more realistic gravity simulation where strength of gravity is proportional to the distance to it's source. Potential gameplay benefits of allowing accurate orbital assists or hazardous 'terrain' for ships potentially too slow to escape deeper gravity wells.
• Improvements to steering algorithms to allow exploitation of the gravity in real time (as opposed to single frame delay as it changes the characters velocity)
• Improvements to steering algorithms to allow for turning off / braking thrusters to improve turning circles.

.A link to the Github repo hosting the project file is available on request.