Hey everyone! Devlog #77: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R92F1FX2I4 Firstly, we apologize for the lack of updates recently; weve been hard at work building some of the end-game content related to the Colonial Union. It will ultimately be a way for Colonial Union crews to get ahold of a Lost Colony data fragment and will hopefully be a climatic moment within their faction! Weve also taken some time to see family and do some research about future goals for the project. While the majority of that work will be coming in a few weeks (were doing some final testing and waiting for the sound effects) we thought wed spend some time and put together a different update since its been a while. A lot of you have been requesting a lounge activity pretty much since our first devlog and we decided now would be a good opportunity! Weve played around with some different ideas and ultimately decided on Liars Dice (also known as Dudo, Pirates Dice, Bluff, etc.) A few of the reasons we went with this game: -The rounds are quick and dont involve a large time commitment so crews can pick it up when they find some free time, like while the captain is shopping for components. -The number of players can fluidly change from 2 to 5. -The mechanics are fairly simple and easy to network / build AI for. -We think its pretty fun! There are a ton of different variants of Liars Dice, so below well outline the specific rules that we went with: Liars dice is a bluffing game about stating the number of dice with a specific face. Each player secretly rolls 5 dice, and then betting begins. Players place bets on how many dice of a certain face are up amongst the total pool of dice, even though they can only see 5 of them. On a players turn, he or she can choose to raise the current bid or challenge it (if they think its false). When raising a bid, players must either raise the face value or the number of dice, or both. For example, if the current bid is 4 x [3]s you can raise the bid to 5 x [3]s or 2 x [4]s. As long as either the die count or face value is raised, the other can be lowered. Players win points through challenges. If the bid was true, the player who placed the bid receives a point. If it was false, then the challenger receives a point. The first player to reach 5 points wins the game, and a new game will start 20 seconds later! It can be a strange game to get used to at first, but weve had a lot of fun with it and we hope you all will too! A few extra things to be mindful about: the number of dice in the pool changes based on how many players are playing. For example, the odds of 7 x [6]s are far less likely to happen in a 2 player game than a 5 player game. Also, since points are only awarded during challenges, you want to make bets that others may want to challenge. In addition to this, weve also build a new ship class for the W.D. Corporation: the W.D. Annihilator! The recurring theme for this ship was advanced prototype. Crews manning this ship are on the bleeding edge of W.D. technology. This ship is unique in its starting configuration of components. It begins the game with numerous experimental ship components that may drastically change how crews normally operate. - Its reactors output is tied to the overall ship system health. - Its hull is layered and increases armor when integrity falls - Its warp drive gives each and every installed program / virus a single charge per jump. - Its shield generator has a fast charge rate but a very high minimum shield integrity - Its main turret deals fire damage to enemy ships (starting fires), but also heats up the Annihilators reactor faster. - It starts with 0 credits but 20 processed scrap. - Its basic turrets are designed to cut pieces of hull off of enemy ships, producing extra scrap Among those starting features, it possesses two new attributes innate to the ship itself: - It has proprietary shield stealing technology that saps enemy shields when turrets damage them. It converts 20% of damage to an enemy ships shields to your own shields immediately. - It has flaky internal systems. New technology can sometimes be unreliable, and there is a chance the ships systems will be damaged upon exiting warp. Crews flying this ship should pay extra attention to their ship systems. Additions - New Ship - W.D. Annihilator - A W.D. prototype unit thats currently being field tested in this galaxy. Equipped with multiple experimental ship components, a starting scrap pool, and shield stealing technology. It is a prototype however, which means the systems can sometimes be flaky, and exiting from warp has the chance to damage one of your ship system instances. - Liars Dice - Found in the lounge of each ship. Liars Dice is a competitive mini-game played amongst the crewmembers of your ship. Read more about it above! - New talent: Armor Boost - + 1 Armor per rank - New Talent: Armor Boost II - Can be accessed when Armor Boost is fully invested - New Talent: Health Boost II - Can be accessed when Health Boost is fully invested - New UI Addition - Crew health indicators can now be seen in the top left corner of the interface. They can be disabled in the game settings. - New Weapon: Healing Beam Rifle - The Scientist now starts with a healing beam rifle instead of a phase pistol. While it damages enemies it can also be pointed at fellow crew members to heal them! -New Crew AI behavior - At Ease - If this is the highest priority, it will prompt AI crewmembers to head to the lounge to play Liar's Dice -Crew AI should be a bit better about choosing a teleporter location closer to the captain when there are multiple options to choose from. -Mouse Scroll Wheel can now cycle through equipped items -New art additions to lounge areas -New Ship Component: Strong Point Reactor - Starting reactor for Annihilator -New Ship Component: WD XC-7 Prototype Config 4 - Starting Shield Generator for Annihilator -New Ship Component: WD XW-5 Prototype Config 1 - Starting Warp Drive for Annihilator -New Ship Component: WD Prototype FlashFire: - Starting Main Turret for Annihilator -Captains can now issue a move order / rally point by clicking the middle mouse button / scrollwheel. To currently cancel a move order, captains can issue one into space or a place not accessible via nav-mesh. Move orders will also expire on their own after 30 seconds. Changes -Aux Power talent has been increased from 10% to 15%. The text description has been updated too. -Changed dialog of Ranchelle Fieaque, Weise Quel and Remhan Zesho to accommodate for changes in lore of Outpost 448 -Talents are now arranged in alphabetical order and will show unavailable talents in grey -Captain Order Status Update has been renamed to At Attention and is now the default order when starting a new game. -Captain Order At Ease is no longer the default option. Bots will not man stations on Green alert and will join in Liars Dice. Fixes -Fixed T-pose NPC found at Outpost 448 -Fixed an incorrect character preview during class selection for factions other than Colonial Union -Fixed the descriptive text of the Aux Power Talent -Fixed Yiria Salis dialog to mention Alosius Grec as a Sylvassi, not a robot -Fixed Grey Huntsmen bounty missions for Striker, Drafters, and Biscuit Burners to appear through long range range comms only when players have accepted the Bounty Hunters Contract -Fixed Rosalia Scillo at AOG hideout to open trading window -Fixed an issue that may have sometimes prevented players from dropping items Like we mentioned above, there is a big update arriving in a few weeks. Thanks for your patience and support and were hoping long pauses like this dont happen again. Beta 20.1 Release Notes Fixes -Tweaked Annihilator to fix fire visibility errors Thank you for your time! Best, The Leafy Games Team