After v3.4 and the holidays break, we are back! Work has started on v3.5, with a general review of manual combat controls and the start of a big content and mechanics upgrade for many station systems.
Simplified and enhanced manual combat controls
Now that v3.4 is finally enabling some light combat on low level planets, the flaws of the manual combat system were made evident. It was too complex, with bad UI.
It has now been removed from the game. There's no more "manual" combat mode for officers. Instead it's now possible to manually select a target for your squad or for individual officers, with the new Set Target action:

This is aided by the new target visualization, which displays the current combat target of any entity, officer or enemy:

This new system is still being tweaked, but for now it enables a much more usable walk+set target interaction, leaving the details of when and how to fire to the officer AI. And setting targets is still optional, the AI will automatically pick them up if none is set (or the set one dies).
Better squad visualization
The current squad selection will now be displayed for all officers in the squad:

The primary selection is still a rectangle, but now, when pressing Tab or manually selecting officers in the squad bar with click+shift, they will get a 4-corner reticle around them to indicate they are also part of the selection.
Additionally it has also been made much more clear that squad members are in exclusive combat mode:

Now, while in combat mode, the HP bar is always displayed, and it also gains a small combat icon.
System and research review: hospitality
The first systems review has started, and it tackles a remake of the hospitality tree:

It adds new objects that will serve a new game system: hotels. The current beds will all be restricted to officers. Then new beds will be introduced: motel and hotel beds. These beds will only be usable by tourists, and they will first need to make a booking and pay for it in the check-in tables.

Players will need to make sure there are enough beds for your visitors. There's nothing worse for their opinion than overbooking!
[ 2017-01-05 18:30:29 CET ] [ Original post ]