Is there life after a game is released? Yes! We left some of the more far fetched ideas for trying them after our EA launch, so we are back to hacking on the game to see what fits and what is fun. These notes reflect the work in progress for version 3.13, which is not public. We will keep adding new features to this new version and in the coming weeks we hope to open it up for testing in a Steam beta branch.

Named enemies with progression and persistence

Enemies now always have an unique name, instead of the generic names in earlier versions. The main reason is that they are also persisting. This means a given named enemy will always have the same sprite, if they manage to survive. Survive? Yes. Just as you can install insurance cloners for your officers, enemies that reach certain notoriety fighting you will get a chance to be saved before you kill them. They will teleport out instead of dying. Notoriety? Yes. Since enemies are persisting, they now also have a simplified leveling system. There's 30 enemy rankings, and each ranking gives the enemy more hitpoints and more weapon power. The higher rankings make them truly formidable adversaries. Rankings are a bonus on top of their level. Ranked enemies which survive your encounters will be able to face you again in the future. Every time the game spawns a random enemy it will also consider spawning a persisted named enemy instead, allowing them to gain an even higher ranking. This also comes with a nerf to the loot drops from enemies. Lower ranked enemies will never drop wearable items, while higher ranked ones will, and for the first time they will also be able to roll items with rare/epic/legendary bonuses, depending on their rank.

New station raids

Station raids have been greatly enhanced in 3.13. They are now able to really scale up, to create an actual danger to your station, proportional to your development and your enemies hate. The size of the foot soldier group is now variable and can include more than 20 units. A proportional subset will always have higher rankings, even if the game has to generate fresh new higher ranked enemies. Siege objects are now introduced, and they will spawn in higher difficulty raids. Turrets are always spawned to protect them. Mortars are slow artillery, that fire a slow projectile, and can reach any point on the map. The explosion of the projectile is devastating, but the game will always tell you in advance where it is going to fall with a red circle area.
Docks are exactly that. Enemy shuttles will keep docking there unless you destroy them, and they will unload small enemy groups. They have a long cooldown, but more than one dock is possible.

[ 2018-06-18 15:42:44 CET ] [ Original post ]