Excited to release a big beta patch. Usually my patches are small and frequent - but this time around I needed more play testing, tweaking and adding code to properly implement the new changes.
Dev Video:
https://youtu.be/O_J6TSKOJRA
Two major items - war fleets and the reserve system.
What it is? Optional system (you can toggle it off to have the game function as before) - where ship counts are limited (per fleet), more ships will reinforce the fleet (if available) every 60 seconds.
Why? Goal is to have better frame rates, better stability and a better game play experience. Players too often complain about crashing - I believe allowing unlimited ships causes many of these issues, hence the limit with reinforcements based on ship losses.
This should also allow for a less messy fleet versus fleet warfare and longer battles overall, giving you a greater sense of triumph (or defeat!).
What are they? Non-player factions generate "war fleets" - fleets in space that will help in base defense and attack the faction's enemies while at war.
Why? Many players gave feedback that the current "at war" mechanic was too intense, with fleets incoming seemingly out of no where. War fleets are visible in space and thus can be attacked. War fleets properly depend on shipyards and base resources.
This should give a better sense of a base/faction capabilities before going to war, and thus allow for a more strategic approach to faction warfare for the player.
While adding these two major features, many smaller items were added, including a more efficient way to build and manage ships while docked at a base. You can now select a base which to build ships in and have multiplier buttons to save on mouse clicks.
To add the war fleet mechanic - I've had to look at quite a lot of base economy and production elements to ensure that they can properly get to the point of building war fleets.
I've also looked at several elements related to assaulting a faction, including adding delays/timers to give a player more strategic choices. For example - if a player destroy's a faction's shipyard, it will be a good amount of time before it is re-built, giving the player a chance to take advantage of their victory.
I'm going to continue play testing and polishing up middle to end game features.
Thanks for your incredible support!
Paul
-- Full patch notes --
Reserve Mechanic ------
Fleets are now limited to a certain number of ships.
Current limits - 20 fighters, 15 gunships, 10 corvettes, 5 frigates, 2 destroyers, 1 cruiser
If there are more ships than this in your fleet (or any other fleet including enemy fleets) - they will reinforce losses every 60 seconds.
You can turn this mechanic off in the "Difficulty/Balance" menu (while in game - hit ESC key then click "Difficulty/Balance")
This mechanic is intended to put in a base line for me to balance against and to hopefully prevent many crashing issues due to a huge # of ships players tend to bring to the field.
War Mechanic ------------
War Fleets -
Instead of massive attack fleets coming out of no where - bases will "build" "war fleets."
These will appear in space (allowing player to attack them/see their status/etc)
War fleets will be built - despite the faction being at war (think of them as armies)
War fleet count per faction - number of bases owned / 2 + 1
So a faction with 2 bases would have 2 war fleets, a faction with 4 bases would have 3 war fleets. A faction with 6 bases would have 4 war fleets, etc.
In "peace time" war fleets are capped at 3 (to prevent player being mobbed right at the start of a war)
War fleets will properly take shipyards into account - eg: if a base needs a shipyard to build a frigate and doesn't have a shipyard... the war fleet won't be built.
To accomplish this - Pirate and BH factions will now build shipyards
A Base's war fleet will respond to a base being blockaded and assist - becoming part of it's defense fleet.
In the factions screen - can now buy "intel/asset locations" - by paying 250k per unknown asset (base/platform/field) of a faction. This is to help players locate those pesky platforms (to be destroyed during war or pre-war) - for a price.
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Late Game Base Polish/Improvements:
New function - base management - convert 3k ore to 1k energy - sacrifice ore for energy - for concurrent ship building and mobile base speed boosts. Ore might actually be easier to get than energy, as it comes from asteroid fields - and there's a good amount of them near every base. You can consider that mined ore would have some radioactive properties - so converting to energy could be explained in this way.
Non-player bases low on funds for ship/defense platform building will convert their production resources (if they have plenty) to credits.
-- Sell price is 33% of base price
-- Will sell 10% of stock if it has at least 25% of max stock.
-- Goal is to help ship production for defense which then allows for war fleet production.
In the case above (not enough credits to build) - non-player faction bases will "share" credits - if baseA has over 5 mil - it will give 1 mil to a base low on funds.
Blockade check - now only tests for built platforms (without this - could seem like there are no platforms - but base isn't being blockaded - due to platforms in the process of being built being hidden before a certain % complete).
Added 5x, 10x, 20x check boxes to ship purchase/buy screen - letting you buy/build up to 20 ships per mouse click - versus clicking mouse 20 times.
Added "owned base" list while docked in the ship purchase/buy screen - letting you build ships in remote bases that you own.
Owned mobile bases - Instead of a checkbox to use energy while moving and a small boost to speed.
A selected owned and mobile base will let you toggle primary/secondary burns like ships can.
Boosts are much more powerful than previous boosted base speed and use up energy much more than before for the increased speed.
Owned mobile bases will respond to the "hold command" (h key by default) - stopping their movement.
Non-player bases - destroying platforms will cause a delay to building additional platforms.
Defense platforms - 1 minute
Production/shipyard platforms - 10 minutes
In the case of "far" platforms - the nearest base takes the delay hit.
Delay adds up until 15 mins max.
This is to allow the player some breathing time between bases re-building platforms. Giving the chance to do hit an run missions on base shipyards.
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Bug fix - allowing auto dock with military/bounty hunter bases while wanted
Bug fix - Kind faction didn't properly build base defense ships
Oversight fix - way point traders will sell/transfer all cargo pods on docking with a base - to prevent being stuck with cargo that isn't intended for trade and not picking up the proper cargo for their next leg.
Bug fix - player trading ships would buy resources from player bases - versus getting them for free... enjoy the proper profits!
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Base defense ships - increased production amounts.
Base defense ships - will launch 2 wings of fighters and 2 wings of gunships - and 10 corvettes - if there are more fighters/gunships/corvettes "in reserve" - will launch those if those 2 wings/corvettes are destroyed - the reserve units will launch.