As promised I'm publishing a new Demo version. This build has many changes to gameplay so I hope you give it a chance and share your feedback.
Major Changes:
- "Fog of War" during combat: this feature is meant to force the player to explore and move carefully during combat to reveal enemies instead of just waiting for enemies to get close like it happened in the previous version.
- More polished Star Map: now the Star Map will show 3D elements like ships, planets or space stations instead of static images like in the previous version. This is mostly just a visual change but it's added so it feels more polished and dynamic.
- Basic Soldier Leveling: now the soldier can earn experience points during combat and purchase new skills and stat changes. The current skill trees are limited but I wil add more skills during Early Access.
- Basic Soldier Customization: the soldiers included in the demo can receive minor customization like changing helmets and skins.
Minor Features:
- Some actions can cause temporal status effects to their targets (Marked, Poisoned, etc). - New Raider class action: Throw Daggers. - New Mercenary class action: Headshot. - New Void Spawn class action: Covering Fire. - New Tech Sorcerer class action: Teleport. - New Generic action: Basic Aimed Shot. - Now soldiers have random "traits" that can affect their stats and even unlock some extra actions. - Added Doors that need to be open to see the enemies inside a room. - Xenobeast Nymphs can spit acid now. - Enemies now can throw grenades and use a few special actions (like Marking a Target). - Added minor dialogue during combat. - Changed "Cargo Ship" mission to be slightly bigger, have random enemies and include bridge with a door. - Changed "Void Ship" mission to have a different shape and a different objective (Reach Network Node instead of Eliminating all Hostiles). Also I changed the dialogue to be shorter instead of an exposition dump like before. - Added floating health bars to soldiers and visible enemies. - Enemies revealed in fog will have to throw for Initiative. Surprised enemies will stay in place, Alert enemies will have a free move. - More detailed Victory/Defeat Panel shows soldiers that leveled up or died. - Minor UI improvements. - More environment props and ambient sounds. - Changed Color Grading of all scenes. - Changed Dialogue UI and size of panel. - Added animated cursor to Star Map.
Fixes:
- Fixes to Post processing Effects and Lighting that was causing performance to drop during combat. - Fixed buggy micro missiles trajectory (Void Spawn special attack). - Fixed calculation of flanking and rear attacks (extra critical chance). - Fix to reloading animation in Void Spawn. - Fixes to several hit and death animations clashing with IK setup. - Improved hand/rifle positioning during Loadout. - Many minor UI, grid, movement and AI fixes.
Please check the demo and leave me some feedback. Depending of how much feedback I get from it I'll determine if it's worth the effort to keep it updated, if not I'll just focus on the game and disable the demo because an outdated demo would be worse than not having one.
What Now?
It's been a while since I posted an announcement but as you can see I've been busy adding all these features and fixes. Now to be frank I'm pretty behind in my schedule, I was hoping to have the game ready for Early Access during this month but that won't be possible. I still hope to have the EA launch for this year though so please consider following the project because I'll have more announcements soon.
Dev Diary #1: Adding Depth and Content
Hi
Now that Next Fest is over and I received some useful feedback about the demo I'm finally ready to start making real progress. The first stage of my roadmap before the Early Access Launch is pretty big so I won't be making an update to the demo soon, that's why I decided to start making Developer Diaries like this one, so I can keep you updated and you see that I'm hard at work improving the game.
Content:
I'm not just a coder, I also make most of the 3D assets for this game. One of the things I'm doing right now is adding more enemies, props and environments for the game, the tools I use are Blender and Substance Painter. Most of the props are just decorative but some will have an effect in gameplay, for example sometimes you'll board a ship and the crew will try to make a hyperspace jump to escape, in those cases the mission will have a countdown that will only stop if one of your soldiers disable an HyperDrive Core like this one:
Besides props and environments I'm also taking a look at my current combat units and their customization options. Customization in the game will be limited but combining body types, head types and textures for each soldier should give a good set of starting options for the player.
Combat Depth:
In order to make gameplay more interesting I'm working in features like:
Fog of War:
While this feature won't make much difference in small scenarios, bigger scenarios that require exploring and assaulting rooms will benefit from it. This should also force the player to move more tactically and explore instead of just wait for enemies to come.
Additional Objectives:
Currently the demo only shows a single combat objective: Kill All Hostiles. My idea is that some scenarios will have optional objectives like "Disable Hyperspace Drive", "Capture Bridge" and others will have main objectives like "Capture VIP", "Grab as much loot as you can before reinforcements arrive", etc. All these objectives should make missions less repetitive and force the player to play less defensively.
Improve AI:
This is something that I'll be doing during the whole development of the game but before Launch I'm thinking I can add more behaviours to AI besides shooting, charging or looking for cover. Stuff like using items, grenades and special skills should add more flavor to combat and new defensive and ambush behaviours should keep the player on his/her toes while exploring a ship or installation.
This is just what I'm working at right now but I have a lot more ideas to improve the game (I mentioned most of them in the Roadmap), I'll be sharing my progress with you during these months before the Early Access Launch (which I still hope should be during September, I'll let you know if that changes).
Please feel free to share your questions, ideas and criticism, any feedback is useful feedback.
Thanks for reading!
Jorge
Preliminary Roadmap and future of the Demo
Hi
Next Fest is almost over so it's time to plan my next moves. One thing I would like to know is if people want the demo to stay up and that I keep updating it or I just focus in the Early Access version. I rushed this demo to participate in Next Fest but is not really a complete snapshot of the final gameplay since it lacks many features and polish, that's why it needs to be updated or removed in my opinion.
Of course, updating the demo will still be an investment of time so that's why I want to know if people are really gonna try an updated demo in the future or I shouldn't bother with it.
ROADMAP
This is just a preliminary version, all of this is subject to change depending on feedback and my own breakthroughs or challenges. I'm dividing the development on major phases and these on subitems but that doesn't mean there's a 1:1 relation between phases or items and patches, a single item could consider several patches and that's not even considering patches with bug fixes that will be made on demand and take priority over new content.
This roadmap doesn't consider fixed dates and deadlines but I can anticipate that the Early Access Launch should be during Q3 of 2021.
PHASE ZERO: Next Fest
1. Alpha Demo in Next Fest. 2. Minor fixes and receive feedback.
PHASE ONE: Preparing for Early Access
1. Increase Combat Depth.
Fog of War.
Additional AI behaviours for enemies.
Basic soldier levels and perks.
More mission variety (extra objectives).
Basic “Dynamic Rival”, “Loyalty” and “Infamy” mechanics.
2. First Iteration of Pirate Campaign
Basic procedural campaign.
Saving and Loading.
More text events.
More combat encounters.
Special scenario: Mutiny (ship defense).
New enemy type: ???
Final scenario: The Omen.
3. Basic soldier content
Very basic customization.
Extra weapons and items.
Additional attacks and actions.
PHASE TWO: Open Beta and Early Access Launch
1. Feedback and last minute fixes. 2. Decide to remove or update demo.
PHASE THREE: Early Access
1. More content
New class: Combat Engineer.
New recruitable species: Krell’Sha.
More enemy types: ???
More customization (bodies, heads and material combinations).
More weapons and items.
2. Increase combat depth even more
Armor and shield items.
Optional objectives (disable engines, take bridge, etc.).
Add more options and behaviours for AI.
Changes based on players feedback.
3. Star Map
Enemy and Neutral ships.
New enemy: pirate hunters.
4. General Improvements
Improve features: Dynamic Rivals, Loyalty and Infamy.
Improve special scenarios (The Omen and Mutiny).
Improve User Interface.
Polishing and Fixes.
PHASE FOUR: Shore Leave
1. New land based scenarios
Colonies (guarded, abandoned, overrun, etc).
Landed and crashed ships.
Military outposts.
2. Stations Overhaul
Improve station simple UI with 3D environments.
Additional services.
Some stations can trigger events and even combat encounters.
Heist mission.
3. Content, content, CONTENT
New class: Assassin.
New recruitable species: Automata.
More enemy types.
More events and encounters.
PHASE FIVE: Hegemony
1. New campaign: Hegemony captain.
New recruitable species: Posthuman.
New class: Pirate Hunter.
New enemy type: ??
New campaign specific events and encounters.
New campaign specific mechanic: Honor.
New ship.
2. Research modding.
PHASE SIX: Nomad Fleet
1. New campaign: Nomad Fleet captain.
New recruitable species: ???
New class: Peacekeeper.
New enemy type: ???
New campaign specific events and encounters.
New campaign specific mechanic: ???
New ship.
2. ???
PHASE SEVEN: Finishing Early Access
1. ???
Note: Many items marked as "???" are a secret or undecided yet and I'm reserving the last phase for any feature that 's demanded by the players during Early Access.
Thanks for reading and please check my demo if you haven't already, I read all feedback.
