Dev Blog 23rd January - Mobile Suit Fun-Time!

Everything's better with mechs. Not sure what a human is doing in a Hylotl-themed mech, but to each his own.

 

Something fishy about that, yeah.

 

Please PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE make traveling through space more difficult than just clicking on a planet and hitting enter! I won't appreciate the vastness of the universe if it's not a struggle to get from point A to point B, nor can I appreciate how much stuff is in space if I don't have to do a little hunting to find the planet type I want!

 

You know those broken starter sword we used to see before 1.0?
I was wondering if you could ad those back but instead of starting with them they rarely spawn in chests on planets, (starter planet mostly)
I you keep them till end game maybe you could upgrade them like the protectorate sword and they could have cool unique abilities and stuff.
also they could all represent an element type.
Just something I was thinking about and hoping to see added in.

Also I'm hoping to see more biome specific weapons added in like for the midnight biome there could be a midnight sword, or like how in the stone biome you could find the stone sword (i really want to see that back in game)

 

wiiiiii!! i like this mecha much more than the yellow one in the past! I can't wait to test it!! Thanks devs!

 

YYYYYYEEEESSSSS WE GETTIN MECHS

 

I just thought of a power armor type mech, that flies around, punch through walls, and fire lasers! Iron Man mod CONFIRMED>??!??!?!?!!!!111

I just now realized that the player would be holding their hands up, shaking them around town...

 

speciesist! thats clearly apex xD

 

I'm hoping this means space battles and space fleets! That would personally excite me a lot more than mechs.

Since this comes on the heels of a new strategy/RPG game Chucklefish is making, I'm hoping we see a little of that in it. As in, the ability to aquire/manage fleets, do space-related missions, send fleets on Assassin's Creed-esk side missions, etc.

Time to post ideas. I think it might be a bit late to do so, but who cares?

BASICS of space combat:
Basically, the idea is that space combat operates like a real-time RPG battle or real-time strategy game. You command your ship and order them to move around and which ships to attack. The idea is to wear down your opponent's health to a certain point to where they're disabled. Once disabled, an enemy vessel can be boarded or continued to be fought and outright destroyed. Doing the latter is faster, but yields far less loot.

The former can be done in one of two ways. You can command a ship in your fleet to attempt to board it automatically, or you can do it yourself. If the former, you continue the battle but leave the boarding up to chance depending on the size of the crew boarding and the size of the crew on the ship. If you do it yourself however you leave the space battle to chance while you board the ship. The objective is to take out the crew on the opposing vessels (or in some cases, kill the captian. in which case the rest of the crew might simply surrender like certain bandit missions). Once this is done the ship is considered captured, and after the battle (if you win) you can decide its fate.

This works both ways however. If one of yours is disabled, it can be boarded by the enemy or destroyed. Some enemies will do the former, sometimes the latter. If boarded, you'll get a notification from sail. You can attempt to defend the ship from boarding attempts yourself, or leave it to the crew. Be aware that if the crew fails to defend the ship, it's considered lost and if you win the battle you'll have to board it again yourself.

Your flagship cannot be taken. That is because SAIL has an automatic protocol attached to it. It can be boarded, but if you die (and aren't playing in hardcore mode), Your flagship and any ship in your fleet that isn't disabled will flee automatically to the last planet you were at. Any ships in your fleet that were disabled are lost.

Engaging in space combat:

• Every time you travel to a planet, there would be a 1-5% chance of getting ambushed by an enemy fleet. Or even finding a pair of fleets engaging one another and interfering.
• Sometimes a small fleet icon will appear in solar systems, allowing you to engage them.
• Certain people in the outpost will give you missions to go to a certain co-ordinates to engage enemy fleets. (Ester will send you after Ruinoids or Occulus Remnants, Lana will send you after Miniknog fleets, Nuru will send you after pirates, The Baron will send you after Dark Knights, etc.

Fleet management
Fleet Management is done through a tab on SAIL. You can have multiple ships in your fleet. At first you can have only two, A flagship and one other ship. However you can acquire "fleet licences" much like the upgrade licences, each one increasing number of ships by 1.

You can however have a near-infinite number of ships in reserve. These ships can be scrapped for pixels, upgrade modules, and scrap (you will need scrap to buy upgrades). Or manned and assigned into their own fleets and those fleets can be sent on missions. Successful missions will return with profit. Failed missions will return with ship losses, damage, and need for repairs.

To gain a ship, you must either salvage a ship in combat, or buy them from penguin pete (though they are REALLY expensive). Salvaged ships come with parts missing and will require repairs, bought ships will come with all baseline parts. Bought ships will resemble the default racial ships and will be empty. Salvaged ships are Procedurally Generated, both in terms of layout, slot customization, and furnishings.

In order for a bought/salvaged ship to be usable, they must be crewed and must contain a minimum of one working engine slot, one working armor slot, one working weapon, and one working crew member. To do this, you must assign a crew member to it as a captain. Keep in mind, that this is PERMANENT. However, sometimes certain enemies will surrender during boarding if you take out the captain. Those that are left will be considered crew members on that ship, and one of them will automatically be a captain. Either way, they can be assigned further crew members up to its tier (same crew limits apply to fleet ships as your normal ship). This will increase usable weapon slots (see slots below), repair capabilities, and increased/decreased chance of successful boardings/enemy boardings respectively.

You will need to keep all your ships in your active fleet fueled. You will not be able to jump to a different system if a ship in your fleet is low on fuel.

This means you finally have a use for all those people wanting to join your crew even though your flagship is already full. Speaking of, when you recruit a crewmember, SAIL will ask where to send them instead of just sending them to your flagship right away.

Your flagship is your default ship. It's the one you teleport back to when you beam down to a planet or mission. You can also change your flagship. However, if it's a lower tier than the one you are abandoning, you will have to acquire the licences all over again.

Ship Management:
All ships have a number of slots. These slots can be filled by one of three things:

• Engine Upgrades: they upgrade your engines. The more/better engine upgrades you have, the faster the ship will move in battle (which means more damage avoided and better chance to flank), and in space the less fuel they will require.
• Armor: The better armored a ship is, the more hits it can take. Comes in two versions: Shields and Hull. Shields are an energy shield that absorb damage but have a limited charge (they work like shields do in melee except once they're down they're down for good). Hull determines how much health a ship has.
• Weapons: The more firepower your ship has, the more damage it will do. There are two main things to worry about: Speed vs power. Faster weapons will do less damage, but fire faster. Heavier weapons will do more damage per shot, but take longer to reload. There are also things like whether weapons are specialized against shields (emps) or armor (railguns), or missiles that can hit multiple targets at once. Or weapons that do other weird effects (Wave Motion Gun?! Black Hole Generator?). Be aware however, that all weapons must be manned by a crew member for them to operate. Be aware some bigger weapons take up two or even three slots! Be aware that each weapon slot taken requires one crew to operate (which means big guns require more than one crew to operate).

All ships have 4 slots min: one permanent engine slot, one permanent Armor slot, one permanent weapon slot, and one omni slot. Higher tiered ships have more slots (in particular, more omni slots).

Ships can be individually upgraded in tier the same way as your flagship (by filling them full of crew and giving penguin pete the upgrade modules, which you can gain from space battles).

Types of Ships and enemies that occupy them:
First you have your default racial ships. You can buy these fresh from Penguin Pete.

• Human Ships are a jack-of-all trades. They have medium armor, moderately efficient engines, and a moderate power/speed gun. They are balanced in all, but excel at nothing.
• Apex ships (in particular, those belonging to the Miniknog) Have weak engines, but heavy armor, shield generators and weapons. The philosophy of them is the mighty glacier: to simply overpower the enemy though sheer brute force.
• Avian ships have a mix of strong engines and armor, but little in the way of weapons.
• Floran Ships are quite the opposite of Apex ships despite being mostly stolen apex ships: They have stronger engines, but weak armor and prefer faster but weaker guns. Their philosophy is of a agile hunter: get in close quick, and stab stab stab.(or at least as close as stabbing gets in space)
  
• Glitch Ships somewhat mirror Apex ships in design. Big armored castles with lots of armor and weak engines, but lots of fast weapons.
• Hylotl Ships are somewhat like Floran ships in that they have strong engines and weak, but have stronger weapons compared to floran ships and usually have (weak) shields. Their philosophy is the way of the shark: get in, do a lot of damage, swim away before they can retaliate, rinse and repeat.
• Novakid Ships are concentrated on guns. Lots of guns. Big guns, little guns, steam guns, rail guns, energy guns, even guns that blow up snow! But their attention span usually gets the better of them when it comes to boring things like armor or engines.

Then there are the enemy types. They vary in ship type, and temperament.

• Penguin Pirates: Sometimes called "Cobblepots", these saucer-ships excell at one single thing but fail at everything else. For example, some ships might have VERY powerful weapons,but slow engine speed and little armor. Some might have extremely fast weapons, but again, low engine speed and little armor. Some have very strong shields or hull armor, but are still slow and have slow and not very powerful weapons. Others have very good engines, with bad shields and armors.
  Like other types of pirates, they will typically board ships rather than destroying them for hopes of salvaging the parts. Also like other pirates they will often try to flee if things get too hot. Unlike other pirates they very rarely surrender.
• Pirates: Pirate fleets are a mishmash of various racial ships (Still procedurally generated). Both in fleet and individual ships. Larger ships are often bizzare amalgamations of different ships. They are very unpredictable in terms of slot customization, though generally they're inferior to their baseline ships all around.
  In terms of strategy, they will often leave their fellows to die if things get too hot. Will always board rather than destroy a ship (they're in it for the salvage and money, not just for the fighting). They are quite cowardly too, if you kill their caption they'll wave the white flag more often than not. The most common type of enemy.
• Miniknog: They take the Apex ship design to the extreme. Big heavy ships with big heavy shield generators and hull armor and a mix of heavy and medium weapons while sacrificing ship speed. They have no need for salvage, so they often destroy enemy ships rather than board them. Will rarely surrender. Sometimes seen fighting Apex Rebels.
• Floran Hunters: They will use floran ships and tactics. They will sometimes board if they think the fight is worthy enough. Otherwise they'll just destroy the ship. Surprisingly, they will surrender quite often if you beat their captain, not out of fear but out of honor.
• Occuous/Occuous Remnants: Uses human ships that are overly balanced, though some larger dreadnaughts have very large strange weapons. Never surrender, always destroy ships.
• Dark Knights: Glitch knights that use big heavy castle ships. They board a lot, will fight to the death.
• Stargazers: Brainwashed highly technological Avians. Unlike normal avian ships they contain stronger weapons in addition to shields. Too brainwashed to board or surrender.
• Ruinoid: A special type of enemy. Ever wonder how the Ruin attacked earth? This is how: by filling hollowed out asteroids with little seedlings and sending them everywhere. These little seedlings are anything but little, however, often the size of a very small moon. Unlike all other ships, they do not attack the same way. They will attack with tentacles almost specifically, which do a LOT of damage. They have VERY heavy armor. So heavy that unless you have some VERY strong weapons (Wave motion guns, ultra railguns, black hole generators, etc,) these things cannot be destroyed from space. Instead, they will need to be boarded when their armor is cracked. Once boarded, your objective will be to jump into the crack and fight a miniature version of the Ruin battle, then teleport out before it explodes... oh, and you can't salvage them. But you do get some salvage and LOTS of pixels out of it, plus it's the only way to get ancient essence outside of vaults.
  Consider them a "Space Battle Boss".

Then there are the non-(player)-combatant ship types. These will sometimes be seen in the middle of battles as a "third person".

• Apex Rebels: Most often seen fighting Mininknog ships. Apex Rebel ships tend to operate a bit more like floran or hylotl ships rather than Miniknog ships, preferring hit and run tactics to big and bulky overpowering. Will attempt to board enemy vessels. Will fight to the last ape. After the mission "Big Ape", these will randomly join space battles your in on your favor.
• Loners: Individual space travelers caught by the above. Will try to do what they can, but oftentimes will try to flee at the first opportunity.
• Bounty Hunters: Individually well-rounded ships. Will try to board their mark at the first opportunity to capture their mark. Will not appreciate if you kill/destroy their mark.
• Merchant Fleets: A bit like loners. Often beset by pirates.

​

Crew Changes:

• Mechanic: No longer upgrades your engine. Instead, repairs the vessel he's on out of combat (reduces the need for penguin pete visits)
• Engineer: no longer upgrades your engine. Instead, gives small upgrades to your slot parts, as well as enabling a free slot. If occupied with a weapon, It will not need to be manned.
• Outlaw: More likely to get pirates to surrender during boarding.

 

Finally I will be able to share a new sprite for human mech!

 

These ideas are AMAZING, although they probably go over the scope of a kind of "minigame" inside another game and instead sound more like a standalone game. One part is missing; Multiplayer action. Not sure if this is something people would really do, as (at least) one player is almost guaranteed to loose a lot of ships, but I'm sure it would be brought up.
In terms of things that could be made simpler:
-Small sprites. Every type of ship gets 1 sprite, and all ships of that class use it. Cuts down on memory usage and processor usage. Friendly ships have green health bars, enemys red. Eventual second enemys (when joining fleet battles) are blue.
-Identical ships. Every ship of the same class uses the same layout when boarded, instead of being randomly generated. Cuts down on bugs, development time, processing power and memory usage.

I want to state here that I'd be willing to pay for this again as a DLC, as long as multiplayer compatability with players/servers that don't have it is given.

 

Are there proceduraly generated ones?

 

That'd be amazing. I doubt it though.

 

This, definitely this. Having more in general that we could do with colonists/colonies would would be so great. Right now they're kinda bland and don't really offer much to the player as incentive to build besides rent, and the occasional puke on the floor after teleporting rapidly Overall though, I am highly anticipating where you all take us next :-D Thank you for the journey!

 

nice! i cant wait for this update. but PLEASE, PLEEEASEEEE dont make avian mech to look like a red triangle crystal or a piramid mech, make it look like a kluex mech or a true bird mech!

 

Ooh, cool. I'm especially excited to see what other changes you'll make to space as an environment.

It'd be really cool if you introduced dedicated vehicles for exploring space and ocean planets - like a submarine that rotates and maneuvers like those fish enemies. Would something like that be possible?

I'm not sure what would be good for exploring asteroid fields, though. Maybe a space-only vehicle with a lot of jumping power, like the old Bubble Boost tech? That was a lot of fun to use, even though it trivialized planet exploration. (The dream, of course, is still zero-gravity, but I'm assuming that's a no-go.)

 

You can always create a zero-g enviroment with cheats. I think the command is "/setgravity 0", but I'm not sure. You can even invert gravity

 

OH YEAH, I remember spawning in the Human Mech, seeing how it's sprite changed to having the Hoverbike's lights, and using the vehicle system....but this is... WAY BETTER!

EDIT: Actually, I can see this as combat vehicle. It appears to have a hole above the legs, for launching something out? Or some type of modular arm system, like how the Hylotl robot's left arm had a socket for inserting something in. Anyways, the front of it looks as if it would open up, to fire anything, storage possibly? I thought of this because of *this*

Fires out swarm missiles from front. Search up Metal Slug 1 final mission.

 

Eh, I was going on the assumption that this was going to be a given. Maybe not necessarily the same sprite for all ships of that class (for example, Penguin T3 != Pirate T3 != Apex T3) but yeah.

 

I highly doubt it.


I'm thinking it is some simple mechs, and a space or asteroid based dungeon. I've been unimpressed with these so called updates since release.... very lackluster.