Overview
Hyperscape will be a new game mode and is where the long term development of HEXTERMINATE will take place. In a way, Hyperscape is HEXTERMINATE 2, building on the pre-existing foundations, but freely available to anyone who has purchased the game.
Rather than a structured campaign, it takes a turn towards the roguelike style. The player takes a fleet from Real Space into hyperspace, exploring that realm rather than just using it as a convenient way to travel. This space, called the Hyperscape, is a realm of constant change and inhabited by unshackled AIs.
The player starts in a sector and once the sector is cleared, they can choose one out of a few different sectors to progress towards, taking them deeper and deeper into the Hyperscape.
To assist the player with surviving in this challenging environment, the Empire also sends a jump capable space station. The player's progression is only saved when they dock with the shipyard, so they need to balance how confident they are with the risk of losing their ship.
There is no final sector: the player can always keep going, with the difficulty and the quality of the gear increasing without a hard cap. The loot will be revamped, allowing for a greater diversity and giving the player the ability to create modules with the modifiers they want.
Tannhauser Station
Modules
In Hyperscape, rather than just having a single Shipyard where the player can customise their ship, there will be a much larger Station containing multiple modules which can also be individually placed, providing another progression avenue. Station modules are intended to be very expensive, with each being a significant resource investment.
As you explore the Hyperscape, you'll find quieter areas where you can call the Station to jump to. This will allow you save your progression and modify your ships as you navigate deeper into the Hyperscape.
Let me give you a break down of the modules you will be able to build your station with.
Tannhauser Station Core
The station's large central module, to which all other modules must be directly or indirectly connected. It houses a large jump core, allowing the station to move in hyperspace.
Shipyard
Allows for ships to be built.
The Station starts with three shipyards: one for the player and two for companion ships. These shipyards are limited in the size of ships they're capable of making the amount of Manufactories the player has built.
Unlike the stock version of the game, the player can cycle between multiple shipyards and customise the other ships in their fleet.
Manufactory
Increases the Class of ships which can be built by a shipyard. There are four types of Manufactories:
- Gunship Manufactory
- Battlecruiser Manufactory
- Battleship Manufactory
- Dreadnought Manufactory
The Station starts with the Gunship Manufactory pre-built.
Fabricator
Required to craft new modules. Modules are crafted instantly if there are sufficient resources, but the number of fabricators necessary increase based on the level of the desired module.
Fabricating modules is resource intensive and the main way for players to assemble their ship will still be by looting modules from destroyed ships. However, this provides the opportunity to build ships exactly as desired, filling gaps (e.g. needing one more shield of a particular type) or creating modules with specific modifiers once you're deep in the Hyperscape.
Fabricators can only build modules which have been previously research by Research Labs.
Research Lab
Allows for new modules to be researched. Researching a module destroys it in the process, but makes it available for bulk construction in a Fabricator, as well as any properties it might have.
For example, if the player finds an Armour Piercing 800mm Artillery and researches it, they will be able to build 800mm Artillery modules on demand, as well as adding the Armour Piercing property to other projectile weapons. So if they were capable of fabricating a 200mm Autocannon, they can now also fabricate an Armour Piercing 200mm Autocannon.
Researching a module takes time, and this time increases substantially with the level of the module. Multiple Research Labs reduce the research time.
Resources
In the Campaign or Infinite War modes there was a single resource, the generic Resource Units. These were used for everything, from adding ships to your fleet or placing starforts. These basic Resource Units are gone, being split into four different types of resources, which are used for crafting modules, expanding your mobile shipyard and saving progression.
Common metals
Iron, copper, aluminium and similar metals are the essential building blocks for the creation of any module, either for a ship or a space station. These are often combined into various alloys and used in a module's super-structure.
These basic metals can be found anywhere in the Hyperscape, although the amount retrieved increases with how deep you are.
Rare metals
Gold, platinum, tungsten, palladium and other unusual metals are widely used in modular construction, anywhere from armour plating to the delicate, high density field projectors used in shields or scanning arrays.
Helium-3
This light isotope is consumed in vast quantities by the station's fusion reactors to power the staggeringly large Jump Core that allows the Tannhauser Station to jump deeper into the Hyperscape. It is also used to power the station's Extruders, and therefore a requirement for creating custom modules.
Coherency core
A very rare resource which is used in manufacturing high end modules with certain variants. Coherency cores can't be created by the Empire and have to be recovered from the AI ships you destroy.
The next steps
This article has hopefully given you an idea of what I'll be building into HEXTERMINATE in the long term. The initial design is established, some art work has been commissioned and the programming has started. Although the Hyperscape game mode won't be available for quite a while, general improvements will keep being made to the base game.
The next public update will include the Codex, which has long been on my to-do list. It provides information about the various module types and factions in the game and will in time be extended to contain the Hyperscape specific entries.
Time allowing (there are a lot of entries to write!) there will also be some engine fixes and a few new soundtracks.
Thank you for reading, and if you'd like to chat about HEXTERMINATE and where Hyperscape is taking it, feel free to join my Discord server.
Additionally, functionality such as live-edit (the ability to modify a file and have its contents automatically reload in-game and affect any relevant systems) is critical for being able to quickly modify the game's balance and author shaders.
Interestingly, while addressing this issue with the missile trails, I realised that the system that handles all the projectiles/missiles/lasers was updating twice per frame. This wouldn't be much of a problem, if that didn't mean that the game was performing twice as many physics raycasts as necessary, which has quite a significant performance cost for larger battles!
