It's been a busy few weeks. I've been ironing out lots of small 'kinks and quirks' our early Beta Testers have been locating (thanks guys). Mean while I've also been hammering away at some of the core sections of the game adding in more balance and ironing out things like NPC Mission Formats and how we are going to work with the 'dissemination' of information in Hannon.
So Read on....
Penalty on Death
Hannon doesn't have a 'Perma Death', no hard reset or start again. But we do have a Penalty on character or ship Incapacitation.
At Zero HP your classified as incapacitated and emergency services are called. In the case of you 'personally' you're transferred back to the nearest medical bay (in that system). Insurance covers medical bills but you will likely incur a financial cost for the retrieval.
The same goes for the Shuttle. Loosing a shuttle is an unhealthy endeavor and will again incur a cost for the issue of a new shuttle. Your insurance (Taken out by ZED) will cover most of these bills but you will find yourself subject to a cost for both activities.
But...
Being incapacitated and dragged back to a medical bay has a much wider reaching impact. You will LOSE any and all resources / commodities on your ship and in your pockets.
You won't loose things like weapons, armour or anything on your action bar (med kits etc) but you will loose all those loots since your last visit to the Commercial Store. So it's really important you get into the hang of swinging by the C.S and dropping off what you can't afford to loose!
Jump Fuel Change
Last post I stated that I'd added Jump Fuel to the Game. This is required to use the Jump Gates in Hannon to get from System to System. It bothered me using a 'regenerates over time' model. I've used this in my current browser games and whilst it works I wanted something a little more 'involved'. So I've made some modifications this week and we now have an new method on how you 'Get Jump Fuel'.
In game you will find the Novastone Asteroids. These green suckers can be mined and refined by visiting an ARK Refinery. Refining Novastone gives you 'Jump Fuel Canisters'. This is Jump fuel compressed in to canisters to make it easy for you to carry around and store.
You will get roughly 3 units of Jump Fuel Canister for each Novastone unit refined. (Plus the chance of other elements) during the refining process. Jump Fuel Canisters can then be kept in your hold or stored in the Commercial Store.
Remember I spoke about adding in 'Penalty on Death'. So sure, keep some on you, but seeing you had to mine it then refine it, wouldn't it be a shame to loose it?
So remember to store some in your Commercial Store...
Using Jump Fuel
Now that we have removed the 'regenerate' over time fuel ticker you will need to 'Use' the Jump Fuel Canisters yourself you top up your Jump Engines when you need it. You can do this now via your tool bar. If you have Jump Fuel Canisters they will appear on your bar and you can decompress the Jump Fuel into your Jump Engine.
You will get a 10:1 ratio for each unit of Jump Fuel Canister you use. So later when you start jumping around the Galaxy you will need to start to 'pencil in' your Jump Fuel costs, requirements and ensure you have enough.
We will ensure each system has an ARK refinery, but leave mining the Novastone and refining it down to you :)
Ship Loots
I have started to expand the dissemination of the new Salvage loots in to the loot tables for the bad guy ships you will run across in Hannon. As you delve deeper into the Phoenix Galaxy the Pirates will get tougher and the loot more diverse.
So, start taking note of what drops from whom and where. You will be needing these loots, either directly or Salvaged for NPC missions.
NPC Deployment Begins
I wanted to take some time to pan out how I was going to do the NPC mission systems. I think I'm happy with the way they work and I have started rolling out new NPC's.
At the moment I'm adding them to the planets and stations in Feris, but as the development progresses I will start ramping up their deployment and You'll find them all over the Phoenix Galaxy. These NPC's will want pretty much anything and everything. So again make good use of the Commercial Stores to start stock piling, as you never know when an NPC is going to ask for the items you just sold off!
Galactic Database
Whilst it's not yet in game, I'm working on adding a Galactic Database to the game. This will allow us to add a rich back stop to pretty much everything in game. This saves us having to try and impart this information in an 'in your face' way and allows for a much richer and deeper lore for the game over time.
Lots of Balancing and content work this coming week along with a boat load more NPC's so I'm off to kick start that!
Coops