Developer Diary #2 - BASE BUILDING & PROGRESSION
Hello and welcome to another Designer Diary! This week we thought we would take a more detailed dive into the base building and progression of the game. With respect to Earthbreakers, progression falls into two categories: Base Progression and Class Progression. Both allow your team to grow in power over time, ramping up speed at which you can assault the enemy base. Base progression is where most of the RTS elements come into play, while class progression favors more of the FPS elements.
As with an RTS, you will have an assortment of structures that make up your base such as the HQ, Refinery, Barracks, Factory, etc. Each of these structures manages some aspect of the base: The HQ allows you to keep building and rebuilding structures, the Refinery controls the harvester and your income, the Factory builds vehicles, etc. Left to their own devices, these buildings will build themselves in a set build order. However, players can donate resources to any building they wish to short circuit the build order and get that structure out early. Want to get some vehicles out at the expense of class upgrades? Coordinate your team to donate to the Factory first. In addition to the main structures, the base will also include multiple levels of walls, turrets and other support structures that don't count toward the victory condition, but allow you to shape the base to your tactical advantage.
Three of the primary structures - the Barracks, Factory and Tech Building - will begin conducting research once they are active. Like construction, this proceeds automatically, but can be sped up with resource donations. The Barracks controls all class upgrades, the Factory controls all vehicle upgrades, and the Tech Building controls team-wide upgrades. In addition to upgrades, tech levels can also unlock new vehicles, turrets and other base improvements. As with all RTS games, losing the building that controls a function removes that function; for example, if your Barracks is destroyed you can't buy any more class upgrades (though you won't lose the ones you already purchased). As long as your HQ is intact, however, you can rebuild lost structures.
Class progression begins from the start of the match where you pick which class you want to play. Each class has a specific role that usually falls into one of three categories: Anti-Infantry, Anti-Vehicle, or Support. All classes have some level of Anti-Structure capability, though it will vary. Within those roles, each class has a specific primary weapon and a secondary "holdout" weapon. As the game progresses, upgrades will unlock at the Barracks that can increase your class' power dramatically with new abilities, weapon modifications and stat increases. Research can also unlock consumable items, eventually culminating in superweapons. While vehicle and team upgrades affect your whole team, class upgrades affect only you; you can buy what works for you and leave what doesn't, customizing your avatar to your liking.
Of course the last part of this is economy - something RTS players know but FPS players rarely need to deal with. All of this structure building, research, upgrades, vehicles and other base features cost resources; the primary source of which is your Refinery and Harvester. There is a lot to buy and only so much income, so learning what to buy and when, whether to help the team with a donation or save up just in case you need to rebuild that refinery - all of these decisions must be made to bring your team to victory.
That brings us to the end of this Designer Diary! Remember, if you have questions you'd like answered or topics you'd like us to cover, be sure to leave feedback in any of the social media locations!