Hello again folks!
Decembers update brings a bunch of iterations on existing systems, and cleaning up of any outstanding items as we rapidly approach the Early Access release.
The primary focus was player progression, especially in the early game, mission system reworks, trade system improvements, balancing, and quality of life improvements across the board.
I've spent some extra time on planning this time round and making sure we hit our timelines. I'm working heavily on cleaning up the final pieces of UI, Audio and Artwork. There's very little left to do there for Early Access.
There's been a few bugs here and there throughout the playtests identified and fixed up but nothing major / game breaking has been identified and the items that were found were easily fixed.
The mission system was fixed up. We now have a number of new mission types of varying difficulty for players to complete in order to level up quicker. Its possible now to get a good start in the game, and feel stronger in the early levels. Its important to keep an eye out for hostile vessels early on, but losing a fight will no longer destroy your chances of recovering quickly.
The trade system has had some major improvements over the past few months. Players will find it easier to find goods to trade, and some QOL are now in place to help players remember where certain goods are needed. The travel between ports, and missions has been improved also. A course can be set much easier now through the player logs and new discovered ports section.
A good bit of work has gone into re-balancing and tweaking this time round. The relationships between the factions, exp and wealth gain, and some ships have been all had re-balancing changes.
A good few placeholder items were removed this update. There are very few remaining thankfully.
Main Items
A full list of the issues are available on the discord, but here are a few of the main issues listed off.
Trade system has been reworked.
Mission system and mission generation / refresh has been reworked.
Added 5 new mission types.
Player progression is now tied heavily to level at the start of the game.
Campaign scaling, XP and Gold gain has been tweaked.
Multiple load time/performance improvements.
Improvements to the log book.
Improvements to movement on the campaign map.
Rebalanced the time scales and distances on the campaign map.
Cleaned up some UI around leveling up and exp gain.
Improved the campaign mini-map views.
Cleaned up the Load and Save Game logic.
Fixed up some Tutorial issues.
Cleaned up the location / captain / fleet naming within the campaign.
Reworked the Achievement system.
Audio improvements.
Cleaned up some of the improvements for Crew and Ship upgrades.
Added some balance checks for new game and progression for new players.
Upcoming
I'll be dedicating almost all of my development time on polishing and actioning the amazing feedback that I've been getting through discord, playtests and the stream. Very little in terms of new features will be implemented.
There are some outstanding issues around UI, Audio and some balance tweaks that need doing but I'm happy with the current state of the game.
I plan to increase the frequency of updates also, giving smaller updates as time goes on instead of every 2-3 months having one larger major update.
Thank you
Thanks so much to everyone who is providing valuable feedback during these past few months. I hope it continues all through Early Access which I am very excited for.
Thanks and Happy New Year!
- John