Hey everyone!
We are now starting to get into development for v0.2 of Early Access. We have some big new additions that we've been wanting to introduce, as well as some fairly large changes to pre-existing systems based off the user feedback we've received so far. This post will go over some of the plans in detail, but by no means is a full list of the new features coming in v0.2. So, let's get started!
P.S. Apologies for the lengthy post, but we wanted to discuss everything in detail. If you're looking for a TL;DR, check the discussion comments!
New Additions
First lets start off with what we'll be adding in v0.2
- Drones & Drone Hubs
- Fixer Drone: Seeks out damaged buildings and automatically repairs them.
- Attack Drone: Hunts down enemies and fires at them until destroyed.
- Resource Drone: Extracts resources from untapped nodes around the map.
- Engineer Drone: Applies experimental modifications to turrets you assign them.
- World Generation
- New Buildings
- Astral Projector: Fires multiple small heat-seeking bullets. Like a sprayer that never misses!
- Power Cell: Distributes additional power to nearby defenses, increasing their firerate and damage.
- Artillery Cannon: Fires long range projectiles that deal massive explosive damage on impact.
- Resource Trader: Convert one type of resource into another. Can be automated via drones and storages.
- New Enemies
This wont come as a surprise for anyone who's been chatting on the Discord server, but v0.2 will be largely focused on drones. Drone Hub's can be setup to produce different types of drones and automatically deploy them into your drone network. Here are the different types of roles that can be assigned to drones in the initial release...
That's right, we are completely scrapping the old world generation algorithm. We find maps often look "messy" and are extremely inconsistent in the amount of resources that are available. This change will ensure that with the limited map size, you'll have the exact amount of resources and space needed to obtain everything in the game (and also just look better as well)
We recently held a vote on our Discord server to see what buildings the community would be interested in seeing next. The end result was a majority vote for the Astral Projector and Power Cell, so they will now be added in this update! On top of this, we'll also be adding in the Artillery Cannon and Resource Trader. Although these two fell just shy of winning the majority vote, we feel they could both serve a very important role in the game. More info on all the new buildings below.
We'll be introducing two new enemies in this update, as well as a new enemy variant. On top of this, the next guardian, The Kraken, will be available in v0.2 at 20,000 heat. We wont give any more info on this though since we want you to experience the new guardian for yourself in game when the update drops!
So those are all the big additions coming in v0.2 - there's a lot of other smaller things we're planning on adding, but since we can't really predict exactly what these will entail quite yet, we wont be discussing them publicly until closer to the update. So, moving on the big changes coming in v0.2!
Upcoming Changes
We have some big changes coming in v0.2, some of which we haven't fully discussed yet. Here's what the plans are for these...
- Resource Management
- Power Limits
- Engineering
- Minor changes
By far the biggest change in 0.2 is the changes to the resource management system. We want to make the process of obtaining resources a bit more complex whilst keeping that simplistic feel to it. So, we'll be adding in a new building called the Resource Connector (name subject to change).
The idea behind this is sort of like power lines but for resources. You place down a Resource Connector near your mines to create a connection to them, and then run that connection to wherever you have your storages placed. This will create an entire resource web, where mines will require a connection to an available storage in order to actually produce stuff.
We are still in the planning stages of this new system, but this is the general idea we're going for. If we notice in testing that it ruins the simple feeling of the game, we'll make sure to update you all that this change will either be implemented differently, or not at all.
The next biggest change will be to power limits. Currently when you reach max power, nothing happens and the game just stops you from placing additional buildings. In 0.2, we'll be switching this out for the blackout system, where if you exceed maximum power your entire base will shut offline. This will also be accompanied by new changes to the Energizer and AOC system, where buildings that lose connection from an Energizer will now go offline instead of just being destroyed.
Another big change will be to engineering, in that it will be removed and completely redone from the ground up. In the current version it doesn't feel all that intuitive and is very confusing as to how it works, so in 0.2 engineering will be done through drones. You will be able to apply and strip components from different buildings to get them just how you want.
On top of the big changes we've mentioned, there are A LOT more small changes that we wont be talking about until closer to the release of 0.2 (these include balance changes, bug fixes, and other small changes). This is simply because we don't know exactly what these changes will be, and how many we'll end up making, but do expect their to be a lot of these, especially in the 15,000 - 30,000 heat range.
The Future
So, before we wrap this up, we just wanted to discuss plans for the future. As of right now, we have a rough idea of what the end goal is going to be, and how much content we actually want to put into the main game until branching off into the other stuff like additional modes, mod support, multiplayer, and so on. Our rough estimate is that we have about 10-15% of the main game (that being adventure mode) done at this point, but of course that's just a rough number, and our priorities for the game will definitely change over time. With that being said, we want to try and get out of Early Access by Fall, and hopefully start implementing multiplayer around that time as well.
As for when you can expect v0.2, the honest answer is we don't know, but we expect around 2-4 weeks. It all depends on how fast we're able to put together these new systems, and how much we end up actually adding / changing. When the update drops though, it will be available on an experimental branch first before coming to early access.
Anyways, that's all we have for now. We'll try to release a few devlogs over the coming weeks to keep everyone up to date with the latest progress on v0.2.
Until next time!
~ Ben & Brett