Hi
While I continue working in big features like new missions types and mechanics, the growing consensus among players that have shared their feedback is that they want "more of everything" so now I'm also preparing two new recruitable soldier classes for a future big patch: Human Assassin and Krell'Sha Raider.
Human Assassin:
The Human Assassins come to fill the typical sniper/silent killer role that current classes don't cover. While I don't plan to create a whole squad concealment mechanic (unless people ask for it) I would still like to have some minor ambush mechanics with this class that allow for killing while avoiding detection.
This class will also have a new type of weapon: sniper rifles, railguns and other long range weapon I'm still thinking about.
Krell'Sha Raider:
You've seen these birds before, it just makes sense that a race of savage alien warriors can be recruited as pirates so I'm creating this new type of Melee/Ranged hybrid unit that can use and collect bloody trophies and also engage in a "blood rage" that gives it a buff and an extra action.
Notes:
- Both classes are still in development (as you can see in the screenshots I haven't even painted them yet) so I'm open to ideas regarding special skills (as long as they don't require rewriting too much stuff).
- Currently it looks like classes are "genderlocked" but I assure you that's only temporary due to other priorities, my long term plan is to have male and female models for at least the human classes so in the future there's more variety.
What about the existing classes?
I'm planning to add more skills to the existing classes, the thing is some of them require that I write new mechanics. For example, I would like to make melee more powerful so I made melee weapons ignore shields but I'm also planning to add a "Parry" skill that stops enemies charging at you or getting too close. Some actions could also grant extra actions to soldiers if they kill an enemy but I need to write that code first (and test it).
I'm also thinking about adding more customization eventually. Right now the customization options I have are one body, 3 heads and a few textures per class so many soldiers look the same. So far players haven't asked a lot for extra customization but I imagine that's part of the "more of everything" request I keep hearing so I would like to eventually add more options, maybe even add actual faces to the soldiers.
Of course, all that work in faces will require time (I'm more of a coder than a 3D artist so creating new assets is something that takes a lot of my time to get it right) but in the meantime I could add accessories to soldiers (like hats, armor pieces and others) in order to give an extra layer of customization:
New Ideas for the Stations:
While I'm planning to make an overhaul of the space station mechanics and interface in the future I thought in the short term I could add a new tab: a Bar. This bar could be used to invite a round to your soldiers and pay for information. This information could unlock hidden missions in a system and later be the start of a whole new quest system.
The Space Stations overhaul will be big enough to need its own announcement in order to be fully explained but for now I can tell you that the idea is to have different stations that offer new services like special quests, positive/negative trait modifications, arenas where you can fight, maybe specialized markets/bars/nightclubs to deal with loyalty issues and recruitment, etc.
I also know people want a way of dismissing soldiers, in the short term I'll just add an option in the stations (and possibly a random event could let you throw someone through an airlock) but in the long term I would also like to have penalties for dismissing soldiers with debt or low loyalty (maybe these dismissed soldiers could try to get revenge once the Rivals system is ready).
What else?
Work continues in other features that I've promised before like Rivals and Space Combat. These new features and the new classes have proven to be very challenging but that shouldn't stop me from releasing other medium sized patches with content before they are ready. I want to make sure people don't feel abandoned so I'm considering short and long term content for the game and if a week I don't have a new patch I can still post these dev diaries to reassure people that I'm working in the project.
Sorry for all the text but much of the work I'm doing right now is only code so there's not much visuals to share yet.
Regards,
Jorge
P.S.: you probably noticed there was a patch yesterday, I didn't make an announcement because it was just a fix for a bug related to the Personal Shields.