Hi
I wanted to tell you about many big changes that are coming to the game in its last patches before launch and how this basically changes it into a new experience. Let's go in detail:
Star Cluster Map:
In order to ditch the current linear campaign, I'm making a sort of sandbox "galaxy" map where you can choose the star systems you want to visit.
As you can see in the GIF, the interface will show you information of the neighbouring star systems like their wealth and danger, in this way you can choose the star you want to visit and map safer or riskier paths according to your current strength.
This major change also allows me to add another new feature: faction reputation. The idea is that you'll gain or lose reputation with some factions depending of the missions and actions you take and this can affect stuff like market prices, mission rewards and even trigger some hostile encounters in the star systems that belong to those factions.
Of course, the star systems layout and stats are procedural, which means the Star Cluster Map varies from playthrough to playthrough.
New Main Story Campaign:
I've been busy preparing a new main story campaign with bosses, lore and a lot of new dialogue.
This campaign is presented as story missions that will unlock in the Star Cluster Map so you'll be free to play them at your own pace. The final objective remains the same: find and capture The Omen but now you'll have to talk and fight to many characters, including some powerful crews that want to reach the ship first.
This campaign is something I've been planning for a while not only as a way of making the game more interesting and add more content but also to deliver some of the lore of the game in an organic way.
Hopefully you'll enjoy the worldbuilding, story (and twists) I'm preparing.
New Maps:
Of course, I'm always adding new content and in particular I'm preparing new encounters for some of the planets. In the GIF you can see a new map type for populated planets: an "Urban Spaceport", basically a raid mission where you'll fight in a series of interconnected rooftops against the local security forces while a megacity acts as a background.
I'm also working in other minor encounters like this space minefield:
I'm planning other new maps (and enemies) but I'll have more news of that later.
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These upcoming patches are BIG and so in depth that I wanted to warn you that current saves will become "deprecated" once they are out, ideally you'll start a new game to experience all the new changes but I'm also adding an internal converter just in case, in this way if you have an old save when you load it, it will warn you but it will recover stuff like your soldiers, inventory, money and ship parts so you can play with them in the new campaign.
That's it for now, see you in the next patch!
Regards,
Jorge