Greetings Captain!
It's been a while since we had one of those more technical and text heavy Developer's Diaries where we go on and on about planned mechanics and how things will be working, However, this might be a particularly rewarding one to read, as most if not all of the things we discuss here will be making it to our major update on the 28th of August, which will be the penultimate build in Early Access! So put on your reading glasses and take a look at what you can look forward to as we move towards the end of our journey.
First of all, the target list we've previously discussed has been implemented in earnest. Named ships, mostly Fubukis and some Akizukis for now, will be given to you as priority targets for you to hunt down. They, of course, will not be alone; they will have light to medium boats and sometimes even other Destroyers accompanying them. They will patrol and fight like normal task forces, and will even be engaging allied forces they come across and take damage accordingly. This will dynamically create opportunities for you to pounce on them. On the rare chance that they are sufficiently mauled by an allied force, they will retreat to recuperate, and eventually come back again provide you an opportunity for you to engage and sink them.
Successfully scratching a target off the list will give you a nice windfall of Resource Points and a permanent trickle of Victory Points. These two concepts, of course, are in need of elucidation. We've talked about the former before but the latter is our entirely new solution to how, the game, so far, lacked an apparent win condition other than conquering the entire map, which can lead to the end game being a little more grindy than we would like. Victory Points will be our solution to this. Now let's talk about both in detail.
Observing a vessel at the correct angle with binoculars reveal the vessel's name in Romaji.
Resource Points are quite straightforward; they are our new currency, replacing the rather inelegant dollars. They are used to buy everything you can already buy with the dollars. However, they will also be awarded to you every tick, proportional to total allied development in the region. Beyond that, scratching targets off the target list and taking out enemy supplies will also give you a windfall. Sinking random enemies will no longer give you any resources; so you can allow your focus to shift further into completing the objective and not feel like you're missing out if you don't kill everything everywhere you go.
If you've already played the current iteration of the Campaign, then you'll know that the current currency exists more or less as your budget; it's not actually spent, it's the sum total of what you can add to your boat and is entirely fungible. Effectively, it is 100% refund on any part. This will remain to be the case; we intend for you to be able to customize the ship any way you want and try out new things. However, with the inclusion of trickling income, we felt the need to also have some resource sinks that should give you a compelling reason to spend; permanently, some of the RP you've been accumulating. Our support powers and the new companion system will fulfil this role, making your life a little easier if you're willing to part with some of your hard earned spoils.
The companion system is effectively what we already have in Fleet Endurance, where you can buy boats to join you in your battles. We will be transplanting that system to the Campaign, with the key differences that, for one, sunk boats will not respawn or refund, and for two, the number and type of boats available to you as companions will vary with progression. A Fletcher at your side will cost you something dear and will not be available until more or less endgame, but a faithful flock of 80' boats will join you sooner rather than later. Hopefully, these will be reason enough to give cause for deliberation; on whether you will focus on your own boat or whether you will be using support powers and companions to keep the momentum going.
During playtesting we found that giving the binoculars camera a height boost while in targeting mode does wonders for the artillery targeting reticle usability.
Victory Points are also quite descriptive; have enough of them, and you win! The way you get them is that each allied base will give you a trickle of them based on their development, and each enemy held base will give you a deduction. Now, you can't go below 0 Victory Points, and the enemy doesn't accumulate them for themselves either, so you won't lose in this manner, but you won't start winning until you hold at least half of the development on the map if your intention is to win through conquest.
You can expedite this process by collecting bounties on the priority targets in the target list; this will also give you a permanent trickle of victory points that will help you win the tug of war. Be warned, however, that enemy presence will ramp up the more your victory point income is; even if it is not yet enough to push the needle. Think of it as the enemy increasing their commitment to the region the more resistance they meet; culminating in one last hurrah before they have to concede defeat and abandon the Solomon Islands, winning you the Campaign.
As you can tell, it's a very straightforward system that should give an impression of tangible progress while also being another lever for customization in the future when we get around to adding options.
The new arrangement for management related buttons. Loadout, Crew, and Call-ins buttons are only accessible when at port.
Finally, we'd like to talk about Fleet Endurance. Fleet Endurance was a game mode we came up with on the spot; the time between us getting the initial idea and the release of the mode in one of our earliest Early Access builds was less than a month. For an idea that was implemented rapidly, we are quite proud of the results. However, its most unique feature, the fleet companion system, is something we are now adding to the Campaign. An endless gauntlet of enemies, as fun as it can be, is less interesting than having the context of a grand campaign to all the fighting. Which is why we must announce that it is intended to be cut from the game for now and will not be back in the foreseeable future, with the effort that would have gone into its development going into the Campaign instead. If you still want to play it, however, earlier builds with it will be available on the Betas tab.
That's all for now, Captain! We intend everything mentioned here to make it to the release build soon, and there may or may not be more we can sneak in if time allows. We hope you are as excited as we are to see Boat Crew become the experience it was meant to be!
Good luck out there, Captain!
T.T.