Thank you for waiting everyone! As of this post, Chapter 3 of Fuchian Chronicles is now live! Kimi has more or less gotten used to life on the Canis now, but little does she know, everything is about to change for her. Meanwhile, her parents Ava and Rocco are deployed as part of the Fuchians first counter offensive against the bunnoids. Is this where the tide of war turns?
In addition to new story content, many new gameplay features have been added! See below for details.
- New Feature: In Game Encyclopedia. An in-game encyclopedia has been added to the game, documenting all the enemies, items, equipment, skills, and states. You can find it by using the Journal item (or pressing “J” in the field) and selecting “Open Databank”, or simply pressing “E” in the field. Lore such as the history of the Empire (which has been expanded) has been moved into the encyclopedia as well, along with new lore entries describing the ships of the Empire. Likewise the tutorials can now be found in the encyclopedia. These entries can be unlocked via gameplay/exploration. Due to the evolving nature of the game, it may be necessary to reset encyclopedia progress as new enemies, items, lore, etc are added to the game. As such, I’ve added a new debug menu in the Journal, and included an option there to unlock all encyclopedia entries for those who would like to use it. This function will be removed once the game is finished.
- New Feature: Item Disassembly. For an item called the “Reassembler”, not being able to break down un-needed items into raw materials didn’t really make sense. But that changes now! To disassemble items, go into the item menu and select the item (like you were going to use it), and select “disassemble” where you can see what materials you can get from it. Most items can be disassembled, but keep in mind you won’t get more materials than it costs to make them (the ones that can be crafted at least). More equipment disassembly will likely be added later.
- New Feature: Weapon Proficiency. Characters will now become more proficient with specific weapon types (rifles, pistols, melee weapons, etc) the more they use it. Proficiency experience is gained every time they attack with the weapon, and each level in proficiency increases their accuracy and critical hit rate with the weapon type a little.
- New Feature: Equipment Modification. Most pieces of equipment can now be customized using various pieces of augments. These range from changing the equipment’s stats to adding status effects, to adding new skills. Basic augments can be crafted the same way you craft supplies and bought from the store starting in Ch2, while some special augments can be earned by helping people and occasionally dropped by enemies. Generally, the further in the story you are, the more augments you can craft/buy, and more will be added in future chapters.
- Updated Crafting Menu. Instead of the jury-rigged crafting menu that’s been in use so far, there is now a proper crafting menu! You can now make multiple items at once, and you won’t be kicked out of the menu after making something. Use the Reassembler item to enter the crafting menu, or press the R key in the field, just as before.
- Updated drop table. After rewatching an old Extra Credits video, I realized that only getting crafting materials from combat is not exactly satisfying. As such, enemy drops have been tweaked a bit to include additional drops, especially the bosses. You can now get supplies and even some equipment from enemies, and of course, unwanted items can be disassembled into crafting materials.
- Updated how portraits appear. Multiple portraits can now show up at the same time and can also move to make cutscenes more dynamic.
As mentioned in my previous news update, some of these features are unfortunately incompatible with existing saves, so you will need to start a new game. Thank you for understanding. To make up for this, I’ve added an item to help you get back to where you left off more easily: the OP Grenade of OPness. It is a lore breaking grenade that will kill all enemies on screen, including bosses, and completely trivializes all fights. You will still get item and equipment drops as normal, but you will lose out on weapon proficiency gains by doing so. To get this item, go to the debug menu in the Journal and select “OP Grenade”. Doing so will also grant you the item for use in space battles, aside from a certain one in Chapter 2. The grenade will be taken away once you start Chapter 3.
A few more quality of life changes have also been added, along with a few other balances, tweaks, and fixes. Details are as follows:
- More hotkeys added. Pressing “I” now opens the inventory, “K” opens the Skills menu, “E” opens the Databank, and “M” now toggles the amount of materials you have (if you have a Reassembler).
- Added a visual indicator when characters gain experience so you can see how far you are to the next “Level up”.
- Some ships have been renamed to better fit with the rest of the GFE’s naming conventions. The Maho Tahu is now the Arctos, the Atsuage is now the Savini, and the Agedashi is now the Vinae.
- Gameover screen now allows you to load a save directly instead of needing to return to the main menu first.
- Prices of various items have been rebalanced to better fit with their crafting material cost/material gains from disassembling them. In general, it will not cost you more to buy an item than it does to buy the crafting materials required to craft the same item. At the same time, the value of materials you can get from disassembling the item will not be more than if you were to sell the item directly.
- Some enemies, equipment, and characters have been rebalanced, including the specialist in Chapter 1 and the dropship in Chapter 2.
- Full screen now functions properly. Press F4 to toggle full screen.
As before, please let me know if you find any bugs, or if you have any suggestions! The price of the game has also been increased to reflect the new content available. Once again, thank you for playing my game, and I hope you enjoy Chapter 3!
- ShenTzu