Terrain Mechanics Additions and Changes
- There are now ten terrain skills, matching all nine magic types and tech. Multiple terrain types leverage these skills. For example, the tech terrain skill is used for terrains Urban, Ruins, Office Interior, Industrial Exterior, and Industrial Interior.
- Terrains now set default zone stats such as difficulty, concealment, and ambient mana based on the terrain level of the zone.
- Terrains now set default environments, such as Windy.
- Zone areas also set default environments (so the demo scenario areas add Cold to all their zones).
- Terrains now set day/night cycle environments as needed, so surface terrains will illuminate zones during the day, and shadow them at night (affecting spotting and accuracy, as well as light and dark magic ambience).
- Added pinnacle (light) and anomalous (arcane) terrains.
- You can no longer spot scenic view locations remotely; you need to be in the zone.
- Zone-relevant actions such as moving are now in the spotted zone list.
- Boundaries are no longer directly shown; only existing obstacles are shown.
- Zone objects can now generate environments.
- The reactor zone now has arcane radiation environment coming from the leaking reactor. If the reactor is destroyed, the environment will be removed.
- Added slag heap pile object: provides a little ore for scavenging, and the dusty environment.
Quest Mechanics Additions and Changes
- Quests now provide credit awards both to the base and to all members upon completion.
- Added optional sector quests. If not complete at scenario transition, they are canceled.
- Added repeatable campaign quests, such as gather X resources, or kill X monsters. Scenario transition doesn’t reset these.
- Added kill monster quest types: by total monsters (kill X monsters), by type of monster (kill X Frost Slimelings), and by horde of monster (kill X Shadow Rats, any kind).
- Added close rift quest by horde (close X Frost Slime rifts).
- Added total resource quest (gather X resources, any type).
- Destroying growths should now provide exp to monsters or credits to users.
You can see the new quests here:
World Mechanics Additions and Changes
- Zone actions such as scavenging, studying, and picklocking now have a cost mechanic (stamina).
- Repairing teleporters now has a difficulty.
- Added composites resource.
- Added scrap magitech, plastics, and composites, which the refinery can combine into the full resource.
- Scavengable zone objects now have modular material classes (which makes it easier to create new ones, and makes stats more consistent).
- When damaged, discrete scavengable zone objects now generate rubble piles based on their material class. So, crystal conduits will gen a crystal shards pile, and a wrecked train car will generate a scrap metal pile.
- Studying zone objects now unlocks shop items (as opposed to instant faction—wide awards). So, studying a mana reactor might unlock a max level purchase for a magic research path.
Character Additions and Changes
- Monster kills now provide credit awards both to the base and to all members.
- Monster corpses now decay per turn based on negative HP. Each monster type has a decay threshold based on a max health multiplier. Right now, most monster corpses will decay into bone piles if negative HP magnitude hits triple max health (I might adjust this).
- Characters now have a kill value that is used in determining exp gain for monsters and credit gain for users. Bosses are naturally worth much more than other monsters. Base gain is value times level.
- System users no longer generate corpses on death. Instead, any monsters contributing to the kill get exp based on the value of the user, which is based both on character value and on items and mana not covered by death protection. (Note that item value includes level times base value.) This means a user kill can be a huge boost to a monster’s leveling.
- Users no longer get debuffs when running out of calories; they just don’t regen health or stamina.
- Users now respawn at 1 HP, 0 stamina, 0 calories.
- Monsters no longer get exp for doing damage.