This is Part Two of the series of articles discussing the upcoming changes to the game. Read Part One here. This part is focused on the SHIP SYSTEMS!
As an intro note to this post, I've been applying for a gamedev grant from the Australian government for the last couple of days and this has been very, very onerous on my time. Who knew one could face such paperwork and live. We'll see what comes of it, but if I get the grant, it'll be very good for the game. I have no idea what my chances are of getting it, but it really would be a godsend if I did, lol. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled update on the new direction for the game!
Crew members can't do much if they can't interact with the ship they are crewing, and the ship's systems are how they do that! So I want to make those interactions as interesting as possible, and I don't think simply matching die was the best way to achieve that. So systems needed to change...
Step 1
Rethinking systems
The updated system UI, with two tier 1 slots at the top, and a tier 2 and tier 3 slot at the bottom. The die face shown above the slot lets you know what rolls will trigger the Subroutine.
Originally, systems had up to 4 die on them. Crew members would roll, die on ship systems would roll and then you could place a crew member on a system when the two rolls matched. This is an obvious design choice when working with die-based mechanics. Roll matching. However, after feedback and consideration, I feel like it was far too limiting.
Too often the player ended up going through multiple turns just waiting for a match on a system they wanted (there were behind the scenes mechanics that limited this, but still...). Or alternatively, too often the players and the enemy would just be placing die each turn and essentially cancelling each other out (you attack for 4 damage, the enemy negates that damage by placing die on shields, rinse and repeat).
Another problem was lack of variety. Since each system essentially functioned as die repositories, it was too beneficial to just aim to get all your die on weapons every turn. There was no push and pull between systems, and as a result, little strategical benefit to, for example, placing crew members on the Oxygen system except for the when the Oxygen system was low. With only 3 (potentially 4) systems to place die on, this led to some systems being over-represented in die placement.
To try to fix this, I've completely removed die from systems. Each system now has four SYSTEM SLOTS. Two tier 1 slots (available from the start), and a Tier 2 and Tier 3 slot, which are unlockable via crew member roles.
Each system slot has an attached SUBROUTINE. This can be thought of as a bonus ability. The Subroutine has a roll requirement (perhaps a roll of 3 will trigger it, or all rolls below 4, etc). And when the crew member on the system rolls the correct face, the Subroutine will activate and some special thing will occur. This could be any number of things, from a simple increase in the amount of pips gained for the turn, to interactions with other systems (a Shield Slot Subroutine filling Weapons pips, for example).
An example Subroutine called SHOCK RESONANCE. If a crew member placed here rolls a 3, then there is a chance a random enemy system will be disabled for the turn.
Placing a crew member on a system slot now simply yields one pip as well, regardless of roll (well, usually one pip).
So a turn now plays out like this:
The player places their crew members on some system slots. They do not know what the crew members will roll yet. After placement, they progress the turn. This locks the crew members to that slot for the rest of the turn, and now crew members will roll. After everyone has rolled, Subroutines that have been triggered by the roll get activated and those effects are applied. Then the ships attack each other and the turns reset.
This maintains the "randomness" that makes dice mechanics fun, while allowing the player to make strategic choices about where to apply their die. Having Subroutines also makes it so that different systems can be useful regardless of whether they directly need filling at that point in time. Life Support (previously named Oxygen) can have slots that heal crew members, or even apply damage. So you don't necessarily need to have low oxygen in order to want to fill Life Support at various points in the game.
Step 2
Pushing it further
This already changes the way you think of filling systems as a player substantially, but it wasn't enough. I wanted progression. This is why Tier 2 and Tier 3 slots exist. When a crew member gains enough experience to hit level 2 in a role ("Gunner", let's say), they'll unlock the Tier 2 Slot for the corresponding system (Weapons in this example). When this happens you get given a choice to pick between one of two randomly selected Subroutines for the slot. These Subroutines are all stronger than the ones for Tier 1 slots. The same thing happens when you hit level 4 in a role, Tier 3 slot becomes available and you pick from a random duo of stronger Subroutines.
In order to prevent constantly filling a system slot, the slots also track how "overheated" they are. The more turns in a row a slot is filled, the more overheating accumulates. Once it is full, the slot is unavailable while the system cools down.
In a throwback to our last update The Big Update - Crew Members, crew members have had the way they take damage changed. Now, as a crew member takes damage, they gradually lose access to random die faces. This isn't as crippling as it might seem, since no particular face is necessarily any more important than any other face.
In other words, because your goal isn't big rolls, instead it's the right roll for the right subroutine placement, you'll almost always have options for good slots to place the crew member on and even if you don't, they will still add a pip to whatever system they are placed on. However, if your gunner loses all the faces that trigger Weapons Subroutines, then you'll likely want to be placing them elsewhere and you'll lose access to their Gunner bonus! Once they've lost all their faces, they become mortally wounded and have a chance of dying each time they roll from that point on.
You can, at any point in time, place a crew member on the Medical Bay 
(a permanent slot on the Life Support system), which will stabilise them while they are on it (i.e. they will no longer die from rolls if mortally wounded) and also give them a steadily increasing chance to heal on each roll.
Step 3
We must go even further!
The final massive change in the coming update is that the Special system has been completely removed. A Captain's chair now occupies the negative space left behind by it! What does that mean? Well, a new system called COMMAND has been added to the game!
The Command system is unique compared to the other ship systems. It does not have pips at all. Instead, it has the CAPTAINS ORDERS, a rotating scroller of unique bonuses that have ship-wide effects. Every turn, the next order in the list rotates into play. Once you finish with your crew placement and everything is locked down, the order will trigger its effect.
You can place crew members on either of the two tier 1 slots of the Command system in order to go back to the previous order, or skip ahead to the next order (both trigger a cooldown, so pick your moments carefully). Now you can make truly decisive calls as the Captain of the ship at pivotal moments of play. As you explore, you will learn new orders that get added to your list, expanding your tactical options.
Step 4
Completing the damn update
As is the eternal problem with game development, it's taking me longer than I had hoped to complete the update. Firstly, I'm still in the "preproduction" kinda phase with this design pivot, with aspects of it being toyed with, thrown out, added back in, etc. There's a lot of flux going on right now, but I'm quite confident that the design changes I've talked about in this post and the last are locked in.
As you can see from the gifs peppered throughout this post, a lot of the stuff mentioned so far is already kinda in the game. And, as one might expect, there are a lot of tentacles that creep outward from such a large pivot in gameplay. The removal of specials requires a lot of backend work, new system functionality means a lot of UI work, which is always slow and painful. Galactic Bazaars have to have a lot of their codebase updated to reflect the changes when buying stuff, Events have to be rewritten or removed entirely depending on what the results of the event are, etc, etc.
In many, many ways, I'm rewriting the game from scratch, and once I get past this ideation phase, and into the more "prototypey testing" phase, there'll likely be some changes to what I've outlined in these posts as well, but we'll have to see. In general, I'm feeling confident that these changes are vastly better for the feel of the game and will make it a lot more fun and dynamic.
So hang on for a bit longer, I'll get this demo out as soon as I can and then we can further enhance the game together as a community!