Meta progression?
Yes, Survivesmith being a rogue-lite game, meta-progression was bound to play a big part in the game. While all the previous playable builds of the game introduced some form of unlockables or upgrades for you to grind on, they were never the actual intended meta-progression in the game (most of them at least).
With the opening of the new Bio-Lab, Survivesmith is finally starting to get serious with meta-progression of the game.
Bio-Lab
The bio-lab is the main research hub of the base. You come here to do some research and unlock new stuff in the game. This is where you unlock 'most' of the new items, but not all of them (more on that later). You can unlock new terminals (machines in the base), weapons, buddies, modules, survival kit items, etc., here every time you reach a new research level.
But what is the currency used for new research?
Knowledge!!!
Nah just kidding... or am I?
Ever wondered what you actually did in your expeditions and what the bar that slowly filled up at the bottom meant? It was actually a form of gathering knowledge from the biomes by gathering resources, picking flowers and defeating creatures. You moved on to the next biome once you gathered enough samples from that biome. Now when you complete sample gathering, you gain a 'Data Point' for that biome, which is the main form of currency for research at the bio-lab!
Ever heard that knowledge is power? Just like actual knowledge, the data points you gather only go up and aren't actually used up like a resource when doing research. You just need to accumulate enough data points from the required biomes to reach the next research tier. Pretty neat huh?
The main idea behind the bio-lab is to provide a central hub for meta-progression in the game as well as to ease you in to new systems and terminals over playtime. It also rewards you for simply completing stages and also incentivizes on picking certain biomes to jump to. There might be some more aspects of the game tied to the bio-lab that were not specified above, but that is up for a later discussion.
Buddies grow with you!
Buddies played a side-role in the game up to this point. No more! They now have 2 different level up systems in and out of expeditions.
Buddy Training
During expeditions (runs), buddies slowly gain experience by doing tasks. Each buddy does something different, so they gain different amounts of experience by doing different things.
Toby, for example, gains experience every time it brings a resource to you. Orbi gains experience whenever its shots land. Healix gains experience at different rates when it hits an enemy or heals you.
Unlike the player character, buddies can reach up to a maximum level (currently 5) only. Each time they reach a new level, you get to train them on one of their core aspects. So you can already build the same buddy slightly differently each run with this system.
Buddy Growth
When you finish a run, XP accumulated by buddies during that run translates over to permanent XP as well. There is a separate permanent level up system for buddies that can be viewed at the pet dorm.
While these levels are harder to reach, each level grants you access to a new 'Growth Node' in that buddy's 'Growth Tree'. This is a short skill tree with 2 primary nodes and 2 pairs of optional nodes for you to choose from. The first 3 tiers of nodes permanently upgrades each aspect of a buddy's skillset while the 4th tier gives the buddy an entirely new passive skill. I won't spoil you on this since it'll be more exciting to discover them on your own ;)
Power Cores are now run based
The power core system is something that has bothered us for quite some time now (me specifically, MaRK here). Before weapon mods, power cores were supposed to be how you add new powers to your guns and other primary weapons. But mixing two cores felt lacking with the ideas we had in mind and we decided to create the Weapon mod system. So the power cores became sort of like 'artifacts' from other games.
But then with my newfound obsession with Risk of Rain 2 (still MaRK here), I HAD TO add blooms into the game. Blooms were the kind of stacking artifact-like buffs that more than well enough replaced the previous purpose of power cores. So the power cores were there for a long time as an optional system that didn't really make sense to spend too much time on. The cores were either super OP or not very useful at all. They were just weird.
Now, the power cores, while essentially giving the same kind of condition-based buffs, are obtained randomly at the start of each stage during a run. So while the weirdness never left, power cores now feel more fitting as 'a random powerful conditional buff to help you deviate towards a certain playstyle' rather than a loadout option with selective fusions and stuff.
Now you only have to complete a new robot kill-count task for each type of robot enemy in the game ONCE to obtain the respective power core. Once you get one, you will get that at the start of the first round, and one more each round if you have unlocked at least 3. This will make it so that once you start surviving further into the runs, you will unwillingly unlock new power cores that will add onto your power core pool and give more and more options on every consecutive play.
So, what does this mean?
All of this is to say that Survivesmith is still up and going and reaching further and further into a full-fledged roguelite experience. These definitely won't be all the meta-progression in the game by release. As previously promised, these are some other planned meta-progression systems that hasn't been started yet:
Character Progression: Each playable character will get their own permanent level up system as well as a larger skill tree (or multiple) than buddies.
Primary Weapon Overclocks: Chips that can be obtained by completing biome events and can be equipped to primary weapons to change their default behaviors or stats. These chips can be combined to increase their rarity and unlock even more potential.
Achievements and Challenges: Different easy to insane achievements and challenges that will test the limits of your builds and reward you with new permanent unlocks (can be pets, weapons, kit items, skins, base decorations or more!).
Biome Purification: This is an optional system that we're still on the fence about that would make biome exploration progress forward in a idle-like fashion. You will essentially only have access to a limited range from the teleporter to access the biome, limiting the resources you can find and the creatures you can encounter, and then can be later expanded through meta-progression. This system would open up a whole lot of new possibilities for biome exploration. But as I said, it's still in discussion, but a possibility nevertheless.
and even more...
If you read this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can be quite descriptive about things and make things unnecessarily long (still MaRK lol). But I hope you got the gist! Please feel free to ask anything.
Also, here's a little teaser for you:
Note: all the screenshots shown in this post are in-progress work and does not show the final result.