Thanks to all of you who have tried the demo so far! In response to player feedback, I'm proud to present the second round of updates for the Fortified Space demo. This time, the focus was on perfecting the difficulty of the ground combat and adding a few quality-of-life improvements as well.
Ground Combat Difficulty
Body Armor: Your character will now deploy to planets with body armor that can deflect one hit by an enemy combatant. This means that if you accidentally brush up against an enemy, the armor will take all of the damage. In its damaged state, the armor can no longer protect you from subsequent hits; however, it has self-repairing technology that can automatically restore its protective ability after about 40 seconds. Just make sure not to get clobbered while your armor is repairing itself!
Advance warning of enemy attack: Certain actions, like collecting a certain number of resources, building a certain amount of defenses, or others, will alert the enemy forces to your location and begin the combat phase of your planetary landing. You no longer have to be caught unprepared when it happens! The sensor officer from your ship will radio in when enemies start approaching at the beginning of the mission. You'll have a 60 second warning so that you can start building if you haven't already.
Enemy spawning: Enemies will now attack later than they did before, giving you more time to gather resources and build a basic base before having to fight. They will also spawn in lower numbers, with the specifics depending on difficulty setting. This means no more getting chased right at the beginning!
Quality of Life Improvements
You will now see the nearest enemy ship's health bar when attacking them.
Your weapons officer will call out the number of seconds left until your railguns are ready to fire again.
Instructions were updated to encourage talking to your ship's crew for tips and tricks. They also add emphasis to the fact that planet facilities are destroyed instantly when an enemy attacks them.
If you do not have enough materials to build a certain defense structure or facility, clicking on its icon will no longer create a green build cursor. It's helpful in the heat of battle when you don't have time to look at your inventory!
Extended Fleet Battle
Guys, the fleet battle mission is really fun. Railgunning enemy ships while missiles fly at you from every direction and allied frigates shoot them out of the air is one of my own favorite feelings in the game so far. Because of this, I extended the demo version to allow 60 seconds of this mission, rather than the previous 30 seconds, so that you can get a better taste of that mission type. This change wasn't due to player feedback, I just really like that part of the game.
I hope you enjoy trying out these improvements to the demo. Don’t forget to wishlist the full game for many more features and missions!
Nightsail Game Studios