Greetings, Captains!
We are happy to invite you to our playtest once again. A little over a month and a half has passed since the previous playtest, and during that time we have done a lot of work to improve the game. Now we have plenty to show you.
Signal Navigation
We received a lot of feedback asking for more control over ship movement, and we implemented it in the following way. Through the Navigator, the player can set two routes at the same time. Signal routes lead to major stations located near the player. Signals can also be used to travel to story quests and return to them after failure, in which case they will appear closer. Signals are updated every five turns.
There is also navigation to the ships nearest to the player, both trading and hostile. Hunting pirates or searching for trading ships is now much easier and more manageable. At the same time, the player can still encounter random stations, although very rarely, as well as random hostile or trading ships. This depends on the danger level of the route, which is also displayed when selecting a signal or station.
Pricing
Trading has also received major changes, especially the pricing system. Since we are already talking about signals, when selecting one, you can now see the station’s population, which determines the initial prices of goods. Trading stations also have positive and negative effects, as well as requests that directly and significantly influence prices. However, to see this information, you will need to unlock the appropriate Captain talents. More about that a little later.
Prices are no longer generated randomly. Demand for goods and the available assortment now depend not only on the station type, but also on the effects applied to the station, its population, and its current requests. This means that player routes should become more meaningful and logical. It is now much clearer where certain goods should be purchased and where they can later be sold.
Trading ships, on the other hand, mostly use standard prices. Their prices still change slightly, but not as dramatically as prices at stations, because trading ships are intended to play a supporting role rather than replace stations entirely.
Captain and Crew Talents
This is probably one of the most interesting and important changes we have made. You left a lot of feedback about progression, and we are finally ready to show it to you. This is something we had planned earlier, but it has now grown into a much larger system than we originally intended.
Starting from level 2, the Captain - the player - receives five talent points with every level. These points can be spent on improving any talents from four different branches. For now, only the first sections of the talent trees are available in the playtest, but the full game is planned to contain 76 talents. This number may still change before release, since we will continue working on the balance.
Talent branches directly affect gameplay, and their arrangement allows you to support your personal playstyle. There are four branches in total: Combat, Trading, Delivery, and General. We probably do not need to explain them in detail, since their names already speak for themselves. Between the main sections, there are stronger talents where you will have to make an either-or choice.
Crew members have also received their own talents. This strengthens the overall progression system, gives the crew more influence over gameplay, and makes hiring crew members more important. Each crew member has eight talents, with two talents available at each level. They can be upgraded immediately after the crew member is hired. All talents are divided into four sections with either-or choices.
For now, all crew members of the same type have identical talents during the playtest. Later, they will have differences in some talents, which will also encourage players to replace one crew member with another.
Commander Active Ability and Engineer Improvements
The Navigator is a very important crew member because they make the player’s journey deliberate and controllable. The Engineer keeps the ship in proper condition. The Commander, however, previously had nothing besides passive bonuses.
The Commander now has an active ability that allows the player to safely leave the battlefield with a 100% success chance. The ability has a cooldown of 50 turns. But do not be alarmed: the Commander’s cooldown, as well as the Engineer’s cooldown, now decreases during every turn of combat, which slightly changes the balance.
In addition to repairing the ship, the Engineer can now use repair kits, provided the player has them, and repair modules. We have also slightly reworked crew dialogues by removing unnecessary elements and leaving only quick access to the various active abilities of crew members. This was another improvement suggested through your feedback.
New Items
We have already shown the use of missiles, torpedoes, and mines several times in promotional materials. In addition to these combat consumables, the player now has access to two types of repair kits: standard and premium. To use them, select the Engineer’s alternative actions in the dialogue window. A short cooldown is applied after use.
Missiles, mines, and torpedoes can be used during combat as an additional action during the player’s turn. Enemies do not return fire in response to these actions. Only one consumable ammunition item of any type can be used during a single combat turn. After use, a cooldown is applied to the ammunition type that was used.
Modules are items that occupy space in the cargo hold and provide passive effects. For example, they can increase shields or health, or reduce fuel consumption per turn. Modules are not permanent and have their own durability. Only one module of the same type can work at a time, meaning that two identical modules cannot be active simultaneously. Starting from level 3, the Engineer gains the ability to partially restore a module’s durability.
All of these items can be purchased at a pirate station.
Pirate Station
This is a new station type that has not been shown before. The most important thing you can do there is buy and sell consumable items and modules. However, the station also offers save cassettes.
For a significant amount of money, the player can purchase a save cassette. Several types are available: one that saves only the Captain and ship, one that saves the Captain, crew, and ship, as well as versions for ships of different levels. If the ship is lost because all fuel has been consumed or because the player dies in combat, the cassette returns the player to the nearest pirate station.
In other words, this is a legal in-game save system. As a reminder, the game uses permadeath, and normally the player loses all progress after death. When a cassette saves only the Captain, any crew members who died will no longer appear as available recruits at stations.
Combat System and Loot Changes
In addition to the player being able to use different consumables, enemies starting from level 2 have also learned to use them. Different enemy types use different ammunition as alternative fire: mines, torpedoes, or missiles.
That is not all. Enemy ships, just like the player, can now disable systems. They may leave you without shields for a period of time or set your ship on fire. This makes battles much more interesting and unpredictable. Overall, combat now has significantly more depth.
We have also changed the loot received from destroyed enemy ships. In addition to the standard credits and experience, enemy ships now grant reputation. More importantly, they can also drop different goods, including materials, tools, machines, and more.
There is also a small chance that a destroyed enemy ship will drop a consumable item, such as a torpedo, missile, mine, or repair kit, or one of the available modules. This makes hunting enemy ships more interesting and useful for the player.
Sector Domination
Sector domination now provides passive positive and negative effects depending on which faction is dominant. Trade Federation domination effects provide more bonuses. Pirate and Zuglu domination effects strengthen their ships and make them more dangerous, which is only logical.
However, some negative effects also have a positive side, such as allowing the player to receive more experience or credits. At the moment, each faction has two effects. More will be added later, and they will also differ depending on the sector.
Information about the effects currently active in a sector can be found in the Info Center under the News tab. Simply hover over an effect icon to open a window describing what the effect does. When using a gamepad, use the left stick for navigation.
Tutorial
During the first playtest, the tutorial was presented as a separate level and integrated into the game’s lore. We initially believed this was a good solution, but unfortunately it was somewhat too long. Your feedback helped us understand that this was not the best approach. Considering that the game now contains many more systems, we did not want to make the tutorial even longer, so we chose a different path.
The new tutorial displays pop-up windows when the player performs a certain action or opens a particular window for the first time. We tried to present all information as clearly and briefly as possible. When opening the Captain dialogue, in addition to statistics and talents, you can now find a section containing tutorial materials.
When the tutorial is enabled at the start of the game, materials are added there as the player discovers them. When the tutorial is disabled at the start, all materials are available immediately, allowing any player to return to them for help after forgetting or missing something.
Story and Quests
Just a few more words about this. We moved quest notifications to the main HUD so that players can more easily understand the current stage of a quest, whether it is a story quest or a side quest. Quests can be tracked. Tracking is disabled by default and can be enabled through the quest journal. A separate tab for story objectives has also been added.
Even when quests are not being tracked, their notifications will still appear from time to time whenever the quest state changes. This should make tracking and understanding quests more convenient.
We also added Quest Zero to involve the player in the main story immediately from the beginning. We received feedback that many players missed the story or did not notice it. Some story quests require the player to select a route to their signals through the Navigator. These quests are difficult to miss because, in addition to notifications, a unique signal also appears on the navigation grid.
We believe these are significant changes, and we are looking forward to receiving your new feedback during the playtest. Your feedback helps us make the game better and more enjoyable for you.
Thank you all very much, and join the playtest if you have not already done so!
Stay with us.