It’s time for another update on the long-awaited Sector K72 patch.
Heathen Engineering’s development team has been focusing on ‘Asset’ management gameplay and has made some significant progress. The following is a sneak peek at where the team is headed with this feature. The current state is nearly there but still subject to change of course as it has not yet passed internal testing.
In Terran you can form or join organizations such as governments and corporations (more to come). As a government or corporation, you can claim ‘Assets’ such as planets, stations, asteroid fields and other stellar bodies as your own.
Many of these assets can and need to be developed in various ways to yield a benefit for your organization. Populations need to be managed for stability, optimal growth and to insure they are providing the benefits you want.
So, what kind of benefits do assets provide?
Assets usually increase your influence regardless of what organization type you are. As a government, the focus lies on size and prosperity of your population, access to resources and of course the strength of your fleet. As a corporation, the focus needs to be more on your research and industrial capability as well as the security provided by your fleet.
What can you do with an asset you ask?
Assets at their core provide a place for your population to live and work. You can implement various improvements to your asset to promote the growth of its population and the development of its various capabilities. The population its self is divided into 8 major demographics each sensitive to cultural factors in different ways. Your asset improvements, your actions as an organization and the galaxy at large all impact the local culture of your asset and thus impact your population and through it the benefit you realize from that asset.
Assets also offer an exploration opportunity. An asset may have various special traits including primitive species, exotic flora and fauna, unique environmental conditions and or historical artefacts. These traits can be researched and in some cases exploited for special benefits on the asset or across the organization. Follows are a few examples of how traits can impact your asset and organization.
Primitive Species
Not every race in the galaxy is space faring and occasionally you find a primitive home world. You can still claim and even colonize these worlds though this will have an impact politically, culturally and of course on the planets outputs its self.
When a primitive species exists on the planet you will have several special ‘improvements’ that can be applied and effect how your colony deals with the natives. The options available depend on the population type and population density of the primitive species which can range from Proto being a very early example of an intelligent species to Young being a race nearly ready to reach for the stars on their own. You can always ‘liquidate’ the natives e.g. convert them to material profit and of course you have the option to leave them in peace. Depending on the state of the species you may be able to integrate them with your colony boosting your population or exploit them for other gains.
Exotic flora and fauna
As it turns out life is not all that rare or unique or at least most life isn’t however you do occasionally discover a world with a unique native variety of plant or species of animal that can offer the people and industries of that asset some unique benefit. When you discover such species, special improvements will come available on that asset to exploit the opportunity.
Environmental conditions
Some planets have unique environmental conditions which will naturally impact its population. Planets with such traits don’t get any special improvement options but will experience the effects of the conditions as a base line.
Artefacts
In rare cases, you may discover an artefact of an ancient advanced race, researching these artefacts will often uncover advanced technologies in the form of ship parts and design, asset improvements, pilot enhancements and can lead to the discovery of new unexplored regions of space. Artefacts help you unlock the mysteries of the galaxy’s ancient past and can provide a special improvement opportunity on the planet it was discovered on.
More to come
As we continue to prepare the Sector K72 update we will release additional information on asset management, organization administration, leadership, fleet command, contacts and this list just keeps going. We are not yet establishing a firm launch date for the Sector K72 patch and are scrutinizing every little detail of the new systems before we release the build to the Beta opt-in but we will be making frequent announcements highlighting progress thus far and as always, our Terran Roadmap provides an up-to-date view from our dev team.
We still have a bit of testing and polishing before the patch is ready for release and really can’t wait to see what you make of it. Our team keeps a constant eye on the Steam Community forums and we would love to hear your comments.