As a second Alpha development cycle gets underway it is a good time to state the intended objectives of the cycle. The overall major goal of Alpha 2 will be to give some meaningful purpose to contracts and a greater sense of progress.
The first standard release of Alpha 2 should be this fall, while over the summer there should be experimental releases in the experimental branch.
Primary Objectives:
- Event and News systems that allow changes in contracts and markets as time progresses and news to read that describes what is changing.
- Contracts from each of the three mega corporations and from pirates.
- Faction relations, doing missions for or against factions will influence faction relations.
- 4 different markets, an open market, private markets for each corporation, and a black market for those with high relations with pirates.
- Better contracts requiring high factional relations.
- Failing missions or aborting contracts to have a negative effect on reputation and faction relations.
- Pilots gain more experience from missions/kills with diminishing returns as their gunnery increases.
- The ability to renew pilot contracts or else pilots will leave your company.
- Fired pilots can show up for hire later, no longer just disappearing permanently.
- Dropship market, allowing the buying and selling of dropships.
- Dropship bay mechanics, with mech/weight limits.
- Add fixed wing aircraft(airplanes) attack fighters.
- Replace light/medium turrets and add heavy turrets.
Secondary Objectives:
- Creating new default loadouts for all of the current mechs to reflect starting technology.
- Moving some equipment from open market to specific private corporate markets and black market.
- Reworking convoy unit AI.
- Add convoy capture and convoy defend mission types.
- Support for multiple mission layouts for random gen missions on maps, so more than one landing zone can be used.
- Add new map.
- Convert project rendering from built-in to HDRP.