Progress update - 9/29/17

[Stellar Tactics]

Hi everyone - hope you had a great week. I'm going to post these every Friday so you know how things are coming along with space combat and other content.

This week:
--All 40 ships are now combat ready and playable by both the AI and the player.
--The combat pause system is in. When you pause combat the entire universe stops allowing you to pan your camera to get a better sense of the environment around you, turn turrets on and off, target enemies and turrets individually, review scanning data and manage your energy. While combat is paused you can also review inventory, character info, log data, the universe map and all ship data including swapping team members to various ship stations in the ship UI.
--Combat damage tables are complete and balanced as far as I'm going to take them for now - I'll tweak things once you get a chance to play with space combat and I gather feedback.
--Shield damage mitigation is in and working. Shields mitigate different types of damage based on the quality of the shield you have equipped. You can buy and loot varying quality tiers of ship equipment so as you explore, your ship's equipment will improve (and so will the AI).
--I'm working on the ship scanning system today which is nearly finished. The team member assigned to the electronics station of the ship UI gains experience from scanning and as they improve in skill will gain perks that you can customize. Scan data will provide you with more/better information. Some of the info you won't get at lower levels of scanning skill are enemy turret damage ratings and shield mitigation bonuses.

A few things about space combat and shields:

• Ion weapons can turn the tide of battle and are very important. This weapon type is a shield killer and comes in three varieties - projectile, beam and missile. You can of course choose to equip any type of weapon you like, however, if you scan a ship and it has multiple Ion weapons and you do not, you should run or make sure your ship can handle the damage.
  
• Ion weapons do increased damage against shields which is then mitigated by the shields ion resistance ratings.
  
• Ion weapons do very little damage against ship armor.
  
• Non Ion "beam" weapons do 1/2 damage against combat shields and are then mitigated by the shield resistance rating for that damage type.

So, beam weapons are not very useful against shields unless they are Ion based. Depending on the number of mounts you have on your ship, you may want to balance your weapons accordingly. I was trying out a matched enemy ship that had two ion weapons, a missile turret, and two Gauss cannons. I had 2 missile launchers and a few Gauss cannons and the other ship tore me up. I think the key here is picking your fights. I would have been fine against another ship with matching equipment. If I had quality shields that were attuned to Ion damage, I would have likely survived.

And now for something different!
Missiles come in three base types - explosive, thermal and ion. I'll be adding a warhead settings menu for each missile type that lets you customize their payload for specific purposes like disabling turrets/engines, evading ECM and chaff, range/damage, splash damage and a few other settings. Settings for missiles are a trade-off - each of the below can increase/decrease damage based on how you set up the missile. Missiles are configured once and all missiles of that type use those settings until you change them. This may not be in for the initial release of space combat.

• Setting the missile for longer range adjusts damage values down and conversely shorter range increases missile damage
  
• Setting missiles to evade ECM and chaff will reduce damage output, however, they are more likely to evade active countermeasures.
  
• Splash damage reduces damage and affects more sub-systems (Shields/Turrets/Engines etc)
  
• Targeting specific systems increases damage to that system and reduces damage the hull of the enemy ship once the shields are down.

At least that's the plan. Once I get the warhead settings menu in place I'll play test it to see if the system is practical.

In other news a third mission set is being worked on now that the caves are done. It's shaping up nicely and will go in the game after space combat is finished. I'll share a screenshot once the lighting is finished.

Until next week...

[almostpilot]

Interesting, I can not wait to experience this combat in space.

[rebelwolf75]

Can't wait...

[wendigo211]

Looking good, keep up the hard work!

[Hanekem]

Not sure about Thermal damage from missiles, I mean, an explosion should do that... or you mean the Thermal are using nuke pumped lasers? I'd love it if were the case, that is a type of weapon most SF games tend to ignore, even thoughi t is both incredlibly cool and not very difficult to make (it is within our current irl capabilities to do so, It is 70s tech....)

[/\/\ega\/olt]

Sounds wicked, you are making amazing progress with this. :) Looking forward to playing next patch :) Ion weapons :D Love the direction you are going with the combat system :D

[Stellar Tactics]

Here is the screenshot I promised:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1154119278

This is another one of the procedural mission sets being built. Still needs to be populated with objects, enemies etc. This set will work just like the KZ-MR7 set once it's finished and populated into the mission generator allowing for unlimited procedural missions throughout the universe.

Another set was just finished (caves) and is being lit and will then be populated. I shared that in last weeks update.

Just a note that the game has procedural and static locations. Static sets are story locations in the game that are not generated by the mission generator. They are custom built similar to the Dauntless, Halamis Ore, the Slice Mines, etc.

[Stellar Tactics]

Hanekem - thermal damage comes from both beam weapons (lasers and plasma projectile and beams specifically) and missiles with thermal detonators which are in essence mini-nukes that generate contained plasma fields that apply concentrated thermal damage. At least that's the plan right now.

[Hanekem]

Originally posted by Stellar Tactics:

Hanekem - thermal damage comes from both beam weapons (lasers and plasma projectile and beams specifically) and missiles with thermal detonators which are in essence mini-nukes that generate contained plasma fields that apply concentrated thermal damage. At least that's the plan right now.

Then what is the difference with Explossive? Don't want to sound like a nitpicker but I am having issues seeing much diff between the two. or is it meant to be Kinetic? (kkvs?)

[Stellar Tactics]

No problem. Explosive and kinetic are impact damage. Thermal damage is heat designed to melt armor plating. Explosive/kinetic is designed to bend, tear and dent armor. Ion is designed to deplete shields. Explosive generates kinetic damage. There is some heat generated by both kinetic and explosive damage.

Kinetic damage is applied by explosive missiles and kinetic turrets. Combining thermal and kinetic is ideal because you weaken the structural bonds of armor plating with heat and then destroy it with kinetic damage. This can be accomplished with thermal missiles and kinetic weapons or thermal beam and projectile weapons and kinetic projectiles.

[Black Mist]

loving the game so far, cant wait to get out into space then think to myself "what are the chances of me slamming into a rock? " hehe cant wait

[Stellar Tactics]

Hi Toigan1 - Glad to hear you are enjoying the game. Lots of rocks in space to hit, though your shields should be able to handle it ;)

[chookahead]

I like where you're heading with space combat. Look forward to hearing more.