Dev Blog #007 October 09, 2022

Hey everyone, I thought I should start sending out emails about AQ2 as the development is coming along really well, so I will send dev blog snippets via email from now on ( as well as here ). Everything is going well, I hope I can get a plan together soon for an early alpha version of the game but I am still waiting on publisher feedback before I can sort solid dates for these things.

I've been working on a lot of things since the last dev blog so I've picked a few of the bigger changes to talk about here. As always I have been through feedback from AQ1 and looked into doing some of the things I couldn't get into AQ1 due to technical limits, so there are some nice changes and features that people have been suggesting.

AML

The way missiles work in AQ2 has changed, most are now homing missiles and will track their targets until they reach their max range. So with this change I have made updates to the counters for missiles. AML being the main missile counter has had a rework and will now be slotting into the new "Surface" slot that most ships have. Activating the AML now drains constant energy but in return it will constantly attempt to shoot down any incoming missiles that are targeting your ship.

Auras

Some of the larger ships have a new "Aura" slot, allowing them to fit area of effect bonuses that can affect friendly or hostile ships around the player. The Shield booster aura will improve the
shield regeneration rate of any nearby friendly ships, any ships in your wing, or part of your corporation count as friendly for this effect.
There are also other auras that will affect enemy ships, such as the stealth disruption aura, this will cause any non friendly ship in the area to break stealth. Of course there is also the stealth aura, that will grant active stealth to any ship in the area, although this is one of the biggest and most energy intensive auras.

I'm hoping auras provide a great way for players to work as supports for their friends, allowing more cooperative gameplay.

Player Base

The player base is getting an overhaul in AQ2, all the AQ1 modules will be there including the Drone bay, Workshop and Research center, as well as a few new ones. It's getting a new look and new features for each module, with better progression and more detailed systems.

But one of the biggest changes is that the player base is shared between characters on your account. Each character can contribute resources to the upgrades and each character has access to the modules, so unlocking more advanced weapon upgrades with one character allows you to use them with any other character right away.

The reasoning behind this was due to the way character progression and the new mining and trading works. You might have one character that is 100% combat focused and you don't want to spend any time with that character shuttling back resources to the player base, or they might be a target for other players and you don't want to risk losing cargo. You could have one character that is focused on trading that you use to build up your base safely. Of course there is nothing forcing you to do this on multiple characters, you can do just fine with one, but the option is there.

Having the base shared also makes life easier if you do want to start another character, you don't need to start from nothing, I want people to feel better about trying out new things with a new character.

The other updates to the player base will be in another blog when I have more of it complete and can go into more detail.

Sector Events

I want the events in AQ2 to be much more varied and interesting, and the new real time areas allow me to be much more creative. AQ2 will still feature the big weekly events, with leaderboards and rewards but it will also have smaller mini events. These mini events are randomly generated and can pop up in any sector, they might last 30 minutes or a few hours, depending on what is happening. To join in you just need to be in that sector and take part, any rewards will be sent once the event is over.

I have a few of these in game already, such as the xeno raid where a wormhole will spawn and xeno will pour out. The object is to close the wormhole before the xeno brings their permanent gate through, if this happens then AQSec will intervene and force a conflict. Destroying the xeno and wormhole before that happens will stop the AQSec intervention and grant better rewards.

Achievements

I've added a better achievement system to AQ2, it's nothing too complicated and runs in the background giving you rewards for completing different milestones in the game. These achievements are per account and will be synced with achievements on Google, iOS and Stream.

Pre-Register

Pre-registration is now open, if you haven't already registered then head over to the AQ2 site and drop your email address in the registration form. This will flag your account so you will receive some extra rewards when the game launches.
If you have an AQ1 account with the same email address, it will also reserve your username as your character name. If you don't want to use this name, you don't have to, you will be able to rename your character in AQ2.

Updates

Because AQ2 is getting closer and closer to a playable alpha, I will update the development blog more often with progress more often, rather than waiting and doing it in one big post.

Thanks!