Dev Blog #010 April 18, 2023

The 10th development blog!

I keep saying I should do these more often and I'm going to say it again, but I get distracted while developing the game and then I keep adding more and more to the blog so it takes ages to get it complete. But, I will try to do it more often, even if it's just about a single feature.

Scanning

For a while now I've wanted a way for players to interact with things in space, so I've implemented a generic "scanning" feature. You can now fly up to wreckages, derelicts and other space objects and scan them with the potential to find resources or even mission info.
Scanning is also used when taking loot from shipwrecks, more on that below.

Looting/Salvaging/Deconstruction

I've updated ship wreckage to now have separate loot and salvage items.
Looting: Lootable items can be collected by any ship, you don't need any special turrets, items are extracted in a few seconds and placed in your inventory or cargo hold.
Salvage: Along with loot ships also have salvageable items, however these require using a salvage laser to extract. Salvage is generally more valuable and can consist of turrets and fittings as well as other items the ship might have had in their cargo hold.
Deconstruction: Using a deconstruction laser you can gather raw materials and ores from wreaks, this is handy if your ship has a larger ore hold than cargo hold as you can top up your mining efforts with some extra resources. However, wrecks deteriorate over time until they are completely destroyed and using a deconstruction laser speeds this process up, eventually destroying the wreckage completely if you extract too much.

Station Storage

Previously you could store an unlimited amount of ships and items at whatever station you wanted, but this was really confusing when trading and moving items between your ship and the station. So I made the change to remove all station storage and you can now only use your ships hold, this seems more restrictive but it makes much more sense and is more intuitive.
You still have unlimited(ish) storage at your homebase, so if you are stocking up on resources while they are cheap you can store them all there.

Drones ( Player Base )

I've been working on the new drone system for your base. It's similar to the system in AQ1 where you send them off and they will return in a set amount of time, allowing you to make some offline progress.
However in AQ2 they are much better, you now scan for signals around your homebase, once you scan for new targets they will be available for a limited time, until their signal expires. This allows you to select the type of missions you want to send your drones on, rather than it being random.
Drone signals have different quality levels that indicate how long they will take and how good the loot will be.
Drones can return resources but can also find new missions and other information.
I'm also looking at maybe having different drone types like combat, resource and some kind of scanner drone. Then I could add even more interesting things your drones could do.

Research

Research can be looted from the wreckage of ships, or discovered by scanning objects in space. Once enough research fragments are collected they can be decoded at your homebase to unlock more powerful versions of turrets, fittings and other ship component.
You can then craft the new items at your homebase using the workshop.

Contacts

Every NPC you can talk to is now part of a new Contact system in the game. Each NPC will have its own homebase, profile image and biography.
The contacts system is the base system for all the missions and story in the game.
The idea is that every NPC has a "presence" in the Aquila system and you can vist them at whatever station they are based at.

Hunts

Hunts have been added, hunts are new single player areas that offer rewards for destroying a set target. These can be found all over the galaxy and are graded by difficulty.
Hunts are single player areas and get progressively more difficult the higher your reputation gets. Hunts are also hand made, so they contain some narrative and unique elements to them, they are not just simple go-and-kill missions.

Interface

I've also been sorting out all the screens in the game and making sure they are usable and look nice.
This also involves a lot of work fixing up any bugs and even redesigning some screens completely, it takes a lot of time but it's worth it.

Streaming

I've also been streaming progress and answering questions live.
You can find the streams here: www.twitch.tv/crunchsack You can also view the recordings on Twitch or on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@sevenpointred

Thanks for reading and I hope you like the new features!