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Messages - Lurler

#976
Quote from: Hammish on July 11, 2014, 02:24:10 AM
Maybe radar skills for in the misc. tree?  Figure if they're gonna go anywhere they should go there or in engineering.
Yup, they are part of engineering skill tree. It is not fully complete yet, but here's what I have so far.

(click on the image to enlarge)

The mining skills are also part of engineering section, these will be grouped along with crafting and upgrading skills into one big "Industry" tree later on when we add crafting.
#977
Ideas and suggestions / Re: Some suggestions
July 11, 2014, 03:26:19 AM
Detailed energy breakdown is planned, but it won't be in the next version since it will be a part of a larger stats screen which will take quite some time to implement properly. But that is something we are definitely planning before beta.
#978
Quote from: Hammish on July 10, 2014, 03:01:11 AM
Edit: This made me remember a quick question, too, when it comes to base range version max range.  I can see a different in particle effects in the game, but how does it affect weapon numbers?  Shots just do less damage past the basic range or something?
Exactly. Past standard range it starts to do less and less damage until it hits max damage where it disappears.
So, energy weapons have very short standard range, but much bigger max range, making them very effective when you are close to the enemy, but ineffective at higher ranges, while ballistic weapons have standard and max ranges almost the same making them do almost the same damage regardless of the distance, but of course hitting anything with a slow moving projectile is much more difficult than with a laser.

And here is an update for the combat skills section.
This time I've finished the "explosives" tree.
I am not entirely satisfied with it, but I still think it is quite good.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Any feedback?

Now what is left is the misc section. I will try to think of at least a couple more skills because right now it is practically empty.
#979
Some great suggestions here, Fargham. Really appreciate it. Along with a lot of suggestions from Hellwarlord in another thread. I think I now have an idea for the combat section. I will separate it into three main trees incorporating different weapon types and... no, I think, I'd better finish it first and show a picture here instead of writing a wall of text :)

Upd:

Here are the results. First of three weapon trees.
And I quite like it. The general idea is - energy weapons are somewhat easier to use and advance down the tree to get access to higher tiers of energy weapons. Generally they are all around average weapons.
While ballistic weapons somewhat more difficult to use and to advance down the skill tree, not to mention that they may not be as convenient as energy weapons since you have to manage ammo, and bullets have travel speed, etc. But if you become pro at it you will be able to get much more returns out of them, thus making them better suitable to pro players.
But at the same time realistically looking these differences are not THAT big, so anyone could use either of these, just depending on their preferences.
So, here is the tree:

(click on the image to enlarge)

What are your thoughts?
Generally the feedback I need:
1. Do you like it?
2. Any mistakes on my part?
3. Any ideas for better skill names?
4. Did I forget anything?

What next?
Next I will work on the "Explosives" skill tree featuring missile weapons as well as mines.
#980
Quote from: Hammish on July 08, 2014, 03:45:58 PM
I'm not really aware of what attributes are actually moddable/adjustable.  :)
Well, technically everything is moddable, you can create any new effects that you like since it all is scriptable.
But for this tree even more, we can create any new effects if we like the idea.

Quote from: Hammish on July 08, 2014, 03:45:58 PM
I've started doing the same for things like shields.  As an example:
Basic Defense Tech: Everyone starts with this, gives you Civvie Shields and maybe 1-2 small upgrades.
Shield Tech 1: Gives access to the first level of 'military' shields.
Shield Tech 2: Gives access to Mk2 shields, which are roughly 50% better that Mk1.
Shield Tech 3: Gives access to specialty shields (just some weird stuff I was playing around with, like shields with a very low capacity but a very slight reset time for in-combat use, ect)
I thought about it too, but in the end I decided to leave it as is for now. Maybe we will revisit it later, but now I don't want to restrict basic parts.
Especially with new shops system that will make it a little bit harder to find the best gear.

Quote from: Hammish on July 08, 2014, 03:45:58 PM
So far as fleshing out combat, though... which weapon stats are actually changable via the skill system?
The problem with weapons is that unlike other stats that belong to the ship and thus can be easily changed by skills the weapons are actually a whole different system. So it is somewhat more difficult. We don't have any weapon effects yet, but if there are good ideas for them we can do it.

Quote from: Hammish on July 08, 2014, 03:45:58 PM
One notion that I had was to give each weapon tech unique boostable attributes; for example, maybe you could lower the energy costs or recharge rate on energy weapons, the tracking on missiles, the max ammo on mines, ect.  Or even just a raw damage increase.  Something for people to invest in after they reach Large Weapons in a category.
Yeah, that seems logical, but I still can't think of any decent way to organize that and any particular skills to make it into an interesting skill tree that is also balanced and fun.
#981
Ah. So that's what it was. We will fix that :)
#982
I am working on finally implementing the skill system for the new update and so far I am not satisfied with results at all.

Here is what I have so far. Click on the pics to enlarge.

Piloting tree

This one is quite okay. I am happy with different choices available to cater to different playstyles and in general I think it is acceptable. It is very likely that we will tweak it more, and extend with new, more interesting skills.

Combat tree

To be honest I have no idea what to put here, and how to organize it.
Additionally this small tree with access to different weapons - it works I guess, but I don't like it.

Engineering tree

I am happy with the asteroid mining part, but the rest is boring, and there are only very few skills available.

Misc tree

The social part on the right seems okay.
But that's all the skills I can think of for this category... Need more.
And the thing on the left is a list  of effects that are there but not used for any skills. I can imagine the weapon bonuses will be handy for combat tree. And shield effects might be useful for engineering tree. But I have no concrete ideas on how to do it yet.

So, that's what I have so far.

Any ideas will be really appreciated! :)

Or maybe you can design a skill system from scratch better than this one? :)


#983
I think it is something on your end.
If you open the page https://atomictorch.com/Blog/RSS in your browser you will see that links are actually working properly.

Or am I missing something? Because I never use RSS so I wouldn't really know :)
#984
Bug reports / Re: Avalanche Model issues
July 07, 2014, 02:24:32 AM
Yup, it's a bug :)
We have fixed it already in the new version.
#985
Game discussion / Re: Have you joined any faction?
July 07, 2014, 02:22:58 AM
Quote from: Hardenberg on July 05, 2014, 06:57:28 PM
Are there Any plans for making the pirate faction joinable? Or are they only there to provide a steady supply of cannon fodder?
Certainly not now as we would like to focus on three existing main factions. But if everything goes well with the game then we will definitely consider this option. It might be very interesting story playing as one of the pirates :)
We have also finished all starting quests for the Fanatics faction which you can join in the new update that we will release soon.

Quote from: Hardenberg on July 05, 2014, 06:57:28 PM
The faction quests and the writing so far were pretty good; it would probably be nice to have some "special" non-faction missions as well, in addition to the randomized ones you can get from the station commanders.
Yup, we plan these once we have the main storyline complete. There will be random NPC spawned in the world that will give you some non plot related missions and they will be different in each new galaxy you generate.
#986
I wish I can support that.
But even if you won't find people who are willing to help now I just want to say - don't dispair - we are going to release game on steam greenlight and couple of other platforms in about a month along with an insanely huge update :) So I can guarantee that once it's all out there will be much more people on the forums and playing the game in general :)
#987
Mods / Re: Breaching the Core Full Mod
June 27, 2014, 08:39:02 PM
Sounds very interesting! And I especially like the new graphics for items, might be even better than vanilla :)

But a Question... why do you need to modify the core file?

Why not make it into a normal ".mpk" file? I really see no reason why it can't be done with .mpk

Or am I missing something?

Here is an explanation on how to add new content without modifying the core file: http://wiki.atomictorch.com/VoidExpanse/modding you can modify any files this way, and not just xml, etc. You can even modify scripts as well. You can also replace existing files in core (if you have the same file in MPK it will replace the one in base game).

And here is an article on how to install mods: http://wiki.atomictorch.com/VoidExpanse/installing_mods but the simplest way of course is to use the launcher.

UPD: If you can make it into a proper .mpk file I would like to promote the mod on our website :)
#988
Modding info / Re: Modding the VoidExpanse
June 26, 2014, 03:48:12 AM
Quote from: Hammish on June 26, 2014, 03:34:33 AM
Nice!  Will look forward to it, then, along with the new ship.  Anything else major coming in terms of the way the weapon scripting works?  (That's been the majority of work I've been putting in on my little side project; am actually very close to dropping a version 0.1 down for people to test out the new light-class weapons and a slightly-revised skill tree for them.)
Well, there will be several new weapons along with GFX and SFX, including gauss cannons. You might use some of these resources in your mod.
But most of the new stuff is for the game in general. A whole lot of new stuff and fixes for the old things.
#989
Modding info / Re: Modding the VoidExpanse
June 26, 2014, 01:47:49 AM
Quote from: Hammish on June 25, 2014, 10:06:30 PM
That's about how I figured it worked, it just... doesn't seem to work in-game. :)
I actually get the same thing when I try to use the default Scatterpacks.  The mine seems to float out like it should for second and a half, looks like it explodes, but I never see any scattered projectiles come out.
Hm, it could be a bug... But either way we rewrote the mine system internally to make it better so even if it was a bug it will now work for sure. It will be in the new release.
#990
Game discussion / Re: ships and "classes"
June 24, 2014, 09:24:56 AM
That is right. Any class can use any ships as long as your character has the necesarry skills.

And the current skill tree is a placeholder, we will be replacing it with much more diverse and interesting tree later.

The characters - when we have a proper skill tree in place we will make each character different - having different starting skills as well as possibly having some unique skills. Some unique items as well possibly. We will see ;)

As for ships - well, we are adding at least one ship with each major update. We will continue doing that in the future as well.