Space Update : Some infos

From Hjal :

Just a quick update as I've been silent the last couple of day... disclaimer, since I'm still working on the things mentioned things can and probably will changeJ:

- Nym's should now be repeatable. It took a little longer since the code didn't really support what I wanted it to do so I had to rewrite the way the quest works (none of this should be visible when playing the game). This will mean that if you have any of the old scrolls lying around, they probably wont work after the update, but with the low respawn time this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

- Lord Cyssc should now be repeatable. If you've completed the quest and gotten the badge you can now talk to Gursan Bryes again and he will give you a slightly different version of the quest. (Same ships, same functionality, the target is now just a 'Blackscale Leader'. The quest will give out one of four different ships guns: the Vengeance Ion Cannon, Ionic Pulse Cannon, Trando Repeater or the Heavy Ionic Pulse Cannon.

- The new duty missions should now be avilable at space stations. Currently they are split up based on the tier of the duty mission:

Tatooine, Corellia and Naboo will offer tier 1 and 2 missions.

Lok and Yavin4 will offer tier 3 missions.

Dantooine, Endor and Dathomir will offer their 4 and 5.

Currently the factional tier 5 missions will take you to Kessel. I placed the factional missions there since I'm not sure what the effect would be in terms of planet scores and the upcoming GCW updated part 2.

The vendor that will accept the tokens granted by the duty missions is working though I need to get him placed somewhere. And the poor guy needs a name, he's currently 'An unknown creature'... any suggestions?

- I currently got a proto type system for getting to and from Kessel and Deep Space running on my machine. This should help even things out for the different factions when it comes to getting back into the fight. I'll get into more details once I've made sure that my prototype won't blow up in my face

- I'm currently looking into engine speeds. I got the schematic for a new elite engine and I'm researching the pre and post nerf speeds on Tier 6 and 10 engines. Though so far I can say that I won't return them directly to their un-nerfed speeds (I'm not sure a level 10 engine with a raw 142 TS would be a good idea ).

I'm going to head off again, but hopefully this will at least give everyone an idea of what going on.

Message edited by Hjal on 02/11/2010 20:40:20.

I now got three working droid commands working that allows pilots to go to Kessel or Deepspace without being dependant on the factional stations in Dantooine, Dathomir and Endor.

They work the same way as other droid programs. You get them on a programming chip and can then use the chip to add the command to an Astro-mech or a Flight computer. Each command has a programming size of 1.

There's three commands, one for entering Kessel regardless of faction, one for entering Deep Space as a Rebel and one for entering Deep Space as an Imperial.

You activate it the same way you activate a droid overload command, once activated it'll take around 25-30 seconds before you are transported to the destination. When entering Kessel you are simply placed at the correct location based on your pilot faction. If you are trying to enter deep space you have to be either the correct faction or neutral in both space and ground to enter. In other words, neutral privateers can use both Deep Space commands, the command used will determine what side they will be on when they arrive. If you are either a rebel pilot or a rebel on the ground you cannot enter as an imperial. Of course the opposite is true for the rebel command.

I haven't decided how the commands will become available yet, it depends on what else I got on the todo list and how much time I'll have available to get everything done.

In other news...

The Heavy Ionic Pulse Cannon is a pretty regular level 10 gun though it uses the same particle effect as the level 7 IPC. As mentioned earlier I don't want to try tweaking the level of the weapon after the fact. I'll keep in mind that a level 9 gun would be more interesting than more reward level 10's. The only reason it's there is that I came across it while investigating the other Kashyyyk reward guns. Since it was 95% complete and wasn't used for anything I added it for a little diversity and something new.

Regarding the poor ‘An Unknown Creature; Using Watto is a great idea. I'll have to look and see just what other scripts and functions he's hauling around. If it's a fairly simple matter to use him as the vendor I'll probably do that, if it looks like it would be a lot of work I'll probably do something else.

I like the idea of adding a bonus to the number of tokens you earn if you are Special Forces. I'm not going to double the amount but I will add some kind of bonus, probably something to the effect of 25-50%. The reason for not going double is that I'm worried that it would breed the perception that you ‘have' to be special forces for it to ‘be worth it' to gather loot. While a bonus can be an incentive to try out PvP, if it's too big, I'm worried that it can end up driving people away from space altogether. For now I'd rather err on the side of caution.

Also I'm not going to try to dig into giving out tokens for PvP kills. While it might be a good idea, it involves parts of the code that I've never touched; as such it would take a fair bit of time to sort through. I'm not necessarily against the idea but it probably won't happen for GU16.

Regarding the engine speeds I realize it's a controversial point. I'll continue to read all feedback regarding this, but my take on this is still that there need to be a form of balance between crafted and RE'd components. The RE'ed components have always had the natural advantage of being able to max out all the stats whereas the crafted components always have to make sacrifices based on how you choice to experiment on the item. I do feel that level 6 and 10 engines could use a nudge upwards, but I also feel that crafted engines should remain the fastest option in compensate for the lower handling and higher RED.

Another item is how to introduce any changes to engine speed. One option is to add a new engine with random stats but the potential to have slightly higher speeds in the same fashion as the QID. This engine could then be available as a random drop or a special reward or something else altogether. I'm a bit hesitant to just increase speeds.

Someone mentioned drop rates on some of the Nova-Orion mobs. I went through the list and found that the drop rates on those ships were very uneven, some were really high, some really low, especially given their high level. I've increased the drop rate on the really low so they should be more in line with what you'd expect from most ships out there.

Anyways, I'll keep reading the feedback on the forums, have a great weekend everyone.



Message edited by Hjal on 02/12/2010 20:50:23.