Hi everyone!

You all did a great job with the Free Week-end challenge, and one of the rewards coming up are the new weapon modules! Before they go live, we'd like to have your opinion on them to make the final adjustements (and also show you a bit what they look like in action ;) ).

All content presented underneath is work in progress. Videos might be a bit long to load - don't hesitate to open them in a new tab to watch them.

Energy Squadrons

Overview

Energy Squadrons are one thing a lot were asking for, so we're bringing them! They'll be available in the Military Technology Quadrant, and as a consequence we're moving a bit every Squadron technology. There are also some Strategic variants unlockable in the Living Plague quest!

Here's what the technology tree will look like:

We've also reviewed a bit the current Squadron balance. The projectile squadrons will be more damage oriented, but more fragile - and the energy squadrons more tanky, but with less damage output. This is so it stays close to the weapon paradigm of Projectiles being high risk, high reward weapons and Energy ones being a more constant value.

In action!

Energy Bomber attacking an Unfallen ship

Energy Fighter attacking Unfallen ships

Projectile Fighters and Energy Fighters having a Duel

Swarm Missiles

Overview

Swarm Missiles fire a barrage of small missiles, with the intention of breaking through FLAK walls! Of course, their damage output is lower than standard missiles, but it can be a good way of surprising an enemy who's relying a bit too much on Kinetics. You'll be able to find various levels of the Swarm Missiles in the curiosities.

In action!

The Heart will have to contend with more than the standard missiles here...

That's a LOT of missiles!

Kinetic Railgun

Overview

Railguns are the ultimate damage dealers. Extremely powerful projectiles, that take a bit of time to recharge, they can completely ignore any type of protection and punch through Hull Plating and Shields alike. Railguns are better at close range, like other Kinetics - but unlike them, they don't have the added advantage of Flaks to defend against oncoming enemy Missiles! They're also more expensive than most modules. You'll be able to find various levels of the Kinetic Railguns in the curiosities.

In action!

Yes, Railguns are scary.

Do tell us what you think of these upcoming modules and any feedback that comes to you!

Cheers,

Kynrael wrote:

@Slashman

That's a very good point! I'll see that the Standard Missiles are targeted first to avoid that kind of effect so it doesn't become the only meta possible.

But wouldn't it be more interesting if you could actually choke enemy's flak defenses with these swarm, so regular missiles would have greater chance to deliver it's load? Like giving regular missiles only slightly more chance to be targeted among all the others instead of setting them as hard priority targets, and maybe only high-end, smart FLAK defenses having the ability to prioritizing the most dangerous projectiles effectively and reliably.

Aitarus wrote:

This is a great change - thanks once again for listening to player feedback. 

I'm not sure energy fighters/smarm missiles is the decision to have if any, I'd be cool with an exclusivity between railguns/swarm missiles since they'd be for distinct specs. Not that I think these have to be exclusive, there are only so many slots.

Not sure I'm that happy with the decision for the exact reason that that would practically eliminate any sensible mutually exclusive techs as currently seen on the tree, i.e. upon reaching a military quadrant tier you'd get ALL projectile and energy weapons (currently you have to make a permanent choice between some) without even having to research them. And I liked having to choose and the decision being a permanent one - having access to everything somehow seems less interesting in terms of not having to take any risks and no need for making costly decisions. 

The only techs thus that could even theoretically be made to be mutually exclusive would be the new ones and there really isn't much of a choice to be made in choosing between swarms and rails as that wouldn't have that much of an impact - having to choose between flak and rails as well as between swarms and conventional misslies would have been significantly more risky (and thus interesting, at least for me). 

I guess in the end this comes down to - do we want and like having mutually exclusive techs or not? *shrug*

I can't wait to utilize a working carriar strategy! I've been pushing this for ages!!

You guys can keep your railguns, I'll take my energy fighters any day of the week! :-D

But yes, the tech tree unlocks for base weapons is actually great, you could then force strategic decisions for swarm missles/energy fighters as you do with the weapons as well, to add a touch of flare.

You can't have all your eggs in one basket ya know.

Good news! We're going to switch the standard vanilla weapons (Kinetic, Missile, Beam, Laser) unlocks to the Military stage unlocks. The Railgun and Swarm Missiles will get their spots in the tech tree. :) I'll be posting soon a screenshot of the new tech tree so that everyone can have a look!

Kynrael wrote:

lo_fabre wrote:

Well, not my favourite option, but understand your reason and the people that wants a rework of military quadrant.

There's still the improvements you can get only from curiosities, some are so good...

We still want to create a sense of reward through Curiosities. It's just that in this case, the weapons are clearly seen as a core addition and people want more than anecdotical access to them. :)

I completely agree with your assessment there Kynrael.  Especially with the rail guns in my opinion.  I've been a little underwhelmed with the performance of the projectiles weapons lately and felt they have lost a bit of their relevance compaired to energy weapons of late.  I very much welcome the addition of rail guns/cannons being added to add a more direct fire projectile option and make projectile based weapons more relevant again.  But I also agree with others that adding some curiosity based "variants" that can be discovered would not be unwelcome either.  After all, all the other weapon types also have curiosity based variants as well, so it wouldn't hurt gameplay in the slightest.  But I do agree with you that the new combat modules should be part of the core weapon options.

Yeah I think we pretty much all agree that the new modules can't be RNG based via the Curiosity system. So I'm fine with either the market or having them unlock naturally in the mid tier of the military quadrant.

Naskoni wrote:

Kynrael wrote:

lo_fabre wrote:

Well, not my favourite option, but understand your reason and the people that wants a rework of military quadrant.

There's still the improvements you can get only from curiosities, some are so good...

We still want to create a sense of reward through Curiosities. It's just that in this case, the weapons are clearly seen as a core addition and people want more than anecdotical access to them. :)

Nothing stops you from putting some particularly exotic sidegrade variants of those techs into RNG, i.e. curiosities or missions or what have you, for the added flavour and variety between games. That being said IMHO the main tech, on all tiers, should be reliably obtainable every single game. Or at least, if you choose to go the mutually exclusive tech research route, i.e. reseach slugs OR rails with the other being permanently locked out, it should be the player's deliberate choice that locks them out of a tech, not RNG.

I'm thinking it can't really be a choice between slugs OR rails because one of those choices leaves you with 0 Flak options. Similarly with swarm missiles. You should have an opportunity to mix both in various ratios within your fleet. 

What would be interesting is having a support module which changes flak to a cloud deployment to better counter swarm missiles but be less efficient versus the beefier standard missiles. But that's just an idea off the top of my head.