Hi everyone,
The beta release for update 1.2 is rapidly approaching and I have some more details to share in this weeks update.
First lets look at some more details on the Wings functionality Wing Beacons. Player wings exist to enable cooperative game play. One of the neat features wings use to support this notion is the wing beacon. This nifty little device allows you to send a signal from normal space into the systems super cruise environment.
Your wing will be able to see the signal - regardless of distance - as long as they are in super cruise in the system; they can use it just like a wake and drop down to your location.
The wing beacon also leaves the door open for future updates to trigger game events from it, such as distress calls to nearby Commanders and AI ships for example. But right now it makes all the difference when you drop into your wings system; with a simple flick of a switch, your team members will be able to instantly lead you to their position.
Wings also brings an overhaul for comms. The most obvious change is the ability to transmit open broadcasts. Such text messages will now be received by all ships nearby. Of course, you can toggle your ships ability to receive such broadcasts at will.
Weve also popped in some text line syntax, allowing you to /T talk directly to the ship youve targeted, /R respond to the ship that last talked directly to you, as a well as /W talk to your wing. When you join a wing, you will by default send communications to them, but you can quickly toggle this option when you type your message.
Another change related to comms is that commanders docked in starports will now remain on your contact list so you can chat with them while docked.
Another aspect weve looked into is the operating costs on ships, so in 1.2 weve performed a balance pass on repair costs. This change should really help Commanders make profit from combat roles: as long as they dont die, their repair costs should not eat away all of the profit they might be making from bounties and the like.
Balancing the various economies and risks in the game is an ongoing affair, so this probably wont be the last change we make, but we believe lowering repair costs is on the safer side, so its a good candidate to test out and bed in first.
Weve also added a cool new feature for people with damaged modules. Were activating diagnostics repair-reboot functionality on all ships. Whilst still not a match for an automatic field-maintenance module, this function allows a ship to reboot and jury-rig completely broken modules, getting them back up and running at a couple of percent health. Of course, theres a cost: for every percent of health repaired, another, healthier module will be stripped of double this amount as components are cannibalised.
For people wanting to take screenshots or look at their own ships were also unlocking a debug camera. This allows you take limited control of the camera outside of your ship. This isnt a gameplay camera and is purely a debug function to allow players to see their ship.
Looking beyond the 1.2 release we have the Mac beta, still scheduled for the end of March. Beyond that we have the 1.3 update and well share more information on that update soon.
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