Planned Changes: August 2023

Welcome back. This month's update will be focused on misc backend improvements alongside combat related content.

Perk Handler Enhancements

I'll be continuing to work on the perk handling system this month. There's still a lot of things I'd like to be able to do that I currently can't, and the more I add to it the more it drives content.

Support for additive-multiplier modifiers will be added, in addition to the existing geometric ones. So +25% and +25% will be either +50% or +56% depending on additive or geometric.

Internally I'll be changing how the perk handler manages if a perk is enabled/disabled. Right now it's a boolean which causes weirdness when two sources can modify the same perk's state, so it'll be changed to a counter.

Potentially allowing weapons to grant perks. This will mainly be useful for support type weapons. I'll also be making it so abilities/shields can grant multiple perks instead of just one.

I'll also be working towards tech for dynamic stat modifiers in active perks. This would be like "give X bonus for every Y condition", which will also itself have the possibility to change during combat. One example would be changing Frontline Operations (get a buff for having 3 enemy ships nearby) to work gradually rather than as a boolean enabled/disabled. The upgrades for this should also in theory enable even more stuff down the road. For instance I want to look into letting ships/crew have individual modifiers unique to them, making each one somewhat unique, and I believe implementing the above would allow it. It may also enable me to make status effects more gradual in effect if I want to go that route.

Data cleanup

I will be doing work to restructure some of the weirder aspects of ship data, mainly merging some fields and decoupling others.

Weapons:

I'll be adding in a boolean flag to projectile weapons, which will enable their autofiring arc to become a full circle and not require a raycast check in order to fire at their targets. This will be very useful for indirect fire weapons like missiles.

Abilities:

Abilities will have a heat per second attribute, which will allow for more possibilities for abilities that are toggle based rather than single use.

I also plan to add more abilities. Lower priority so they might not all make it, but here's some ideas I'm playing with.

• System Reset: Puts all abilities of nearby enemies into cooldown
• Missile Swarm: For every enemy fighter in range, spawn several SRMs to track them
• Rapid Resupply: For all weapons that regenerate ammo over time for all allies in range, set their ammo to max.
• Reverse Thrusters: Boosts the ship backwards
• Strafing Run: Increases strafe speed for a few seconds
• Phasic Armor: Turns the ship's armor almost invulnerable while active. Generates heat while in use and disables passive venting. Also slows the ship down.
• Override Protocols: Grants Critical perk while active