Yeah thought of missing a stage too, atm it should work so that you only ever go to next form, even if you beat the whole level. Kinda breaks the logic of the transformation taking time, but can’t have you missing a form if you play well. Can’t remember if the overflow time counts towards the next step currently, but it really should.
Yeah I think people like the memorization and gradually improving, it’s a big part of shmups I think. But personally I’ve gotten a bit burnt out from grinding a game and playing the first levels over and over again. The randomized level would also have designed spawns, but the order and which ones appear would be mixed. So you kinda get memorization there too, if you start to recognize the first part of a spawn. The idea is that the ufo would only get 3 bombs max, just left it like this to have something to use the resources for, and so you can brute force the game with grinding if you just wanna see the lewds but don’t care for the gameplay.
Making them a permanent upgrade sounds good and would fix the problem I’m afraid of. Would be a pretty elegant solution tbh. But I’d really like to keep them as a consumable, even if it is problematic and/or annoying. The nursery pilots work currently so that they have to transform and then produce a core, and take one extra cycle to form a new core. The juice is produced constantly. I’m thinking I’ll show not only the total of personnel, but at which point they are in the cycle. Doesn’t remove the fact that you sometimes get lots of cores and next time none, but it would explain why it happens.
Ah sorry about the ships, worded it a bit wrong there I think. There’s currently only the one ship. In the final version I’m planning to have the current ufo ship with the max bomb limit. And another ship/armada piloted by the transformed pilots which can be loaded with bunch of bombs. Thinking the second ship would use the juice as a fuel, but it’s a bit boring to have multiple resources doing the same thing, mainly it’s for the flavor. Might need to rethink the resources a bit though, I’d love the juice to have some other use too. Maybe I will make the upgrade system: unlockable sidegrades with different movement speeds and different weapon spreads.
Yeah the randomized assignments is deliberate. It’s supposed to hammer in that the captured pilots make their own choice on how they’d like to contribute. But yeah it would make it more interesting gameplaywise, just losing a bit of the flavor there. Hmm maybe the choice where the boss pilot goes would affect all the assignments, they’d still be randomized a bit, but the largest group would always follow the boss. I’ll lore drop this here, don’t know how or where I’ll explain it in-game, possibly in a sequel. But the pilots are clones and the hypno actually breaks their programming/connection to a mother brain, hence they want to help since you gave them free will.
Hmm make the bomb like an EMP? Would destroy drones and shields but leave the ships with pilots alive. Sounds pretty good, a great QOL-change and it kinda fits the idea that the ufo is more technologically advanced. Shouldn’t be hard to implement at all I think.
Thanks so much for such a comprehensive feedback, got lots to think about.