Last blog post was only 4 days ago!
But to tell you the truth we have so much to share with you.
2023 is going "up" in speed and we are doing the same in communication.
The "developer insider" is a format which is content and information oriented so you won't find much about marketing here. This is just developers sharing some content, in many many words with the community. And I plan to continue to use this format for that.
Contrary to so many other projects you also won't hear about a "new legendary card" sold separately and that would be "directly sold" in a "limited series" that you must "get now" before "it is too late", and us doing that every 3 months.
EXODE will continue to be playable with the entirety of its game features at 10 USD. And at more USD to enjoy even more strategic space and cooperative options.
And of course Evacuation Missions will be accessible for all EXODE pilots without requiring any more funds.
NEW EXODE LOGO
Before we continue with other content let's first share that we have created a new logo for EXODE.
You have several versions below depending on the background you would like to put them on, and some examples. So make your pick!
You can use on logo on your own EXODE fansites and communications, as long as you mention our website and game too and don't impersonate us.
We will deploy a fansite ZIP archive with all logo and communication materials you may use.
The ZIP archive will have better formatting and resized effects.
TECHNOLOGIES of 2325
Let's get back to 2325 content now!
Ships and technologies are extremely detailed in EXODE but like everything else it will just "work on its own" with an intuitive design people can always understand.
Ships have engines and hyperdrive modules and they will just "work on their own" when you plan a movement.
Today we will take a closer look at your defense systems.
To make your ship "survive" you usually have:
- an energy-powered Shield, which is like a force field reacting to kinetic and energy threats to your ship and "blocking" them usually at a distance. It consumes a lot of energy.
- armor layers over the structure of the ship to protects it against all kind of harm. It does not consume energy. Armor can be quite vulnerable to a number of threats, from plasma to heat and armor penetration weapons, but some armor is also specialized against them.
- the structure of the ship itself which can absorb a number of "holes" to it before making the ship non viable for combat.
- and a varied number of modules and equipments which can sustain a hit before it becomes no longer operable. A destroyed module may still keep the ship and crew able to do the rest of what the ship is planned to do, but losing any module usually removes one of the available duties.
Of course you also have pilots, manoeuvrability, ability to dodge or ECM something to make it "not" hit you.
All this works automatically.
You don't have to micro-manage this on every ship.
In addition, even if we detail below several kind of protection technologies you don't exactly have to handle "where the hits come from" or how energy output is handled. Ship crew will handle all this on its own with the ship AI doing it for you.
Good officers will set their "front shields" as fully powered when the threat is upfront, bad ones will react late and leave them balanced.
What you CAN do, however, is modifying your story ships and picking some equipments on an ingame market which can fit your strategy better.
Breakshields are "front-only" shields which also benefit from speed thanks to an intricate formula. If you are fast and must face a great face in front of you, they are the answer. Using "breakshields" for ships which must desperately "break through" an alien formation may be an essential.
PDC shielding relies on "Point Defense Concentration technology" - setting all defensive energy on a single point of impact - and is better used against aliens when you have officers brain-wired to the ship mantle. Using PDC shields if you are facing "veilspeed weapons" is a must.
This also means that brain-wired PDC is not meant for longterm engagement ; as brain-wiring has a strong tendency to kill users if used for too long. PDC without brain-wiring is also less effective.
But breakshields are inexistant if you are attacked from behind.
If you break through a line but the enemy can "turn" and engage pursuit, it's very bad for you.
PDC is also weak against missiles, torpedoes, multiple projectiles and all area-hitting weapons.
So as you will read below, picking the right defense may not always be an automatic choice.
Let's share some of the current concepts with you!
Note: all equipments and technologies have some kind of "pseudo-scientific" principles, so please don't challenge the science more than you would in a video game, or try to make this in your lab. We still do our best to be semi-realistic.
Note 2: we detail all this as they are part of procedurally generated content but this does not have they have a strong 'mechanical relevance' in your interactions.
Weapons may be more important for you than shields, for instance.
Number of ships and how big and resistant they are may be more important than their shield systems.
But 2325 is a 'solid universe', and understanding its available technologies is part of the immersive experience how unique every ship or technology will be.
Phase Shields (Shield Technologies)
Phase shields belong to the category of "omni-shields" and usually block damage at a long distance. As such they may be of importance when facing projectiles, asteroids or missiles as they absorb the entirety of the shock wave at "a safe distance" ; space is a vacuum but here the shock will be "blocked" by the shield itself and will spread its charge all over its surface.
The area of phase shields is all around the ship, covering all possible angles.
As such they need a strong generator and phase shields were mostly used by capital ships before being accessible to smaller ship classes such as frigates and corvettes.
Some omni-shields are not used at a long distance. These are called omni-shields or Pattern One (or Pattern I). They have become obsolete but are still found on numerous old ships in the galaxy.
The problem of omni-shields (covering all area around the ship) is that they usually spend a great deal of energy covering all angles equally whereas threats usually comes from a "known direction" (the one of your enemy). This makes it less effective than "directional shields" such as Pattern II to IV described below, or the PDC system, which better concentrates defensive energy toward the threat itself.
Another strategy is also to "saturate" omni-shields with fire as less accuracy is required to hit an omni-shield.
For that reason there exists a refinement, called Pattern I-SB, which "sticks" to the body of the ship and is considered more energy-efficient (it consumes a lot less energy and cannot be satured with vaguely aiming at the target). I-SB has a stronger issue with shock waves however or versus shield penetration weaponry.
Directional Shields (Shield Technologies)
Directional shields are commonly found on ships but exist in numerous versions.
The Pattern Two (Pattern II) defines two areas of defense with the front and the rear and activates separate shield defenses on each. P2 are often adjustable, allowing the pilot to concentrate defense on front or back, for instance. Another variation of the Pattern Two, much rarer, is the 2S which plans for two sides (left and right) instead of front and rear and was used for some time on 'ships of the line' engaged in large fleet battles.
The Pattern Three and Pattern Four define more areas.
Pattern Three is the most found on federation and drachian navies, meaning the largest military forces in human starfleets. It defines three defensive areas. The usual model has large front-right and front-left areas projected at mid-distance and a third smaller zone with the rear. Another model often used for military cargo and utility ships is "reversed", with a small front area and two large rear-left and rear-right areas.
The advantage of Pattern Three is that military ships facing each other will "spread hits" on both front sides while also allowing to "power up" an adjusted energy on a single direction if required. Cargo ships are usually ambushed and attacked in pursuit from the rear hence the difference in their model.
Pattern Four is mostly found on civilian ships and has four areas (front, rear, left and right) ; it is usually considered as an inefficient use of energy by military forces as they are often engaged in front or side combat and do not switch sides that often during combat. They still are considered viable in dogfights.
Special Directional Shields (Breakshields)
Breakshields are usually found on military ships or civilian - or should we say criminal - assault ships such as Myrmidon-class ships. They cover a large front area at an average distance.
Breakshields are powered up by the usual generator but are also associated with kinetic propulsion or turbo drive in a scientific formula that "boosts" the shield itself the more "speed" is attained or powered up by the ship. They can only project the shield up front. It works up to a limit but makes it the ideal shield to "charge through" an enemy blocus.
Breakshields are also some of the worst for dogfights if the enemy is more manoeuvrable than you are ; as they provide no cover if a hit comes to your six.
Note: they will be translated in french as "bouclier-de-casse".
Special Directional Shields (Umbrellas)
Umbrella shields are rare and require the pilot to "deploy" the shield in a global direction and then "move it" according to where he perceives the next threat will come from.
They usually work at mid or long distance to make them an effective protection.
They can provide a great protection but must be "removed" after a short duration then summoned back before the next hit.
They are perfect against missiles but much less effective in dogfights or when receiving a sustained fire from a moving enemy.
PDC (Point Defense Concentration)
PDC is the most modern shield technology and is usually combined with brain-wiring an officer to the shield mantle. As described above and in this article about shield technology PDC is anticipated to be the most effective against veilspeed weapons. Which is good as aliens seem to use them.
It concentrates all shield energy on a single point of impact.
As such they are great against veilspeed weapons which concentrate their force on a single point.
But nothing can tell if aliens use "only" veilspeed weapons or if they use "accurate" single-point-of-impact weapons. And you may also face other threats such as rebels or pirates which are not using veilspeed weapons.
The PDC concept is almost entirely defeated when faced with multiple projectiles (unless you have a crack genius handling the ship mantle with a super-fast reaction time) or when hit with area-wide weapons.
But it is also the most effective against single-point-of-impact weaponry.
Some extremely rare shields have dual shield systems.
This is the case on some military prototypes.
Some capital ships also have multiple PDC systems.
Game development
We are running combat tests and refining our procedural content from their feedback. At the moment our content is not balanced enough for a release, it will need some days until we will have everything fine-tuned.
We are running a bit late on our screens. We have welcome a new art director as intern but screen design will still have, at least for now, to be run by me.
The team has also been busy lately as we are interviewing people for a front developer position!
The position has been opened as intern but we aim to convert it as a full employee if the person is of epic quality. Just like we have done in the past for our artists, as we recruited one artist (of legendary quality of course!) as full-time employee last year.
That's all pilots!
Thank you for your patience and see you in our next insider!
As you can see, they come out fast these days.
Oh, and feel free to comment about our logo and technologies!
For the logo we know plenty other routes would have been possible: how about representing starbases or ships in the logo itself? but right now it would be too loaded. Maybe we will see a logo customization community contest before the end of the year?
At the moment we are very proud to get further from 'our old logo' which was a bit wrong, generic and post-apocalyptic.
We'll see how things evolve next. Our next step in presentation will be to "animate" this logo nicely.
Our objective will be to trigger the imagination of players with a thoughtful music and atmosphere while animating the letters of our new EXODE identity, and triggering something "fearful" about aliens or a sense of wonder about the immensity of space and the future of technology.
We think our current logo are very compatible with that and expressing some artistic and immersive atmosphere has always been part of EXODE. We are going forward!