Welcome back pilots!
Today is Tom's Tuesday!
This is the happy day when Tom Settler contracts drop their new cards.
But this Tuesday is even more special for all contracts:
Maybe it will be known as the contract best day now.
Because we are revealing a whole new range of utility to contracts.
In feature preview today you will discover:
- more about the franchise system,
- more about how to upgrade and customize contracts,
- more about what cards can be used and how, gaining a new feature to all EXODE cards,
- and why alpha contracts and their drops are now becoming stronger than ever!
How about pushing contract and EXODE uniqueness further?
Read and find out!
The new shop franchises
Let's take two of our new beta contracts for our examples:
The Starbase Shop Franchise and the Street Shop Franchise!
The first will drop you fine wares from 2325 every week, adding new implants, software but mostly colonization tools.
Such as this one:
Well actually, this is not true, this one is an elite version so it can still happen but will be a rare card.
So of course it's shinier. Note that in Beta, many elite cards will have a different artwork than their regular version! This is something we'll add too to some cards in alpha!
But maybe you think having some equipment items is not much already.
So let's get deeper and further:
first I would like to share with you some words about the franchise system.
THE CONCEPT OF FRANCHISE:
I will first mention something you may have read on the shop or our articles but which is part of all these shop packs. In additional to all its standard contract features the starbase shop it is also a franchise card.
Every month once beta starts we look at all starbase shops and will drop a special legendary card.
Every single contract pack has chances to be picked:
So the more contracts of that type you hold, the more chances you will have!
But Lady Luck aways works on its own will so even with a few contracts, you may just as well be picked sometimes. This happens!
There is someone named @slabakbg who has regularly been a knowledgeable friend of Lady Luck. And he knows a big lot about EXODE too, so be sure to check again his video tutorials about EVAC. Speaking of EVAC, remember to always check our discord and "resources" channels because we have all the latest guides there too!
As you can guess the special monthly legendary will be something extremely rare:
as rare as some promo cards are for instance!
But surely you certainly have heard about the franchise special rule.
In that case I have something even more outstanding.
I am now going to share with you the specific upgrade system we are deploying with beta. Sit tight, I think this one is another strong feature.
Your contract pack works on its own but in beta - or actually, even before - you will be able to commit cards to upgrade it. Let's see more about this now!
Contract Packs receive new upgrade slots!
Every Starbase shop (and Street shop) begins with two new attributes:
a commercial power and a brand reputation.
All attributes start at 100, making it simple to understand.
If you are at 100, then you have a normal power in both.
- Commercial power is a permanent score and increases chances for better drops, chances for more drops, and also how likely your contract is to be picked for the legendary card.
In addition when we will deploy the EXOFUEL currency we will add it among possible drops for such contracts. So there will be a small chance to also pick that depending on how you have upgraded your shop. And this chance will be increased with the same attribute!
- Brand reputation works the exact same way but loses some of its score every week (until it comes back to 100). It can also be more easily increased, giving you an option to try to "power level" your contract pack for a few weeks and see what happens in your drops!
How to improve contracts:
Some cards can be sacrificed (this means burned) to immediately improve your shop!
They can give a huge temporary bonus to brand reputation and and a lower lasting bonus to commercial power. Other cards can do the opposite, giving you more commercial power.
As if increasing your chances for a legendary drop or better weekly drops is not enough, once you have improved your contract pack enough you will also unlock upgrade slots. It even works like leveling on characters.
At some "shop levels" you will be able to choose among several upgrade paths, and will unlock a slot of one type or another. We could also add "new dropped cards" that you unlock with this leveling.
We are going to have a lot of fun with shops, making it look closer to inventing "Recettear in space" or something :D and because it's collection features and not "game screens" you can be reassured too: it can be implemented much faster.
Want to equip softwares on your starbase shop? there will be an upgrade path for that!
Want to equip vehicles? you can pick that too!
Or maybe a universal slot? this is possible but this may have a bit less power.
You picked a new slot when leveling your shop?
Once you have unlocked a new slot you will be able to put a card there.
A card equipped there will be like something supplied to your 2325 shops to improve its service and reputation.
If it is a vehicle slot, you can put (almost) any vehicle there and it will grant several kinds of bonuses: some of these bonuses will be related to your slot but some could also be related to the card you put there, and especially its faction and elite level!
The equipped card is also not lost:
it is locked to your contract but you'll be able to unlock it and get the card back.
Contracts equipped with cards are the best:
Once we come to the day where you contract drops cards the server will check your contract pack and its slots and equipped cards.
This is when the effect of these cards will apply!
Some cards can make your contract pack gain some new commercial power at this moment or even new attribute with effects.
For instance, some elite Tom Settler cards can increase a new "Tom Elite Sponsorship" attribute on your contract pack which will increase effects of Tom cards further.
Contract packs then participate to a new fun "collection gameplay" where players can burn cards, equip cards and customize their assets to extend their power!
Alpha Contracts expand their utility exponentially!
We hope you found this new "upgrading contracts" feature as something interesting.
Achean Gangs, Esdrovian Armor Docks and Vogan Shipyards will also benefit from this feature, in their own way.
So you may think Alpha contracts are put aside here?
Well, actually, they are not!
All alpha contract drops are now considered essentials for whoever wants to make their beta contracts better.
Alpha contracts actually drop the cards which are dramatically more adapted to upgrade your shop cards!
The Street Shop for instance can actually gain reputation by burning "Syndicate drug cards". The Street shop also unlocks several slot types all compatible for Syndicate cards.
As one of several examples, if you unlock a weapon slot you can benefit greatly from putting a Syndicate or Rekatron weapon there.
If you unlock a protection crew slot you will be able to equip syndicate squad cards here. The best Syndicate squad leaders are the way to unlock an EXOFUEL drop chance on your contract!
As you can see, there is a new synergy with alpha contracts which has been added here.
And also, incidentally (and this is something important to us as gamers) it always fits the theme.
Syndicate crew actually "scoop" these street shops of their money to pay for their protection... so if you go the Syndicate way, you can do that too!
Something to conclude is that:
The more interested a player is in a beta contract, the more interested he will be too in alpha content!
We believe it's a nice concept and addition to EXODE features, adding further uniqueness and utility. The new burning mechanics will be useful, and the new equippable and upgradable cards will contribute further.
Also to remain fair and simple, nothing is forced - you can use your beta contract without this!
But you'll certainly come to be interested into it especially considering the current prices of alpha contract drops!
So it's time to scout these cheap alpha contract drops and steal all the best cards!
And of course it's also still time to acquire a beta contract - they are still available on EXODE website!
Note: there has been many reports of exchanges preventing HIVE from being withdrawn following the last hard fork! But we have you covered! We will be extending the reservation time to make sure players do not have any frustration here!
Also, if you managed to take all your allowance already and you are interested in taking more beta contracts during this presale: please note that all remaining contracts (up to the soft limit) will be made available once the reservation time ends!
Reservation time was planned to last 10 days but we are extending it by a few more days. We'll make sure up to reveal more about this in a next article, but wanted you to be reassured right now about it!