Heeeyaa!
Today we will be speaking about ships!
They are your space racers, carriers, fighters, transports and everything else.
But in 2325, they are also the saviors of mankind, or at least the saviors of you all.
Yes, that's true, your ships are your Heroes.
But now, your ship is damaged, and your Hero feels abandoned.
It was shot, rushed, torn apart by by an irregular hyperspace jump and then, crashed.
That's a lot of mistreatment for a ship.
So now it's time to take good care of it, to whisper nice words to its circuits and understand how it feels.
How it feels? maybe not...
... but maybe how it's made.
Because that's what we are going to share!
Well, not exactly how to make one, but at least, how to fix one.
Keep seated, and enjoy the read of this new diary...
... and be warned, we may be getting hardcore!
EXODE Ships are a Beast!
Yes, that's it, these creations are pieces of ultimate technology, an assembly of hardware, metal structures and reactors of all kinds.
But actually, the basics are simple.
Like everything there is to EXODE, or to things in our century, there is an intuitive understanding:
If anything is complex, it's only when you look into the details.
If you want to just use it instead? Then it's simple.
A ship is simple to handle otherwise:
In evacuation, press LAUNCH.
In scanning, name a pilot. Oh, and once finally there, remember to press LAND.
Who would ask you to know more than that?
Well, actually, at some point we may think it's interesting for you to know how it works, or more exactly, why your ship can't take off again.
To understand everything which is required to "repair your ship", you may need to connect with your inner engineer.
This may be the inner voice inside you which as a child guided you while playing with LEGO boxes. Or that guy you like on our discord, who knows everything there is to know and will tell you how to fix it.
Fortunately, we'll put tutorials and bold text and everything to guide people while fixing their ship, but for now, let's put your engineer googles instead, and get inside the beast!
How a ship is made
... and inside the beast, you'll see that a ship is made of a large list of attributes, and a list of modules.
It's these modules we will share with you today.
Basically it's the modules who usually are no longer working.
So to fix your ship, you will need to replace the damaged modules.
As you don't have a spare new module in your pocket (do you?), this means you may have to reconstruct one.
Technically, some players may propose their shiny modules in the colony market later!
There is no shame in taking them instead. That works too.
Once you have the good module, you put the bad module out, you put the good module in, and that's it!
You'll have to make sure we released the next gameplay scene (SPACE), and you'll be good to go.
Let's see a module!
Ok, let's take a module example here:
Your pilot's cockpit!
We are using the Archeon Military Frigate here as an example:
Let's see some simple values first:
| Module | Category | Quality Level | Location | Internal | Armored |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cockpit | Essentials | 7 | Front | No | Yes (2) |
Sounds simple enough?
Or not?
Ok, I can help you here with this:
Category: when you see 'Essentials' in the Category, then if you lose this: you are dead. Or at the very least, out of order and in serious spacecrap. This should sound rather clear, if it's marked "Essentials", then it's essential to your survival.
Quality Level: this determines how this module helps crew performance.
Location: only useful in space combat. Don't mind this, only people wanting to kill you need to understand that.
Internal: if a module is "Internal", then a hit needs to pass external armor before even thinking of touching it.
Armored: military ships usually have additional armor to protect essential modules. If a module is "Armored", then even after passing your shields, and then external armor (for internal modules, that is), the hit must also pass the "module armor" to damage it.
Now let's get into other engineering aspects:
| Module | Category | Location | Internal | Construction Chain* | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cockpit | Essentials | Front | No | EEEGS | Electronics x3 Generic Alloys x1 Space equipment x1 |
The new thing you will observe here is the Construction Chain.
This is actually the first time we are revealing something related to "player economy".
What is a Construction Chain?
Well it's actually simple.
Every module or construction has a construction chain.
It's just a list of letters.
- Every letter is a "slot".
- This slot is awaiting something "compatible with it".
- So for instance, the letter "C" stands for Cables.
- If you find cables from somewhere else, (ie. recover them from another place on your damaged ship), you can use them there.
- If you design a new Cable product from rubber vines on your planet, and you see your design produces the letter C, that will work too! and you'll be able to put your rubber vines in that slot.
Simple then:
You just have to understand every letter is a slot, and this slot wants something with the same letter. There may be a few "yes but" (because it's a ship module, because it has a 'complexity', because you transform all of it into a module, and so on), but that's the core concept.
There are other details, such as this:
| Module | Constructor | Armor | Armor Constructor | Complexity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cockpit | Mars Computing | Durasteel Glass | Federal Mines | 8 |
... you may consider this last table as not important for now. This will get interesting once characters get more expertise in different fields.
List of Modules
Now let's share more modules from the Archeon Military Frigate:
I won't show you the constructors, armor constructors etc, or module descriptions, and will focus on modules and their construction chains.
| Module | Category | Location | Internal | Construction Chain* | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cockpit | Essentials | Front | No | EEEGS | Electronics x3 Generic Alloys x1 Space equipment x1 |
| Life Support | Essentials | All | Yes | CCSZ | Cables x2 Space equipment x1 Gas x1 |
| Ship Structure | Essentials (Structure) | All | No | CCEGGG | Cables x2 Electronics x1 Generic Alloys x3 |
| Ship Armor | Protection (Structure) | All | No | GGGGgg | Generic Alloys x4 High Quality Alloys x2 |
| Generator | Essentials (Engine) | Rear | Yes | ceKKkR | Hyperconnectors x1 Rare electronics x1 Fuel converter x2 Fuel converter (Extreme) x1 Reserve energy x1 |
| Hyperdrive | Essentials (Engine) | Rear | Yes | cerrrvv | Hyperconnectors x1 Rare electronics x1 Reserve energy (HQ crystals) x3 Veil components (HQ) x2 |
| Propulsors | Essentials (Engine) | Rear | No | Egrz | Electronics x1 High Quality Alloys x1 Reserve energy (HQ crystals) x1 Gas x1 |
Now, this may have sounded a bit hardcore here.
But you'll notice several things:
You will be guided with dynamic quests to help you know what you should do to fix your ship.
By "dynamic", we mean there will be a tutorial adapted to the situation on your ship. Such as: "oh, we have researched this biomaterial and it sounds compatible with making cables (C) from it!"
Ships are at the end of the colonization loop on your first planet. Once you are there, you should have had all the time to understand it
The "letters" for construction will be repeated over and over for multiple designs, so you'll get used to these slots.
This was a text overview!
As you have noticed, this is a non-graphic text overview:
letters and words, about a game concept.
you'll see more of that ingame, along with the user interface to go with it.
You may have noticed we use raw, primitive, obvious uppercase letters for "basic things".
And lowercase letters for "advanced things".
It's possible we will keep that.
A lot of customisation and player-made designs
So the big 'C' is Cables.
Cables is its own thing and needs two components:
| ('C') Cable requirement | The solution on your planet |
|---|---|
| Insulating part | That rubber vine vegetation you found. |
| Conductive part | Any metal on your planet. |
The result of your design will be a "Cable".
It does not have to be the best Cable in the world. But it will be YOUR Cable. You will give it the name you want, and it will have the performance you have designed, and you will be able to use it in YOUR ship, or to sell it to players.
As you can see, this model allows for a lot of customisation and player-made designs!
And still about letters, the small 'c' is hyperconnectors (very hi-tech and high performance cables). It shares the same letter because it's the same thing, but may have more requirements.
Other module examples
There are more modules:
- the Cantina, Cabins, Reserves, Cargo space and Lockers ("non essential amenities").
- Comms, Farscan and Tacscan (your "voice and eyes in space")
- Maneuver Microjets, Shielding and Atmospheric Shielding (these are useful, you can't land without atmospheric shields)
- and since this is an Archeon, there are Weapons too.
We have them all but there is not really a point in sharing another table about it.
We'll still share some more about the Archeon weapons:
| Module | Category | Location | Construction Chain* | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gun turret (x4) | Weapon (Turret) | Rear | EGPPp | Electronics x1 Generic Alloys x1 Projectiles and Ammo x2 High Energy Projectiles x1 |
| Wasp Missile Launcher | Weapon (Missile) | Rear | EGWZ | Electronics x1 Generic Alloys x1 Weapon charge (anti-ship) x1 Gas x1 |
| K-4 Storm Missile | Weapon (Missile) | Rear | EGWXZ | Electronics x1 Generic Alloys x1 Weapon charge (anti-ship) x1 Highly Destructive Weapon (anti-capital ship) x1 Gas x1 |
| Shark Torpedo Launcher | Weapon (Missile) | Rear | EgwXXz | Electronics x1 High Quality Alloys x1 High density weapon charge x1 Highly Destructive Weapon (anti-capital ship) x2 High quality gas x1 |
That's it!
Now you are a pro, and you'll be able to connect that information to research and design later!
*Remember all this data may change at any time during alpha, and even receive some adjustments during beta. This is especially true for construction chains (marked with the asterisk). *
More information about EXODE can also be found on our Discord, or multiple posts such as this one about our epic characters, or this trailer made by a fan, or this review or this one . A summary of latest posts and events is also here.
Also running a witness node:
And we can't believe we are at around position 100.
You can help if you think we deserve more game witnesses and EXODE is one you like!
Thank you pilots, see you soon in eXode!
