Crucible XV 07/03/2014

Bit of a weird week this week! Had Monday off to meet a friend who was back from uni, then spent Tuesday recording guitar and samples for the War music and sound effects. I think the soundtrack for War is going to surprise a few people- it's pretty heavy. I'll be doing that more regularly until it's finished, and then I will be back to dedicating all my time to coding. Saying all that, I've been pretty busy and managed to progress a lot this week. A lot of theory has been done and I've done a great deal of work making each race feel unique. This is a bit of a trap though since there are very few mechanics that are actually shared between the races, so it's all different. Needless to say it's very cool. I've also done a bit of work on the 4th race I hinted at before, but here is a bigger clue as to what direction I'm going in with them: 'Lovecraft'. I found myself struck by inspiration for ship designs this week, and I've included a couple of rough sketches for you to enjoy...

 The human capital ship 'Balmung', named after the sword used to slay Fafnir in Norse mythology. The ship's profile is designed to look like a blade, with the majority of it's functional components collapsing away (indicated by arrows) when not orbiting a planet.

Seed ship of the 4th race. Designed to look like a cross between a Parasitic worm and a Sperm. A single, terrifying, organism capable of travelling between stars with thoughts unknown.

State of the Game (Build 0.83):

• Infiltrator bombs are now functioning. Different types of bombs (Fission/Fusion/Antimatter) become available via research. All bombs have a cool-down timer that prevents their overuse. The more powerful the bomb, the longer the cool-down. Bombs have a catastrophic affect on both planetary defence and ownership of planets. Infiltrators are able to bypass the system defences.

Currently very simple bombing interface. 2nd planet was destroyed by Antimatter bomb in single hit.

• Changed the planetary improvement interface to be more usable. Clicking on a planet brings up the available improvements that can be built. Benefits from existing improvements are listed below. Both windows are scrollable. Tabs across the top allow you to keep an eye on which improvement tiers are available to your system, and which improvements within those tiers are available for purchase.

This layout it much closer to how the final game will look. Also see the return of the system summary!

• Implemented Nereides and Selkies system improvements. Nereides improvements are geared towards making use of stacks of Elation and improving Science related variables. Selkies improvements are geared towards increasing the production of Amber, and lessening the penalty for Amber production (detailed next). Many improvements now have effects based on which planets they are built on, for example one technology increases the Amber production on planets by 1 unless it is built on a hot planet (Molten/Desert/Rocky), in which case it increases the Amber production by 1.5.
• Selkies racial mechanic- "Amber"- is now working. Amber is generated by building an Amber refinery in systems. The refinery takes up an ordinary improvement slot. Amber is used to research ancient and powerful technology, but its' production has negative effects on the system in which it is produced. For each Amber produced, Ownership growth is decreased by 5%, and Science and Industry production is decreased by 5%. This can be extremely debilitating if other improvements are not built to lessen (but not remove) the penalty of Amber production.

Sadly (but not for me) I'm off on holiday to Prague in two weeks, so I won't be doing any practical work on the game in that time- meaning I also won't be doing an update for that week. However next week is work as usual, and hopefully I'll be getting some more cool stuff in the game at that time. See you then!