The Mandate

Ships and Bridges: the Fleets stand ready!
over 8 years ago – Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 12:16:23 AM

Hi backers,

For this Kickstarter Update we will provide a production update as well as coverage of the adventure mode. However, first we would like to apologize for the delay in releasing this update as we know many of you have been looking forward to it. That being said we are pleased to present such a content rich update and hope you will enjoy reading it and watching the many included videos!

Bridges

In the previous update we discussed how we were putting together the bridges. In all we are making six bridges, one for each class size of ship (from frigate to battleship). 

Since we are taking a modular approach as well as using faction-specific textures each ship bridge should look suitably unique.

The bridges and faction-specific modular assets have been completed and in the video below you can see all size classes as well as faction specific variations for one of the bridges.

Armors & heads

For combat armors we have finished all armors minus the IFTL ones. Instead we are focusing on something that is more important: base heads that can be used to make procedurally generated heads. The generated heads will be used when you are interacting with other characters like starship captains, base commanders, planetary governors etc.

In all we expect to have at least eight base heads for each gender. We make these base heads from 3D scans of real people and while this process is tricky to get right, we found a workflow that is efficient and produces good results. These base heads can be used as input by our designers to configure a specific head for an important character. For less important or generated characters the game could also auto-generate NPC talking heads as needed.

The way we generate a new head is by blending multiple base heads together to create the new head. We can weigh the input base heads differently or switch out which base heads serve as inputs.

Below you can see a video which illustrates this input and blending process at run-time inside the game engine. In the video each connection point is a base head so whenever the cursor is inside one triangle, the final head is a blend from the three adjacent connection points (or heads). We will let Vegard -our technical art director- explain a bit more in the video below.

This technique is quite powerful and allows us to generate a lot of visual variety with relatively few base heads. In the video we blended between three heads above but we could also have used two or four heads. With this approach we also ensure that all generated heads have reasonable proportions and it is therefore unlikely to generate a head with unrealistic features.

Animation

The animation department is now focusing on social animations which will be utilized when depicting what your crew is up to either on the bridge or outside the bridge.

We will use social animations and postures for when you are hailing other ships, starbases and planets. 

We already have a list of social animations that we want to include with the game to make the ships and crew come alive. Recently we gained access to motion capture equipment which allows us to record and clean up social animations more quickly. 

When producing animations one generally has two options: key-frame or motion capture. Key-framing requires creating an animation from scratch and it can be tricky to get weight and movement to look realistic. Motion capture equipment is generally used in game productions with a big budget.

Traditionally it has required a separate studio with multiple expensive cameras but due to recent developments (thanks to crowdfunding), new and more affordable motion capture techniques have become available with comparable quality to the more expensive solutions.

On the topic of animations we recently completed the soldier animation sets. We have create a locomotion setup for these animations so they can play in game on our animation rig, and we have combined this with our armors to create the video below which also includes in game characters wearing armor and utilizing the soldier animations.

Finally, from a performance point of view we will keep the social animations and soldier animations on separate animation rigs. The soldier animations require less fine-detail movement than the social animations and conversely they require higher performance. This optimization allows us to have more soldiers on the screen with less detailed rigs giving us better performance, while keeping the detail higher when we're on the bridge or other social situations, giving us higher quality.

Ships

When it comes to space ships we are almost finished and only have a few left. As you may remember we produced the medium and small ships first and during the last months we have focused on the big ships, the battle cruisers and battleships. Below are a few screenshots of the Romanov battlecruiser in all its regal splendor with different bow, midship and aft configurations.

Since ship production is coming to a close this means our focus is shifting from production to the tweak & polish phase. Below is a video from one of our test playfields where we have deployed both Arkwright and Romanov ships for general inspection.

The test playfields makes it easy for us to review how the ships actually look inside the game engine. We can verify that there are no obvious visual bugs or problems with the model or textures.

Beyond that we can adjust the skybox and environment lighting to see how subtle changes affect the visuals of the ship. Based on the visual results we can then make changes to the texture setup of the ships to bring the visual quality in-line with art direction.

Adventure mode

Meanwhile the designers and programmers have been busy working on the adventure mode which ties the Mandate game systems together and houses many of the major components. This development has paralleled work on key components and subsystems that we have shared with you in various forms and levels of completion, for example the bridge dialogue mode as well as the mission and event systems.

However, the adventure mode is on the critical path and the key milestone is still 4 weeks away. As such, we are very reticent to release video from our working build as integration of the above-mentioned components and subsystems is still ongoing. First integration does not always work as designed/intended, and can potentially expose unintended ‘game play’ situations, bugs or similar. Once the milestone is complete we will produce and release a video of the adventure mode in action.

The screenshots below are taken from a working build of the adventure mode. We have done a few visual tweaks on the screenshots to show the visual direction we are going in and how the adventure mode will look with proper colour harmony between user interface, gameplay and background elements.

We have experimented with different sizes of star systems and also the travel time for ships both intrasystem and inter-system. It is important to strike the right balance in ship density between having a realistic (but empty and devoid of life) or a chock full star systems as that impacts both the fun factor and performance.

One of our goals with the adventure mode is to make the world feel tactile. Consequently stellar object should have a physical presence. This means you can interact with them but your ship can also take damage if you are not careful and get too close to a sun or charge headlong into an asteroid field.

We also want the adventure mode to be something more than a travel map. You should make important gameplay decisions as well as plan your journey ahead. The game world will be dangerous and in many scenarios you may be outmatched and need to find alternative travel routes or use the environment to your advantage to avoid detection and interception.

During adventure mode integration and play-testing we introduced the concept of consumables in the form of fuel and ammo as these help create a solid, challenging experience where you must make some tough choices. The (un)availability of these resources can influence the combat effectiveness and relative firepower of both your ship/fleet as well as that of your adversaries and affect your overall strategy and combat tactics. We are still iterating on the number of resources to strike the right balance.

Sooner or later you will need to rearm, repair and refuel your ship. To that effect we recently implemented starbase docking. By docking with a friendly starbase you may perform one of several operations like picking up missions, visiting the bar, perform ship upgrades, purchase equipment and recruit/dismiss crew. In the absence of a starbase then perhaps a gas giant may allow for refueling provided the ship has the right equipment onboard.

Under the hood we have also done some technical upgrades including switching to Unity 5.3 which comes with several bugfixes and speed improvements –especially concerning procedural textures.

Also, we are still working on the communication process (community manager etc) and a revised development roadmap. When we have something that is more set in stone, we will share this important information with you.

We hope the videos above give you a good idea of what has been completed and where we stand with respect to production. We expect to share more videos as we continue to tweak, polish and optimize both content and features moving forward. In particular for the next update we will release the adventure mode video with developer commentary. It should be out right after our next milestone which is four weeks from now.

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

The Captain's Journey
almost 9 years ago – Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:27:52 PM

Hi backers,

For this update we will discuss the campaign structure, the event system and what we call the bridge dialogue mode. While we will go through them in the order mentioned, we first want to re-iterate the unique selling points of The Mandate

• the captain experience: you are a character on a ship, you are not “just a ship”, and as captain you must manage your crew
• the human factor: the focus is on crew and interactions between people, not just ships blowing up other ships
• the historical setting: the game is built upon a new theme that draws on Napoleonic references to create a rich historical context via cohesive lore documents and factions with a coherent ideology

Campaign structure

Before we discuss specific acts we should make a note on the game’s duration. It should take, on average, 40 hours to complete the main story. Each of the acts below assume that the player focuses on completing a specific act. However, it is the player’s actions that actually drive the game environment towards a particular stage. So if the player prefers to do side activities like hunting down notorious pirates, that will increase the playtime.

When starting a new game you first undergo the character creation process. This process will be similar to what was outlined during Kickstarter whereby you select your background and build your military service record by travelling between various planets and picking responses to the events that pop-up. Next the player may (optionally) take some time to learn about the basics of crew management and ship handling.

Act 1

After character creation the player will proceed to the New Player Experience. The main focus of the NPE is to let the player familiarize himself with the various factions. The player’s journey to build the future of The Mandate begins. The New Player Experience takes place inside one star cluster (each star cluster has multiple star systems).

The New Player Experience should take a couple of hours to finish and when completed will grant the player access to his or her own starbase.

The starbase is important as it is where you can recruit and train both crew and officers as well as refit or upgrade the ship(s) in your fleet. While other starbases offer similar services, your starbase supports further specialization. You can assign officers to oversee production, training and research and upgrade the starbase facilities. By upgrading its facilities you may construct larger ships, reverse-engineer captured technology and manufacture new equipment for your ships, light craft squadrons and crew.

Act 2

After the New Player Experience is completed, the player unlocks access to several new star clusters.

When adventuring into and exploring these clusters, the player will find that the Mandate is more of an ideal than a political reality. Alliances between factions are strenuous at best and in the cases of the major factions, conflicts have arisen between them forcing the player to take sides or attempt to mediate between them.

Star clusters come in two types and are either “wild space” clusters or “designed conflicts” clusters. The number of “wild space” clusters is variable but the number of “designed conflicts” is exactly three. The “designed conflicts” centers on the conflict between The Mandate and The Rebels whereas “wild space” involves gameplay centered around responding to distress beacons, pirate attacks etc.

The “designed conflicts” clusters contain both star systems for you to explore as well as disputes to settle between two major factions who do not see eye to eye. Initially the player is an independent actor who can perform various actions to assist either (or both) factions inside a “designed conflicts” cluster. The player will gain faction reputation as a result of his or her actions and eventually be able to pick a side in a conflict (and join that faction). This means that the player effectively supports three different factions during the course of Act 2. As you progress with one faction and earn its trust, you will unlock faction rewards and access to one or more of their sub-factions. Sub-factions may offer special faction rewards (such as ) and unique equipment.

In terms of playtime we are aiming for the three conflicts to take around 8 hours each so 24 hours in total. However, at any point you are free to go off and explore other (“wild space”) clusters or even switch between the three “designed conflicts” clusters should you desire.

Act 3

Up until this point the conflicts have been contained inside individual clusters and only involved two factions. However, during Act 3 things will escalate quickly as the Rebel fleet and the Grand fleet arrive on the scene.

The player must pick which side to support during this final conflict and any allies the player may have made during Act 2 will come to the aid of the player.

Epilogue + open-world

As the final conflict is resolved in the Outer Rim the player is rewarded with unique upgrades based on the campaign choices that were made previously and gets to see the impact of his actions on the core worlds & factions.

The vast content (including backer content) available in each randomized galaxy will guarantee hours of additional play.

Event system

Next let us discuss the event system. What are events? Events are situations that occur during your playtime in The Mandate that require a response from either your crew or yourself as the captain of the ship. Your ship scanners may have found an escape pod with faint life signs floating in space. Do you take the pod on board and risk exposing the crew to whatever might be inside it, or do you leave it where you found it?

Some events require snap-decisions to be made, while others allow more in-depth problem-solving. In the aforementioned example, it could for instance be prudent to first let the medical officer look at the scan-data to see if there is a medical reason why the escape pod shouldn't be taken on board.

With that said - how are events started? While we have the ability to trigger events using almost any criteria you can think of we will limit even triggers to mainly be based on the location of the player fleet in space. This means for example that if your fleet is inside an asteroid belt then there is a chance that an asteroid belt event will trigger. The event system also has support for cool downs so we can limit how frequently an event of a specific type can trigger.

Events are not limited to outer space - your ship is a living, breathing anthill with many opportunities for you to interact with your crew and officers. If morale is low, the risk of certain events go up - on the flip side - if morale is high, the risk of other types of events go up. Events can be both positive and negative and are not designed to be hurdles to be jumped over. Rather, they are designed to convey the life and activity on board the ship while playing.

Events also vary depending on your campaign progress. They respond to the galaxy around you as you have affected it and how you play the game. Events can feed on themselves as well - a response in one event or the completion of a specific mission may lead to another event becoming available (or locked).

When an event triggers you can opt to respond in a number of different ways to the event. A number of basic event responses will always be available. Extra options may be available due to your captain’s traits, attributes or faction rank.

We also want the event system to let players make important moral choices which define your captain and how the world around you perceives you. It is important that you do not feel forced to act according to a single set of principles or morals, so we feature a diverse set of responses, ranging from morally reprehensible to generally accepted behaviour. These choices in turn may apply tags on your captain which we use to unlock or lock events further down the line as well as provide additional responses in subsequent events.

In addition, your officers may also have ideas about how to solve some of these events (based on their attributes and traits). A savvy Engineering officer may come up with a technical plan for hacking an enemy satellite to prevent it from relaying information about your whereabouts to your enemies or a very attentive Medical officer may suggest a way of dealing with an outbreak on board the ship.

This means that the player is exceptionally unlikely to have the same event occur twice in a playthrough, and if this happens then the event responses will be different. 

Returning to the discussion in the introduction the event system is both an efficient way for us to reuse existing systems and to push the captain experience and put more emphasis on the human factor.

Let us now take a look at an event seen from a “technical behind the scenes” perspective...

Our event-system is designed to be very modular and easy to expand by both designers and possibly future modders. At its core, an event can be thought of as consisting of a Briefing, a selection of Responses and a selection of Outcomes. The Briefing of an event is the text shown to the player that outlines the event; for example: 

"Captain! Short-range scanners are picking up a faint distress call from inside a nearby asteroid field. It could be a damaged ship but this is pirate space - it could just as well be a trap. Should we investigate?"

When an event is selected, our system runs through all the response-options, checking them to see whether the player qualifies for any (or all) of them. Once this check is completed, the Responses list is displayed.

To expand on the example from before, the responses for the player could include options such as:

• "Yes, we need to investigate but ready weapons just in case."
• "[Light Squadron] Scramble a recon squadron to investigate the signal. I am not going to risk this ship in case it is an ambush."
• "[Scanners 6] I want to make certain this is not just a pirate ploy. Do another scanner sweep and make sure there are no surprises lurking in the asteroid field." 
• "No, let's not take any chances."

In this example the player has a Light Squadron in his hangar which means that (s)he may opt to send scouts to investigate. Furthermore, if the player captain or the chief astrogation officer has a Scanner rating of 6 or higher, (s)he may instead elect to perform another scanner sweep. This means that there is not only a single way of potentially solving a situation but multiple ones.

Once a response option has been selected, the event either proceeds to an outcome or an updated Briefing. If a sensor sweep was ordered and the Astrogation team finds nothing out of the ordinary, the briefing text will now update to show this information to the player (which may in turn lead to new Response options).

Now, how is the outcome decided? When we write events, we write a number of possible scenario variations for each event. When an event is triggered, one of the possible scenarios is set as “true”. So in our example above perhaps it IS a decoy ship or perhaps it is a damaged vessel that badly needs aid. Perhaps it is a damaged vessel from an enemy faction.

Let's say that the ship in our example is not a pirate but a damaged ship in dire straits; their reactor has taken a serious pounding and radiation is slowly leaking into the ship, poisoning the crew. Without help, they'll surely perish. The first step for the player may have been to scan the area to make sure there were no pirates around. However - a successful scan should inform the player about the full reality of the actual situation. The outcome of this step is a simple briefing update to reflect the facts as well as populate the Response list with appropriate responses to this situation.

From here, the player may now be able to choose from additional options more suited to this particular scenario - perhaps sending a medical team in radiation suits on board the vessel to extract crew or an engineering crew to attempt to repair the reactor. Again, the skills of the player and his officers will determine what options are available and not.

Bridge design

So far we have discussed the the campaign structure and the event system. This has been a lead up to the bridge dialogue mode. But before we discuss the bridge dialogue mode, let us quickly talk about bridge design.

We are taking a modular approach and are building six bridges: frigate, destroyer, light cruiser, heavy cruiser, battlecruiser and battleship.

The starting frigate bridge will feel quite cramped (as it should be) but the bigger bridges will have more space. There is also a clear progression in terms of officer consoles, the introduction of the captain’s platform which elevates him above the rest of the crew (and very much in line with the historical/aristocratic inspirations for The Mandate) and expanded guest areas.

With our modular approach each faction will have variations of the holoscreen, captain’s platform, blast doors, stairs and the battle orchestrator.

When combined with faction-specific texture kits and faction-specific lighting this means that an Arkwright and Osmani heavy cruiser bridge will look and feel quite distinct.

In addition we are setting up several camera positions on each bridge. This will allow us to switch the camera around when the player is interacting with his officers. In addition we can set up some interesting shots on the holoscreen when the player is interacting with another ship captain or starbase commander.

Bridge dialogue mode

Now what exactly is the bridge dialogue mode? It is one of the primary ways for us to tell the story (campaign progress) as well as let you interact with events, and it is heavily inspired by the TV shows that we have used as inspiration for The Mandate.

Whenever you meet another ship/starbase in adventure mode and decide to hail it (or respond to its hail), or you respond to an event pop-up, or just wish to check reports from your officers, you can activate the bridge dialogue mode. This will pause the time on adventure mode and overlay your ship’s bridge.

At the bottom of the screen you will see your captain and XO. The service branch chiefs (chief engineer, chief medical officer etc) are arrayed in a semi-circle around the captain and XO. In the rear of the bridge there is a guest area where passengers or envoys may gather. At the top of the screen you will find the holoscreen or main display where event images or external contacts (typically ships, starbases, talking captains etc) are displayed. Depending on the size of the bridge each service branch chief may have one or more assistants which they can delegate tasks to.

As well as being a hub of communication with others through the holoscreen, you may enter the Bridge at any time you wish as part of normal gameplay. When you do, you may speak with your officers outside the context of an event or mission briefing to ask them about their thoughts on the current situation, request status reports from them or consult them on a variety of topics.

We are also making high resolution heads to be used with the holoscreen interactions in bridge dialogue mode, and these heads will also be used for character creation when you create your own captain character. Our process is such that we first start from 3D scans and our artists use this data to create heads that we can use.

Once we have several heads we can then blend these together to create entirely new heads. The image below shows our blending process and is obviously a work in progress (missing eye balls etc). The new head (in the middle) is generated using the two other heads (left and right) as input. There is still some work left on this system but the results so far are quite promising.

Next update we will do a video of the adventure mode with developer commentary to showcase the adventure mode, the event system as well as the new bridge dialogue mode. In addition we will have a production update to go over the status of art, design and code.

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

Capitalism and the IFTL - Trading In All Sectors of the Galaxy
almost 9 years ago – Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 10:46:43 PM

Hi backers,

Time for another update.Today we will provide a production update, covering many different areas of the game production and also discuss the IFTL (Interstellar Free Trade League) and the role this faction plays in The Mandate.

Audio

Let us start our production update with the audio department or more specifically the soundtrack. Choir and soloist recordings were completed on schedule during August and both the stereo and 5.1 versions were finalized in early November. This means that from a production point of view the soundtrack is done. Below you can listen to the final stereo version of The Mandate main theme with choir and Russian lyrics while reading the rest of this update!

GUI

As you may have noticed - for the Gamescom demo we put together a functional GUI but this was not the GUI direction we wanted to go with for the final game. We have spent quite some time iterating on the GUI design and one of the goals we were aiming for was to introduce some historical motifs and designs into the interface.

Specifically we wanted to introduce some Napoleonic influences to connect our historical references visually inside the game. We investigated and did tests with baroque, rococo, Empire, neo-classical and Federal styles. Some of the iterations on the GUI are shown below. Note that gradient colours, highlighting, animations etc are not represented below.

The art direction and detailed scroll work provides a coherent style connection to the period while setting an immersive GUI for interacting with the universe as the Captain in the adventure, space combat, and boarding combat modes. We are still doing tweaks to find the right balance between immersion and usability and now we are at a stage where we are testing out a more refined design inside the game.

Ships

Next let us check the status for ship production. With eight factions each fielding six ship classes, we have a total of 48 ships to produce. As we reported on the ship production at end of July we had roughly 21 ships completed back then. 

As it stands now, we have 33 ships complete with two more battlecruisers right around the corner which will bring the number up to 35. While this would seem to indicate that the production rate has been lower than expected, there are a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, the Rebel ships are - unlike the other factions- asymmetrical by design. This increases the workload on the artists since they have to model and texture both halves of the ship instead of mirroring one half. 

Secondly we reassigned artists to work on the star-bases so we could test the modular approach as well as scale of star-bases since we need to experiment with both model detail and texture usage on such huge structures.. Thirdly, we invested time into doing a polish pass on existing ships as well as upgrading smaller details like the windows.

Also, we had incorrectly reported the Grand Fleet light cruiser as complete last time and the Grand Fleet heavy cruiser was also rebuilt from scratch after the last production update. This particular ship which we first put together for the Kickstarter campaign has now been built for the third (and last) time. Finally, we got behind schedule early when folks took some well-earned vacations after Gamescon but we are still steadily reducing the backlog.

Armours

Leaving the ships behind let us look at the status of character armours. From the table we can see that 25 armours are completed. Compared to the previous update we added four armours for the pirates so instead of producing a total of 32 we will produce 36 armours. 

We decided to add the pirate armours since we decided they really ought to have a distinct visual style during boarding combat to reflect their tactics and make them stand out. Once the pirate armours are done the rebel and IFTL armours will follow. 

Since the last update we have finished the Europan and Osmani armour sets. The Europan armours have a high-tech feel whereas the Osmani armours are inspired by the uniforms (and headgear in particular) of the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. Historically they were elite infantry units who formed the Sultan’s household troops and acted as bodyguards.

Animation

On the animation side the focus these last months has been on the heavy armour animations as well as the animation sets for the four levels of marine veterancy: rookie, trained, veteran and elite. After we are done with the veterancy animations we will switch to make social animations which you will see when your crew is either working or off-duty and which should add a lot of life to the ship.

Programming

On a more technical side the programmers have been very busy with the adventure mode. First of all we needed to make sure that the ship statics properly take into account basic ship performance characteristics as well as officer attributes and traits. As an example this means that if you replace your chief astrogation officer this can impact the effectiveness and range of scanner probes launched in adventure mode. 

The galaxy generator has also received attention where we have added new gameplay objects like gas clouds and asteroid fields. Each of these has a specific behaviour as well as associated visuals to make their function apparent. We are also adding additional spawn and randomization functions to diversify the visuals and take advantage of the procedural textures.

A third area we have been working on is the match-making and the multiplayer prototype. We needed to validate that our object entity model works well both in a singleplayer and multiplayer environment and that the transition between singleplayer and multiplayer works as intended.

In the last part of this update we will present a scenario related to the IFTL faction and the AI for different factions that are active in the sandbox. Our programmers have been working closely with Apex Software developers to provide gamecode hooks and interfaces so the Apex Utility AI can read out our game data, perform various evaluations and then relay decisions to the gamecode.

A lot of work has also been done to ensure that missions can be issued by AI factions based on the game stat itself. As the factions will constantly try and improve their positions and constantly evaluate their standing in the galaxy, they will need the help of Great Captains to expand their power and encroach on their goals. For example If resources are becoming scarce, Great Captains might be tasked with missions to conquer new resources. This ensures that missions will constantly spawn and these are relevant to the context of the game. Both the player and other Great Captains can make a difference in the Galaxy and affect the course of history by action, inaction, success and failure.

Another important area is the mission tracker and mission editor. This is where designers and writers can implement the story missions and events which are described further down in the design section of this update. We are still in the process of adding new goal types but now that the basic tools and architecture is working it is a rather straightforward task to expand on this with additional mechanics that build on the foundations. All in all the mission editor has been designed to be both fast and powerful to enable designers to create a content rich game while utilizing a diverse set of mechanics and triggers.

Game design

The designers have been working closely with the programmers to implement the game features for adventure mode and so this has taken up a lot of their time and focus. Another focus area has been to test and implement dialogue, tags, events and mission systems.

Tags allows us to set flags on the player based on what has happened in the game. A tag can be applied to the player through choices made during character creation, dialogue, events, or through game triggers, such as visiting a specific asteroid belt, encountering a specific ship and so forth. We can then use these tags to trigger specific ingame events that the player has to deal with or use them as criteria checks for allowing events and specific dialogue to appear for the player. This system gives us a lot of power to control both exactly when as well as why certain in game events trigger. 

When it comes to events, we want a lot of them to spice up your playthrough. As we mentioned earlier, events can apply tags depending on your choices in them, which allows us to have events that follow naturally from previous experiences; In one event you may bring on board a medical cache where you find some experimental medication and in a later event find out that the medication in fact has caused a number of your crew to suffer unwanted side-effects. The goal is to create a cause-and-effect scenario that makes sense for players and at the same time keep the events interesting.

In general we distinguish between three broad event categories: Crew events, Space events and Galaxy events. The first two are interactive while the last is non-interactive. 

What do we mean by interactive events? Well - when an interactive event triggers you will be presented with a briefing of the event by your XO and asked to pick from one of several options to resolve it, each with different outcomes and effects. Depending on your tags, traits and skills as well as the skills and traits of your bridge officers, different responses may be available. As an example; An event where you encounter a Romanov military satellite may have an option for dismantling, salvaging and/or hacking the satellite depending on what skills your officers have.

Crew events are generally focused on the behaviour and interaction of your crew. This extends further than simply being a measurement of ship morale (although that is definitely in there as well) and deals with any potential crew challenges and problems that may occur on board. As an example; How do you deal with the discovery of a traitor on board? Do you throw the traitor in the brig or do you banish the traitor from the ship? And if so - via shuttle or through the airlock?

Space events are linked to the area which your fleet is moving through. For example, if you fly through an asteroid field then there is a chance that an asteroid field related event could trigger, such as a mineral-rich asteroid presenting an opportunity to get some rare resources or micro-asteroids threatening the integrity of the ship hull. 

Galaxy events concern the overall sandbox world and the events could be of either a permanent or temporary nature. For example, a star going supernova would be an example of a permanent event whereas a famine or plague hitting a specific system or planet would be a temporary event.

Finally, a third focus area has been the main story. The designers and writers have iterated on both the story and narrative structure to ensure we have a good balance between being sandbox friendly on the one side, and telling a compelling storyline for each faction on the other.

The general organization is that we have a New Player Experience which is followed by three chapters. It is important to stress that the player decides when to finish a chapter and proceed to the next and she will receive ample warning before this happens. That being said it is a bit tricky to discuss the narrative structure without giving too much of the storyline away but this is a generalized structure of the game:

• During the first chapter the player is free to interact with and learn about the various factions but by the end of the first chapter he or she will need to make a decision on which faction to support. At the conclusion of the first chapter certain changes will also happen in the sandbox.
• Chapter two sees the player working with his/her chosen faction to expand its influence and build up the logistics and support infrastructure needed to sustain a war effort. Missions will include a mix of universal missions and faction storyline missions.
• Chapter three again introduces some new opportunities to the sandbox and by this time the player will have an important position within his/her faction and can now influence the destiny of his/her faction.
• At the conclusion of chapter three the sandbox again undergoes certain changes with the injection of additional end-game content.

Finally one thing to keep in mind is that the sandbox will be fully “operational” during all chapters. So if you prefer to take your time and exploring the sandbox then this is a valid option (and player choice). We use the chapters to introduce some extra elements and story hooks to progress as part of the overall story arc progression.  

IFTL

That concludes the production update section of this update so let us now switch to the other major topic of this Kickstarter update. Namely the IFTL.First a quick reminder from the Mandate lore document about who the IFTL are and what they do:

“Originally a loose association of free colonies and independent traders, the League is now a powerful but largely invisible political force within the Mandate. The League has its own fighting ships to escort convoys through pirate-infested systems, and it works closely with the Gate Transit Authority to keep the Gate network secure and open for business…”

Whenever a new game is started, a limited number of trade hubs are scattered throughout the sandbox as part of the generation process. These trade hubs are starbases which are under the direct control of the IFTL. Each trade hub may establish and maintain a number of inter-system trade routes. These inter-system trade routes always terminate at another trade hub governed by the IFTL. When a freighter begins its journey along a trade route it will first plan a route for which stations to visit on its way to its final destination.

When an IFTL freighter enters a star system and docks at its starbase the local economy will receive a boost and as a result the faction controlling the starbase gains additional income. The freighters may carry different types of goods which can influence the selection of available goods at a starbase, and freighters naturally attract the attention of pirates or other factions who are out to earn a quick buck by less than legal means. 

Conversely when IFTL freighters are attacked and looted this has a negative impact on the economy in a star system and will increase the chance of the next freighter planning another route to avoid this system as it is obviously risky and bad for profits. 

Ingame this is modelled through a star system security rating. The security rating and says something about how safe the system is to travel through and how likely one is to be attacked by pirates. Repeated pirate attacks on freighters or a state of war between two factions can reduce the security rating of a star system.

Now, how does this affect the AI and how the factions play? When the security rating goes down the IFTL faction AI looks at historical data for trade routes and can also evaluate the profitability of certain trade routes. This means that it can decide that the loss of a few freighters is acceptable and justifiable if the profit margin is sufficiently high. Alternatively the IFTL faction AI may decide to group freighters together into bigger fleets and assign escorts to deter pirates. It could also decide to ban any of its freighters from entering the star system where the pirate attack took place and request that the faction controlling the star system deal with the problem. 

The AI of the faction that owns the star system where the attack took place may decide between different strategies for dealing with the pirate problem, irrespective of whether the IFTL requested intervention. For example some factions are more likely to use guile or diplomacy while others prefer brute force.

As an example the Romanov faction AI could decide to take the long-term view and build up military patrols over time to increase the security rating. The Arkwright faction AI would perhaps instead elect to pay off the pirates (and request they at the same time go cause problems for another faction, in another star system). Likewise the Black Eagle faction AI could decide on a more aggressive solution and either assemble an attack fleet or offer a mission to one of its Great Captains to deal with the pirate problem. If the situation is really getting out of hand then any faction AI could decide to request the intervention of a Great Captain from its faction. As you know the player is also a Great Captain in this context and may therefore accept a mission to deal with pirates or respond to a request for intervention.

The AI of the pirates must decide whether to move on to another star system or continue attacking freighters in the current system, building up its presence and perhaps investing in better ships or establishing a pirate stronghold somewhere at a remote location. If the pirates become sufficiently strong they may even attract a Scourge of The Mandate, a Great Captain and notorious pirate.

Moving on let us talk a bit about the IFTL ship roster which is a bit different from the other factions. The ship roster is distinct in that the IFTL does not field heavy cruisers, battlecruisers or battleships. Instead it has three modular freighter classes as well as three escort classes (frigate, destroyer, light cruiser).

The freighter classes come in three different sizes: small, medium and large. Both the bow and stern sections are relatively short and the midship takes up the majority of the length of the ship. Each freighter can be configured either for carrying cargo containers or are purpose-built. In the case of the former the midship has ample space to mount a number of cargo containers. There are different types of containers and each is optimized for carrying a limited selection of goods or resources. This gives the freighter a lot of flexibility and the ability to be adapted based on the trade route it is serving, commodity prices and the need to diversify.

If the freighter is purpose-built to fulfill a specific role then its entire midship section is optimized for that specific role and it sacrifices cargo space to install facilities to undertake this role. Some examples of roles include prison ship, hospital ship, luxury ship / yacht and troop transport. 

Non-IFTL factions also utilize freighters but tend to prefer the purpose-built freighters which serve as fleet auxiliaries, yachts or prison ships.

Unlike military warships the freighters are built to less stringent standards. As a result they may be rebuilt or enlarged by combining multiple midship sections. By chain multiple midship sections together it is possible to construct freighters with additional cargo capacity or purpose-built freighters which can fulfil two roles, like a combined troop transport and hospital ship.

While freighters are not defenceless they usually not armed or armoured for protracted engagements as this would sacrifice valuable cargo space. If in serious danger lone freighters would prefer to outrun their attackers or failing that send out an SOS signal to request assistance from nearby friendly forces.

Bigger freighter convoys or freighters travelling through dangerous star systems will typically be escorted by one or more escorts. The escorts make up the second half of the IFTL ship roster. They are typically fast and cost-effective and protect the valuable freighters from light to moderate attacks.

We hope this update has given you a good picture of where we are in production and the progress made during the last few months. Also the discussion around trade routes and the different decisions that the AI can make based on pirate or player attacks on freighters, should illustrate the type of interconnected experience we are aiming for.

In the next update we plan to discuss the adventure mode in more detail as well as share a developer video with commentary from the adventure mode.

From all of us at Perihelion Interactive we would like to wish you Happy holidays! 

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

Great Scott! Building a Better Mouse Trap
about 9 years ago – Fri, Nov 06, 2015 at 10:53:20 PM

Hi backers,

For this update we will demonstrate the process for generating deck plans and away missions. We also recently finished an important milestone and will cover the main points from it. The update also includes a selection of Arkwright ships since we recently did a polish pass on their textures.

Deck designer

For our Gamescom demo we assembled two large decks for the heavy cruiser. This process was a manual and time consuming process. The Gamescom demo took at least six hours for each deck, and that did not include changes that had to be made as a result of playtesting. Even minor layout changes took lots of time since many small art assets had to be repositioned. The snap-to-grid function does not work perfectly for all object types which created gaps and imprecise collision (which again generated pathfinding bugs).

Therefore we decided to implement a new and faster process. This process is inspired by how we already handle away missions where level designers only need to focus on gameplay and pure level design. This required that we both rework our existing art assets and also develop a new tool, the deck designer.

Below is a mockup that shows how the art assets would need to be reorganized into a tiled structure that is compatible with the deck designer. Notice the individual tiles of varying sizes along the bottom and then also the vertical corridor on the left part of the image where the tiles have been used to decorate the floor in a non-repetitive pattern. Later in this update we show examples from inside Unity3D for the Grand Fleet, Black Eagle and Osmani faction tilesets.

Now we mentioned that a new tool, the deck designer, was required to facilitate the new process. The deck designer is used to quickly put together a level layout. Once the level layout is ready we can automatically assemble all art assets correctly. This reduces the likelihood of bugs (due to placement and collision) and if the designer makes changes to the level layout then he can just press a button and the art assets are automatically updated to accommodate these changes. In fact, the new process takes less than one hour and the designer can even do multiple layout changes during that time.

In the video below you can see the new deck designer in action. We have shifted the focus over from arranging lots of small objects to deciding where to place objects that affect gameplay. By focusing deck creation on rooms and doors placement the designer’s perspective is firmly placed on level flow. The various helper tools like the green level constrainer and the “blocker box” that is used to place inaccessible areas, can all be scaled as the designer sees fit. The second part of the video covers the away mission design process which also served as inspiration for the new deck designer.

The deck designer is not yet finished but currently in such a state that the designers can work with it and we are adding features like automatic lighting, support for blast doors, as well as several tweaks and optimizations. Also, the deck designer will integrate with another tool called the ship designer which is where the link between the exterior ship model and the interior decks are made (in addition to other stats like weapon hardpoints).

On the away mission side all the rudimentary systems are in place. Following the same process as the gameplay area definition (black/white texture) the designer is able to specify where to place objects that impact gameplay and pathfinding, like cover objects. Backdrop assets which are outside the gameplay area (in the black part of the texture) can either be defined by the designer or generated through a random seed function (or both).

As for the gradient and height-map these can either use the biome default or the designer can specify an alternative map to use. This gives the designers the flexibility to create both handcrafted and more procedurally generated levels. It means we have time to craft additional level layouts and each level layout can be play-tested much faster.

Artificial Intelligence

Moving on, last week we completed an important milestone review with Eurovideo. We reviewed the new process for building decks as well as three other areas: the adventure mode, content tools and product backlog planning. We will cover each of these in turn.

The most important focus with adventure mode for this milestone was to integrate the first version of the new artificial intelligence from Apex Game Tools. We used a prototype of the Apex Utility AI for the Gamescom demo to manage the complex squad tactics of the boarding commandos. This enabled us to have goal-based AI that could handle the military command structure of multiple squads systematically clearing the enemy spaceships, in the way trained commandos would do this. All the while responding to dynamic changes to the game as the boarding combat progressed. This allowed us to test some really cool features of The Mandate when combined with the powerful, state-of-the-art AI from Apex Game Tools.

Specifically for the adventure mode the AI will work a bit differently as there are two elements that together make up a faction: the faction leader (and sub-faction leaders) and the Great Captains. If we use chess as an analogy then the faction leader is the person that is strategizing and moving pieces on the board. The Great Captains are the pawns and officers who reside on the board and are part of the game world.

The faction leaders are static throughout the game and firmly rooted in lore. They are either one of the characters from the lore document or a lieutenant/envoy who is acting on behalf of her/his master(s).The faction leaders have their own agenda which affects the strategy they pursue and help shape the story and the context of the game.

The Great Captains are a mix of hand-crafted and dynamically generated NPC characters. They have the same stats as the player character and play by the same rules as the player character. They roam the adventure mode and can swear allegiance to one of the factions and work for them to grow in status, power and wealth.

We want the factions and Great Captains to feel alive, and provide the right mood for The Mandate in line with the great storylines and the deep lore. To achieve this each faction is being run by an advanced Utility AI that has its own aims or agenda which is related to that faction’s backstory and lore. On that basis, the AI will define goals that enables it to achieve those aims, based on the actual state of the game, past events etc. The AI has to balance the desire for conquest with the desire to build strength and maintain alliances with other powerful factions. The AI thinks long-term, such as how to attract Great Captains to join their faction.The AI must also maintain the faction’s economy by exploration, conquest and trade while avoiding over-expanding their territory and falling prey to rival factions.

The goals of each faction spills down to the Great Captains in their hire, who will roam the galaxy as renaissance princes carving out their bases of power and expanding their domains as allegiances change and battles for influence and domination unfold. They must build their reputations in great campaigns and vie for power through treacherous schemes and backstabbing their competitors in a Machiavellian fashion when needed.

Factions and Great Captains employ some of the latest technologies in artificial intelligence for games. Both make long-term plans for conquest. Both have long-term memory (and will never forget treason...). Furthermore, they can make decisions using incomplete information and plot how to destroy their enemies or form alliances to expand their influence across multiple star systems.

The ultimate goal with our artificial intelligence is to make each faction feel and play differently. As scheming puppet masters they will recruit Great Captains to their cause. The player is one of these Great Captains and will compete with, ally and challenge these in order to carve out a place for himself.

On the visual side the adventure mode currently looks unfinished and more like a test scene since our focus is on functionality and features. The art team is busy working on adventure mode assets like starships, engine trails, stellar objects etc.

Once the game code and AI code is properly integrated we can then connect the art assets and share video footage with you guys. So first we build the game systems that create a fun and immersive experience which you will actually enjoy and then afterwards we make it look pretty.

Tools progress

Next up we reviewed with Eurovideo the progress on content tools implementation. These are the tools that we are using to build the content for The Mandate. Both the deck designer and away mission generator are part of these tools.

In the overview below you will find a breakdown of the progress of each individual tool as well as important features associated with or required by each tool. We measured progress across four milestones: MS1, MS2, MS3 and MS4.

As you can see from the columns “MS1” and “MS2” we were on track according to our roadmap. However, for “MS3” we did not reach our goal of 90% completion. The reasons for this was that we had a delay in hiring programmers and we also had to put much more focus on the Gamescom Demo. We agreed with Eurovideo to revisit the tools status again for “MS4”. The “MS4” milestone review was conducted last week and approved.

So what does it take to get to 100% tool completion? Well out of the remaining tasks the most important one is probably the process for designing / constructing space combat maps. Currently we are investigating how much of the code from away missions we can reuse directly. However, for space combat we also want the ability to make the map use stellar objects that are present in adventure mode inside the space combat map. That being said we do expect to make tweaks and fixes to the content tools all the way until release.

Product Backlog

On the project planning side we are doing what is called product backlog planning. This entails reviewing all roadmaps to get an overview of the various features we still need to implement. For each feature we do rough estimates to build up an understanding of how much work (ideal man days) is left. To help us build the product backlog we have enlisted the aid of an external project manager who has a lot of expertise with product backlog planning. He is very passionate about our game concept and is helping us identify which features to prioritize in order to ensure we deliver on the Kickstarter concept.

For this milestone we presented the first version of the product backlog and discussed the process with Eurovideo. The next step now is to measure how quickly the team implements new features and then compare this data with the time estimates for the features in the product backlog. Once the product backlog is finalized and more accurate estimates are available, we can create a more final product backlog. When we have this we can give you a better idea about when we expect to have the Alpha and Beta candidates as well as estimated release date for the final game.

Beyond the formal milestone review we also communicated with Eurovideo about adding an official community manager to the project since we are very busy developing the game and this means it can take a long time for us to respond to all the ideas, questions and helpful input from the community.

The next Kickstarter update will focus on the updated design document for adventure mode. We will explain our layered, bottom-up approach and discuss how each layer adds to the final game experience.

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive

Company, Fall In! Inspection Arms!
about 9 years ago – Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 11:45:51 PM

Hi backers,

Time for another update. Today we will give an overall update on the game design. First we will discuss what we learnt from preparing for the Gamescom demo and what changes we are making as a result. Next we will talk about our focus over the coming months, and then we will discuss specific design changes included crew management. Finally, we will discuss manufacturers with respect to lore and equipment.

On a side-note the vocal recordings for the soundtrack were completed last month. We caught some footage of the choir recording the Russian lyrics for the Mandate Main theme and uploaded it to our youtube channel a couple of weeks ago.

The crew management changes are highly relevant for the pledge tiers for “design an officer”, “design a captain” and “design a marine platoon”. The design documents for these pledges have been updated. CLICK HERE to review them. Our volunteer scribes are ready to assist and answer questions over on the forums.

Gamescom follow-up

The Gamescom Demo showcased a late game boarding action where the player leads eight squads of marines and attempts to take back a heavy cruiser. In case you did not read the previous update or forgot to watch the video itself then you can check it out below. 

As part of our post mortem process after Gamescom we discussed that our current workflow for building the ship deck plans took too much time and was difficult to modify later. Keep in mind that with around 50 ships we have a lot of interiors to build. The process is prone to placement errors which can easily cause pathfinding glitches and issues. For away missions we have a different and much faster workflow. So we are now taking inspiration from this process and improving the workflow for building ship deck plans. It requires some rework but should pay huge dividends in the long run.

Another area where we need to focus is optimization and performance. Both the artificial intelligence solution from Apex Software (which we mentioned in Update #51) and our animation systems require optimization so boarding combat can run smoothly in parallel with space combat.

From a gameplay perspective the Gamescom demo also told us that having small rooms with only one door entrance makes the rooms have less value during boarding combat. While there is still value to blowing up consoles inside rooms (synergy with space combat) the rooms themselves are otherwise dead ends. The player is forced to use corridors exclusively to move squads around the ship and with lots of squads these areas become cramped. The art and design departments are currently rethinking and redesigning the role of rooms during boarding combat and our goals is to have more interconnected rooms. The deck plans should “make more sense” and there will be more obvious pros and cons when fighting in corridors or rooms.

Beyond implementing these changes and improvements our next goal is to bring the adventure mode and space combat up to the same quality as the Gamescom demo. We are first focusing on adventure mode as it is the hub from which all other content in our game is accessed. It is also where the impact of your victories in battle will be felt and seen. Currently we are working on the artificial intelligence for each of the factions as well as the Great Captains.

The Great Captains are NPCs who command their own ships, can perform missions on behalf of factions and level up. They may also have their own ambitions and goals which dictate their behaviour in the sandbox and can lead to either alliances or conflict. In many ways the Great Captains will mimic player behaviour and also play by the same rules as the player. This will create a more dynamic experience which we think adds an extra dimension to the sandbox. Conflict will be more personal and interesting as you interact with these Great Captains. Finally we are also implementing information warfare, of which the scanning feature is an important component since it plays a crucial role in both adventure mode, space combat and boarding combat.

Osmani 2.0

Before we continue we should make a note that we have spent some time to polish both the historical references and Napoleonic elements. One example here is the revised design for the Osmani armours. The original design had issues with the rig which caused animation problems.

Therefore we set out to redesign the Osmani armours and we cross-checked our lore documents for the Osmani faction. Now the Osmani armours are based on the historical Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. If you google them then you will see some of our design inspirations.

Crew management

As you probably saw from our Gamescom developer video we have done some changes to crew management. Initially we were going with a hands-on approach where you would manage individual crew members and give orders to individual marines in boarding combat. However, while this approach works with a frigate with a low crew count later ships will have a much higher crew count. So over time (read: mid and late game stages) this hands-on approach starts to become impractical as you would spend more time proportionally to micro-manage your crew as the ship gets bigger.

With The Mandate we want to generate this command experience where you feel like Captain Picard or Admiral Adama. Neither of these two knew the first name of everybody serving under their command nor did they micro manage the daily routine of each member of their crew. But they were close to their command staff and other select officers so we decided to go back and take another look at how the crew is organized and try to find a solution that would scale better as the crew got larger.

Our solution involves organizing the crew into squads and officers. While your crew is on duty they are organized into squads. When your crew is off duty, however, individual squad members and officers will socialize and relax, and you may interact with them one at a time, hear their concerns and help them with problems.

As captain you can interact with your officers and they in turn interact with your squads (crew). This emulates the military chain of command and is in line with the command experience we pitched on Kickstarter and are still very much committed to make a reality.

Squads

A squad contains up to eight named crew members while an officer is an individual crew member. Squads are an important game concept for several reasons beyond the reduction in micro-management. For example, in The Mandate, we want to model attrition. This means that your crew will die. Squads are more long-lived than individuals. They can take casualties and individual members may die but if the squad survives then it can be reinforced later.

The squad approach also allows us to have a unified crew focus and all squad types can be used for boarding combat or away missions. With squads it will also be easier to differentiate and make them feel unique as opposed to making lots of individual crew members unique. We are working hard to strike the right balance between an army of clones and something completely random.

So how exactly do we differentiate squads? Each squad will have an origin faction, a background trait, personality trait and a starting skill. Squads can level up during play and an important choice to make is which service branch the squad will join. On the topic of service branches we should mentioned that we have decided to split security into marines (infantry) and aviation (cavalry). The design templates mentioned in the introduction reflect this change.

As the squad levels up it gain additional traits and learn new skills. New skills are acquired based on which service branch the squad joins and existing skills will increase in rank. A squad can have a maximum of five different skills and the max skill rank is 10. Traits are a bit more unpredictable in that which traits a squad gains may depend on multiple factors like origin faction, service branch, ingame events which the squad was involved in etc.

Which types of squads exist? Well, first we are focusing on the core progression system. Our standard squad types are the service branches (medical, engineering, astrogation etc). However, as a squad gains experience it will be possible to further specialize the squad within a service branch. The maximum level for a squad is 30 but we are evaluating what could happen once a squad reaches maximum level.

While squad traits and experience is important, proper tools are also needed to get the job done. You will be able to specify both weapon, armor and kits (grenade, motion scanner, hacker tool, etc) for each squad. Some types of equipment may require specific skills or traits. So specialized engineering kits or medical kits for example may only be usable by squads from the engineering or medical service branches, respectively.

Provided you have a training room onboard your ship you can assign squads to train with their equipment when you are not in combat. Training is especially important for marine squads and aviation squads who can expect to see a lot of action. Depending on the type of training they do, they may gain different temporary bonuses which augment their traits and skills.

Officers

Experience, equipment and training will help your squads perform better. Another way to improve a squad's performance is to assign it an officer and we will discuss this interaction a bit later in this update. Officers can also be assigned to the bridge as a bridge officer (becoming part of your command staff) or they may act as envoys off ship.

The number of bridge officers that are needed to run the ship efficiently depends on the size of the ship. So a heavy cruiser will require more bridge officers than a frigate or destroyer. The bridge houses all the service branch heads, their support staff, the executive officer and of course the captain. Whenever the captain needs to hail and interact with other captains or external contacts he can fall back on the expertise and experience of his bridge officers. Here we are modelling the experience around TV shows like Star Trek TNG where the core interaction is between the captain and his officers.

Below you can see a design mockup which depicts a scenario where the captain is communicating with an external contact, in this case Admiral Suvarov. There are several dialogue options available due to the captain’s own attributes (“Warfare 6”) and traits (“The Protege”). The bridge officers can supplement these dialogue options based on their faction, attributes and traits. In our example the chief science officer has a suggestion (“Requires Sciences 8”). Note that the officers do not address the external contact directly but rather confer with the captain. It is then up to the captain how to proceed and which choices to make. Again, keep in mind that this is a game design mockup and consequently does not represent final GUI or even dialogue text.

The third area where officers come in handy is in the role of envoys. Envoys is actually a role we decided to put more emphasis on after reading discussions on the backer forums. Envoys do not interact directly with your squads nor do they serve on your bridge. Instead they can be assigned missions and travel around in the sandbox. For example they could travel to distant star systems to gather intelligence about enemy forces, perform sabotage, negotiate with factions or search for clues and rumours. You can train officers as dedicated envoys (instead of assigning them to join a service branch) or you can take existing officers and temporarily use them as envoys. For example an in-game event could involve you being asked to temporarily send your chief science officer as an envoy to take part at an important summit.

Officers lead squads

There are similarities and differences between squads and officers. For example both have traits and both can gain experience during play. In the design mockup below you can see senior warrant officer Eva Takei. She is a level 20 senior warrant officer (SWO) from the Black Eagle faction who has acquired a total of four traits: Navy Brat, Cynical, Hunker Down and Killing Fields. Traits can affect both the officer and the squad (s)he commands in different ways. Officers also have five attributes which broadly define their areas of expertise. The attributes are the same for all officers. One of Eva’s traits buffs her Warfare attribute by one point.

Eva is in command of the “Thunder Chickens” which is a level 20 Romanov marine recon squad. It has four traits: Renegade, Gun Nuts, Precision and Muscle Memory. In addition the “Thunder Chickens” have acquired five different skills. The selection of skills is not random but rather based on choices made by the captain (the player) when deciding which service branch (marine) and later what specialization (recon) the “Thunder Chickens” should focus on. If the squad had instead joined either the astrogation or medical service branch then it would gain different skills. In addition we can see that one of the squad’s traits “Gun Nuts” buffs the basic weapons skill by two points but reduces the console operations skill by one point. To read more about these traits please consult the updated backer design documents which are linked at the start and end of this update.

These design mockups illustrate the general direction we are going in with both officers and squads. As captain you can pick which service branch each officer and squad should join but you do not directly control which traits they will acquire as the game progresses. As the captain you can award squads with citations & battle honours which affect all squad members. Officers can be granted medals and knighthoods which affect them individually. Squads are strongly tied to their service branch (which is where they get most of their skills and traits from) while officers are less constrained by the choice of service branch. For example there may well be a mission where it makes sense to put a medical officer in charge of a squad of heavily armed (and armoured) assault marines. It will be up to you as captain to juggle your squads, officers and equipment to maximize their chance of completing the mission objectives. 

Equipment was already mentioned as a major influence on the performance of your crew. Equipment encompasses both ship weapons, ship consoles as well as personal gear for squads (weapons, armor, kits). In the case of squads certain types of equipment may have skill requirements that must be satisfied before they can be used. An example could be heavy armor or a sniper rifle which requires training before it can be used effectively in a combat situation. Below is a design mockup which explains how the officer, squad and items (equipment) are connected and interact.

We hope this overview of crew management alongside the design mockups has given you a better idea of the design changes we are doing and also why we are doing them to deliver this command experience (which is heavily inspired by TV Shows) where you get to sit in the captain’s chair. We think especially the squad system approach will help us spec and balance the game better and it is a flexible system which we can easily expand upon later.

Manufacturers

We talked about the importance of equipment (items) earlier and we wanted to share some of our thoughts on how these are designed and introduced into the game world. One of the benefits of working for another faction is that you may gain access to their selection of equipment. Each of the major factions in the Mandate have their own fleets and standing armies and are supplied by mega-corps which produce anything from sidearms to ship cannons. These mega-corps are the equivalent of modern day Lockheed, BAE or General Electric (the latter producing everything from MR machines to nuclear attack submarines!).

Each faction has a strong identity, ambitions and goals which are established through the lore and backstory documents. Their mentality influences what tactics and doctrines they have adopted and their troops and ships are equipped accordingly. In the Mandate each major faction will have up to five manufacturers (mega-corps):

• A base manufacturer which produces everything from infantry weapons to starbase modules. This is your bread-and-butter equipment. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive
• Sub-faction manufacturer: These manufacturers produce higher quality equipment but also offer a more limited selection. They usually offer their services in conjunction with a sub-faction so you will need a good standing with the sub-faction to obtain their equipment legally (...)
• Skunkworks: The crème de la crème, very good and very expensive. Some of these “skunkworks” have been shut down or their work is classified which means you will not exactly find their contact info in the yellow pages

Our writers are currently fleshing out the backstory for the manufacturers of each major faction. In many ways it will be an extension of the lore document which helps inform our designers about equipment variations and what each manufacturer will focus on. To give you an early peek we decided to share the manufacturer list for the Romanov faction. CLICK HERE to read an early draft of the manufacturer document. 

Keep in mind that this document is subject to change, and the document will be updated with revised text in the coming weeks and months. Once we are happy with the manufacturer document we will update the “design a fighter squadron”, “design a starbase” and “design a legendary weapon” backer design templates and mention this in a Kickstarter Update.

Promising Kickstarter projects

We have not done Kickstarter shout-outs for a while but we thought we should mention two interesting projects.

First up Larian Studio’s Divinity: Original Sin 2. Its prequel was funded via Kickstarter and was very well received by both gamers and press. Both games have cooperative support, and while Divinity: Original Sin 2 has already met its funding goal, there are some nice stretch goals and are only a few thousand dollars away from hitting the extended mod support stretch goal!

Next we have “The Dwarves” from King Art Games which has previously released  two Kickstarter-funded games. “The Dwarves” is a fantasy RPG about beards, beer and battle where you recruit and control a group of heroes. The game is set in the world of “Girdlegard” and is based on the books by German writer Markus Heitz. The game features a very interesting crowd combat system where your heroes duke it out with multiple opponents in real-time.

Next update

We mentioned the away mission design workflow in the introduction of this update. Next update we will show the steps that we go through to generate an away mission. We hope this will be an interesting “behind the scenes” look and it should be of big interest to future modders.

Again, just a friendly reminder that you can CLICK HERE to review the updated backer design documents.

Until next time!

Cheers,
Your friends at Perihelion Interactive