Thanks for the praise
See, not only ultimate stuff can be fun - and the Loader was always meant as a weapons platform, not an assault uber-armor (that's Annihilator - but Annihilator won't carry new super-heavy weapons); still, it has enough armor to withstand everything short of heavy weapons, it does certainly shrug off the bullets and human grenades, you just need to understand it cannot be pushed into Hell and expected to survive
Although ROF should be higher, I think, (not in a shots per auto sense, but in a projectile speed sense, so unloading whole burst does not take so long) there should be a sweet spot, where you can appreciate the mayhem, SFX does not clip, and burst does not take that long.
Well I can't set your animation speed settings for you, man. It works just fine on my settings, the projectile hits in about .3s and the SFX almost clips but not really:)
On the fence about new interrogation - imo that extra step isnt really needed. Was the old one broken? I thought it worked pretty well. overall it feels needlesly complcated and not fun, despite it being just a single extra step.
It wasn't working, you could just interrogate everyone and research interrogation later, then get everything at once. Seemed really wrong. Plus, it allowed for an extra tier of technology - cannot go straight for the top techs, extra step (and extra capture) is needed - unless of course you don't want to go straight for the top techs, there are alternate venues opened without interrogation. I've always thought getting dat top tech is too easy, this is the first time I have introduced a system that works - ie. which makes the tech progression harder in a creative way (and a better way than having to rely on random chance, like key features from Data Slates in FMP). There's so much stuff in Piratez, making some research harder to reach allows you to enjoy the other stuff longer (and purely emotionally, I simply like 'processing' people
). In theory. I don't know, I have to get there yet in my test campaign, see for myself. Now checking how far up I can go without Interrogation, to spot any holes.
Starting with 0.9, there will be another major change - upping base TU's and Stamina of all pirates by 15, and adjusting armor bonuses/penalties accordingly; The unarmored will be at +0/+0. Why? To increase the Energy regen rate, which is equal to STARTING TUs/3; was a bit too low with all these higher TU counts and running, it'll go from 15-21/turn to about 23-26 per turn; also to eliminate the counterintuitive idea that wearing nothing gives you stat boosts. Telling this in advance since it'll render all your old soldiers a bit outdated
I'm also thinking about increasing default Smoke damage from 200% to 300% - smoke can't be ignored completely, but still isn't really a threat, and smoke grenades can be used pretty freely. Naturally, you can always wear an armor that gives smoke immunity
As for 0.89, I'm working on -
1. another superheavy weapon
2. loadout changes (pictured a new melee weapons, mostly made for Church of Sirius), more logic, more variety, less Desert Eagles which frankly was just TOO attractive while being plentiful.
3. more story/world background stuff
4. Default accurate range of autofire is again increased, this time from 9 to 11 (the autofire option was almost never worth it, this should help, in general but also for dedicated-autofire weapons in particular, like the not-loved SMG)
5. Yet another one early alternate-ammo tech, Electro-Pulse Bullets (they deal laser damage, and are available for the "crap-pistol" and colt .45, for now) to appreciate un-appreciated guns, at least if a player choses so (it's only natural that appreciating all the stuff ISN'T possible during a single campaign, but I'm thinking replay value here)
6. Rebalancing armor, based on already well-established guidelines (tac suit, heavy suit, metal armor as watermarks).
7. Adding new early-research craft type - now you can choose between the Brave Whaler Fighter, and Deliverator Light Transport. There will be a third choice at that point - a Light Fighter, very fast (>5000) but fragile, meant mainly for missile deliveries.
And I hope to also get another minor enemy faction into the game before release (a variation of the Raid mission, with Raiders and that new faction, working name - Militias), and maybe also a non-elite variation of Govt forces (the guys whom you can kill for money but at the price of a negative Score
with guys like police and factory workers, they will definitely appear in the Resource Extraction mission, for starters.
