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- Jan 28, 2011
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Tags: Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game; Iron Tower Studio; Vince D. Weller
It's been a quiet month and a half on the Colony Ship front, but development on the game has continued. The beta test for the first chapter is still on track for December, with the public Early Access release now scheduled for March. Iron Tower have improved the enemy AI and finalized the game's first non-human enemy type - the turret. The main topic of this month's development update is a particular scenario that involves said turret. In the struggle for control of the Pit between Jonas Redford and Jeremiah Braxton, a player who sides with the latter might volunteer to prevent the townsfolk from interfering while Braxton's Regulators take Jonas out. The accompanying batch of screenshots demonstrates three ways in which this scenario might play out:
We continue working on quests and mechanics, aiming to start beta-testing the first 3 locations in Dec and release on Early Access in March next year.
Now the AI can 'see' and open doors, which will make the game of hide n seek more fun, at least for the AI. We added the first non-human enemy – a turret. You probably saw one in the combat demo, but that was a lifeless 3D model. Now they have stats (for different types), animations (rotate and fire, take damage, etc), and combat behavior. The turrets use proper ammo (not the magical unlimited ammo), so the faster you kill one, the more ammo you'd loot. If it's a friendly turret, you can share your own ammo with it to make sure it won't run out of bullets too soon.
Since you're here for some screens, let's illustrate multiple solutions in combat-heavy scenarios and show our new turret. As you probably know, the starting town's conflict is between Jonas representing freedom, Deadwood-style, that some might call lawlessness and Braxton representing law & order that some might call gubment telling folks what to do and – to add insult to injury – charging tax for the privilege.
It won't be much of a spoiler to tell you that the conflict ends up in a shootout, but what if open assault isn't your style? Then (upon request) you'll be tasked with preventing the locals from coming to Jonas' aid while Braxton's forces do all the heavy lifting. So that's two very different options already but the design miracles don't stop there.
Once you go down that path you get 3 new options: diplomacy (which in turn branches into relying on Impersonate to con the local yokels and Persuasion to convince them that resistance is futile), combat (in case you change your mind and decide to fight after all), and a mix of thievery and jury-rigging. There's an old turret there that's been stripped for parts. You can explore the nearby area while you have time (Lockpick will help a lot here), find the parts and some ammo, and use your Computer skill to fix the targeting module.
That's it for today. Next month we'll show you the Hydroponics and hopefully announce the upcoming beta-test. Stay tuned.
Good stuff. Presumably Hydroponics will be the third location included in the Early Access build, the second being the Armory which we saw back in July.
It's been a quiet month and a half on the Colony Ship front, but development on the game has continued. The beta test for the first chapter is still on track for December, with the public Early Access release now scheduled for March. Iron Tower have improved the enemy AI and finalized the game's first non-human enemy type - the turret. The main topic of this month's development update is a particular scenario that involves said turret. In the struggle for control of the Pit between Jonas Redford and Jeremiah Braxton, a player who sides with the latter might volunteer to prevent the townsfolk from interfering while Braxton's Regulators take Jonas out. The accompanying batch of screenshots demonstrates three ways in which this scenario might play out:
We continue working on quests and mechanics, aiming to start beta-testing the first 3 locations in Dec and release on Early Access in March next year.
Now the AI can 'see' and open doors, which will make the game of hide n seek more fun, at least for the AI. We added the first non-human enemy – a turret. You probably saw one in the combat demo, but that was a lifeless 3D model. Now they have stats (for different types), animations (rotate and fire, take damage, etc), and combat behavior. The turrets use proper ammo (not the magical unlimited ammo), so the faster you kill one, the more ammo you'd loot. If it's a friendly turret, you can share your own ammo with it to make sure it won't run out of bullets too soon.
Since you're here for some screens, let's illustrate multiple solutions in combat-heavy scenarios and show our new turret. As you probably know, the starting town's conflict is between Jonas representing freedom, Deadwood-style, that some might call lawlessness and Braxton representing law & order that some might call gubment telling folks what to do and – to add insult to injury – charging tax for the privilege.
It won't be much of a spoiler to tell you that the conflict ends up in a shootout, but what if open assault isn't your style? Then (upon request) you'll be tasked with preventing the locals from coming to Jonas' aid while Braxton's forces do all the heavy lifting. So that's two very different options already but the design miracles don't stop there.
Once you go down that path you get 3 new options: diplomacy (which in turn branches into relying on Impersonate to con the local yokels and Persuasion to convince them that resistance is futile), combat (in case you change your mind and decide to fight after all), and a mix of thievery and jury-rigging. There's an old turret there that's been stripped for parts. You can explore the nearby area while you have time (Lockpick will help a lot here), find the parts and some ammo, and use your Computer skill to fix the targeting module.
That's it for today. Next month we'll show you the Hydroponics and hopefully announce the upcoming beta-test. Stay tuned.
