Vapourware The Mandate - LOL DEAD

[Bubbles]

New Kickstarter update; I cut off the part about their new webcomic.

What we are currently working on

We're completely focused on the Early Access version of the game. To give you guys a polished experience to enjoy is our number one priority. We have four teams working on different aspects of the game: the Engine Team, the Space Combat Team, the Mission Team and the Sandbox Team. Here’s what they are currently working on:

The Mission Team:
They are currently detailing the story-missions for the clusters in the Penrose Enclave, which consists of five different systems. They are also working on adding new event categories to the event system, which will be distributed later in the game. The new events that we now have cover everything from unique encounters to run-of-the-mill ones. They can be accessed via POI’s (you’ll learn more about them later). There now are a total of 50 event-lines, allowing for over a total of 500 unique dialogue-nodes and options (and more will be written! ).

The Sandbox Team:
On a side note: We now have our great artists Garret and Greg here on site for the next couple of months. This speeds up communication and iteration immensely!
They are working together with the Sandbox Team on creating and integrating assets. In the Mission Team section we mentioned the POIs (Points of Interest).
In order to trigger events, you need to access them via Supply Crates or Information Logs. They are currently floating in space and can be found by the player.

Information Log

Supply Crate
Also new asteroids for Space Combat were created.

Space Combat Asteroids
The station docking interface has been revamped. You can now access Trading, Refitting, Missions, Recruitment and the Bridge from one window, which makes it more convenient. Also ship modules can now be bought and equipped!

Refitting Interface
Trading also got a nice little feature that makes it a bit more exciting: You can bargain and try to buy items you need cheaper than expected, depending on the trader’s mood. This gives you a certain percentage of success on the transaction outcome! This will allow for a really dynamic economy in the game.

Trading Interface
The Engine Team:
They are working on performance upgrades and the integration of the audio-engine we use for the game. Although these are two short sentences, they mean a lot for the game.

The Space Combat Team:
The Space Combat team is working with very fast iteration and testing to redesign all the factors we don’t consider fitting for the overall experience. This approach is super helpful to achieve our goals.
To the already existing core prototype we added more granularity by being able to target the enemies subsystems (Weapons, Engines, Shields), which brings different damage consequences to the game, e.g. slowing down enemy ships.
Additionally there are Officer / Player Skill that affect parameters in the game. The Space Combat Team is also creating base maps for the game to show off possible different scenarios for story missions and pirate hideouts – boom!
The next steps are to implement multiple units for the player to command during Space Combat, to have deeper and more tactical decisions.

** Please note that everything shown in the pictures above is not final quality and work in progress. **

 

[Kem0sabe]

Lords of Xulima and Primordia (one of the best Adventure games in recent times) are better examples, of unknown and new developers.

Kem0sabe's blanket statement that we do NOT get any games of any redeemable quality is just completely false.

I said "almost every developer", and in regards to delivering every feature they promised during the crowdfunding campaign.

Notable example, the day night schedule during the divinity original sin campaign.

 

[HoboForEternity]

 

[anus_pounder]

Those screenies remind me of Star Wolves 3 for some reason. That was a fun game, imo.

 

[Trash]

Always hoped this would be a Homeworld. Then it seemed to turn into a Nexus. By now I'll be happy if we get Star Wolves.

 

[norolim]

Also new asteroids for Space Combat were created.

Space Combat Asteroids

Huh?

?​

 

[Bubbles]

Everyone in the US is talking about the great mandate today, and the devs have seized the opportunity to publish a new video:

Hello everyone,

this is less an update in the "traditional" sense, but more of a community drop!

We had Amelie (User Experience Researcher and Writer) and Greg (3D Environment Artist) sit down to talk about The Mandate! They're going to tell you about how the art and the story influence each other in creating the universe of The Mandate! They also give a sneak peak at some of the newest features that the team has been working on.

 

[Excidium II]

Faggy lookin fatso.

 

[Executr]

Latest update (about a month ago):

Greetings everyone,

YES - signs of life were detected.

Perihelion Interactive wishes you a belated happy 2017 and the strength to make your New Year's resolutions come true!



We are very sorry for the long period of silence. We have used that time well to focus solely on development. We can now finally present what we have been working on behind the curtains for the past two months: Space Combat!
After finishing our playable prototype of an earlier iteration of Space Combat, we came to the conclusion that it lacked the “fun” factor. Instead of releasing a playable, but unfun version of the game, we decided to rework the aspects that were not satisfactory and make improvements.

Part of our design process has been to seek inspiration from the community. The feedback all of you have provided over the last number of updates has proven invaluable to the Space Combat Team. Some of you suggested a real-time with pause function rather than the turn-based approach we had initially outlined. We’ve taken that feedback on board and gone a step further by making the pause function an active feature of gameplay.

A number of the changes outlined below for Space Combat have had a basis in the suggestions of the community. These are the main features we have worked on:

• One Ship VS Multiple Ships: The core gameplay now supports multiple ships. The player directly controls one ship in Adventure Mode. However, you are able to control additional ships during Space Combat. These additional ships can either be provided by specific missions, or by using the “Call for Help” feature during combat. This feature allows you to call in NPC ships that you have met in Adventure Mode. Your Faction Standing with these ships’ associated factions makes them available or not for support.
• Turn-Based VS Real-Time with Active Pause: In the previous design, the core of space combat gameplay was turn-based. This impeded on other game mechanics, was too slow-paced and simply less fun that what we wanted. We are now using a real-time combat system, with an ability to slow down time which we refer to as “Active Pause” in the video. This provides you with more time to adjust your tactics to the current situation, without impeding the desired rhythm and pace we want to achieve.
• Modules Targeting: This is currently in an early prototype phase so not all functionality is implemented yet, but we have made good progress. This feature is important when it comes to defeating larger ships - it allows you to cripple your enemy’s systems: you can destroy Engines, Weapons, Shields Module, Scanners, Bridge and Energy Generator. The destruction of any of these modules has a different impact on the targeted ship. Destroying the enemy’s Shields Module, for example, prevents the shields from regenerating. Destroying the Weapons module will reduce his damage output.
• Abilities: We have a working iteration of characteristics-driven Abilities. Abilities with specific behaviors like Cloaking, placing mines, will come in a next iteration. We have three categories of Abilities: Captain, Officer and Ship. Captain and Officer Abilities both consume your Crew’s Morale, whereas Ship Abilities consume Energy.
• Weapons: We have two main categories of weapons: Energy weapons and Projectile weapons. Energy weapons consume ship Energy with each shot, and are effective against Shields. Projectile weapons consume Ammo, and are effective against Hull. Ammo can be acquired from defeated ships’ wreckages, and bought from Starbases in Adventure Mode. Energy is generated during space combat through the Energy Generator module.
• Gas Clouds: We have different types of Gas Clouds. They were not 100% functional when we recorded the video, so we did not explain them there. We have Gas Clouds which allow you to hide from the enemy, some clouds that disrupts your shield’s regeneration, and others which recharge your ship’s Energy.
• AI: We have made progress on the AI design, but it is still at an early stage. In the next iteration, we will implement more advanced behavior for ships during combat, including desired attack behaviors (orbit, stationary, hit & run, etc), how the AI approaches defeating the player and fleeing. You can choose to either destroy or disable enemies and even request their surrender. You will be able to retrieve more or less loot depending on your choices, and your standing with different factions will reflect these choices.

Charles Pearson, who was initially working on Adventure Mode, took over the work on Space Combat two months ago, recorded a narrated video for you guys! Click on the picture below to get to the video. This should give you a good overview of what has been achieved! We hope you will enjoy it, please let us know what you think!



Please note that all visuals (models, effects, user interface, lighting) recorded in this video are not representative of final quality. This is our test environment for validating gameplay mechanics, and features implementation. We still have to work the user experience, the UI art, 3D Art and lighting.

We will continue to iterate on Space Combat in the coming months.

The next main goals for Space Combat are:

• Improving the weapons targeting User Experience (weapon grouping).
• Adding missing signs & feedback: Ship status, obstructed weapons indicators, line of fires for weapons, enemy states and more.
• Finalizing the Modules Targeting system.
• Implemention of AI behavior.
• Improving the movement system: Additional commands to orbit or approach targets, multiple selection, and more.
• Implementation of the dialogue system and objectives system in Space Combat.
• Creating different combat scenarios and objectives.
• Looting / Surrender ships in Space Combat.

These changes have affected the Kickstarter Alpha and Steam EA preparations. We are continuing to work towards that initial release.

On a final note all of us here at Perihelion would like to express our gratitude for your patience while we’re working towards that initial release.

Ugh...

 

[veevoir]

So.. they reworked the combat to be what they promised in kickstarter? Begs a question - what was it before..

 

[Morality Games]

What the hell. Why won't this zombie stay down?

 

[Lhynn]

The game that gets worse with every update, its amazing really.

 

[thesheeep]

Wtf?
I thought this game would be some kind of RPG and focus on bridge interaction and space exploration (Star Trek like).
This... well, it doesn't look bad, but I don't see the connection between this and what I got from the Kickstarter.

 

[Lhynn]

I thought this game would be some kind of RPG and focus on bridge interaction and space exploration (Star Trek like).

We got played, like children. But in all fairness we were naive back then, some of us even believed fargo would deliver, some of us had hope that sawyers "fuck you i do what i want" game would not suck.

 

[Alienman]

That combat video gave me ptsd.

 

[Blaine]

What in the sweet holy mother of fuck is the monstrosity in that video?

 

[Irenaeus]

What in the sweet holy mother of fuck is the monstrosity in that video?

It was Aliens.

 

[rafaninja888]

Havent followed this but what happened to this KS?.

 

[Chunkyman]

It's dead, Jim.

 

[Zombra]

Havent followed this but what happened to this KS?.

It's dead, Jim.

Nope, they keep releasing updates and every update looks completely different from the last. Something is being worked on and they will eventually release something. God knows how it will turn out but it will be something.

 

[Blaine]

Perhaps we'll end up with a Japanese used panties vending machine factory simulator.

 

[FritzedProcess]

Holy shit, it's been 4 years since I backed this already!?

Anyway, glad to see something's being worked on. I was hoping to see something about boarding and in-ship combat, which was a feature in the original campaign IIRC. Space combat looks like Battlefleet Gothic's.

Sent from my SM-A500FU using Tapatalk

 

[Vault Dweller]

http://www.mandategame.com/article/update-67

Dear backers,

In March we went through difficult times, the team size was reduced to only a core team since January, as consequence of the still ongoing negotiations with our publisher about the remaining funding. We have been working on securing more fundings since the end of 2016. It is still a work in progress and we will follow up with you in upcoming developer's updates when we have managed to close a deal.

Despite having a smaller team, we have focused our efforts on improving the space combat.

Within this context we would like to invite you to answer this survey:

https://goo.gl/forms/8cllWWWhLbvnd1yT2

so we can collect more feedback from your side for our next iterations of space combat. The other aspects of the game will remain in our vision for the Mandate. Because of team size constraints, we can only tackle one big chunk at a time. Crew and missions aspects of the game had to be put on hold temporarily, but once space combat is more advanced, resources will be reallocated to work on these aspects of the game.

We currently have several hypothesis for the timeline and depending on the fundings we will refine our roadmap which will be shared with the whole community including the milestones for playtests, alpha and beta versions.

We aim to have a regular update every month. Please remember to direct your comments to the forums instead of the Kickstarter page as this is where we can best get back to you. Part of our next update we will do an open questions/answers session. You will be also able to see the progress in the space combat.

We are very grateful for the core community being still supportive for such long time.

The Mandate dev team

 

[DeepOcean]

What is the next feature to be put on "hold" on the next update?

 

[Alienman]

One or two from months from being canceled. Highly doubt it will get released.