Brass Watch Games

Combat Update Released!

by Jonah on June 6, 2014

Shipyard version Pre-Alpha 0.8.0, or “The Combat Update,” is easily the largest update Shipyard has seen to date and has just been released! You can download the update on the Shipyard page or through the launcher. For those who haven’t been following its development, I’ll do my best to condense the massive amount of content that came with the update into as concise a format as possible:

Ship Combat

Obviously the major feature of the update, you can now fight with and destroy enemy ships. You can attack an enemy by selecting it in the navigation screen and choosing “Attack.” Doing this will take you to the combat screen, where you can select a weapon and a target spot on the enemy ship. Damaging individual systems will cause those systems to lose effectiveness in addition to killing the crew inside. When a ship’s total HP (sum of individual system HP) drops below 45% or all crew on board are dead, it will be destroyed. You can repair your ship for credits at a shipyard.

Firing a weapon will consume Weapon Control. Weapon Control (WC) is based on your weapon control systems: how many you have, how much crew and power are allotted to them, and how much damage they have sustained. WC is replenished at the beginning of each turn.

Weapons are divided into three attack types, as well as being either turreted or fixed. Ballistic weapons deal average damage across the board, energy weapons deal extra damage to systems but are less harmful to crew, and explosive weapons are the reverse of energy. Turret weapons can attack in any direction, but fixed weapons require you to turn your ship until they are facing the enemy.

Crew and Power Management

The old crew and power system, despite being introduced very recently, has already undergone a massive overhaul. The old crew and power tab is gone from the ship management window, and instead you can allocate resources to systems by selecting them in the overview tab. Damaged systems will be automatically repaired for HP proportional to the number of crew inside, and to allow for this systems can now be overcrewed. When a system has more crew than it needs, it receives no extra bonus to its stats, but it will be repaired faster. You can also allocate more power than is available to your ship, however all power-consuming systems will receive a debuff. Additionally, crew and power changes now take effect at the beginning of the following turn for balance purposes.

The Academy station now also allows you to hire crew, up to the maximum defined by your crew’s quarters systems. This is free in the current version, but will be changed to have a cost later on.

Scrap

Scrap is a new player resource, similar to credits. Scrap can be bought or sold at shipyards, but the main method of acquiring it is by destroying enemy ships and salvaging the debris field left behind. This creates a reliable source of player income. Additionally, scrap can be used to repair damaged systems. At 1 HP/scrap, it is much more expensive than repairing at a shipyard. However, you can do it at any time and the effect is instantaneous, making it useful for situations when waiting for your crew to repair a system isn’t an option.

Other Stuff

In addition to countless bugfixes and a few balance tweaks, there are several smaller features that don’t deserve an entire section. Rather than list them all here, you can read the full changelog if you’re interested.

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