Mothership Week #9 - Player Ships news

Next weekend there wont be a Mothership post as I go to Vegas to meet with the team and we enter crunch time to get Mothership closer to alpha testing. LETS GOOOOOOOOO!

The staple ship of the game. Heavily inspired by Starscape, this ship has 4 turrets, 1 cannon and 6 orbs max. This is the ship I use the most for testing, if you have been following along you will recognize it from previous screenshots. I decided to call it "Mothership" a very generic name for a good reason. It is the first ship in our game universe to be built so not only is it a mothership that can warp in reinforcements (as all player ships in the game can do) it is the mother of all of the player ships in the game. The rest of the ships are variants of this one - trading offense for defense, utility for durability, ect. Mothership is the most balanced of all of the ships but definitely not a pushover.

Mothership is a defense/utility ship so it has a higher turret count, average hull and shields, and a max of 6 orbs. Each ship has its own unique ability with a cooldown. Mothership fires a circle of lasers that do no damage but knock back and slow any enemy they hit. It is most useful when surrounded by melee range enemies or to buy some time for other cooldowns. An ideal loadout for the Mothership would include turrets that control enemies while your orbs recover your shields and your core supplement your offensive capability.

It is worth noting that when your Mothership is destroyed you can always get a new one for free. Other ships do not have this liberty however, and you must be careful when playing with other ships in hardcore mode.

The "Noctis" is a ship with a bit of a pizza shape and a corsair vibe to it. Originally called Scout, our Business manager Aaron (Shadofeng on discord) suggested to name it "Noctis", latin for night. The name is fitting as the ship is intended to use stealth to avoid projectiles and rockets to blast away enemies. Noctis is different from Mothership in that it sacrifices durability and utility for offensive power and speed while relying on stealth to bolster its defense (stealth provides a 50% chance to avoid projectiles.) It can have 2 cannons, 2 turrets and 2 orbs.

Stealth is a really great function. While any ship can stealth with the right cores, the Noctis's built in ability allows it to stealth for 4 seconds. This can stack with other stealth buffs and can be extended. A good strategy would involve balancing your cooldown reduction with turret rotation speed buffs. This allows your slow moving but hard hitting turrets to focus on targets faster while you steer your ship to avoid damage.

Above is an old test version of the Noctis exploding. You will notice the auxillary crystal in the front explodes and causes the reactor to overload and explode. The explosions of the ships in this game are so violent sometimes, just imagine being on the ship as it goes critical.. Not a fun time.

The Vestige is a unique steampunk/mystical design. It is different from other ships in that it has no cannons, 4 turrets and up to 6 orbs. I wanted to make some type of ship ran by cogwheels and a bit of mysticism. It took forever compared to some of the other ships but I think it came out pretty cool.

Vestige's ability is a giant laser that does devastating damage. When it fires, the crystal shards in the front slam inside and focus the beam. It scales based on your turrets combined damage. This makes it a great ship to focus on cooldown reduction. This is also a great ship to build around viewer ships as it can have 6 orbs to provide buffs. The hull is more fragile than Mothership and Noctis but it has a stronger shield.

Another brutal end to such a capable ship. The core for this one actually implodes, sucking the ship in its own blackhole. I would not want to be aboard this one when it goes down.

One of the first rebel motherships, Iconoclast can have 1 cannon, 3 turrets, and 3 orbs. This is another unique ship. While it lacks the firepower of some of the other ships, it has high hull and shield. I went with a cool crescent shape for this one. Iconoclast is someone who destroys any religious relics or beliefs. I thought it was fitting for the ship as it ironically fires halos and their trajectory is somewhat random.

The Iconoclast fires a barrage of halos from its wings as its ability. These halos have chain 2 which is not shown (they hit a target and bounce damage to 2 more targets.) A good strategy for this ship is to abuse your high durability to spam the field with projectiles. Halos are the best because they stay in an area for a long time. Halos with chain or push can be devastating.

Poor ship. The destroy animation is intense. The durable hull of the ship can take the damage as the internal reactor explodes out of the bridge near the front of the ship. It gives a swan song and then leaves a husk of a ship after. Very eerie.

These are a few ships we need to balance and get going. Not all of the ships in the game are done so I cannot show you those yet. Hopefully, after my trip to Vegas I will have much more content to show. If you want to keep in touch with the game and try an early version be sure to check out MachV's website and sign up so we can notify you when we are ready for testing.

~ Andrew Barontini - Lead Game Developer - Mach V Gaming