Hello everybody,
We are happy to announce today that the PvP update is out! This update changes and adds a lot of things, modifying a lot the way the game will be played.
What is it?
This update is all about fighting. On ground or in space, players will now be able to use weapons, making most of the game's space hostile and dangerous.
Players will be able to find peace on New Haven, the currently only protected planet of the game. On this planet, PvP is completely disabled, allowing players to discuss with their fellow Alpha pioneers, prepare, and build a spaceship.
Update content
Many, many things have been added and tweaked. Let's detail some of the most important new features.
Protected planet and starter pack
First things first, as said above, New Haven is now a protected planet, introducing this concept into the game for the first time. 'Protected' means that weapons and crashes are disabled.
Also, the starting region is not modifiable anymore, so new players will arrive in a base containing two shipyards usable by anyone, allowing them to build their first spaceship easily.
Request a starter pack to build a small ship quickly
Indeed, we added to the game a number of small features to accelerate it, giving everybody a chance to test PvP.
As an exemple, players will find on New Haven a new button in the Escape menu: the Valhalla digital starter pack. It will add to their inventory some cubes and resources useful to build their first miner and ship!
Death, crashes and respawn
Players now have a life value. And many ways to lower it!
Falling from too high, being shot, or crashing their ship might result in their character death.
You will re-spawn on this block
In this eventuality, the player will re-spawn! A new cube have been added, called the spawn point, and players will teleport back to it when dying.
The last dropped spawn point is the one that the game will use. If it is destroyed, players will re-spawn on New Haven, with the chance of asking for a new starter pack and start back!
Weapons
Of course, one of the main addition of this version are weapons. First of all, on ground, players will be able to switch to combat mode by pressing 'q'. In this mode, pressing the mouse left button will fire a shot instead of hitting a cube!
Also, we added a ship weapon: the laser. Currently, stacking mechanics are not implemented as this is part of the "Advanced spaceship design" feature, so players will only be able to put four lasers on a ship, with the same power.
Spaceships weapons
When piloting, clicking the left mouse button will fire every laser of the ship. Useful to destroy bases or take down another spaceship!
And more
Many other things have been added. Slopes, the possibly to climb on miners columns, an option to change the key bindings, ownership...
Players can now climb on miners' columns
Also, we worked a lot on the servers to make the game more stable.
What's next?
Note that there is no model for the ground weapon yet, and that the bullets FX are a laser. Indeed, we preferred to wait a bit more before adding these, as we also have to start working on the character model. These kind of assets are the longest to create, thus sounds, models and FX (like explosions and better lasers) will be added regularly in the future, independently of the features.
The next one or two weeks will be all about gathering feedback and tweaking the game according to it. During this time, everyone will be able to vote for the next major feature that will be added to the Alpha!
See you soon!
