Progress update 10/13/17 news

Hi everyone - another progress update this Friday. First, a video that covers ship skills and how they change the space exploration portion of the game.



Stellar Tactics takes a bit of a different approach from most other games. Your crew contributes to the performance of the ship over time based on their experience in four key skill categories - Piloting, Weaponry, Electronics and Targeting. Each of these categories is represented by a dedicated station on your ship.

Piloting affects:
--Ship speed - your base ship speed is calculated based on the mass of your ship. Piloting increases your base speed, afterburner speed and micro-warp speed.
--Ship turn rate - massive ships turn slower than small interceptors. Piloting skill adjusts this.
--Evasion - the ability to evade incoming fire as a bonus

Weaponry affects:
--Weapon damage bonuses - as you gain experience, your skill with weapons increases the weapons base damage
--Turret reload speed - How fast your turrets recharge and reload
--Weaponry capacitor drain (Efficiency) - the amount of charge taken from the capacitor each time the turret fires

Electronics affects:
--Scanning range and the quality of scanning data. Higher quality scanning data will sell for more credits to various factions
--Security - the stability of your ships systems against hacking - this is for the boarding module - you may be boarded if the enemy ship is trying to capture your cargo/ship or if they have a mission to capture you.
--Shield bonuses to your shields maximum durability and recharge rate

Targeting affects:
--Sub-system targeting (The UI in the video needs to be updated) - for the boarding module
--Overall chance to hit scaled by range for turret projectiles
--Shield bypass - your ability to bypass shields by attuning your weapons - this bonus applies damage directly to the enemy ships hull armor.

As you gain skill your bonuses are applied to each of the above. At various tiers you will also get perk selections similar to ground combat that allow you to fine tune your ships systems to adjust for different scenarios - Larger or smaller ships, the number of ships you are attacking/being attacked by and their weapon types based on scans. You can pause combat and scan ships and make perk adjustments at any time in addition to adjusting your power, turrets and targeting.

So, space combat, experience and skill bonuses are code complete - that's the majority of the work. I'll be moving on to the loot system next. Following that ship and ship equipment merchants, some faction work, simple space combat mission systems and testing. I'll be sure to post another update for you next Friday.

Have a great weekend and thanks for supporting Stellar Tactics!