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[Farmergnome]

Black Market Devlog!

Play the latest build here!

8 meg, requires flash...

Hi tiggers!

Thought id try out the dev-log thing for this game, so thanks for rockin up and having a look, ill try and keep the updates comming, we will be updating this usually daily, though occasionally it slips, so ill post major changes in here or on the website under the update news.  

We are desperately hoping to hit some sort of almost playable build next month, heres a little overview of what we are hoping to get done by then:

-Rare weapons and Items
-Rare trade items
-Make deadzones more dangerous
-Work on improving the dialog prior to events
-Removing fuel (was apart of the old battle mechanics)
-Polish and finish the other 3 solar systems
-Rebuilding the games battlesystem to work via hotkeys/icon bar
-Add quests to the game via the bar screen
-Finish cleaning up the trade and planet menus, player levelup menu, etc
-Bridge Items and abilities
-Implement streaming and serverside profiles
-BALLLAANNCE - A shitload of this is needed


So Early days yet, we have alot to cover in the next month and I hope a few tiggers tag along for the ride!  You can find the daily builds in the link at the top, cheers.

Screenshots:

[aliceffekt]

Hey great work ! this is fun : )

[Blindsight]

I am both happy and sad to see this game.

Sad because I have plans for something very similar and hate doing games too close to something out there already. 

Happy because I think there is a real place for an updated, browser based tradewars type game. It looks really good and plays pretty well. I cheer you on sir!   

[Farmergnome]

Thanks for the praise, theres always room for more than one thing in the genre  But know how you feel too...  Just put a new update up with a few days work in it, we are pushing toward cleaning up the battle screen panels at the moment, making it a little more user friendly, and making multi ship battles a little more streamlined than they are currently.  

Just put the updated graphics for the collosus class in too also, which is really cool looking ingame, this is half the ingame size, the other ship is the starting class the scout:

[Farbs]

Wow - it's so shiny! I love the idea of MMO-esque battle sequences, but so far the ones I've played haven't involved any strategy. Is there target selection or mana management further into the game?

I had trouble after a while earning enough XP to level up to explore further out. Nobody was picking fights with me anymore, so all I could do was trade trade trade trade... hwich got kinda dull. Should I have attempted to attack other ships? Does that work?

I also had a little trouble understanding the hardpoint system, since it wasn't clear what kinds of hardpoints there were or what kinds of hardpoints were used by different kinds of equipment. Could you create an icon for each type and display them both on the ship and on the item lists in the equip and purchase screens?

Am loving it so far.

[Farmergnome]

Yea we are throwing multi ships/targetting in for the next update with any luck, we just need to sort out the battle UI at the moment from the aftermath of rebuilding it from the last battle system concept, still tossing up wiether to include a "mana/fuel" equivelent ingame or leave it with cooldowns, you can actually toggle different modes currently with the +/-, though that might be stripped already....

I think the XP thing is apart of what we will be balancing once the contents done, I also fall into that gap of not being able to explore more so I just unally everyone on the map for LOLs, so yea that definately needs some balance.

Good idea about the icons...

[Farmergnome]

So today, did some work on getting the main character for the first (Free) chapter of the game in, what you see below is a backplate for the chapter, hes got some sprites ingame also... hes a mercinary pilot type hired out by Tricorp, and that planet is Calamadon the pirate planet to the south of the first galaxy, wooo.

[Alex May]

Woho, gonna give this a go later.

[oyog]

Been playing for half an hour and I think I'm thoroughly addicted.  I love the depth of the game universe.

I'm curious whether you're planning on being able to look at and modify your ships crew.  I'm hoping that's where the design is going with being able to buy drinks at the bars.

[Alex May]

Love it already.

Couple of minor things:
- I could get a pop-up for a planet while hovering over a menu item
- "prepare to be fired apon" - should be "upon"

[Farmergnome]

I'm curious whether you're planning on being able to look at and modify your ships crew.  I'm hoping that's where the design is going with being able to buy drinks at the bars.

The bar is the quest/errand hub, but eventually finding pilots and alike in there will offer bonuses to your ship if you choose to hire them, so in short, yes

Love it already.

Couple of minor things:
- I could get a pop-up for a planet while hovering over a menu item
- "prepare to be fired apon" - should be "upon"

Haha my english is terrible, ill add them to the list, thanks for playing dudes.

[oyog]

  In the future I'll post to the Big Block forums, but for now I'm waiting for my confirmation email so I'll post here.

  Anyway, I have a couple of suggestions and an issue.  I thought it might be nice to be able to scroll the screen in the solar system view.  I notice there's an asteroid in the first system with a path to something that's too far away to click on.  And, I know there's not really a functional menu yet, but I would like to be able to turn off the sound since I tend to listen to music while I'm playing.

  I imagine you've already got plans for this but at first it's very confusing knowing what you're buying, what everything actually does and how many of each Item can be equipped. 

  Perhaps you could color code the borders of each category of ship upgrade.  The border of weapons bays could be blue, launchers and lasers could be green, engines could be yellow and upgrades (boosts, extra damage, etc.) could be red, or something along those lines.

  Or you could color code the laser bay, the lasers and any upgrade to lasers one color, all the missiles, missile upgrades and the missile bay another color, and so forth.  Something like that.

  It's not entirely clear what each part does for you.  I'm guessing the lasers are in your laser bay and torpedoes and missiles are in your missile bay (or would torpedoes be in the bomber bay), but is there a reason you can only have three of any of these? Is that the limit?  Are you planning on including fighters that can be bought the way anti armor lasers and torpedo launchers can be bought?

  As for the issue I'm having, it's very strange.  I logged in today, and started playing and when I leveled up I noticed one of my experience points has gone missing.  That is, at level 18 I have Weapons LVL 10, Piloting LVL 24, Navigation LVL 30, and Trade LVL 25, and no extra point to bring Piloting up to level 25.  In the hopes that this might be fixed, my character is Buzzlby.  I'm hoping it's not just that you only get four points for your first level and I didn't notice or something equally dumb on my part. 


  Okay, enough griping. I'm really looking forward to seeing your game develop and what you've already got is addicting as hell and I'm digging the aesthetic.  Those backgrounds in planet view are freakin' awesome.

[Farmergnome]

All good man I check here every day so cool to post either, umm okay, we opted against scrolling because alot of the additions we want to do later are -barely onscreen- planets that are designed to be hidden, scrolling would take away from that.

As far as the buying/equiping, and how many of each you can have, you have sort of caught us mid update of a new system, if you notice the new battle bar in the build last night, this will be incorporated on every screen soon and the mechanics/ship items will have a bit of a overhaul also...

I think a big fat tutorial is needed reguarding ship equip slots, that should solve most of the other problems for now...  As for the points on level, I dont exactly understand the question, are you asking what point is there leveling to 25 piloting?  We cant check your profile currently as serverside profiles isnt implemented.

[Alex May]

I think you need to make a distinction between lanes that don't lead to a civilised world and lanes which can't be travelled due to insufficient navigational ability - I thought for ages the red lanes couldn't be flown, until I actually tried it. Basically what I am saying is that I look at the lanes to tell me whether I can travel, not the destinations.

Also there is a lane off to the right that is so long I cannot select the destination.

I bought two Anti-armour IV lasers and equipped them in my laser bay; only one appeared on my ship even though both appeared as equipped. I could sell one, so I did - when I looked back at the equip screen the second laser had indeed gone. I bought and equipped an auto-laser II which DID appear on the ship graphic. I didn't notice it automatically firing, however!

Battles in general seem far too easy. I haven't had to flee once yet.

Would be good to see more varieties of ship for purchase (I haven't really read any of your notes yet so I don't know what's planned / in progress). They seem mostly middling (i.e. balanced between offense/trade), and I didn't notice an increase in available weapon slots or whatever, just hull integrity and capacity...

Even though it is lovely and evocative and immersive, it's quite annoying to have to click on the small buttons to access the planet menu, could it also be laid out in shortcut at the top left as it is once you open it?

I like the levels system, but sometimes it feels like I'm piling points into something with no purpose... like, I don't have any need to put anything into "piloting" until I want to buy a new ship, but by the time I realise that I might be quite high level and it'll take me ages to put enough points into that skill, as levels are very far apart. I think I need more incentive to allocate my points intelligently instead of just picking crazy random stuff. Like, I know I have Navigation goals as there are places to go where I need e.g. 50 points to go there, but I've only seen 15 points for trading arms, and some amount of points for a new ship (didn't check too closely), and haven't seen anything at all for arms.

Was thinking piloting could feed back into the battle system for dodging missiles etc...? Just a thought anyway.

Hmm fuel is annoying so I understand why you got rid of it, but it drops the incentive to sell off cargo at a loss - I might as well keep hold of it until I find a sweet deal, seeing as it's not costing me anything to haul it around the galaxy; in fact I'm keeping in profit due to the battles being easy. How about turning some of the dropped cargo bits in battle into actual cargo so that I have to offload that shit before I head out pirate-hunting?

Anyway FUCKING sweet game, the graphics are really sweet and good sound and movement, interface etc is nice. Looking forward to more.

[Farmergnome]

Hey yo alex, Ill spend some time while things render..

I might suggest something to mike about the tradelands being broken before you have the skill to reach there, there might be a few lanes that have that sight problem also as we really havent even built out the galaxys yet, let alone put docked screens/proper spawners in most of them, give it a month or so that stuff should be sorted.

We got a report of that double up bug also, it should be fixed shortly though we are overhauling the mechanics menu to include items that work outside of battle also, check the build in the next few days I imagine youll see the first look at that.

As for ships, alot of them arent actually enabled, theres 23 classes of ship currently, which is basicly all we need for beta, though Ill be adding more every few weeks when I find the time.  Its more we havent actually had the time to balance this stuff/put spawners in for some of the ships yet.

Good idea about the small buttons also...

The levelup system is being revised, check back in a few days, basicly we want a more even spread of leveling to stop people power leveling, though beyond that we are just hoping we put the spawners in the right places and items appear enough to entice players to purchase/pursue them.

We are throwing a extra 10-15 "Rare" commodities also into the game to make trade a useful skill past level 15, and units like the collosus above a useful ship to pilot if you can reach the retarded levels needed to obtain it with a piloting skill, that being said, we dont want to baby players too much there.

Oh and end of the day, its a trade game, and we are planning some sort of death after a defeat in combat that removes your ship, potentially limiting your future space piloting if you dont have enough resources to buy another, so that should balance the lax difficulty, and kind of drag the focus away from combat a little.

[Alex May]

Cool, well, looking forward to more  

[oyog]

As far as the buying/equiping, and how many of each you can have, you have sort of caught us mid update of a new system, if you notice the new battle bar in the build last night, this will be incorporated on every screen soon and the mechanics/ship items will have a bit of a overhaul also...

Haha.  Yeah, I should really be patient and let you guys do your thing and wait for the game to develop.  Guess I'm just a little overzealous.   

As for the points on level, I dont exactly understand the question, are you asking what point is there leveling to 25 piloting?  We cant check your profile currently as serverside profiles isnt implemented.

Nevermind.  I did some math and realized that since you start the game with four skill points, one in each skill, by level 18 I'm going to have distributed an additional 90 skill points bringing the total to 94, meaning one of my skills won't be a multiple of 5.

It just threw me off that I one of my skills is at 24 while the rest are multiples of 5.

I'm really lookin' forward to seein' this develop to the point of player interaction, by the way.

Cheers.

[Alex May]

Played some more, still loving it.

[Farmergnome]

Played some more, still loving it.

Thats probably a good sign   So tonights build should have all the new rare commodities, and skills such as mining, planet searching, extortion, jumpgate abilities, aswell as cooldowns that dont instant recharge after a battle, throwing a little strategy in the mix on items such as fighter bays that have rather long recharge.

[Farmergnome]

Bit of a update, last week or so has been padding out the solar systems, adding a few new level graphics for smaller docked areas in the game in the outer systems, fixing alot of bugs and finishing off the new out of battle skills and functions, all of which turned out pretty cool, flying around extorting other ships makes me happy 





More to come!