Hello everyone!

Today we are going to take a look at some of the new commerce features we have been working on over the past months and how the early game is changing.

As a reminder, we are making those changes to give the factory (and the game overall) a more motivating and less linear goal to work towards. These new features complement the existing research progression and give that game a more unique feeling.

In case you want a more detailed recap about why we’re making those adjustments to the game, check some of our other dev blogs here and here.

Adjusted Setting

We have modified the onboarding loop and the overall setting, you’re no longer the clueless robot trying to figure out what went wrong with the initiative to build a large factory on the planet. Instead you have just acquired a derelict space station and colonization rights on the resource rich moon the station orbits. Your intent is to set up an intergalactic robot manufacturing company. You’re still assisted by Carl and C3-BB who will help you get started. Your immediate goal is to build up the most critically required machinery to start making simple robots, repair the most broken parts of the station and begin selling your first product. Oh and did I mention that you’re in debt?

What mattered most to us is that the new theme is a key part of the game from the very beginning. It won't take you countless hours to finally make and sell a robot, instead you will accomplish this by the end of the tutorial - which is slightly longer than before, but not by a lot. We always planned to focus on commerce to give the player a good reason to build the factory, but our previous game loop brought those key mechanics way too late.

Onboarding and Tutorial Tasks

The onboarding tasks are similar until you build the beacon to call down C3-BB at which point new mechanics are introduced. You’re immediately tasked with making contact with the station and analyzing its status. We’ve reworked the space station management UI.

UI screenshots are work in progress.

This is the main hub for all things related to the space station and it comes with new features and greater depth. Initially, you’ll only be able to open this management console from a building, but as you progress, a remote view will be unlocked.

The following tasks will be a mixture of introducing space station features, such as building and upgrading parts, and continuing to build up your factory so that you’re set to make your first very simple robot.

Since robots are sold through your station, the final missing link is to get your products up there. For this, we have introduced a new building which we call the Shipping Pad; it is more flexible and replaces the old way of moving things to the station. Once placed you need to select the shipping direction (planet to station or vice-versa) and which item should be moved. The shipping pad doesn’t come with any transport vessel, so we need to head back to the station and make our first purchase: A small cargo space ship. Once assigned to the shipping task your items are automatically being moved between the planet and the station.

In this blog, I won’t go into too much detail, but space ships will have a bunch of tasks and you’ll be managing quite a few of them. That being said I want to emphasize that almost all your gameplay time is still spent on building a factory, we are not transforming the key gameplay in any way.

Okay, almost there. The final step is to extend the station with a sales terminal where casual customers will buy what’s in store. Given how much you’re producing, you can play around with applying discounts or premiums to maximize your income, but that is up to you.

UI screenshots are work in progress.

Ultimately there will be way more profitable (and complex!) ways throughout the galaxy to sell your products, but that is for the next commerce preview blog.

See you next time,

-mrmcd

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