Well, I’m code complete on the boarding system as of today. I’ll be fixing a number of bugs, play testing, balancing, and finalizing everything over the next few weeks.
Here is a short video that highlights some of the features:
Boarding is accomplished by:
1) Disabling a ship’s shields. At this point, a new icon appears next to the ship’s target menu.
2) Selecting the subsystem targeting icon lets you target various ship subsystems (engines, turrets, and ship systems).
3) Once those are destroyed, you can board the ship.
You are competing against the enemy crew who is trying to repair their shields. In most cases, with decent turrets, this should never be a problem.
Every ship in the game (40) has had its interior modeled, enemies placed and objectives scripted. When you board a ship, you will need to eliminate the crew, repair or salvage various systems for components and place a beacon on the ship’s helm.
Once a beacon is placed, you can then contact Arkus, a salvager who will give you a fixed price based on the current state of the ship. Repairing a ship before selling it will get you the best possible price, however, Arkus pays well below the market average for ships for his services. The prices are fair for the effort and he handles translocation, dismantling, and distribution. So, boarding is relatively balanced with most other activities in the game. Scrapping components is critical as these components can only be obtained by scrapping boarded ships. As you gain skill in repair, and with a decent salvaging skill (and upcoming perks), repairing ships to full capacity for full bonus sale prices to Arkus becomes easier.
I had hoped to get the updated skill and perk system in for this next patch but will need to work on this more after the release of the boarding patch. This patch has had a massive amount of work put into it and it’s taken a bit more time than I anticipated.
I hope you are all well and safe. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!