Hello everyone.

I thought I would write an in depth update for where the game is at and where it is going. This might get technical at times. As most of you know I try to be very communicative about what I’m doing and how the game is getting updated.

In case people don’t know I also work on this game solo, I do all the development for every part of the game. The only bits I don’t do are the ship models and item icons, I have a freelancer do them. I’ve been working on the game for over 2 years now, full time for about 1.5 years. I hope to keep working on it for a lot longer, improving it all the way, to do that I need everyone's support, and in turn I think everyone deserves to know what is happening with the development.

[ Battle Replays ]

This has been a must have feature for a while, it has been a big issue however and with every step I took towards it I was encountering issues. I’m not talking about spectator mode here, however this is a stepping stone towards that.

I should explain that all the game data comes from a single source I call the Codex. The Codex defines everything about the game, all the ship stats, all the weapon abilities, all item descriptions, research costs etc. Everything is done via this Codex so I can update anything and have the server send the latest Codex version to the game client without having to force players to update their game and keep versions in sync between iOS, GooglePlay, Amazon and Facebook.

This is super helpful because the client can also figure out anything the server can without having to talk to it, for example when you equip some new armor to your ship the game will look through to Codex to see what bonuses it should apply to your ship with its new armor, and then display the correct values.

It’s also helpful in battles because the game can figure out lots of things on its own, your shield regen rate, status effects from plasma fields etc, the server doesn’t need to tell the client about it, the client can do the work on its own. This makes the networking of the game easier as less data needs to be moved about.

It however is a big problem when it comes to replays. Let’s do an example: You battle a friend with your new Guardian pulse cannon fleet, fly around, shoot, repair, all good. I could then save all the data the server sent to your game client and keep it. That data could then just be sent again and you get a perfect replay! Until that is, I make a change to the Codex. So the next day I make a change and adjust the shield regen rate of the Guardian, or maybe I change the speed of the Pulse Cannon projectiles. When you replay the battle now, the game will look in the latest Codex and pull out the new values, these won’t match the old values that were used at the time of the battle and the replay won’t be the same.

This sucks, and hindsight is a great thing. This means rewriting the way the battles work at the networking level, not an easy task. Battles need to store all the data they need for a perfect replay, they can’t store the whole Codex as its too big and storing a subset of it would be tricky.

In the end this means I need to fundamentally change it, no more having the game client use the Codex for battles, the battles need to contain all the data. This means more data being sent from the server to the client, causing lower networking performance. I want better networking performance, because I want to do more with the game so I also need to do a big round of optimisation on the networking protocols and how data is sent.

The current protocol is somewhat similar to json but binary encoded, the new one is pure binary. Although this is a massive rewrite it’s something that is already underway and I am making really good progress.

This might seem like a lot of bother just for battle replays but it also has some other benefits explained later in this post.

[ New Feature: Subsystems ]
( This is just a dump of my previous news post )

Every ship will have a single subsystem slot, this new slot will allow you to install subsystem items in them. Unlike other items subsystems are unique to each ship class, e.g. Titan FighterBay subsystem, Battleship Bastion subsystem, Corvette ECM subsystem. These are just examples and not final.
Every subsystem will have a quality level just like other weapons and fittings, though they do not have an MK version and do not require CPU.
Subsystems are also very unique in that no two are the same, even of the same type. They can have up to 3 bonus properties depending on their quality. For example here are some rough values for two Battleship Bastion subsystems that might drop:

A:
Ability: Basion Armor Hardening - 20 Sec massive damage reduction on armor.
+10% Repair Bonus.
+5% Damage Bonus.
+10% Armor Bonus.

B:
Ability: Basion Armor Hardening - 20 Sec massive damage reduction on armor.
+5% Range Bonus.
+8% Damage Bonus.
+2% Shield Penetration.

Normal Quality: 0 Bonus stats.
Good Quality: 1 Bonus stat.
Excellent Quality: 2 Bonus stats.
Masterpiece Quality: 3 Bonus stats.
Legendary Quality: 3 Bonus stats ( With higher cap on stat strength )

The idea is there will be varied bonuses with different stats so you can always find more loot that might suit your ships. The exact way these work might change before it releases, once I get into testing.

[ Corps ]

Corps need an upgrade, currently there isn’t a solid plan as I several ideas but none that I think are ready to go.

There will be a rework on how you equip outposts, allowing you to re-equip better weapons/fittings when leveling up.

A new corporation member ranking system will be added, allowing you to assign better roles. For example you could assign a communications officer role that would allow that member to access the corporation alert system but not recruitment.

[ Battle Aiming ]

Currently the only control you have over your ships aim is giving them a target to fire at, this works well and its nice and simple. I want to expand on this and allow abilities to be manually aimed, this does NOT include the ships normal automatic firing.

Take the E-Nuke for example, when activating the enuke you would be shown an aiming circle that you could move anywhere on the battlefield and the E-Nuke would fly there and explode. Much like some other MMOS where you see a circle/line/cone where your ability will fire.

The reasoning behind this is to make abilities more impactful, along with the new subsystem abilities. This idea might never work, but I won’t know until I start testing.

On a more minor note there will also be the addition of selecting a priority friendly target for repairs.

[ Extra Battle Features ]

Battles are the core of AQ, they need to be awesome. In addition to the new battle/networking updates above I am ensuring it is flexible enough to add a whole bunch of new features. This includes things like Stealth drives, Teleporting, Shield Bubbles, Aura devices etc. These will be incorporated into the new Subsystems.

I’m also going to ensure that the new system can handle testing things like destructible wrecks, critical hits, ship weak points, all for testing new ideas and expanding on the current game. These ideas might not make it into the game but these changes are all about testing new features.

Story type battle elements are also going to be tested, this includes things like having friendly or enemy fleets warp in to your mission battles.

[ Battle Speed ]

I watch a lot of videos that people post showing game footage, and most of them are sped up. This looks a lot better and makes the game look more exciting. Wouldn’t it be cool if everything was a bit faster?

This requires another bit of tech info, the Tick Rate. The Tick Rate is the rate that new battle data is sent to the game client, more data sent makes things smoother but requires faster networking.

The current Tick Rate is 1hz, or 1 update per second. That seems really slow, but it’s actually the same rate Eve Online uses, at least it was when I last checked. It’s absolutely fine for the current speed of battles, it also works nicely as it allows for higher ping players to play without seeing any lag.

So with the new networking and battle updates explained above I may be able to optimise the battles further to allow a higher tick rate, maybe something like an update every 0.75 seconds. Just enough to allow ships to fly a bit faster and increase the speed of most game actions.

This isn’t final, it’s very much only a rough idea. I just thought I would explain some of my thinking around the current battles.

[ Final Note ]

This is obviously a lot of work, so expect this to be done over the next few months or longer. I will be doing incremental updates based on the above.