Upcoming - More Info on Major Update 1! (November 15th)
Dear Players,
With Major Update 1 just around the corner, we want to share more details on the new features and changes to the game!
New Feature - Mouse Control!
From Major Update 1, you can fly aircraft with mouse control! This new control scheme is super smooth and fun, and gives much higher precision. There are several different settings - motion (where your mouse self-centers itself over time) and offset (where your mouse remembers it's position), as well as yaw/pitch and roll/pitch modes for selecting which axes map to which controls.
The aircraft flight models have also been replaced with entirely new code which feels much smoother and more natural. This results in a much improved flying experience, and makes manual control of aircraft much more viable and engaging.
Barges and Logistics!
Forget everything you already know about barges! We have completely reworked how barges work - in response to lots of player feedback and our own experiences playing CC2. This rework will probably prove controversial with some players - because we have removed some functionality from barges - so we are explaining our process here and ask players to give it a fair try and make up their own minds.
The problems with old barges were that it took too long to get items from factories to the carrier - they had to go via the warehouse (which made no sense) and their capacity was small so it often required several trips.
Old barges also had complex logic to decide when they would allow an item to load and when they would unload - and this logic was too complex to explain on UI so the whole system was a black box where it was hard to understand why something didn't work! So, we wanted to simplify the rules and mechanics.
Barge capacity is now greatly increased - meaning you rarely need more than one trip and can often load from multiple islands before unloading!
Forget the old barge routes system - you now set barge waypoints in a similar way to other vehicles - just drag a route out and loop it if you want to, and the barge will get on with it. This gives you much more control over routes, ordering, and is straight forward to understand.
Barge logic is now greatly simplified - it is only possible to load items at an island where those items are on order, and it is only possible to unload items to the carrier. This does mean you can't stockpile on islands, or unload from the carrier, but the greater barge capacity and direct deliveries more than makes up for this.
The resulting effect is that when you capture an island, you have very quick access to items manufactured on that island, and as you fight in an area of the ocean, the nearby islands provide the easiest and most immediate logistics support.
Rebalancing!
As many players have reported, there are several areas of the game that needed urgent rebalancing! We have completely rebalanced the economy so that resources are a greater factor and operations are no longer mostly funded from naval kill rewards! Manufacturing times and costs are also adjusted. The result is a much more balanced game which is much more rewarding to beat.
Modding Support!
We are really interested in supporting modding as best we can and have been adding new API features regularly when requested via the support tracker. We have also been chatting with modders and are integrating some of their mods into the base version of the game. Screen scripts are now based on the server so when you join a multiplayer game, you use the servers versions of the scripts - which is a big deal for modders as it keeps the experience consistent within multiplayer games, and also allows modders to customize the network replication of screens.
We are also adding "real time updating" support for modders, so that as they make changes to scripts, their changes appear immediately with no need to reload the game. These changes also propagate across multiplayer games, so any other clients can also see the updates immediately too. We are really excited about this as we think it may be the first time real time modding has been possible in this way in any game!
Is modding important to you as a player? Other than screens, what else would you like to see modded? Do let us know, as it is possible we can do more in the next major update and would love to hear your thoughts.
Don't forget to join is for the Lauch Party Live Stream on Monday where we will be releasing the major update, playing CC2, chatting to players and answering your questions!
Much love
The Carrier Command Developers
