Sector Unknown News

In Sector Unknown you find yourself stranded on the desert planet Maku. From there, once you find a ship of your own, the stars open up to you with six story planets available to explore and bring under your control, either through diplomacy or by force.



From your base, you choose your ship and pilot—combat success hinges on their piloting skills.





Launch into space to investigate your local system, which includes planets ripe for mining. Initially, Maku is the sole story planet, serving as your home base. However, advancing the story unlocks a jump gate to a new system featuring planets like Nabi, a harsh desert world, and Sjo, a shimmering aquatic planet, each with their own settlements.



Each system has their own jump gates, guarded by the oppressive Star Frontier, and must be conquered and claimed for use. The star combat system is still being worked on, so I don't have a lot to show there yet, but you will occasionally be able to interdict both Star Frontier and pilot vessels through combat, pacifying your systems and controlling traffic in and out of each.



Sector Unknown, once removed from star charts by the resource-greedy Star Frontier, is a critical battleground. These planets and stations, once under your control, are crucial in your mission to expel Star Frontier from the sector.

More to come!

[h2]Sector Unknown - Prologue[/h2]

Sector Unknown - Prologue is a free demo version of the full game, coming out soon.
Don't forget to wishlist and follow for release dates and information!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2890980/Sector_Unknown__Prologue/

A smaller devlog this week.

In Null Sector, a region unmarked on star charts and devoid of formal settlements, inhabitants are continually threatened by both bipedal adversaries and wild beasts. To counteract these dangers, locals sometimes gather their resources to handle a threat beyond their capacity.

For the enterprising of players, this presents an opportunity for earning additional income. By constructing bounty and hunting terminals within your base, you can access current contracts available online. The bounty terminal lists individuals posing various levels of danger, ranging from minor narcotics traffickers to notorious serial killers.



Tracking contracts in Null Sector will take some investigation, consisting of a blend of environmental scrutiny and conversations with local inhabitants. Identifying your target is the first step; the real challenge lies in neutralizing them, with the task's difficulty directly tied to their threat level.

The game's research system allows for the unlocking of various threat levels, adding depth to your strategy. While pursuing bounties is optional, successfully completing these missions offers substantial credit rewards, enhancing your resources for other endeavors in the game.

Disclaimer: The portraits and descriptions are still a work in progress.

[h2]Sector Unknown - Prologue[/h2]

Sector Unknown - Prologue is a free demo version of the full game, coming out soon.
Don't forget to wishlist and follow for release dates and information!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2890980/Sector_Unknown__Prologue/

Greetings!

This is the first of several devlogs talking about the various systems in Sector Unknown.



After claiming the abandoned mining facility on Maku as your base, you will unlock crafting in the game. Crafting is broken down into the various schematic classes:

• Weapons
  
• Armor
  
• Energy Shields
  
• Injectors
  
• Narcotics
  
• Ships
  

From there, schematic are organized further into sub-tiers. For example, weapons are further classed into pistol, carbine, rifle, and vibrosword tiers.

[h2]Components & Success Rolls[/h2]



Each crafting schematic has components. For example, a pistol will have the following components:

• Chassis
  
• Weapon Core
  
• Sights
  
• Barrel
  
• Grip
  
• Augment Slot
  

Each of these will require different resources. However, of note, each of these do not require crafting separately, they're simply part of the overall pistol schematic.

When crafting an item, you will roll a success level on each component, which in turn confers a bonus to that item. Using the pistol example, the success you manage to roll on the pistol's sights will determine it's Hit % bonus.

The success rolls are as follows:

• None
  
• Minimal
  
• Mediocre
  
• Good
  
• Great
  
• Excellent
  
• Masterful
  
• Flawless
  
• Legendary
  

The roll is determined by your characters appropriate attribute. Equipment will be determined by the characters Engineering stat, Injectors by the characters Science stat, and Narcotics by the character's Biology stat. Some items like repair kits or base items do not have success rolls.

[h2]Resources[/h2]



Resources are broken down into Organic and Inorganic tiers, and then further into the following sub-tiers:

• Metal
  
• Gemstone
  
• Gas
  
• Chemical
  
• Tuber
  
• Fungi
  
• Stalk
  
• Flora
  

Resources can be looted from containers and fauna corpses, mined from planets in space, and scavenged from wrecks such as the crashed prison transport on Maku.

As well, junk and other items in your inventory can be deconstructed, returning a small amount of resources.



[h2]Terminals & Schematics[/h2]



Crafting is done from the appropriate terminals in your base. Researching a particular terminal via the Computers research tree unlocks the terminals to be built via your base Fabricator. From there, if you have unlocked the various tiers of schematics available and you have enough resources, you can craft that item. There are three tier levels for each type of item to be crafted (for example, pistols have T1, T2, and T3 schematics).



[h2]Summary[/h2]

Crafting is an optional part of the game, but one that can provide amazing equipment and items if the player chooses to engage in the mechanic. All of these features will also be available in the free Prologue version of the game.

Don't forget to wishlist and follow for release dates and information!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2890980/Sector_Unknown__Prologue/

The store page for the free Prologue version of the game is now live!
Wishlist and follow for more details and updates.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2890980/Sector_Unknown__Prologue/

[h2]About[/h2]

"Sector Unknown - Prologue" offers a free introduction to the game's universe, providing players with around 2-3 hours of immersive gameplay. This standalone experience gives a sneak peek into the storyline and gameplay mechanics that the full version will expand upon.



In the Prologue, you begin as a prisoner on board a transport en route to the notorious Hell's Gate Prison, a sweltering station/colony orbiting perilously close to a blazing star. You'll have multiple ways to slip out of your cell, outsmart the crew, and eject from the ship before it meets its demise.

Your adventure continues as you find yourself marooned on Maku, the desolate first planet, following your escape. Here, you will undertake various tasks: from bringing a derelict mining facility back to life as your stronghold, to scouring the wreckage of the downed prison transport for essential supplies. Additionally, you'll encounter a group of rival pirates wrestling for control of the planet, and it's up to you to decide whether to use force or diplomacy to deal with them.



[h3]Wishlist and follow today for more updates![/h3]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2890980/Sector_Unknown__Prologue/

After creating quite a few strategy games as an indie (and mostly solo) developer, I decided to create an cRPG instead. This is the genre that I find myself playing and enjoying the most, from classics such as Baldur’s Gate 2, Fallout 2, Fallout New Vegas, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, to more contemporary games such as Pillars of Eternity, Outer Worlds, Colony Ship, Trudograd, Underrail, and Encased. In short, I really, really like RPGs, and especially ones that use an isometric angle of gameplay.



Sector Unknown is sort of my love letter to both the classics and the contemporaries. I think I’m better suited for telling a story than number crunching strategy games (as evidenced by my mixture of reviews in that genre).

After three years working part-time (well almost full time) on the systems, the game is close to complete on features (movement, inventory, party management, quests, dialogue, crafting, combat, itemization, space flight, etc). I’m aiming to have a demo for the game completed in a month or so. It’s close to completion now, but I’m still not happy with the tutorial level. What I do not want is for it to be a barrier to entry like the much-maligned temple tutorial level in Fallout 2 (I almost never experienced the rest of that fantastic game due to being so turned off by the temple).



The goal for this game is to launch into Early Access. I intend to have over half of the game completed by that EA launch with full launch occurring 6-9 months after that. The idea to do an EA launch was not one taken lightly, but one thing I have found with my past launches is that just when I think a game is bug-free and ready for a seamless launch, players will find new and interesting ways to break things – leading to frantic post-launch schedule of rushing out bug-fixes and patches. I think this way is better. Launch into Early Access and take player feedback over time so that I can get everything sorted for a smooth launch after that.

The other factor is budget. Right now, I do not have the armor or model system in place for player characters and NPCs. These are assets. This will change before Early Access as I have the models done (with no armor or clothing yet), but even after that, I suspect I will need some of the additional revenue from EA launch to finish the last 2-3 planets (as mentioned I aim to have 3-4 story planets complete for EA launch, with the first one ready for the demo in the coming month or so).

I hope people will wishlist and follow this game. It’s always been a dream of mine to create a sci-fi cRPG, and there doesn’t seem to be many on the market except for Colony Ship (which I completed three times). So I hope there’s a market for something like this, a game taking inspiration from early Bioware and some of the great current game developers on the market today.

I will continue to provide updates in the next while, including game systems, story, ideas, and more. I really look forward to people's feedback and thoughts as well.