NebuLeet News

After doing some extensive playtesting and getting feedback from the players, I am pleased to present a new demo update.

Content:

• Planet random events/status effects
  
• New NPC vessel classes - Destroyers, Carriers, Fiend
  
• New equipment: weapons, body parts, drones, and more!
  
• More high-level encounter lists
  
• Reputation has additional gameplay effects now
  
• More pilot behavior packs
  
• New mission types (Pirate Carnage and some other)
  

When speaking numbers, it's around 30 new NPC vessel templates, 10+ new equipment parts, 10+ new encounter lists, 20+ bot behavior programs.

This update moves the endgame mark when the game has no new content to offer from ~2 hours to around 4-5 hours. It's still not even half of what's planned for a full release, but I'm getting there.



Gameplay:

• A much better period report screen
  
• Negative events are hidden from the journal until the report is revealed
  
• Most NPC squads have a captain assigned
  

UX/interface:

• Combat overlay (pause, fast forward)
  
• Reworked vessel validation - it's non-blocking now
  
• Added post-battle per-weapon damage stats
  
• Show current reputation level in reputation change tooltips
  
• Can repair vessels even when not entering the vessel screen not from a shop
  
• More tooltips (hover over Android and Mercenary tags, etc.)
  

Game balance:

• Better experience reward curve
  
• Adjusted planet research rates
  
• A slightly improved equipment pricing
  
• An attempt to improve the difficulty scaling curve
  

Bugs:

• Fixed
• Fixed repair bugs
  
• Added some missing translation strings (e.g. "weapon_fire_arc")
  
• Fixed "empty" target selection
  

The upcoming update will introduce a new NPC vessel class - the Destroyer.

Combining the offensive power of Fighter and armor-focus of a Guard, the Destroyer is one of the most dangerous dominion vessel you can encounter.

There are several tiers of Destroyers, but even the weakest destroyer can be problematic for an unprepared fleet.

Here are some designs I made for Destroyers:

The demo is out!




Go ahead and play it out, then tell me about your experience.

The demo has content for 4-10 hours of gameplay, depending on what you want to achieve, or more if you try to explore the programming side of the game to its fullest.

Here is what I am going to focus on while working on a final release of the game:

• Final missions that will conclude a run
  
• Better onboarding and explanations of mechanics
  
• A better difficulty curve and progression
  
• Some metaprogression (unlocking new layouts of the flagship, etc.)
  
• More content in all areas
  
• Save game/program/vessel design
  
• Async multiplayer mode and online leaderboard
  
• More music, and more changes to the already existing remixes
  
• Plus some more stuff you might expect from a finished product (e.g., a fully working settings screen)
  

I prepared a small hint list for the new players. Use it if you have difficulties playing the game and/or if you have never played a game like this.

Here is a short video of me playing the game:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Did you enjoy the game? If you wishlist it, the chances of its success are much higher.

NebuLeet includes two archetypes of pilots:

• Humans with behavior (I'll call them mercenaries for convenience)
  
• Programmable androids
  

Mercenary pilots' behavior depends on their stats, level, and personal traits (like Coward). They bring an auto-battler aspect into the game. You build and configure vessels, they do the piloting part.

Although this game can be played without programming, it's an essential feature that can improve the experience and open new possibilities.

A fully automated vessel? Great, that's possible.
A partially automated vessel, where you manually control the other parts? Yes, do it!

Or what about a manually-controlled vessel? You heard it correctly, programming is a way to get an arcade-style or RTS-style control of a unit, just make sure it moves, fires, and rotates in response to your button mashing.

Here is an example of the manual movement control scheme:



These little blocks are called commands. A sequence of commands (from top to bottom) forms a program.

There are several challenges when trying to combine auto-behavior of mercenary pilots and programmable androids. If no good programming is done, mercenaries are much better and require less efforts from the player. But if you create a good algorithm, it can dominate the scene.

And there is also an onboarding aspect of that - programming is harder to get into as you need to learn more mechanics of the game. We can't throw everything the game has onto the player and expect them to figure it out.

Instead, the player starts with a very limited set of commands available to them:



This reduces the cognitive load at the start. It also fixes the problem of overpowered androids in the early-game phase.

All equipment parts (navigation bridges, weapons, artifacts) also have default programs preinstalled. This serves as a programming example for beginners. In addition to that, it makes purchased items useful right away, without any re-configuration. There are multiple preinstalled programs, but only one of them is usually available from the start - the most basic one. This is because the programming commands pool is so limited, nothing fancy can be loaded into device even if it has the program listed.

So how do we unlock new programming commands? This is where software tech tree (ahem, grid) comes into play!



This grid is randomized every time you start a campaign. It consists of "command bundles". The bundles usually contain around 2-3 closely related commands.

You start by selecting a tech tree root - it can be any tile, for free. Then you can move from there by unlocking a tile that is adjacent to any of already unlocked tiles. The price increases every next tile, so prioritization is the key.

Once you unlock a tile, new commands that this tile (command bundle) provides are added to your pool. This means you can create more sophisticated programs on your own or use a more advanced pre-installed program of any given device.

You get Android Evolution Points when android pilots get combat experience. That's it - if there are no androids in your squad, no points are awarded. Both mercenaries and androids have their merits and it can be beneficial to use both, so consider this to be another parameter for optimization.

The potential for coding increases dramatically as you move towards the end-game. You can even encode state machines, but I won't spoil the fun of discovering the solution for you!



I hope this system will make multiple styles of gameplay somewhat balanced: from a full autobattler wth zero or very little programming to a full programming showdown in the style of Carnage Heart.

Several things have changed while I worked on this game, but the core concepts will remain. Let's discuss these core concepts so you can understand what this game will be about.

NebuLeet will deliver these:

• A simulated living world
  
• A genuine market-based trading system with sell/buy orders and demand/supply simulation
  
• In-space combat with auto-battle and manual controls options
  
• A full or partial vessel automation via builtin visual programming
• Tactical planetary battles (like in early Master of Orion games, but more involved)
  
• Vessel constructor
  
• A sandbox-focused gameplay with some story bits
  
• Moddable game structure
  

Every major part of the game is designed so you can spend hours in it, focusing on just that if that's your desire.

Want to be a trader? The trading system is so deep, it can be compared to some economy simulators while still having some unique properties.

Feeling like a pirate? Go on, try to make for a living by finding out opportunities in space. The game includes "war crimes" mechanics that make some faction-affiliated units a more legitimate target, which can be exploited by the head hunters.

Do you like puzzles and automation, or maybe you're a fan of visual programming in games? Spend hours creating the best autopilots for your vessels. Participate in multiplayer (offline) battles where autopilots fight each other so we can know whose algorithm is the best one.

Are you a tactical mind? Take some drones, choose a warfare planet, and try to capture its regions! Whether it's beneficial depends on your strategic skills. You'll also need some diplomacy as factions may not like the third-party intervention in their agenda.

If you like to customize stuff, it's possible to spend hours in the vessel editor. Rotate, flip, position, paint stuff.

Next time, I'm going to tell you more about the living world and its economy.