Hi there, Fellow Spacers!
Some updates from the latest patch—no specific order, but a fair bit to get through, so let’s start at the beginning 🙂
Store and Office Descriptions:
I have now formally replaced all the descriptive text for all Offices and Stores. I’ve tried to keep a mixture of helpful and in keeping with the flow of the game. As always, if you spot any Cooper spelling mistakes, just drop me a PM in-game/Discord or send an in-game email.
Outpost Licensing:
I added the Outpost Licensing Offices to the Information Centre. This is found under the Services tab, which is now fully alphabetical. Remember, once you have chosen a selection, you can then use the filter at the top to further filter by, say, a system or location.
Promenade:
I have removed the speech bubble—we won’t be using this icon, and it was there from the first outline of promenades. I have also added a spinning icon and a new bar that appears when you first dock at a location. This is there to indicate it’s processing any deliveries. I now know that some of you are stacking up Wesbec, Ashar, and even passenger deliveries to the same location. This was causing a delay and was slightly concerning as to whether it was doing anything. So now a spinner bar appears and processes the deliveries. It may flash very quickly even if you have none, but that is just the system checking.
Commodities R&D:
Thanks to Porrima for pointing out he had maxed the R&D topics. (I’d added enough to get the R&D working and tested.) I have now added all 42 Commodities, leaving a few that you won’t be able to use R&D and thus Assembler for. These now go up to level 24, which should keep you going for a while 🙂
A small patch to the cache system for these appearing incorrectly based on your level has been applied. Hopefully this has been fixed for anyone having an issue seeing this.
New FSP Ideas:
I’ve been pondering a few more FSP items for the in-game support mechanics. A Jump Fuel Booster so you get more fuel per Heavy Fuel refinery operation (sliding % scale). Then an idea to add a Refinery Recall option, so you could remotely recall all those refinery completions you’ve scattered across the galaxy 🙂
If you have suggestions, make them known in the Discord Suggestions.
Outposts:
I have spent most of last night and today making tweaks and upgrades to Outposts. For those who missed this, you can grab the Hub Blueprints and building blueprints from ‘Frontier Outpost Designs’. Then you need a licence to deploy, which can be grabbed from an ‘Outpost Licensing Office’.
Once you have them, you can locate an area of space (not near anything else) and deploy a new Outpost on the Navigation Map. Name it, and you gain remote access and control over your new shiny Outpost.
Reactors & Research Buildings:
These were linked to the Captain Skill, but it made no sense, so these have been amended to link to the Outpost Level. So please pay attention when purchasing a blueprint—check the end item requirements as these will be Outpost levels. Buy the Level Zero items first and get going before trying to deploy level 15 kit 🙂
Item Database and the items themselves for Outposts have been updated to show not Skill but Outpost Level.
Outpost Contracts:
Now, when you deploy an Outpost, you get an initial 4 Store contracts to spend. The Outpost comes with a Vendor and a Commercial Store for free, and these two won’t time out.
Kermit has an Outpost in Descarte—I’m sure he’d love some visitors 🙂 He is, so far, the first to deploy one.
Docking Permit:
Outposts can have a docking permit cost; this is displayed in the info window before you dock. Should you open the promenade, you will see a 15-minute permit message. This means you won’t be charged again if you leave and come back within 15 minutes.
Outpost Levelling:
It’s taken me a lot of Excel and slider scales to work this one out, but currently Outposts can level from 0 to 25. Don’t expect to do that quickly, but you can begin to see level progress in the first two days, then over the next few weeks, and then over the next few months.
XP for Outpost levelling comes from the Research Points you earn from the hourly research generated by your Research Buildings. Maximise these as you level your Outpost, and you will maximise both your Research Points and your Outpost CP.
Outpost Contracts (continued):
As mentioned earlier, you get 4 to start with to choose and 2 free ones already deployed. These can be expanded by upgrades, which I will explain in a moment. But I wanted to mention that the stores open to you are based on the level of your Outpost.
Outpost Upgrade:
Your Outpost can be upgraded. Currently, I’ve activated +1 Contracts, Research Points Booster from 5% up to 25%, and Outpost Tax Collection. These all use Research Points!
Outpost Docking Fee and Tax:
The docking fee can be set up to 10K, but I don’t suggest you do that unless you’re trying to deter visitors lol. This will be displayed as a warning on the Info panel when in orbit of your Outpost, and a 15-minute docking permit will be issued to anyone who docks for the aforementioned fee. This goes to your Outpost’s Uncollected Revenue.
Outpost Tax varies slightly based on the office or service, but if you take Ashar, the tax will be taken from Ashar when a mission picked up from your Outpost is delivered. The Captain making the delivery gets the full amount, but Ashar pays you the tax.
Stores like Weapons, Cargo, and Reactors pay you the fee directly. Blueprint stores will also do this. There are some exceptions due to the chance of player-engineered actions—one being the Promenade Vendor store and the Commercial Store—neither will generate income.
There is a log in the Overview that displays who has been contributing/using your Outpost. All funds collected are placed in Uncollected Revenue, waiting for you to collect. A total revenue figure is also kept, and those Offices and Stores that earn you Credits will display this on the Commercial Page.
Finally, last thing—I fixed the hovers on the various stats bars 🙂