Development Update - December 2025

Dear Backers,

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. December was a very productive month for our team as we push towards our first demo later this year.

Even in the future, money still makes the world go round, and economic simulation is just as important a part of the game as combat. This month we focused on building out all aspects of the in-game economy, with particular attention to store interfaces. Whether it’s Discount Dan’s Pretty Above Board House of Bargains on Porto Palladio or a back-ally gun-runner on New Providence, players can now buy and sell weapons and equipment to outfit their party, or sell extra equipment looted from fallen enemies. At shipyards, players can take advantage of ship repair and brokerage services to repair damage sustained in battle, sell captured prize ships, add new ships to their squadron, or trade in their current vessel for a better one. At the commodity exchange, players can buy and sell valuable goods transported in their ship’s cargo hold. Discovering valuable trade routes between planets is a lucrative source of income in the game, and so it is very beneficial for players to learn where certain goods are produced and can be bought cheap, and where they are in high demand and fetch a high price.

In-Engine Functional Prototype Shipyard Store Screen

Physical goods arn’t the only thing money buys. At taverns, players can hire crew and officers looking for work. Certain planets might even offer crews more experienced in particular aspects. A rowdy pirate crew from New Providence could turn the tide in a boarding action, whereas professional sailors from the Velari Observatory could help you avoid trouble in the first place. For those who prefer to fight their way out of trouble, retired navy veterans with exceptional canoneering skill might be found at Gregarin Station near the Slipspace Gate to Earth. Besides their pay, crews will consume food to keep themselves alive, space rum to keep themselves happy, and medical supplies to recover from battle casualties, so it’s important to keep your cargo hold stocked with supplies, and restock whenever visiting port. Being unable to feed or pay your crew will severely drain their morale, which can even lead to mutiny! The timeline display in the overworld scene now tracks important deadlines, like when food supplies will run out, when crew salary is due, or when timed quests will expire.

In-Engine Functional Prototype Crew Hiring Screen

On the topic of user interfaces, the art team at MLC has completed work on the UI layout and style language and has moved on to 3D rendering of UI assets. This will give our UI elements a chunky, tactile feel that will better help immerse the player in the universe.

3D render of UI information screen

Speaking of immersion, this month also saw several improvements to space exploration and navigation. We’ve added an interactive map to help players find their way across the Cortesia system, and while it lists most known locations from the start, it will also update when the player discovers any of many secret locations hidden throughout the Cortesia system, such as smuggler caches, pirate lairs, abandoned colonies, derelict science stations, and others. When entering orbit of a location of interest, the player is presented with a planetary map listing locations where they can land with their shuttle. The planetary map also supports fast travel to locations of interest, such as stores, shipyards, and taverns, provided the player has visited them at least once before.

In-Engine Functional Prototype Planetary Map of Porto Palladio, showing locations the player can land their shuttle

In addition to all of the above, we’ve continued making improvements to both space and ground combat to make them even more engaging. All ships now have a damage threshold very near the point of destruction that, when reached, disables the ship. The reactor shuts down and all motive power is lost, leaving the ship vulnerable to boarding. Additional damage will destroy the ship outright, but will also result in most of the cargo being destroyed as well. It will be up to the player to decide if they want to risk the danger of boarding for higher reward.

Isaac has spent particular attention last week to expanding the complexity of AI behaviors. The collision avoidance behavior has been greatly improved to take into account relative speeds and turning radius, leading to fewer pile-ups in the chaos of battle. Isaac has also implemented the first of our squadron formation behaviors, the line of battle. Squadrons can now form into a cohesive line of battle behind their flagship to maximize firepower and broadside their opponents into space dust, before turning to repeat the process with their fresh side while the other reloads. The 17th century drive-by perfected in the golden age of sail remains a powerful and effective naval tactic.

Last but not least, we’ve integrated the character models delivered by MLC into the game, adding 5 new male and female outfits and hairstyles for players to choose from.

The Crew takes cover and prepares to repel boarders

This month we will be finalizing our AI behaviors to ensure Space Combat has the tactical depth and provides enough challenging fun to really make our game stand out, as well as adding new ground levels to provide more variety to our players and increase replayability. As always, thank you for your support and please check out the full change log below to see all the work that was accomplished this month. See you next month!

Best Regards,

Vincent De Tommaso

Game Director

Full Changelog

Shops and Economy

• Shipyard Store: Main Screen - Implemented the Shipyard Store screen, where players can buy, sell, and repair their ship, and ships in their squadron

• Shipyard Store: Selling Ship Screen - Detail sub-screen when selling a ship

• Shipyard Store: buying Sub-screen - Detail sub-screen when buying a ship

• Shipyard Store: trade in Sub-screen - Detail sub-screen when trading in their current ship for a new one

• Hiring Crew: Implemented the crew hiring screen. Players can now hire crew for their ship in taverns.

• Equipment Shop Interface: Implemented the Equipment Shop Screen, where players can buy, sell, and equip weapons and equipment to their character and officers

• Cargo Store - Implemented the cargo store screen. Players can now buy and sell cargo items stored in their ship’s cargo hold

• Hiring Officers: Detail Window - Players can examine a potential officer’s attributes and skills before deciding to hire them

Ship & Crew Management

• Cargo Item consumption - ship crews will consume food and rum over time, and medicine to heal casualties after battle

• Squadron Mechanics: Food & Medicine consumption - food, rum, and medicine can be shared across ships in the same squadron when there is a shortfall

• Overworld Timeline - implemented the timeline UI to the overworld that shows upcoming events, such as when crew salary due, when officers will heal from injury, when supplies will run out, and when timed quests will expire

• End of Month Crew Salary - the crew will demand their salary at the end of the month. Refusing (or being unable) to pay will result in severe morale penalties (possibly leading to mutiny)

• Engineering Screen: Update for Squadrons - updated the engineering screen to support all ships in a player’s squadron

• Medical Bay Screen: Update for Squadrons - updated the med bay screen to support all ships in a player’s squadron

• Cargo Hold Screen: Update for Squadrons - updated the cargo hold screen to support all ships in a player’s squadron

• Overworld Timeline: Improve Food and Rum Strings - improved clarity of timeline display when less than a day of food or rum remains

Space Navigation & Exploration

• Overworld Map - added a map of the Cortesia system to the overworld to help players navigate

• Overworld Map Improvement - map locations populate dynamically. Also supports unknown and hidden locations, whose names and locations are added to the map after being discovered

• Planetary Landing Map - when landing on a planet, players are presented with a map of locations to land at

• Planetary Landing: Fast travel - visited sub-locations (taverns, stores, etc.) can now be traveled too directly from the landing map if they have been visited previously

Space Combat

• Ship Death - Ships that sustain very high levels of damage now enter a disabled state, where all motive power is lost, leaving them dead in the water and vulnerable to boarding. Additional damage can still destroy the ship.

• Ship Squadron AI Behaviors - Line of Battle - Added the battle line AI behavior, where ships in a squadron attempt to maintain a cohesive line of battle while engaging the enemy.

• Adjust Ship Collision Detection to Account for Turning and Speed - Collision avoidance AI greatly improved to take into account the ship’s current speed and turning radius 

Ground Combat

• Utility Item: Scope - added a utility item to ground combat that improves accuracy of ranged weapons when equipped.

• Bug: Ground Combat Null Reference on Death: player properties no longer null when loading directly into ground combat instead of navigating there from the overworld

• Bug: Fix Key Not Found with Move-and-Shoot: Fixed and issue when moving behind cover to shoot an enemy as part of a compound action,where  the target list refreshed before the cover sight-lines were regenerated, resulting in the target being invisible and invalid.

• Bug: Prevent Sniper Move-and-Shoot: characters equipped with sniper rifles can no longer circumvent the sniper rifle’s restriction on moving and shooting by issuing a compound command

• Enemies account for full-cover peeking when checking for flanking - enemies were not taking into account player units in full cover when determining where to move, resulting in exposing themselves to flanking shots. This has been fixed