Scrap [Engine] Town (Patreon)

Since the hour was growing late as I tried to get my previous post out along with X4 shortly before heading to bed, in my haste I didn't elaborate about the Scrap Engine decision, though I can see how my cursory comment implied there was more going on behind the scenes when I wrote "which is about time since I think the Scrap Engine is here to stay, eh?"

I would point out that while I don't and can't convey everything that's discussed  on the patron channel on Discord, where a decent portion of patrons hang out, I do make sure to write here under the assumption that readers are not even on the Discord at all. So don't worry about that, you're not missing out on Vital Information.

However, in this case I did indeed earlier say that actually including the Scrap Engine in the final game would depend on "feedback," but didn't explicitly cover any of that feedback before making that final statement :P

So to clear that up, other than people generally seeming to think it's pretty fun and interesting, there really wasn't any explicit discussion on its inclusion, regarding mechanical implications or otherwise. It was really just me enjoying playing around with it (mostly on stream, where I did talk about a lot of related topics), seeing that others were having fun, and that it probably doesn't totally break everything, which is good enough for me. There can always be tweaks as necessary, and for now it seems to be in a decent place.

I can't wait for wizard mode to help debunk this feeling? No, wait, yes I can xD. I actually wanted to include it in X4, since it's about time with respect to the Scrap Engine development timeline, but at the same time felt that people using it would likely distract me from the next big tasks at hand, so excluded it only for that reason.

BIG TASKS.

I spent all day yesterday finally organizing ages of notes at least somewhat related to Scraptown. Funny enough, during this process I found no less than six different spots in those notes, each written months apart from the others, describing a mechanic with a nature akin to the Scrap Engine, each one with its own mechanics and nuances.

As is very necessary at this point I'm starting with a very top-down meta approach to the new content, making sure it will fit in to both the greater narrative and, even more importantly, the player decision tree and potential goals and resources throughout a run.

The results are looking promising, but also a bit... larger than I expected in order to make it worth doing this in a way that will satisfy players of all levels. It's looking like we're going to get early-, mid-, and late-game content here, with multiple new maps, and a new ending.

There's still some more organizing of notes to do, and that's mostly just accounting for the many scattered ideas I've written over the past couple years in relation to this subject, after which it'll be necessary to fill in more details down to the lowest levels of the design. Of course having a big stable framework is vital for making sure no time is wasted on details that would have to be changed later, hence the emphasis on meta design in the earliest stages.

While I have you here, one area of details my notes left mostly empty as of yesterday is the various factions of derelicts that might be out there. A little bit of background on the upcoming lore: Scraptown involves a federation of different derelict groups, and you'll be able to meet representatives of said groups while visiting. So I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on what kinds of derelict groups exist on Tau Ceti IV? Sure I'll be able to fill in the necessary details, but I thought I'd ask since it's always fun to hear people throw ideas around, and who knows, maybe they'll have a spot at the table ;)

Note they don't have to be fully developed, by any means, as in you won't necessarily encounter these actual groups anywhere aside from them having representation in Scraptown, so it's kind of a free-for-all with more potential for creativity.

(To take one step backward, in case you're not aware, "Scraptown" is a new derelict community/map that is one of the primary features of Beta 12. For a time I was considering giving it a different name, but this one's quite suitable, and we'll just have to rename the Scrapyard instead, since it's too similar. Junkyard, perhaps... or rename it to whatever it's intended to eventually become, although I don't really like that idea since it could seem confusing for newer players, among other drawbacks...)