Greetings, Spacefarers!
We’ve mentioned defenses in passing on many occasions, but today we would like to take a closer look at what that means, and what options players will have for defending their resources against attack by other players. There will be several different layers of defenses, protecting different areas, such as your homebase, claimed PoI’s, and even your own fleets.
The first of these layers of defense would be the ones surrounding claimed PoI’s and home bases. Players will be able to assign capital ships or flagships to a ship array surrounding the home base or claimed PoI. These ships will then serve as one line of defense when a player attacks those objects. Home bases have been beefed up with their own defenses in addition to being protected by the Ship Arrays. Note that ships assigned to the ship array do not count toward the fleet cap that you are allowed to have exploring the map, engaging in combat, etc.
When the claim or home base is attacked, the game will rank your ships from strongest to weakest, and will activate the strongest two ships first. If these are defeated, it will activate the next ones, and so on. Your combat rating will update after each battle, to take into account which ships are now active. The stronger your combat rating for the ships in your ship array, the better you will fare if your base or PoI is attacked.
Claimed PoI’s will have not only the ship array, but also an orbital defense station. A default “System” will activate when the player claims the POI and constructs the Defense building. The orbital station is quite powerful, and will be scaled according to the rarity and defense building level of the claimed PoI. The Defense building will be able to be progressed, as with any other building a player would use for their home base or PoI. Home bases will also feature the defense building, allowing players to progress and strengthen their defenses over time. In addition, players that visit a PoI and sign a mining lease will have the option to purchase “additional defenses” which will increase their defense rating while mining that claim.
As you can see, there are complex systems being designed both offensively and defensively to ensure that combat is a rich and engaging experience. We will be testing these features through our testing program as we draw closer to beta launch.