Niklas
09-20-2011, 20:30
New/updated sections are given a date YYYY-MM-DD.
INTRO [2011-09-22]
Black screen, ambient sounds, fading up the TD logo, TD logo fading down, more and more sounds from battles, AA2 logo fading up, galaxy fading up, AA2 logo fading down, AA2 welcome message appear.
MENU
The menu will extend down from the top of the screen when mouse cursor is moved to the top of the screen. The menu has the following buttons:
• Quickplay
• Import infested system
• Statistics
• Hall Of Fame
• Options
• Exit
QUICKPLAY [2011-10-12]
The player can at any time on the galaxy screen click on the “quickplay” button to bring up a list of all available missions divided into the campaign they belong to. When choosing a mission the complete soldier list for the company will be shown and the player will now be able to choose X soldiers that will take part in the mission. The minimum and maximum amount of soldiers are set in the level.
There will be no differences between playing a mission from quickplay or by attacking an alien vessel in the galaxy (see more below). Soldiers will gain experience and risk dying in the mission.
GALAXY [2011-09-23]
http://www.gamer.ru/system/attached_images/images/000/122/479/original/Frontier_Elite2_map_scan_.jpg?1261726305
We'll use this map but extend it outside of -7 and +7 to -20 and +20. Everything out in the extended area areconsidered to be unexplored space and all systems out here are named "Unknown" and systems are less and less frequent with longer and longer distances between them. I don't know how large we should make the star map, -20 to +20. We will use the same star colors and names on stars/systems but allow players to make their own galaxy if they want to do that (for example for SH mods with a 40K galaxy).
Regarding planets in systems they will be randomized when galaxy is generated unless you make a file for each system (same name as shown on galaxy map). That file contain star size, amount and type of planets in the system. This will be done for "Sol", but maybe not more than that.
Galaxy view covering the entire screen. Home system (see more below) centered on screen.
SYSTEMS [2011-10-05]
A system is basically a star and a collection of planets. Each system is represented on the galaxy map by a star icon colored to indicate the size of the star. Colors are red, orange, yellow and white.
HOME SYSTEM [2011-09-22]
The home system will always be a yellow system (overriding the system size set in the galaxy file). The home system for Alien Assault Force will be "Sol" at 0,0.
COLONIZING SYSTEMS [2011-10-05]
All systems with exception of the home system will be uncolonized from the beginning of the game. To colonize a system the player send a company ship to it. When it arrives the system is considered colonized. There are four types of systems, based on the star strength:
• Red star - low power star unable to hoist habitable planets.
• Orange star - medium power star able to hoist partly habitable planets.
• Yellow star - normal power star suitable for hoisting fully habitable planets.
• White star - high power star able to hoist partly habitable planets.
Red star systems can not be colonized. Orange, yellow and white systems can be colonized.
PRODUCING SOLDIERS AT COLONIZED SYSTEMS [2011-10-24]
Colonized systems are used to produce soldiers on the reinforcement screen. Read more this below.
COMPANY [2011-09-21]
In AA1 player could choose differend squads to use when playing. In AA2 this has been replaced with companies. A company in AA2 will be able to host 100 soldiers. There is no limit of how many companies can be added to the game. A company has a defined home system galaxy sector. When the galaxy is generated the largest system in the sector will be set as home system. The "finding home system" will only be performed first time game is started when the galaxy has been regenerated (the regeneration operation will remove all home system files).
QUEEN ALIEN [2011-09-23]
The queen alien vessel enter the galaxy through a worm hole somewhere in the galaxy at least one sector away from any colonized system or company ship. The vessel travel towards a specific system with huge speed (higher than other abandoned vessels) and finally crash land into the system. The speed of the vessel is so high it is almost as quick as company ships and if the player is not near the queen vessel when it passes by. This to make the chance small that the player can take out the queen by attacking its ship before the infestation begin.
INFESTED SYSTEMS [2011-09-22]
When aliens infest a system (crash into the system with an abandoned vessel (see below)) it will become under seige until the alien forces have been exterminated by the player.
ALIENS SPREADING TO OTHER SYSTEMS [2011-10-05]
An infested system and abandoned vessels will be able to generate new vessels that are sent out to infest other nearby systems making the alien infestation spread in the galaxy. The generated vessels are never larger than the size of the infestation in the system they originated from. A colonized system that become infested by aliens will not be possible to colonized until the player has attacked the system and exterminated the aliens.
A campaign in an infested system will be 25-50% larger than the abandoned vessel that initially crashed into the system.
EXPORTING AND IMPORTING INFESTED SYSTEMS [2011-09-26]
If a player encounter an alien infested system which is too hard to conquer it will be possible to get offline help from other players. This will work as followed:
Player A click on an infested system. In the system info there will be an export button. When pressing it an "infested system file" (ISF) will be generated with information about the system and the campaign on it. Player A send the ISF is sent to player B. Player B import the ISF by using the import function in the main menu. Player A's infested system will now be present in player B's galaxy. Player B can now attack the infested system and finish the campaign. When this is done the game will generate a new ISF with information that the campaign has been completed. Now player B can send back the updated ISF to player A who can import it by using the same import function in the main menu. As this is done the infested system is now free from aliens.
• It will NOT be possible to import an infested system if the system is already infested!
• It will NOT be possible to import an cleared system file if the system is not infested by exactly that campaign.
• An ISF are automatically deleted by the game when has successfully imported it.
• The game will never remove ISF files that have been generated by the game.
OFFLINE ASSISTANCE HELP SECTION ON THIS FORUM [2011-09-26]
There will be a dedicated section available on this forum for player that are in need of help in which they can upload their exported file of infested systems. Anyone can download the file and then upload the updated file.
COMPANY SHIPS [2011-09-22]
A company ship is basically a group of (1-100) soldiers. Their location can at any time be changed by giving them a new destination. The ship will travel to the new destination and then wait for further instructions. A destination can be a void location in the galaxy, a system, a company ship or an abandoned vessel.
A company ship arriving at another company ship or a colonized planet will merge its soldiers with the soldiers at the destination and the arriving ship will no longer exist.
ABANDONED VESSELS
An abandoned vessel is a large space ship no longer under control by a human crew. The fate of the crew is unknowed but what is known is that these vessels are moving towards a specific destination with a constant speed. When reaching their destination, their huge size and high speed will impact with the planet with such force that the entire planet could be destroyed. Therefor it is vital that the Alien Assault Force intercept these vessels and take over control before the otherwise terrifying crash.
HYPER JUMPS [2011-10-05]
All ships are equipped with hyper drives allowing them to perform "hyper jumps" (teleport) in the galaxy. After a ship has made a hyper jump they the hyper drive needs to cool down before it can perform another jump. Longer jumps mean longer cool down time. Also longer jumps mean that the accuracy decreases. All jumps can in rare occations lead to "miss jump". A miss jump means that the ship that made a hyper jump ended up in totally wrong location. A miss jump go in 180 degrees angle (-90 to +90 from the original jump direction) and 50-100% extra distance than the original jump.
HYPER JUMPS WITH COMPANY SHIPS [2011-10-06]
All ships can perform hyper jumps but hyper jumps can only be made to sectors with colonized systems. This to entice the players to colonize systems AND to fight of infestations in previously colonized systems to be able to colonize them again.
All sectors with colonized systems are logically (and visually?) connected in a chain and when a ship is in one of these chained sectors it can hyper jump to any other sector in the chain. This makes void sectors (sectors without any systems) and sector with only red systems (not colonizable) in the galaxy to be feared as "here you have to fly slowly across". Both these feared type sectors will be more and more frequent in the outskirts of the galaxy.
MISS JUMPS [2011-10-06]
All hyper jumps have a slim risk of becoming a miss jump meaning the ship does not end up in the sector where it inteded to arrive. The risk for miss jumps are accumulated for each sector so longer jumps have higher risk of ending in a miss jump. Miss jumps should still be very rare but something to keep in mind. A ship making a miss jump when doing a long jump can end up far out in the outskirts of the galaxy and not able to chain jump back but have to fly all the way back to colonized systems - or the player use the miss jump to start colonizing a corner of the galaxy.
HYPER JUMPS BY ABANDONED VESSELS [2011-09-25]
Abandoned vessels can also perform hyper jumps but only in rare occations (10% or the vessels?). Most frequently made by alien queen vessels (50%) when under threat (company ships near by). Abandoned vessels can only perform one warp jump (they basically have no cool down on their hyper drive). Their destination could be a neighbour sector (50%), next neighbour sector (40%) or anywhere in the galaxy (10%).
NOVA DEVICE PROTECTION SYSTEM
On the home planet of the company a special intergalactical defence system is in operation. It is called the "Nova Device" (ND) and can be used to erredicate an abandoned vessel or an infested system.
NOVA DEVICE AGAINST ABANDONDED VESSELS [2011-09-22]
When a ND impact with a vessel there is a risk of it breaking apart into smaller pieces. These pieces act as small(er) abandoned vessels (0-3 pieces with a 25-50% size of the original vessels size). Each of these abandoned vessels get a new randomized heading and speed.
NOVA DEVICE AGAINST SYSTEMS [2011-09-22]
When a ND impact with the system's star the system will automatically become free from aliens but generate small(er) abandoned vessels. These pieces act as small(er) abandoned vessels (0-3 pieces with a 25-50% size of the original vessels size). Each of these abandoned vessels get a new randomized heading and speed. The system will also become inhabitable for the future. The system will however still be possible to infest by aliens.
SCAN AREAS
All colonized systems and company ships have scanning capability which is used to find abandoned vessels. The scan is a circular area around the system/ship visualized on the galaxy screen.
COMPANY SHIPS SCAN AREA
The amount of soldiers in a ship define the size of the scan area. The sum of experience of the soldiers in a ship is also a modifier of a ships scan area.
SYSTEMS SCAN AREA
The size of the system define the size of the scan area. The home system will always have a larger scan area than any colonized system. Any soldiers in a system will instead of adding to a ships scan area add to the systems scan area.
SELECTING A SYSTEM OR A COMPANY SHIP [2011-10-11]
Clicking once on a system or ship will highlight it and show...
SYSTEM
...the star and planets along with a short description and stats.
COMPANY SHIP
...the available soldier list (see below) and the ships route and destination along with ETA data.
ABANDONED VESSELS
...a short description of the vessel (name, size, calculated destination and ETA).
AVAILABLE SOLDIER LIST (ASL)
Clicking on an company ship or double cliking on a colonised system will show the ASL. The ASL is a list of all soldiers available in the ship/system. List is default sorted by age of the soldiers placing veterans on top and rookies at the bottom. Soldiers most recently in combat will however be placed on top of the list making it easier to select same soldiers again for next mission.
Mouse hovering a soldier will show an image the soldier in armor without helmet with all earned decorations and all information and statistics about the soldier.
In this list the player can select which soldiers should...
• ...be sent away in a new company ship. When at least one soldier has been highlighted the depart button appear and by pressing it the ASL disapears and the galaxy is shown with the mouse cursor replaced with a targeting icon. By clicking anywhere on the map the selected soldiers from the ASL will depart from their previous location to the new destination.
• ...attack an abandoned vessel. When at least X soldiers has been highlighted the attack button appear and by pressing it the armory screen will be shown. There is a max limit of Y soldiers that can be choosen to participate in a mission. The X and Y are defined for each mission (set in level editor). Missions made for AA2 will have X <= Y while older missions made for AA1 will have X = Y. This as a precaution to prevent missions from being impossible to complete if not enough soldiers were choosen to enter the mission. The X and Y values will be shown to the player indicating how many soldiers are needed (X) and how many are recommended (Y) to make it easier for the player to prepare for the mission. If the player chooses to launch the attack with less than Y soldiers a warning (“Are you sure you want to attack the abandoned vessel with less soldiers than recommended?”) will be shown allowing the player to go back to the ASL and include more soldiers.
Default all soldiers are highlighted (this to simply moving the ship around in the galaxy) Clicking on a soldier will highlight him and deselect all other soldiers. Clicking on a highlighted soldier will remove the highlight. Removing highlight from the last highlighted soldier will autohighlight all soldiers = there will always be at least one highlighted soldier.
Soldier in the list can be greyed out which means they have been severly hurt in a previous mission and have still not recovered from the ingurise and are currently unavailable (see more below). They can be moved around with the rest of the soldiers but not take part in a mission.
HURT SOLDIERS [2011-09-21]
A soldier that suffered injuries (hurt or only unconsious?) during a mission will be unavailable in the ASL for a while. When the soldier is back in duty an arm or a leg has been replaced with a bionical limb. This to indicate that the soldier has suffered serious injury in previous battle.
PROLOGUE / STORY SCREEN [2011-10-02]
This will not be included in AA2.
ARMORY SCREEN
When player chooses to launch an attack upon an abandoned vessel the armory screen appear. This screen contain both a mission slide show and a list of all choosen soldiers.
MISSION SLIDE SHOW
The mission is displayed in a basic topdown miniatyre showing the logic layout. Player can step through the mission by clicking on the “previous” and “next” instruction button. Depending on the mission the amount of slides may vary. Missions made for AA2 will allow the level designer to set how many slides will be shown, what the instruction will say and which areas on the mission layout will be highlighted. Missions made for AA1 will use the old static system with first slide being “Your soldiers will spawn here” and so on...
SOLDIER LIST
The soldiers selected for the mission appear in their default setup (set in level editor). Depending on the mission weapons and items may be rearranged among the soldiers. Each soldier has three slots, one for each hand and one on the back. The loadout for each soldier is up to the player. The only rules are:
• Range weapon can only be placed in the right hand.
• Melee weapon must be placed in the left hand.
• Items must be placed in the back.
Players can at any time go back to the ASL screen from the armory screen to change which soldier(s) will be used on the next mission. When the player is ready the “start mission” button is pressed and the game moves from the galaxy screen to ingame.
EPILOGUE SCREEN [2011-10-02]
This will not be included in AA2.
CAMPAIGN DEBRIEFING SCREEN [2011-09-22]
In AA1 the debriefing screen was present after each mission. In AA2 the debriefing screen will be shown after the campaign has been completed forcing the player to finish it to get awards, medals and new rankings for the soldiers.
SOLDIER SPECIALIZATION [2011-10-13]
Soldiers who have gained enough experience from the completed mission be able to evolve by gaining more abilities. There are three different soldier specialization available for the soldiers to specialize in: Commando, Technician and Mentalist. Each of these have four abilities which the soldiers will unlock after getting experience from campaigns.
REINFORCEMENT SCREEN [2011-10-24]
When a mission is completed and one or more soldiers have died the reinforcements screen will appear. Each colonized system can now be chosen to "produce" new rookie soldiers.
Yellow star systems can produce up to 10 soldiers. Orange and white systems can produce up to 5 soldiers. The company can never have more than 100 soldiers alive at any given time. With the home system being impossible to attack for aliens the player will never have less than 10 soldiers.
Each click on a system will increase the soldiers in system amount. When the total amount of lost soldiers have been replaced with new soldiers the reinforcement screen disappear. This means that the player will always have the maximum amount of soldiers available no matter if all was lost in the previous mission.
Soldiers produced by a system will be placed in a new company ships close to the system.
INTRO [2011-09-22]
Black screen, ambient sounds, fading up the TD logo, TD logo fading down, more and more sounds from battles, AA2 logo fading up, galaxy fading up, AA2 logo fading down, AA2 welcome message appear.
MENU
The menu will extend down from the top of the screen when mouse cursor is moved to the top of the screen. The menu has the following buttons:
• Quickplay
• Import infested system
• Statistics
• Hall Of Fame
• Options
• Exit
QUICKPLAY [2011-10-12]
The player can at any time on the galaxy screen click on the “quickplay” button to bring up a list of all available missions divided into the campaign they belong to. When choosing a mission the complete soldier list for the company will be shown and the player will now be able to choose X soldiers that will take part in the mission. The minimum and maximum amount of soldiers are set in the level.
There will be no differences between playing a mission from quickplay or by attacking an alien vessel in the galaxy (see more below). Soldiers will gain experience and risk dying in the mission.
GALAXY [2011-09-23]
http://www.gamer.ru/system/attached_images/images/000/122/479/original/Frontier_Elite2_map_scan_.jpg?1261726305
We'll use this map but extend it outside of -7 and +7 to -20 and +20. Everything out in the extended area areconsidered to be unexplored space and all systems out here are named "Unknown" and systems are less and less frequent with longer and longer distances between them. I don't know how large we should make the star map, -20 to +20. We will use the same star colors and names on stars/systems but allow players to make their own galaxy if they want to do that (for example for SH mods with a 40K galaxy).
Regarding planets in systems they will be randomized when galaxy is generated unless you make a file for each system (same name as shown on galaxy map). That file contain star size, amount and type of planets in the system. This will be done for "Sol", but maybe not more than that.
Galaxy view covering the entire screen. Home system (see more below) centered on screen.
SYSTEMS [2011-10-05]
A system is basically a star and a collection of planets. Each system is represented on the galaxy map by a star icon colored to indicate the size of the star. Colors are red, orange, yellow and white.
HOME SYSTEM [2011-09-22]
The home system will always be a yellow system (overriding the system size set in the galaxy file). The home system for Alien Assault Force will be "Sol" at 0,0.
COLONIZING SYSTEMS [2011-10-05]
All systems with exception of the home system will be uncolonized from the beginning of the game. To colonize a system the player send a company ship to it. When it arrives the system is considered colonized. There are four types of systems, based on the star strength:
• Red star - low power star unable to hoist habitable planets.
• Orange star - medium power star able to hoist partly habitable planets.
• Yellow star - normal power star suitable for hoisting fully habitable planets.
• White star - high power star able to hoist partly habitable planets.
Red star systems can not be colonized. Orange, yellow and white systems can be colonized.
PRODUCING SOLDIERS AT COLONIZED SYSTEMS [2011-10-24]
Colonized systems are used to produce soldiers on the reinforcement screen. Read more this below.
COMPANY [2011-09-21]
In AA1 player could choose differend squads to use when playing. In AA2 this has been replaced with companies. A company in AA2 will be able to host 100 soldiers. There is no limit of how many companies can be added to the game. A company has a defined home system galaxy sector. When the galaxy is generated the largest system in the sector will be set as home system. The "finding home system" will only be performed first time game is started when the galaxy has been regenerated (the regeneration operation will remove all home system files).
QUEEN ALIEN [2011-09-23]
The queen alien vessel enter the galaxy through a worm hole somewhere in the galaxy at least one sector away from any colonized system or company ship. The vessel travel towards a specific system with huge speed (higher than other abandoned vessels) and finally crash land into the system. The speed of the vessel is so high it is almost as quick as company ships and if the player is not near the queen vessel when it passes by. This to make the chance small that the player can take out the queen by attacking its ship before the infestation begin.
INFESTED SYSTEMS [2011-09-22]
When aliens infest a system (crash into the system with an abandoned vessel (see below)) it will become under seige until the alien forces have been exterminated by the player.
ALIENS SPREADING TO OTHER SYSTEMS [2011-10-05]
An infested system and abandoned vessels will be able to generate new vessels that are sent out to infest other nearby systems making the alien infestation spread in the galaxy. The generated vessels are never larger than the size of the infestation in the system they originated from. A colonized system that become infested by aliens will not be possible to colonized until the player has attacked the system and exterminated the aliens.
A campaign in an infested system will be 25-50% larger than the abandoned vessel that initially crashed into the system.
EXPORTING AND IMPORTING INFESTED SYSTEMS [2011-09-26]
If a player encounter an alien infested system which is too hard to conquer it will be possible to get offline help from other players. This will work as followed:
Player A click on an infested system. In the system info there will be an export button. When pressing it an "infested system file" (ISF) will be generated with information about the system and the campaign on it. Player A send the ISF is sent to player B. Player B import the ISF by using the import function in the main menu. Player A's infested system will now be present in player B's galaxy. Player B can now attack the infested system and finish the campaign. When this is done the game will generate a new ISF with information that the campaign has been completed. Now player B can send back the updated ISF to player A who can import it by using the same import function in the main menu. As this is done the infested system is now free from aliens.
• It will NOT be possible to import an infested system if the system is already infested!
• It will NOT be possible to import an cleared system file if the system is not infested by exactly that campaign.
• An ISF are automatically deleted by the game when has successfully imported it.
• The game will never remove ISF files that have been generated by the game.
OFFLINE ASSISTANCE HELP SECTION ON THIS FORUM [2011-09-26]
There will be a dedicated section available on this forum for player that are in need of help in which they can upload their exported file of infested systems. Anyone can download the file and then upload the updated file.
COMPANY SHIPS [2011-09-22]
A company ship is basically a group of (1-100) soldiers. Their location can at any time be changed by giving them a new destination. The ship will travel to the new destination and then wait for further instructions. A destination can be a void location in the galaxy, a system, a company ship or an abandoned vessel.
A company ship arriving at another company ship or a colonized planet will merge its soldiers with the soldiers at the destination and the arriving ship will no longer exist.
ABANDONED VESSELS
An abandoned vessel is a large space ship no longer under control by a human crew. The fate of the crew is unknowed but what is known is that these vessels are moving towards a specific destination with a constant speed. When reaching their destination, their huge size and high speed will impact with the planet with such force that the entire planet could be destroyed. Therefor it is vital that the Alien Assault Force intercept these vessels and take over control before the otherwise terrifying crash.
HYPER JUMPS [2011-10-05]
All ships are equipped with hyper drives allowing them to perform "hyper jumps" (teleport) in the galaxy. After a ship has made a hyper jump they the hyper drive needs to cool down before it can perform another jump. Longer jumps mean longer cool down time. Also longer jumps mean that the accuracy decreases. All jumps can in rare occations lead to "miss jump". A miss jump means that the ship that made a hyper jump ended up in totally wrong location. A miss jump go in 180 degrees angle (-90 to +90 from the original jump direction) and 50-100% extra distance than the original jump.
HYPER JUMPS WITH COMPANY SHIPS [2011-10-06]
All ships can perform hyper jumps but hyper jumps can only be made to sectors with colonized systems. This to entice the players to colonize systems AND to fight of infestations in previously colonized systems to be able to colonize them again.
All sectors with colonized systems are logically (and visually?) connected in a chain and when a ship is in one of these chained sectors it can hyper jump to any other sector in the chain. This makes void sectors (sectors without any systems) and sector with only red systems (not colonizable) in the galaxy to be feared as "here you have to fly slowly across". Both these feared type sectors will be more and more frequent in the outskirts of the galaxy.
MISS JUMPS [2011-10-06]
All hyper jumps have a slim risk of becoming a miss jump meaning the ship does not end up in the sector where it inteded to arrive. The risk for miss jumps are accumulated for each sector so longer jumps have higher risk of ending in a miss jump. Miss jumps should still be very rare but something to keep in mind. A ship making a miss jump when doing a long jump can end up far out in the outskirts of the galaxy and not able to chain jump back but have to fly all the way back to colonized systems - or the player use the miss jump to start colonizing a corner of the galaxy.
HYPER JUMPS BY ABANDONED VESSELS [2011-09-25]
Abandoned vessels can also perform hyper jumps but only in rare occations (10% or the vessels?). Most frequently made by alien queen vessels (50%) when under threat (company ships near by). Abandoned vessels can only perform one warp jump (they basically have no cool down on their hyper drive). Their destination could be a neighbour sector (50%), next neighbour sector (40%) or anywhere in the galaxy (10%).
NOVA DEVICE PROTECTION SYSTEM
On the home planet of the company a special intergalactical defence system is in operation. It is called the "Nova Device" (ND) and can be used to erredicate an abandoned vessel or an infested system.
NOVA DEVICE AGAINST ABANDONDED VESSELS [2011-09-22]
When a ND impact with a vessel there is a risk of it breaking apart into smaller pieces. These pieces act as small(er) abandoned vessels (0-3 pieces with a 25-50% size of the original vessels size). Each of these abandoned vessels get a new randomized heading and speed.
NOVA DEVICE AGAINST SYSTEMS [2011-09-22]
When a ND impact with the system's star the system will automatically become free from aliens but generate small(er) abandoned vessels. These pieces act as small(er) abandoned vessels (0-3 pieces with a 25-50% size of the original vessels size). Each of these abandoned vessels get a new randomized heading and speed. The system will also become inhabitable for the future. The system will however still be possible to infest by aliens.
SCAN AREAS
All colonized systems and company ships have scanning capability which is used to find abandoned vessels. The scan is a circular area around the system/ship visualized on the galaxy screen.
COMPANY SHIPS SCAN AREA
The amount of soldiers in a ship define the size of the scan area. The sum of experience of the soldiers in a ship is also a modifier of a ships scan area.
SYSTEMS SCAN AREA
The size of the system define the size of the scan area. The home system will always have a larger scan area than any colonized system. Any soldiers in a system will instead of adding to a ships scan area add to the systems scan area.
SELECTING A SYSTEM OR A COMPANY SHIP [2011-10-11]
Clicking once on a system or ship will highlight it and show...
SYSTEM
...the star and planets along with a short description and stats.
COMPANY SHIP
...the available soldier list (see below) and the ships route and destination along with ETA data.
ABANDONED VESSELS
...a short description of the vessel (name, size, calculated destination and ETA).
AVAILABLE SOLDIER LIST (ASL)
Clicking on an company ship or double cliking on a colonised system will show the ASL. The ASL is a list of all soldiers available in the ship/system. List is default sorted by age of the soldiers placing veterans on top and rookies at the bottom. Soldiers most recently in combat will however be placed on top of the list making it easier to select same soldiers again for next mission.
Mouse hovering a soldier will show an image the soldier in armor without helmet with all earned decorations and all information and statistics about the soldier.
In this list the player can select which soldiers should...
• ...be sent away in a new company ship. When at least one soldier has been highlighted the depart button appear and by pressing it the ASL disapears and the galaxy is shown with the mouse cursor replaced with a targeting icon. By clicking anywhere on the map the selected soldiers from the ASL will depart from their previous location to the new destination.
• ...attack an abandoned vessel. When at least X soldiers has been highlighted the attack button appear and by pressing it the armory screen will be shown. There is a max limit of Y soldiers that can be choosen to participate in a mission. The X and Y are defined for each mission (set in level editor). Missions made for AA2 will have X <= Y while older missions made for AA1 will have X = Y. This as a precaution to prevent missions from being impossible to complete if not enough soldiers were choosen to enter the mission. The X and Y values will be shown to the player indicating how many soldiers are needed (X) and how many are recommended (Y) to make it easier for the player to prepare for the mission. If the player chooses to launch the attack with less than Y soldiers a warning (“Are you sure you want to attack the abandoned vessel with less soldiers than recommended?”) will be shown allowing the player to go back to the ASL and include more soldiers.
Default all soldiers are highlighted (this to simply moving the ship around in the galaxy) Clicking on a soldier will highlight him and deselect all other soldiers. Clicking on a highlighted soldier will remove the highlight. Removing highlight from the last highlighted soldier will autohighlight all soldiers = there will always be at least one highlighted soldier.
Soldier in the list can be greyed out which means they have been severly hurt in a previous mission and have still not recovered from the ingurise and are currently unavailable (see more below). They can be moved around with the rest of the soldiers but not take part in a mission.
HURT SOLDIERS [2011-09-21]
A soldier that suffered injuries (hurt or only unconsious?) during a mission will be unavailable in the ASL for a while. When the soldier is back in duty an arm or a leg has been replaced with a bionical limb. This to indicate that the soldier has suffered serious injury in previous battle.
PROLOGUE / STORY SCREEN [2011-10-02]
This will not be included in AA2.
ARMORY SCREEN
When player chooses to launch an attack upon an abandoned vessel the armory screen appear. This screen contain both a mission slide show and a list of all choosen soldiers.
MISSION SLIDE SHOW
The mission is displayed in a basic topdown miniatyre showing the logic layout. Player can step through the mission by clicking on the “previous” and “next” instruction button. Depending on the mission the amount of slides may vary. Missions made for AA2 will allow the level designer to set how many slides will be shown, what the instruction will say and which areas on the mission layout will be highlighted. Missions made for AA1 will use the old static system with first slide being “Your soldiers will spawn here” and so on...
SOLDIER LIST
The soldiers selected for the mission appear in their default setup (set in level editor). Depending on the mission weapons and items may be rearranged among the soldiers. Each soldier has three slots, one for each hand and one on the back. The loadout for each soldier is up to the player. The only rules are:
• Range weapon can only be placed in the right hand.
• Melee weapon must be placed in the left hand.
• Items must be placed in the back.
Players can at any time go back to the ASL screen from the armory screen to change which soldier(s) will be used on the next mission. When the player is ready the “start mission” button is pressed and the game moves from the galaxy screen to ingame.
EPILOGUE SCREEN [2011-10-02]
This will not be included in AA2.
CAMPAIGN DEBRIEFING SCREEN [2011-09-22]
In AA1 the debriefing screen was present after each mission. In AA2 the debriefing screen will be shown after the campaign has been completed forcing the player to finish it to get awards, medals and new rankings for the soldiers.
SOLDIER SPECIALIZATION [2011-10-13]
Soldiers who have gained enough experience from the completed mission be able to evolve by gaining more abilities. There are three different soldier specialization available for the soldiers to specialize in: Commando, Technician and Mentalist. Each of these have four abilities which the soldiers will unlock after getting experience from campaigns.
REINFORCEMENT SCREEN [2011-10-24]
When a mission is completed and one or more soldiers have died the reinforcements screen will appear. Each colonized system can now be chosen to "produce" new rookie soldiers.
Yellow star systems can produce up to 10 soldiers. Orange and white systems can produce up to 5 soldiers. The company can never have more than 100 soldiers alive at any given time. With the home system being impossible to attack for aliens the player will never have less than 10 soldiers.
Each click on a system will increase the soldiers in system amount. When the total amount of lost soldiers have been replaced with new soldiers the reinforcement screen disappear. This means that the player will always have the maximum amount of soldiers available no matter if all was lost in the previous mission.
Soldiers produced by a system will be placed in a new company ships close to the system.