Time to get this ship back on the water, with the first update of Pirates and Traders 2 production track for over a year: welcome to v0.600 of P&T2.
Despite the valiant efforts of all the testers who try out the beta track, this is going to turn up issues that I was not aware of, but … it’s never going to be the case that this update goes without hitches. And it’s been long enough. So here we go.
A lot has changed since the last production track release of the game. Practically the entire game engine has been rewritten to a lesser or greater extent, but the main changes are:
- Character skills have changed. Main highlights are that Leadership has disappeared (replaced by tactics and persuasion), Gaming has disappeared (also replaced by tactics), Healing has been added.
- Character interactions now has more options.
- The data structures for ships (vehicles) have been changed so that they are now built up “modularly”. This means that ships now consists of a number of components, and the ship stats depend on how those components fit together. This also means that pretty much all ship stats have changed massively. Expect that they may continue to change for some time, as I find the right balance to these stats.
- Sea combat has changed a bit, primarily because the underlying combat engine has been streamlined. This will also see more tweaks going forward as I continue the work of rebalancing.
- Personal combat is now available in a turn-based, menu-driven format – much as as it was in P&T1, but hopefully with more tactical depth. This too will see tweaks in future.
- More events have been added.
- Minimum version of Android supported is now 5.0 (if you join the beta track, you can still get the final Android 4.4 version which is equivalent to v0.600). Unfortunately necessary due to some of the dependencies the game has.
All of this stuff means that the potential for issues with this update are… huge. If you do run into issues, contact me (preferably on Discord) and I’ll try to resolve them. Though in general I strongly recommend simply starting with a new pirate. The game engine will do its best, but the likelihood of there being issues with the update is exceedingly high.
This is not the last update before v1.0, although we’re closing in – and I’m hoping to reach that point this year. What remains to be added (or just activated) before v1.0:
- Land combat (finally) along with sacking of ports.
- Active major and minor factions.
- The “Grand Quest” storylines (Treasure Fleet, Antiques Collector, and Cimarron Saga)
- Effective benefits from friendships with NPCs.
- Additional starting backgrounds for Gold.
In addition to that, I hope/plan to add some more features (though some may not come until post-v1.0)
- Additional venues for socializing: the Tavern and Captain’s Table (for your crew), Dinner Parties and Church (for High society). Also to finally allow visits to the homes of NPCs.
- Allow the player to settle in a settlement by purchasing an estate.
- Allow the player to woo NPCs – for fun, or to start a family.
- New “Grand Quest” storylines to be added.
- Land travel so that you can Captain Morgan and sack Panama.
- Rival Pirate Captains and/or Pirate Hunters.
These are the main features remaining, before I can – hopefully – start to focus more exclusively on other projects. But – fair warning – once v1.0 is out, I probably will start to work on other projects more seriously. After many years of P&T, I need the diversion… and hopefully I still have a few other good games in me yet. We’ll see what happens.
Anyway, Good Riddance to 2021 and hoping you all have a great New Year.