Hammered out more of the new prototype, plus had an ‘AH HA!’ moment.
1) Created the ‘Battle Die’, a single die that interacts with the combat system to calculate results in a clear and easy fashion. Basically the higher your combat value, the better your chance to hit. There is still a chance of a miss or an instant hit, regardless of combat values, but these are 1 out of 6 odds. Also on the die is a ‘Targeted’ symbol, which means you land a hit if your enemy is currently targeted. Basically, everything you need and you don’t have to compare any numbers or ‘to hit’ values.
2) Finalized modules and weapons. Cleaned them up, made sure every module in the game (these are auxiliary bonus systems you can install aboard your vessel) is interesting and not too overpowered. Adjusted costs and abilities. Printed this deck up and ready to start cutting and folding.
3) My ‘AH HA!’ moment came when I was thinking about Scanning. Scanning has 3 uses: avoiding unwanted Tactical Cards, moving safely through board hazards, and finding resources. I’ve been working on Areas of Interest, which are special areas the ship can enter to search for goodies (at the risk of negative effects.) It occurred to me that perhaps resources are never generated on the map, but instead only gotten by exploring the Ares of Interest. Before you could simply scan a Kelp Bed and the Kelp resource would pop up like a pacman dot, waiting for your ship to swim through and scoop it up. One of the big problems with this is that players can very easily fill their hold, making money much easier to generate and driving the whole economy into higher numbers. If resources are buried in Areas of Interest, players have to work harder for resources and I feel the whole mechanic is far more interesting.
