In the last blog I have explained about the basic concepts and the grid layout of the new tech trees, which will be introduced with the revamp of the kernel research system.

By now we have completed the layout of all of the trees, have a look:

As you can see we'll have 7 separate trees, since we had to separate common and industrial tech, and even had to split the common one in two. This doesn't really have any influence on the research mechanic itself, it's just for usability reasons (less complexity, less scrolling).

As I have explained before, the items are laid out onto a grid, and the grid columns determine the research point cost of the items. The news here is that we'll also introduce new enabler extensions for each faction which will be used to unlock the research of the columns of that specific faction one by one. As there are 10 columns and 10 extension levels, this is really convenient (thanks Simmy for the hint!). Eventually when new items get introduced into the game we'll also create "advanced" extensions for this, but for now this will be enough.

I have also mentioned that we intend to make prototype variants for robots to give a reason to research them, and you have pointed out that ammunition and colony buildings don't have prototypes either. While this is true, we don't intend to make prototype versions for those due to balancing reasons. I also forgot to point out again that despite that, actually there will be a reason to research everything you want to mass produce, since you'll get a bonus for that if you have an item researched in both your personal and the corporation knowledge base. I believe this will come in handy for both ammo and buildings, since the former is in large demand, and the latter needs a lot of commodities to build so there is a lot to gain there.

In the next blog I can hopefully show you how the tech trees will actually look in the game. Until then feel free to provide some feedback on the tech tree layouts, we'll of course consider any changes if they sound logical.

I know, I know, I'm late with this. I could tell you about the reasons for this delay, our mildly excessive optimism regarding the timeframe, and the bugs we had to fix instead of developing, but I think you would rather hear about how's the new stuff going.

So as I wrote in the last blog, we're working on the new research system. This will use a fixed tech-tree system instead of the random lottery thing we have now. Consuming kernels won't yield direct research results, but research points, which will accumulate and can be spent to unlock items in the tech tree. Pretty standard stuff I guess.

What we have done so far is working out a concept how the trees should be built up, and did an internal tool for this which works directly from the database. So once we have all the tree layouts, it's just a matter of some proper UI skinning to get them into the game.

Here is a picture of the tool featuring the complete Nuimqol tech tree (still work in progress):

And these are the main concepts that we have laid down so far, additionally to what I already wrote about in the previous post:

• We'll have separate trees for the 3 main factions (Nuimqol, Pelistal, Thelodica), one for the modular colony system, one for the industrial items/robots, and one for the common stuff. The latter two might be even merged, this is yet to be decided.
• Each tree will have multiple subtrees with their own root points from where you can start out your research. In the case of the main factions, this looks like one tree for offensive items, one for defensive items, and one for EW/faction specific items, with robots intermixed.
• The trees are laid out on a grid: you work your way from left to right, from the standard items towards the high-tier items. The grid columns also determine the point cost of the items in that column. (Research points are discussed in detail in the previous blog.) This is the reason why the T1 ECM root is placed further to the right as you can see in the picture.
• We'll possibly have some multiplier for the points required for robots. (i.e. they will cost more than the modules in their column)
• We'll introduce prototype versions for every standard robot in order to give another reason to research them. This also means that you'll only be able to reverse engineer and create CTs from prototype robots.

Once we have worked out all the trees, we can start integrating the system into the game client. Obviously it won't look like this in the game, the tree nodes will be square and use the proper icons and tier markings.

Extended combat logs

I'd like to quickly touch this topic too. Some of us who are waiting for the others to finish their research system work had nothing better to do and started working on an extended combat log system. "Combat log" stands here not for the realtime log that you see in a window while shooting each other, but the history that we save to the database for further use and datamining.

The interesting thing for most of you here would be a whole new level of trophies/losses logs (or as you better know it: killmails), which would be tapping into these logs and include anything you want starting from repaired armor points to transferred energy amount and yes, even EW usage. Not to mention that this also paves the way for an achievement system.

Our plan for the first step is to set up the detailed logging and make the current format killmails work from that, and then expand from there. We also intend to send out all of the raw logs via our API, so the nice killboard-hosting guys will be able to create some battle statistics like damage dealt over time or ECM accuracy or whatever you can think of. Of course we also intend to do some fancy graphs and stats of our own in the game once we're done with the more important things.

This is it for now, I promise you won't have to wait another 3 months for the next update.

The end of the year is near and we’d like to offer you some insight on what’s going on around Perpetuum, tell you about what’s currently in development, and get you a glimpse of what the near future will bring. Be warned, it’s a long read, but I didn’t want to miss anything - and I’m sure you’ll have many questions even so.

Behind the scenes

We know we’ve been a bit quiet lately, and this has its reasons. In the past months much of our development power has been put into things that are not directly related to the game itself.

For one, we’re of course getting ready to release Perpetuum on Steam. This involves a lot of paperwork, preparing marketing materials, and not to forget about getting the game itself fit for releasing it to such a broad audience.

Steam Greenlight - a highly public event - happened during the autumn, however we've been spending most of our time since the Gamma Expansion working on getting Perpetuum the extra funding it needs so we can take a quality leap forward in terms of world content. We realize that to create the type of content that would allow Perpetuum to grow to the next level requires a team much larger than ours, and all of us are working very hard on making that possible. This process involves all of the devs to some extent, and is mostly why we've been so quiet during these last months. These things however take time, and the new year will see us continuing the effort.

Meanwhile we’re working on the game itself as well of course, so in the rest of this blog I’m going to talk about what’s coming up. The time for small changes is over, we’re getting the big guns now.

As we stated after the gamma expansion, we’d like to focus on the PvE part of the game for a while, since that part is in desperate need of some fresh blood.

We’ve chosen three large systems currently in the game, the ones where we feel that reworking them would substantially make the game more fun to play: the kernel research system and the knowledgebase, the assignment system, and the new player experience with emphasis on the tutorials.

So let’s see them one by one in detail. The ideas presented here are still work in progress and may change as we work out the smaller details, and of course we will consider your feedback as well.

Research revamp

What’s wrong with the current system?

• Random research results are not fun. This is especially true when a technology line in your knowledgebase is close to complete, at which point kernel research becomes vastly irritating. Due to the randomness the system doesn’t allow for any serious planning or strategy.
• There are too many types of kernels. Kernels have been partly intended as a second income besides plasma, but their sheer number fragments the kernel market and has a negative effect on their trading potential.
• Corporations are not a part of the system at all. They are forced to feed one or two of their agents with kernels to stay competitive. This is very risky, as losing those agents leaves the corporation with close to no prototyping capability.
• Research has much more potential. Why waste it simply on prototyping, a feature used by not many players?

The new system:

• Point-based. Instead of getting technology directly from kernels, you consume kernels to gather research points (RP). You then spend these points in the knowledgebase for specific item technologies.
• Choose your research goals. No more random results - you choose what you want to spend your RP on, using a fixed technology tree. It’s completely plannable, research only what you really need. I’m sure you’ve seen such a tree in many games already - just imagine a branch with many expanding nodes, starting out at the base from the lowest tier technology, and unlocking your way up to the most coveted items.
• Reduce the number of kernels to 6 main types. They all hold a different type of RP, which accumulate into separate pools. To help keeping the system calculable, kernels will always contain a fixed amount of RPs. To keep scalability, NPCs will drop not just one of these, but many, depending on their ranks.
• The RP technology types are: nuimqol, pelistal, thelodica, common (used for industrial too), hi-tech and “new-tech”. Unlocking item technologies in the knowledgebase will use a varying mix of these RP types, depending on the item’s faction, tier, or even novelty. (Nasty details: the latter is what “new-tech” will be used for, and we’ll always use it when we introduce new robots or modules into the game. When the time comes where “new” items become “old”, and we’re ready to introduce a new batch of technology, accumulated “new-tech” points and kernels will always be converted down to hi-tech points and kernels - this is to prevent unlocking new technology on the first day by prior RP accumulation.)
• Separate knowledgebase for individual agents and agent-independent knowledgebases for corporations. Agents always accumulate RP to their own knowledgebase, but they will have the option to donate any amount of unspent RP to their corporation at any time. The corporation-level knowledgebase can then be researched using the donated points by anyone with the necessary access.
• Having an item researched in an agent’s own knowledgebase will unlock prototyping option for it (like it is currently), and having an item researched in a corporation’s knowledgebase will allow every member with proper access to prototype that item.
• Here’s the twist: having the same item researched in your own knowledgebase AND in the knowledgebase of your corporation as well will provide a factory production bonus for you. We think this provides an incentive to develop both knowledgebases, your own and your corporation’s as well.

So what will happen to your current knowledgebase when this gets into the game? Well it will be wiped of course and you’ll have to start over, ha-ha. Nah, I’m just kidding, once we figure the exact RP value of every item in the new technology tree, we can give you the matching amount of RP for your actual knowledge, so you can basically rebuild your knowledgebase from scratch. Now, we can’t guarantee that you’ll have the same amount of “raw research value” after that, but I’m sure that being able to select specific technologies to research will mostly provide you with a better result overall. We still have to figure out what happens to unresearched kernels, so we’ll get back to that.

Some of you have been also wondering what happened to the promised new tier of items using colixum. Well, this happened :) We didn’t want to build upon a broken system and create an even bigger chaos. This new system will allow us to introduce new item technology in a much cleaner and nicer way, and that’s what we’ll do once it’s ready.

A new assignment system

I’ll be honest with you: the current assignment system is something we put into the game almost 3 years ago just to have an assignment system. There wasn’t much concept behind it, and it shows - it’s bland, grindy, and not really fun.

At first the main problem is that the player is presented with a huge list of available assignments. This can be quite overwhelming and you just don’t know what to do. Later on you figure out which assignments are the easiest to do or give you the most rewards, and then you’ll grind those over and over, effectively destroying your own game experience. And then we introduce the 6/10 rule - insult to injury.

So we’ve been planning a complete revamp of the system for a while now, and unlike in the case of research, randomness could be our friend here. This is a huge undertaking, and luckily we can separate it down into two stages: the first stage will use the current assignments, but will change the way they are provided and accepted, and the second stage will change the assignments themselves.

When you open the assignments window in the new system, you won’t see a list of specific assignments, only some buttons for types of assignments - combat, industrial, transport, and so on. These will be arranged into a grid, where rows mean assignment levels and columns mean assignment types.

Once you click a button in this grid, you’ll be assigned a random assignment of the selected type and level. Then you can either complete that given assignment, or you can choose to abort it, in which case you’ll be given a penalty. However, that penalty is not a deduction of relation points like now, rather a penalty multiplier for your next assignment’s reward. This means that the more assignments you abort in a row, the less rewards you will get for the assignment which you finally complete. The penalty will be cleared after a certain time or when you complete an assignment.

So this random assignment provider would be the first stage. The second stage is where we also randomize the objectives within the assignments. This system is still heavily under development, but it would use assignment templates, where we only set the number and types of objectives that you have to do. The exact NPCs you have to destroy, or the minerals you have to mine, or the items you have to transport would be randomly selected from a pool of objectives around a certain radius of the location where you take the assignment. This would maximize objective variety and minimize boring walking time. In the new system we also plan to scatter small assignment terminals around the islands, so you will be able to take them there too and not just in the big bases.

Assignments in squads

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the current mechanic for doing assignments cooperatively in squads, which is far from being optimal or useful.

As it stands today, the members of the squad and the assignment they are doing have a very loose connection. Everyone is doing their own assignment, it's not shared among members. One member's objectives are not completed if another member does them. The only actual mechanic is that you can share the money and relation reward among your squad members if you chose to do so when accepting the assignment.

We had a little poll on the forum where I asked you which of the two new squad mechanics you would prefer. While the result turned out not really decisive, it turns out that in a system where assignments are given randomly, only the first option makes sense, because there is very little chance that the squad members can get the same assignment.

So we’ll stick with option number 1, where every member of the squad is working on a common goal and contributes to one shared assignment, the squad leader’s one.

Instances

I left this for last because frankly this is the topic where I can share the least details - it’s very much work in progress. However I wanted to tell you as early as possible that instances are coming.

Before you pick up those torches and pitchforks and yell that instances have no place in an open sandbox world, I’d like to explain why they are needed, and what for.

What we definitely don’t want is to drain population from the open world into an infinite number of hidden pockets - the islands feel empty even so, we don’t want to make it even worse.

However there are a number of features and mechanics where we just simply can’t go around instances without having a negative impact on gameplay experience. In an open world you can’t set up a preset game event without pitfalls, however carefully you plan and script it. There are so many unknown variables that a single speck of dust can break the machine.

This is especially critical for a new player - when he can’t finish a tutorial objective because someone mined out all the titan ore before him, he will rarely ask for help, and probably leaves for something else. That’s why first and foremost we’ll use instances for our tutorials, where we can be (almost) sure what happens to the player, and where we'll have much more options than in the open world. Think for example temporarily giving a heavy mech to a new player just to give him a taste what the future holds for him, or to let him try various factions before he makes his actual choice.

Of course it would be a waste of technology to use instances only for a tutorial. It holds many possibilities, like small dungeons that you can scan down and enter from the open world to clear out, or controlled PvP arenas with proper limits, teams, timers and everything.

Closing

That’s pretty much all I have for you right now. These are the features that we’ll be working on in the next 2-3 months, to give you a rough timeframe. Of course once we’re ready with one system we’ll patch it out, you won’t have to wait for all that time.

And don’t worry if all of this is a bit hard to grasp now, I’ll post a follow-up to this blog a bit later when we already have some GUI-mockups and stuff.

Post your opinions and questions below, or feel free to create separate feature discussions on the forums, and last but not least, we wish a Happy New Year to all of you!

As it happens, Perpetuum is officially 2 years old today. No, we didn’t forget about it, so you can now stop spamming the forum with it :)

I’m not really the sentimental type, so I hope you forgive me if I won’t start a tearful trip down memory lane. Fact is that we’re still here, and if it only depends on us, we don’t intend to go anywhere. Fact is that in these 2 years Perpetuum saw more than 60 patches, from small fixes to large content and feature updates, including two major expansions. And fact is that we couldn’t have done this without you, our faithful players. So thank you for sticking with us thus far, and here’s to many more years ahead!

Of course it wouldn’t be a proper anniversary without some fun events, so let’s see what we have in store for you.

Allow me to start with the bad news: there won’t be an official tournament this time. Last year it was really great and it provided us with a lot of experience, and we’d really love to do it again in the future. But the truth is that it takes away so much development resources and manpower that at this time we’d rather spend that on actual development. Hope that’s okay with you. *puppyeyes*

But without further ado, here’s what will happen on our 2nd anniversary weekend, starting on the 30th of November, and closing on the 4th of December:

Anniversary sparks

Again, you will have the opportunity to unlock the "golden" Niani sparks through the connected special assignments. For our new players this will be the first time to get their hands on one of these special sparks, and for our veterans this will mean that they can unlock the other one too, the one which they couldn’t last year (although I bet some of you managed to unlock both by various means).

Treasure hunt

Of course, the annual treasure hunt returns as well, but this time with a twist. Last year you had it simple, just had to search for artifacts and you got instant candy. To make it a bit challenging, the artifacts you have to look for will contain (beside random loot) a special distress beacon too. (Artifacts will be available on every island.)

Activating one of these distress beacons will call forth a Guardian Commander of one of the three factions, who will not be very happy that you phoned him out of his lovely plasma bubble bath. However if you can beat him, he will drop an Alien Improbability Device for sure, and maybe, just maybe, a universal faction token.

This token can be used in the Syndicate Supplies to exchange it for an Integration Cycle Extender, or as you know it better, ICE. Stocks will be limited though, so don’t miss out.

P.A.Q.S.

It’s time for the Perpetuum Anniversary Quiz Show again, with yours truly. We had one a year ago and it was great fun, so I thought it’s high time that we did it again. What’s it about you ask?

Well, I go out in a robot and everyone gathers around me as if I would about to start a lovely tale. Instead of a tale though, I drop out a field container with something inside it, and ask a question. The answer to that question is always a four-digit number, which happens to be the code that opens said container. The fastest one to find the answer and loot the container will get to keep anything that’s inside it. Pretty straightforward stuff. This time there will be even a few cool items in them. (See what I did there?)

We’ll have a dedicated chat channel for the quiz, the name will be announced at a later time, but we’ll of course have server-wide messages right before the event too.

The event will happen on Sunday, December 2nd at 21:00 CET (server time), right outside of Truhold-Markson Alpha terminal. So make sure you get there in time, or place a spark teleport target beforehand! (Here is a link to figure your local time for the event.)

Last but not least, a little something aimed at those who can’t take part in these events for any reason: every account that has an active subscription at the time of the patch on Friday the 30th will receive a redeemable Alien Improbability Device. (And I’d like to state here that contrary to hearsay, it does not contain only T4 items.)

Well, that’s pretty much it. We hope you’ll have great time, wish you steady loot, and hope to see you in the game!

The introduction of Integration Cycle Extenders seems to be a success so far, the ingame market is constantly filled with buy and sell orders for it.

For a while, the price of ICE seemed to settle around 60-70 million NIC - much lower than we have expected, but certainly good news for buyers. Lately it seemed to slowly start upwards and it is quite possible that today's patch will increase demand and thus its price even more.

I want to br-... play free!

A lot of you with expired accounts have come to us asking to let you in for a few minutes so you can buy an ICE and get back into the game. But that wouldn't have been fair towards the others, not to mention the user management nightmare.

So today we present you our new temporary account reactivation feature, which will revive an expired Perpetuum account for 24 hours, completely free of charge. Obviously we still have to pay our rent, so you can only do this once every 30 days.

An account reactivated this way is no different than any other active account, you will even get EP for those 24 hours too.

Use that time to buy ICE, manage roles of dead corporations, check out new game features, or whatever else you can think of.

How?

The temporary reactivation feature can be reached from your account status page, or here is a direct link to it.

So spread the word to your old buddies and see you in game!