M.A.S.S. Builder – WIP: Introducing Weak Point System – Steam News
Hello and welcome to another WIP update, this week, introducing a new system we’ve been planning to implement for a good while, the Weak Point System.
This one is painfully self explanatory. Shoot glowy spot, make hurt more, etc. That said, given how tanky the bosses in this game can be, a weak point system is a more than welcome addition. My biggest issue as a shooting focused player is always running out of ammo and having to focus entirely on killing mobs to rearm. It shouldn’t be as big of an issue if I can get more damage in.
There are some particulars with the system, though. First off, the weak points aren’t something you can just lock onto, so ranged players will have to use the manual aim for a change. Fine by me. Melee also has better damage versus weak points, so while they probably won’t hit them as often, the burst damage should be higher. Ranged meanwhile, will just be able to consistently target weak points. It sounds balanced enough on paper, but I’m sure there’ll be some tweaks down the road.
VD also mentioned that they’re disabling all special movement openers for the players in 0.9.0. It’s a bit weird, but I’ve got enough good faith saved up with them to just roll with it and see how they try to balance things going forward.
The next entry in the Cosmo Messer line. The F series serves as a branching point for all of the remaining variants. This is an ‘aesthetics first’ type of design, so it’s almost completely reliant on internal thrusters. Compared to the E, the internals have been revised: One medium battery, along with all up and downward facing ion thrusters were removed. It’s also noticeably heavier due to having a bit more heavy armor and some subgrids. It’s still vanilla, though.
Once Grid AI releases I’ll be branching out to the Messer F2 (a no subgrids printable version of the Messer F), the Messer T (unit for fleet carriers), and the Messer QF (drone variant). I might also make a QE since the original Messer is pretty nimble.
That’ll be it for the unmodded Messers. The G and K variants will be using one or two mods that fit with the Kaiser faction’s future developments.
I’m also fiddling around with some modules for these planes. The ones that didn’t give me too many problems can be found here:
The next phase in the development of the Cosmo Messer, the F series made several trade offs to improve the craft’s performance and versatility while keeping the original frame. Due to the Kaiser faction’s increased terrestrial presence, the Cosmo Messer F had to be nimble in both space and under high gravity. On top of receiving retractable landing gears for ground use, the F series also received hardpoints and new software for controlling external modules.
Before the outbreak of hostilities between the Kaisers and several other factions, the F series were greenlit for mass production, becoming the fleet’s primary fighter. Kaiser infrastructure and support facilities grew to match. The KCV Admiral Hipper was among the first capital ships in the fleet to receive the new fighters, helping to establish their presence in the system.
Primary Mission: Short Range Fighter Crew: 1 Pilot Armament: 4x Gatling Guns, 2x Rocket Launchers, 1x Autocannon Power Plant: 1x Hydrogen Engine (500kw), 3x Medium Warfare Batteries (9Mw) Thrusters: 40x Hydrogen, 18x Ion, 58 Total Hardpoints: 2x Hinges Wingspan: 42ft (13.1m) Length: 69ft (21) Height: 18.4ft (5.6m) Grid Mass: 77,971 PCU: 7,722
Notes
Messer F uses more heavy armor than the Messer E, so it’s less maneuverable going down or strafing.
Page 2 is set up for weaponcore and vanilla, so delete the toolbar set you don’t need.
Ship has multiple subgrids: 2x for rockets, 3x for landing gears.
The landing gears can let out those little puffs of contact smoke while retracted; not sure if it’s fixable.
Can use connector with landing gears deployed; doesn’t make it any more stable, just looks cool.
The third monitor (index 2) doesn’t work with weaponcore; change to whatever you want.
Final version was tested mostly in Pertam’s 1.2Gs and can get to space easily. (Costs around 50% internal H2 stores going full manual)
1: It is not advised to turn off the Cosmo Messer F’s hydrogen thrusters separately; ship has no up or down facing ion thrusters. Use Governor flight mode (Page 1 Num3) for taxiing and landing. Only maneuver in one direction at a time in Governor mode for easier handling. 2: Use the landing guide for landing in unfamiliar spaces. Activate the landing guide (Page 3 Num9) and keep the red areas from clipping through walls or objects. This will prevent lateral collisions. 3: For high speed braking, point the bottom of the ship in the intended braking direction. Additionally, flipping the ship can stop it much more quickly than relying on the reverse thrusters. 4: Follow a target’s movements carefully while firing the gatling guns; the Messer’s nose can catch rounds from them with steep yaw turns. Alternatively, lean more on pitch control for target leading. 5: To prevent toggling the systems of other Messer Fs, move the ship into position on the connector, then turn off the gyroscopes and thrusters before switching the lock state on. Disconnect before toggling systems for takeoffs.
Hello everyone. We’re at the end of October now and with November in sight, the update looms closer (yes, we’re still on that HOPIUM road saying we’ll update the game in November). With that said, we’d like to show an extra content we’ve worked on while finalizing other systems, a new hunt mission.
November? Maybe I should hurry up with my unit. Anyway, it’s always good to have more hunt missions. I used to farm these and the lack of overall variety was a little irksome, both in the enemy types and environments. But here we’ll be facing off against other M.A.S.S. units in a shelter. That’s perfect.
It also looks like the destructible props idea is going through.
Overall I’d say this is one of those more subtle news updates that’ll be a lot more impactful when 0.9.0 actually releases.
M.A.S.S. Builder – WIP: Base Ranged Weapon Parts & Starter Content Update – Steam News
A few weeks ago, we’ve shown you new simple parts coming into version 0.9.0 but haven’t provided the full description of how they’ll be unlocked or how many parts will be there. With today’s WIP update, we’d like to go into detail about the topic.
The base parts series has always been one of VD’s better, if more unusual ideas. This will let us make some of the more unique looking guns we want without having to worry so much about the scaling and vanilla parts sticking out. Pistols might even be more doable after 0.9.0 even.
VD’s also making sure that we’re covered across ‘shot types’.
Admittedly, this is a more cluttered looking than it needs to be, and for some it might make them wonder what the point of the original weapon parts will be going forward, but I think this suits everyone. People who want a more basic, already detailed weapon part will have one, and people who want to make a replica of something or design there own (my camp), can do that.
The best part is that we’re getting these as soon as the update goes live. No grind to design for this batch.
Well hello everyone! This WIP was a bit late due to some complications and it’ll be a bit on the shorter, but exciting side. As you might’ve read from the headlines, our 3D artist took your suggestions to heart and have created a small set of accessories with Quarks as a theme.
And so, once 0.9.0 releases, we’ll officially be collecting pelts. Definitely looking forward to that.
