You are very welcome Laslon.
I like nothing more than to talk about UoN. This game has been my obsession for years now. It's a mostly healthy obsession though.
We know just how difficult AI is to develop, and really thought long and hard before commiting to a fully fleshed out singleplayer experience because of that. David, our second programmer, did his thesis on evolving AI for games, he will be taking point on the development of our AI.
Yeah pausing is absolutely key to singleplayer, and it is extremely useful in multiplayer. How pause can be used in multiplayer (anyone can pause, captains can pause, or captain vote required etc) will be a server setting. I really believe in giving players the flexibility to play the game the way they want to.
As a developer I love to build the game in a modular moddable way, it makes the code base much easier to manage and extend and I cannot wait to see what others create.
I have some more artwork from Isaac which we will release when we do the press release. I am working on getting his designs into the engine, so I can create more screenshots.
What are your plans for the universe? We have created a hard sci fi universe, hard in that it is a future that is entirely possible (no fantastical elements). No aliens at this point, but perhaps in the future.
The universe was created long before the game, for a table top rpg I ran for friends. Pádraig has really helped to flesh it out, we have a lot of history and detail for it.
Will there be planets, different solar systems, different galaxies? The campaign will be set in the Centauri solar system, with it's stars and planets.
Will there be different factions?Yes, there will be two primary factions, UNION and the Centauri Alliance, plus a slew of others who can be allies, enemies or neutral. We want to create that feeling of being on a submarine during WW2, where contacts on your sensors could be anyone (not just an ally or enemy).
Will there be a story? Whether going on in the background or the players taking part?The campaign is a theatre of war, where things are happening whether your ship is there or not. We will have a lot of procedural story telling going on.
Will players be able to walk around the ships?No, players will interface with the ship through the ship's interfaces. Including the ability to walk around the ship would dramatically increase the scope of the game, and force us to simplify many elements of our design.
If so will there be other things to consider such as player needs, food/drink? This could add a need for ship supplies and possible emergency planetary or station landing to find food or drink or meds etc.This could still be part of the game, having the crew consume resources like food. I am not sure we will add it, but it is something that could be modded in.
You mentioned about away teams, will there be boarding parties onto other ships whether NPC or Other Crewed.?The Tactical Officer will have a number of away teams. These are sent on missions to achieve different goals, like gathering intelligence on a particular faction, or as part of a mission like finding out what happened to the crew of an abandoned ship. During these missions the Tactical Officer is presented with choices on how to proceed, it is part of the procedural storytelling in Universe or Nothing. We have discussed being able to use these teams as boarding parties, but we have not decided on it yet.
I really appreciate all of the nice things you've been saying about UoN, we will do our best to live up to, and hopefully exceed, your expectations.
