Titan City

Greetings!

Today I want go over the development with Mercenary Work which I mentioned in my last blog post. I've spent a majority of my time outlining the different types of challenges and enemies that I wanted the player to encounter and the tools/abilities that can counter them. The details to these elements will be listed at the bottom, but please keep in mind this is all relatively academic and they are subject to change.

As of right now I have a very basic model of mercenary work up and running (not available in the demo), but I have found that I wasn't pleased with my initial results so I'm making some changes which will inevitably lengthen the time between my next update. Here is a list of the most important elements that I am focusing on with my changes in mind.

Mercenary work:
1. There are four types of missions under development at this time:
a. Infiltration : Use of stealth to perform a given task. Don't get spotted.
b. Assault : Attack a position and kill/destroy a specific person/object.
c. Defense : Defend a position for a period of time by strategically placing units in choke points. Unique merc abilities will be available dependent on class.
d. Extraction : Find an object/person or hack a cpu at location within the time limit and leave the building.
2. Completing Merc Work will reward money, experience, and rep
3. Mercenary work will be available in specific locations with varying difficulty.

Mercenary's:
1. Hired Merc's will now be a part of your team, but only during the mission.
2. Merc's can gain levels.
3. Merc's can be outfitted with gear appropriate to their class specifications.
4. Certain Merc's can offer special benefits during the mission. I.E. Techie's can unlock security doors. Med Techies can revive fallen merc's.
5. Merc's stats will increase with their level.
6. Merc's will gain special talents at specific levels.

Enemies:
Each mission you take can have many types of challenges to consider when choosing your team. Here is a summary of what they are and what they can do.

-Patrols: If they spot you they can call in assault squads, or activate remote turret defenses
-Security Camera: similar to a patrol: can call in special forces, or activate laser defenses
-Assault squad: chases and tries to kill the player. Weak vs barricade Merc, Strong Vs special forces Merc
-Barricade squad: a defensive team that will block areas via choke points. Weak vs special forces merc, Strong vs assault merc.
-Special Forces: Chases and tries to kill the player. Weak vs assault forces merc, Strong vs barricade merc.
-Sniper: Can cause damage to the player in exposed areas. Weak vs sniper
-Hacker: can control laser defenses, security cameras, and bypass security doors -
-Techie: techies can bypass security doors, take control of remote turret defenses
-med tech: can revive a wounded unit and increases stats by up to +25%
-Laser Defenses: wall mounted laser that attacks players or blocks pathways
-Remote Turret defenses: will attack players that are in combat until they are disabled or hacked (hacked turrets deal damage to the enemy instead)
-Mines: Triggered by walking on them. Causes damage to entire team. Can be spotted (awareness), disabled (techies) or healed through (Med Techie, can cause knockout).


There's lots of work to do yet to get all these functions up and running. So thank you in advance for your patience and support.

Nestalious