Dev Diary #13: This Is Important! 'Galactic Overhaul' Update

While not glamorous, the back-end changes I'm making will hugely enhance the gameplay experience in v1.34, the Galactic Overhaul release. Find out more.

As readers know, I’m currently working on some long-running ‘under the hood’ changes to the mod which will totally revolutionise gameplay in v1.34.

This means that while there aren’t a load of exciting new ship types to show off at the moment (though almost all factions are getting some new units, especially the New Republic) there are some really important changes I want to talk about. This post will be short and sweet [it ended up being very thorough and packed with goodies!] and should give you a taste of what to expect.

Tooltips! And How To Make Them Useful!

In the current public build the tooltips are wordy and unclear. They are not particularly useful in the midst of a chaotic battle if you’re trying to work out what unit is best for what job. That’s going to change.

In v1.34 you will get specific, useful stats, as well as a condensed general description. Let’s look at some examples. For fighters, bombers and assault transports/light freighters, you get this:

The ‘Affiliation’ tag, unique to Age of Legends, remains, and then you get a quick, easily scannable breakdown of its hit points, weapon types, and speed/agility. I’ve decided not to give the completely exhaustive tooltip types seen in some other mods, as I personally find they overload you with too much information. Whereas the format and level of detail I’ve given you here clearly, and immediately, lets you see, 1) this is a fighter, 2) it isn’t very fast or manoeuvrable, but 3) it’s going to be useful against swarms of bombers or as a light bomber once you’ve achieved air superiority.

Likewise for this VT-49 Decimator. The important difference here is the addition of the ‘Build Requirements’ section, as this, unlike the Independent Planetary Defence Forces Toscan 8-Q above, is a player-buildable craft. Here you can see everything you need to construct this light freighter type. This will be especially useful for larger, more complicated factions like the New Republic or Galactic Empire, which span multiple eras and will increasingly feature divergent build/research paths.

It will also mean you can see how to build more of that cool starting unit you have but can’t find: the Build Requirements might include a special orbital unit, a shipyard type, a planet, a specific era, or all of the above. You will also be told if a unit is unavailable for construction because it is unique, so no more frustrating looking around to figure out how to build a unit you can’t actually construct.

And finally we come to capital ships. You can see here that the ‘Speed’ tag is missing, on the basis that I don’t want to provide a load of excessive information (and as a one-man modding team I have to be realistic about what I can do and reduce unnecessary work where possible). Also, speed is generally implied by unit type: this is a corvette, it’s going to be slower than a fighter and faster than a Star Destroyer. Capital ships which carry fighters/bombers/support craft will also list their squadron complement (read on below).

This tooltip overhaul will be useful for new players, but equally for experienced players trying new factions and units in future builds, and so on. It will mean you can quickly skim-read a tooltip and get an immediate idea of what the unit does. Particularly important given that the mod features some truly obscure units: from Owool interceptors to kitbashed Uglies. Now you can see what everything does, with ease.

This has been/is a truly massive job. It requires editing every single space unit’s XML: thousands of units in total. Your support, by becoming a paid subscriber, is hugely appreciated. 🙏

As v1.34 will feature unit upgrades for the first time, I’ve also devised a new icon and tooltip style for them.

Here you can see the rather exciting upgrade for the New Republic to replace their Imperial II-class Star Destroyer’s older fighters with 5th Fleet era/New Class Modernisation designs…