Rev 1.6 is live, It’s also due to be on the Tricky’s PvP servers soon so should get a lot more play-testing and perhaps a few tweaks based on feedback, but it’s “done” for it’s set of features.

This of course means I’ve started thinking about what to do next…

The Meta picture

We’ve seen over the various iterations of CC2 releases and Rev releases that the “meta” of the PvP game follows cycles, and seems to settle into a pattern.

• new mod or game change
• dedicated players spend a few weeks to figure out the best high-level meta-plan to kill a carrier first given the new changes
• most PvP games are won by this new meta-plan

All of the above regardless of the map or player skills, strategy essentially becomes “do X as fast as possible” where X is only 1 fixed route, and your access to it is dictated by the map you start with.

The most recent update has blunted (nerfed) the strike ability of aircraft, carriers now stand a much better chance of defending themselves. I like this, PvP is harder. The longer game gives more opportunity for mistakes and risks so I think gives a bit more variation, but we’re still in that “new change” phase. Now that aircraft are easier to shoot down, and that bombs are susceptible to CIWS might we see the new meta become torpedo attacks instead?

Whatever happens, I don’t want the game to boil down to “Do/Get X as fast as you can and you win”

Logistics and Economics

Right now, the game economy goes like this:

• you get money
• you pay to build stuff
• you transport stuff to your ship

Money and Islands are all that is required, how long it takes to afford to buy something or how long it takes to build and use are factors, but are logistics (getting your stuff to where its needed). Choosing what to build, when and where is the only part of the economics side we have in the game.

But we might be able to have something richer. We can now control the costs and build times using the constants.txt file in a mod. So we can essentially set the price of everything to 1cr and the build times to 1sec, and then use some other method to block/enable building of any new item.

I could make being able to build something be more involved. Perhaps you can only build a Razorbill if you also control a utility island? or perhaps we could even simulate other kinds of cargo, and use them as extra resources that you need to bring to an island.

I think I can store a few counters for each island, and for each barge, perhaps some of the lesser sort after islands could produce “aircraft parts” or “advanced optics” or “guidance systems”, and have it possible to treat these like normal cargo.

So there are a couple of potential changes that I could explore for logistics/economics. But I think I like the island combinations as a first thing.