First and I hope the most obvious difference is the graphics. We’ve done a whole lot of work on the engine. In case you were wondering, SPG2 uses the same SPG1 “Whale” engine as the core, but we have upgraded it immensely.

The visual style has received a major change as well. We’re going for a darker universe (much darker :D) and want to play with lighting and special effects more.

Planets are no longer distant un-reachable scenery. You can reach them, land on them, go about your business, hunt a pesky ship around it... you name it.

Planar universe... The 2D planar approach in SPG1 was a design choice that we opted for to make controls more manageable. In SPG2 we have made a turn towards more action, but that’s not to say we’ve neglected the strategic elements. Sub-targeting is still here. It was a matter of some debate, but in the end we simply couldn’t take away the sweet victory of crippling your opponent. We liked that too much :). Since we made the trip into full 3D environment, that naturally means controls had to change. We had the option of going towards Homeworld-like, more RTS controls, or more towards simulation controls. We chose the latter. We think it will suit the game best. Direct aiming and firing was the logical next step.

Boarding... This part we’re making from scratch. Ship size, number of troopers, random events, perks, skills... all have an effect on boarding. The general idea is if you’re intent on capturing a ship, by all means, but don’t get your hopes up that you’ll capture it in pitch-perfect condition. Expect a tough battle before you get the chance to take the ship over. When you do eventually capture a ship, you’ll have several options: transfer command, pillage, scuttle or simply leave it to drift in space.

Random VO chatter... As much as we would want to have that Freelancer(ish) space chatter, it’s beyond our scope. Maybe in English, we pull it off, but any other localization could not support that feature, so we decided to focus on other features instead, like more different freelance missions etc.

Modding... ah yes... a painful subject actually. Some might say it would have been better to avoid it until later, but I think it’s better to come clean about it now. In SPG1, we messed up the modding tools. We spent quite a lot of time (after initial release) to get the tools to at least some standards, but it was too late unfortunately. The map editor for example was so unstable it could actually wipe out your entire map or mess up object IDs, making almost all linked scripts non-functional. One of our more frequent bugs in SPG1 was actually connected to the editor. Absolutely horrible. We were wrestling with the issue for some time, to a few months back actually, but by then we had to move on to SPG2 or we’d jeopardize that project. The team has grown by several members, and this time we’ve got someone constantly keeping a watchful eye on the modding tools (editors, documentation, tutorials, building the modding website) so every problem we encounter is taken care of in time and not let it fester and become insurmountable. We plan to get the modding site live some time before release so anyone interested can have a look and shoot questions in advance. So far I can tell you that the editors aren’t the best tools in the business (hey... I won’t BS you), but they are stable, they don’t wipe your entire day’s work and once you get the hang of its quirks, they do the work they’re intended to. Modding tech support will be provided as well. Scripting language has gone through an upgrade too, to make it more scripting friendly.

The basic idea was to improve all the things that were good, get rid of the irritating stuff (long docking on stations cutscene springs to mind as an example; we’ve replace it with a simple and FAST “anchoring”) and replace them with better mechanics.

That sums up the first comparison post. Please forgive the unorganized manner in which I shoot these comparisons out. I’m just posting it right out-of-the-head. Feel free to post your own doubts, questions... I’ll answer as soon as I can.

Have you sorted the ship size out in SPG2 .

Have you sorted the ship size out in SPG2 .

I'll give an example: Taurus gunship is 3 units in size (3 generic in-game units). Tzar carrier is 35 units. So around 10x size difference. Whether that will change, I cannot say. If it does change however, it will only be to increase the size difference, not decrease it.

landing on planets you say? oh please, do elaborate

can you fly in the atmosphere, or is it just some variation on docking

and how doese combat work with the new sim controls, the enemy wont be in front of you all the time, and we do have turrets

- will we have active control on our guns, or do they fire by them selves

-- if we do, can they be grouped togeather or do they all fire at once

- can we rotate the camera freely around our ship still or is it some chase camera thing

- what about targetting multiple ships and dividing your fire to engage them indavidualy

- and are there automated weapons systems like intercepters

landing on planets you say? oh please, do elaborate

 

can you fly in the atmosphere, or is it just some variation on docking

 

 

and how doese combat work with the new sim controls, the enemy wont be in front of you all the time, and we do have turrets

- will we have active control on our guns, or do they fire by them selves

-- if we do, can they be grouped togeather or do they all fire at once

- can we rotate the camera freely around our ship still or is it some chase camera thing

- what about targetting multiple ships and dividing your fire to engage them indavidualy

- and are there automated weapons systems like intercepters

Nope, no atmosphere. Sorry. Not this time anyway. If we made the atmosphere part, then it would only make sense to have the terrain as well to fly over it, and having barren terrain is not all that great if we're supposed to have a large sprawling metropolis stretching over the planet surface... and that's out of our scope at the moment. Landing on planets is a variation of docking as you've said. Planets have more diverse services, goods, items etc., but some planets require you to pay landing fees and make detailed contraband checks. You can try smuggling and if that succeeds, you can get some nice profits.

Combat:

1)aiming weapons and firing is done manually. Aim with the mouse, fire with the right mouse-button. Controls are configurable of course.

2)weapons are divided into weapon batteries. Any ship can have up to four batteries: front, rear, left and right. Upgrades(enhancements) are linked to batteries. Each battery can have up to four turrets (depends on ship class etc.). Each turret has it's firing arc, its functional radius. A turret that's facing backwards, most likely won't be able to turn forwards and fire at the same time as the front facing turrets. It's not a rule; it depends on ship design as much as balancing out the ships.

3)there are several camera views: chase (camera sticks to the ship and rotates with it) great for use with smaller ship classes as it gives a more fighter-like controls. Turret camera is the free rotation camera. Moving the mouse for example, rotates the camera around the ship, and of course aims the turrets as well. This is great for larger ships that are packed with turrets on all sides.

4)since aiming and firing is done manually, there is no way to make you aim and fire on multiple targets at the same time. But since one of the things we wanted to see is full-on barrage fire from all turrets to anything hostile nearby, we implemented the Fire at will command (activated through shortcut or quick menu button). This tells your turrets to have a blast at anything hostile in the vicinity. Every turret starts shooting at any enemy in its firing arc.

5)Automated weapons systems? I'm guessing you're thinking of fighters and drones? If so, then yes. Some ships can have a hangar (carrier class ships wouldn't have any reason to be in the game without it 😉 ). You can change what fighters you have, you can enhance the hangar bay, you can improve your fighters with skills and perks. The Commander class actually relies on enhancing your fleet and fighters.

To continue my rant on the differences between the two games:

Tutorial

Quite a bit of grief was expressed over our handling of the tutorial (too long, boring and things like that 🙂 ), and after some consideration, we agreed with some of the pointers and we decided for a different approach in SPG2. Tutorial panels explaining individual parts of the game mechanics will pop-up when necessary. For example, the first time you enter an asteroid field, a tutorial panel will pop-up explaining the ways to mine asteroids. Similarly, the first time you go into a shipyard, a tutorial panel will pop-up explaining how to buy news ships, how to compare your existing ship with the potential new one and so on. These tutorial tips can be disabled either through the options, or on the tutorial panel itself by simply checking the "don't show me these anymore" box. Even if you disable tutorial tips, you will still be able to open them when you need them. To use the shipyard example again; a small "Tutorial" button is present on almost all panels in the game, so if you forgot something or want to check how to do something in the shipyard, simply click the tutorial button and the tutorial panel will open up for that panel.

Launching fighters

Although this was answered in my previous post, I thought I might add a few sentences to it. In SPG1, launching fighters was a ship's ability. You didn't really have control over it. In SPG2, fighter squadrons are handled similarly to weapons. You have the hangar slot and you purchase fighter squadrons to "populate" the hangar bay. A ship can have up to a maximum of 3 squadrons (depending on the ship itself). The hangar bay can be enhanced to increase the time fighters can be on a "mission". Fighters can only be active for a limited time before they have to return to their flagship for repairs and rearming. They do this automatically, but you can summon them back if necessary. They also fly back out automatically as well. Their "mission time" can be increased by enhancing the hangar bay (special fuel mixture etc.). Also, their preparation time between "missions" can be reduced as well so they will fly back out faster.

Hi Dorijan

Thanks for your comments and breaking the differences down for us. I 'really' do like the fact that you will have a better role out of the mod tools with this release. Off-topic a bite here, I play Legend of Grimrock and they have an amazing tool set for modding their game and it has definitely has increased playability and lifespan of the game and now your community builds content or possibly fix bugs for you. So the better the mods tools the better 🙂

I know in SPG1 the main features I wanted to have tweaked was:

• Ship capturing, this can be a lot of fun. Especially when you add bording parties. And people might use this to make their profits, so giving options and consequences to this action would be great. Lets say the ships captian sets his ship to self-destruct, your party is on-board and cannot disarm intime now they try to get out and the blast destroys your crew and damages your ship. (I know it's evil, but realistic)
• Derelict ships, the animations on this was fine and wouldn't mind some choices to leave it, booty trap it, salvage ship (make a crew skill, to get more salvaging)
• Ship and equipment pricing and attainability (in SPG1, I think you were able to acquire advanced ships and equipment too soon. If you farmed asteriods, derelicts and missions. I would suggest, scaling the environment to your level/ship so your always providing a challenge. Because you could have people that do the 'open world' aspect of the game and stay away from the story until they feel like and then you have to make sure that if that user isn't overpowered for the missions.
• I think most important to your open world aspect is now you will need an economy and have it possibly change to your story or standalone missions that could take place and have impact to the game.

Any chance of seeing any hacking Dorijan?

Would we ever be able to actually walk on stations or ships (sorry if I missed this in any posts)?

And will the story in SPG2 make the connection to SPG1 and will we see any NPC's return?

When you've captured a ship you'll have several options available on the quick menu (context menu): scuttle if you really don't want anything to do with it. Grapple to drag it to a station and decide there what you want with it (sell, transfer command...). "Pillage" to grab what items and commodities you can immediately (in case you just want the goods, and not the ship). Capturing ships won't be easy this time. Ships "inner defenses" depend on the number of troopers the ship has as well as its size (taking over a small gunship is quite different from taking over a large carrier... if nothing else it would take more time for your troopers to get to all the key points). I think I've written it in another post, but doesn't hurt to say it again: troopers and ship capture is done from the ground up in SPG2.

Salvaging from derelicts. Well, actually the more you salvage, the better you get at it and the higher the yield. Since we'll already track the statistics of how many derelicts you've "pillaged", we thought we might as well reward that dilligence with passive bonuses. "Getting better at dismantling the innards of a derelict" seemed the most appropriate. same principle applies for almost anything: destroying gunships, corvettes or I don't know dreadnoughts for example. After awhile, you'll get better at it; your crew will get better at fighting those ship classes (bonuses). We called it achievements as we thought it suited it best. After obliterating two dozen frigates, you're bound to learn something from it to help you in fighting them afterwards.

Pricing. So true. In SPG1 it was a combination of a too randomized market, obviously much too low prices for equipment and ships and very randomized loot that made the testing erratic. At some points in testing, we could be penniless, but at others we had "exactly enough". Later it proved you could get too rich too fast. Which is why we reduced the freakish price randomization (commodity market is a lot more fixed... I'll explain in more detail later) and at the same time increased ship prices for example. We've also added recurring costs (a mercenary will only follow you if you pay him, a hired officer expects to actually get paid, heavy weapon ammo doesn't magically appear anymore, but you have to buy it etc).

And now back to the commodity market. I've left this for now to link it to D1's suggestion concerning changing economy and player impact. Trying to emulate the massive and complex economy system of the X series would be a massive undertaking and for our team-size... practically impossible. Egosoft has done something amazing with that in my opinion. In SPG2 we're going to stick to something simpler. Fixed economy influenced by random (and not so random) events. Lets take for example a large trade station in the Degran Prefecture region of the Trinity Free States. It's a peaceful region, not that much piracy, trade is running smoothly. And suddenly, out of nowhere, comes a freak ion storm and decimates the region. Since Gemini is a strange place after the starpoint incident, a freak ion storm would be no surprise to the local population ;), but it would leave a mark nonetheless. Due to ion storm, trade convoys avoid the area, making commodities scarce, thus increasing prices. Produced goods, (those that are still being produced) are however being stacked since trade convoys that usually purchase those goods, again, didn't arrive, effectively dropping prices of produced goods. A nice little Holocom News Network announcement follows up on the event and announces it when you dock on a station or land on a planet. This was an example of a random event, completely unrelated to the player.

Let's take another example. Out of nowhere, a crazy idea pops in a certain captain's mind. He or she decides to go on a destruction spree of the local security forces looking after Holger Cross region in the Gemini Protectorate. Government ships drop like flies, gun-ho captain takes several victories. If you imagine the enthusiastic captain is the player, this might trigger one of those "not so random events". Red Mist Raiders and the Vanquis group from the Hollow seize the opportunity and flock into Holger Cross to beat it out with the rest of the security forces and to raid passing convoys. That in turn scares other traders from entering the area and so we come to the part from the previous example: prices go high, produced goods hit the bottom, piracy in Holger Cross gets on the News headlines.

Onward to the other questions :).

Hacking is in. It's a skill. It can go from discharging the target's weapons power, to tricking the target's computer into thinking its allies are the bad guys.

Walking on stations or ships. Nope. Another no unfortunately. Much like actually flying over planetary terrain, it's something we'd like a whole lot and we have considered it. Then we remembered we have over 150 stations. We could reduce the interiors, but it would still leave us with many different sets of interiors due to different "faction architecture". And on top of that, we need people on those stations. Many diverse people with many different animations for it to look good. The list of things to do kept adding up, so we stopped there. Unfortunately we aren't ready for that yet :(.

Story links and characters from SPG1.

Some characters are definitely making a return. Ridley's here, Kuzhev too; Dr. Scott went apes*** and runs an autocratic state :). I will say however, that knowing the story from SPG1 is not a prerequisite... just a bonus. And voice overs will be done in a proper fashion this time; so if anybody liked the heavy slavic accents... sorry to disappoint you, but they are no more :D.

Well... writing this was certainly interesting. Thanks D1! 🙂

Oh and let me know if I missed something.

don't worry about what you can't add yet, baby steps, I wasn't actually expecting atmospheric flight or walking in stations, just asked to confirm. After all, egosoft is on the 4th itteration of the X series and thier just getting to it (same with eve online, and that went live in 2004)

and I think you miss understood me on the automated weapons (you actually answered my question on hangars last year, remember) what I ment is anti aircraft/ordinance guns, things that would swarm the ship or move to fast for the player to counter

like if you see a squadron of fighters coming, you can activate the AA defences and watch as your ship fills the sky with lead

don't worry about what you can't add yet, baby steps, I wasn't actually expecting atmospheric flight or walking in stations, just asked to confirm. After all, egosoft is on the 4th itteration of the X series and thier just getting to it (same with eve online, and that went live in 2004)

 

and I think you miss understood me on the automated weapons (you actually answered my question on hangars last year, remember) what I ment is anti aircraft/ordinance guns, things that would swarm the ship or move to fast for the player to counter

 

like if you see a squadron of fighters coming, you can activate the AA defences and watch as your ship fills the sky with lead

Yep, I misunderstood, sorry. So specialized equipment for taking care of pesky fighters (and missiles perhaps?). We don't have that at the moment. We are in the middle of a debate on it actually. Some of us feel we should have it, while some believe the "Fire At Will" I wrote about earlier should be more than enough. What do you think?

Also while I'm mentioning debates, another idea sprang to mind recently. We already have the so-called "Scavenger swarm". These tiny drones swarm a derelict and strip it of anything useful (you get more than by usual means). The debate is whether to make the Scavanger swarm usable in combat: to swarm the active target and beat on his Hull, or perhaps ship systems etc. So, same piece of equipment, more uses. Thoughts?

the fire at will idea sounds good, some weapons could be better suited for small fast moving targets like fighters and gunboats, while others are better suited for slow moving haevily armored targets, and some can be in the middle

and the swarmer idea is great in the "improvised weapon" catagory, you could even add upgrades to them to get the to fill different roles from their original role, like mining, espianage, repair, suicide bombing, recon, I like it

Moving on to freelance missions and as before, the difference from SPG1.

In SPG1, freelance missions would reactivate over time, meaning they weren't generated randomly, but basically the same mission would reactivate.

SPG2 has a complete random mission generation; nothing about them is pre-scripted. Only locations are set in advance to remove the possibility of I don't know, a station that needs to be destroyed to appear in a giant asteroid or something.

What kind of missions are generated, depends on the region, who controls the region, player's reputation, player's level. Harder freelance missions become available a bit later (assaulting a station with a gunship is a clear path to a bad time).

The reputation bit looks something like this: Thaurian Alliance has control over the Tempest region. And let's say the player is NOT in good standing with the Thaurian government. They won't be as willing to offer him work to secure their territory against Korkyran incursions. Heraclean Front, a more or less terrorist organization, operating from the fringes of Thaurian space, the Heraclean Stretch region, WILL be willing to offer freelance work to the player to attack Thaurian outposts and raid their convoys. Same stretch of space, different missions.

The region dependence goes like this: Last Ditch Raiders are more likely to offer convoy raid missions. That's what they do... not ONLY that, but that is their area of expertise. Hub, an association of scientific outcasts, doesn't care much for military-type advances into adjacent territories, but they are inclined to pay for scientific data retrieval of nearby anomalies. That doesn't mean you can't get attacked while on mission of course ;).

Hey Dorijan

Read over a lot of the posts again and the responses and have a few more so we can pick your brain.

I know the modding tools didn't make SPG1, but I did like the fact that you could possible change things up because various values, prices and stats were held in editable configuration files. I think all SPG1 needed was a nice doc to help people along to tweak certain things which is fine. What can we expect from the SPG2 mod tools? Reason I ask is that most indie devs don't take advantage of the community building and longevity that a game could have if a nice set of tools is provided. So what will the user be able to do? (Make missions, add new systems/planets, add new ships/weapons/commodities (with graphics)). SPG1 and 2 scream mod tools because of the close (least for me) gaming experience as freelancer, and freelancer has done quite well with the mod scene.

Open-Uninverse, (this might have been touched on a different post). I believe it was stated that there would be no sector hopping, which is great. How big is the given universe now and if you just travel at normal speed how much ground would you cover in an hour of travel? Will we be able to discover uncharted areas? What type of random events, space anomalies or danger could we run into depending on where we are in the universe?

Damage to ships, damage was displayed well on your target in SPG1. Is there going to be any improvements to the damage given to the ship (yours or enemy) depending on where the damage is? (ie: engines going out, shields dropping, scorch marks, hull breach (air escaping), chunks of ship being blown off and the model updates to reflect it).

Thanks Dorijan for taking the time to answer these questions.

-D1-

Will you be doing anything with the galactic/sector maps.

Just as an example such as having an overlay to show who controls which sectors in the galactic map and some info about the sector on the sector map.

Also are staying with the same UI as in SPG1 or changing it.

Will you be doing anything with the galactic/sector maps.

Just as an example such as having an overlay to show who controls which sectors in the galactic map and some info about the sector on the sector map.

Also are staying with the same UI as in SPG1 or changing it.

I'll answer PINBACK's questions first.

Map. ABSOLUTE change. The starchart no longer even resembles that from SPG1. It's not an overhaul, it's building from scratch. The starchart is now a vital part of the game. It provides the necessary overview of your reputation in different regions (standing with the controlling faction). It is also gives you the option to plot your course properly, get information on the stations/planets you've discovered, see what random events are currently taking place around Gemini and what they affect etc.. The starchart has sevaral layers: faction (what faction controls which region), reputation (where player will be greeted nicely or where they'll want his blood.. or engine fuel in this case perhaps) and regions as a general geographic (astrographic?   ) overview. To make it easier to navigate, we've added turn on/off for some object types that can occlude the view.

One important difference to mention is that taking on missions is also done through the Starchart. Available missions get marked on the Starchart. That way you can immediately see where the mission will take place. You simply click on the mission marker; the mission overview panel pops-up showing you the mission parameters (overview, reward, objectives etc). The pop-up panel also holds the "Accept" button, effectively activating the mission.

UI

Since controls are changed in general (direct movement, direct aiming and firing), the UI has also changed quite a bit. The important things are still here (sub-targeting, skills etc.), but the overall interface has received a complete overhaul to make it more accessible. One of the key ingredients is a context menu. It's a radial pop-up menu that changes as required (hence the context bit 🙂 ). When a ship is targeted, one set of actions is available, when a structure is targeted, a different set etc.. We've also added a quick action button. It changes depending on the situation. As an example I'll give docking. When you're in the vicinity of a station or planet, the quick action button will appear on the HUD featuring the dock action. Only one click away from visiting the station.

I know the modding tools didn't make SPG1, but I did like the fact that you could possible change things up because various values, prices and stats were held in editable configuration files. I think all SPG1 needed was a nice doc to help people along to tweak certain things which is fine. What can we expect from the SPG2 mod tools? Reason I ask is that most indie devs don't take advantage of the community building and longevity that a game could have if a nice set of tools is provided. So what will the user be able to do? (Make missions, add new systems/planets, add new ships/weapons/commodities (with graphics)). SPG1 and 2 scream mod tools because of the close (least for me) gaming experience as freelancer, and freelancer has done quite well with the mod scene.

I'll answer the first question in several parts.

Editable configuration files - SPG2 retains that almost entirely. There are some differences, but it is the same principle. Open the file in notepad, edit the values, save the file, all done 😉

Adding new content - For adding new models, the only thing you need is a model exported to a DirectX *.x file and the textures (Blender for example has the necessary exporter). Then import the model file and the textures into the Assembly editor, tweak the material settings real-time, set the parameters, add particles etc.. and save the assembly *.asb file used by the game. If for example the new model was a planet, then when you're done importing it, add it into the appropriate database table (notepad) and you're done. You can use the new planet in the game's world editor, by either replacing an existing planet, or by adding a new one in Gemini.

To expand on the above - Adding a new ship is done in the same way. When it comes to placing turrets, there's also a "sub-editor" in the Assembly editor, called Ship editor. This is for setting ship parameters, adding turrets and setting their firing arcs etc.. It's much easier when done visually, instead of doing it blindly through notepad, or by reading the values in another program. Here you can see what it looks like.

New missions - The scripting system has been upgraded to allow a more "friendly" scripting experience. SPG1's script system was... lacking. We didn't go for a complete rebuild because the original system works. It only needed a touch-up.

A general rant on mods in SPG2 - This time we're doing all the necessary steps to ensure easier modding. We've been looking at Freelancer and its vibrant modding community. It's quite amazing. The standard procedure for installing a mod into Freelancer is through FLMM and that's ok. Nothing wrong with that, but we really wanted to make it easier than that. Standard game world (campaign etc..) is in SPG2 held in is default sub-folders. Mods are held in separate folders that mimic the default folder tree. Let's take an example:

GameRoot->

     Mods->

              ->MonkeyBusiness->Base

                                            ->Dialogues

                                            ->Scripts

                                            ->WorldWorld.ics

     Spg2->BaseShips.wdt

             ->Dialogues

             ->Scripts

             ->WorldWorld.ics

Notice the "Mods" folder. If you wanted to mod the game, you don't need to overwrite the default game files. Just mimic the folder structure of the Spg2 folder and voila. When you start the mod called "MonkeyBusiness", the game will use the altered MonkeyBusinessWorldWorld.ics file, not the default one. But since, there is no altered BaseShips.wdt in the mod folder, the game will use the default Ships.wdt. You only mod what you want and pack that up and the game does the rest automatically. 

To sum the modding part up - All the above mentioned, and much much more is constantly documented, added and filtered to accommodate later updates on a website. The website is not live yet and it won't go live until it's properly filled with tutorials, materials, script examples, script functions list, database explanations and so on. We plan on going live with the modding website some time before game release so anyone interested can browse what SPG2 has to offer in the modding department. The editors (Assembly and World editor) will also be a part of the standard post-release tech support and updates.

I may have forgotten to answer something, so feel free to remind me :).

Open-Uninverse, (this might have been touched on a different post). I believe it was stated that there would be no sector hopping, which is great. How big is the given universe now and if you just travel at normal speed how much ground would you cover in an hour of travel? Will we be able to discover uncharted areas? What type of random events, space anomalies or danger could we run into depending on where we are in the universe?

At the start of the game, you'll have almost nothing of Gemini discovered. I know it's strange seeing as it's a single star system, well traveled and everything, but doing some exploration is always nice 😉 .

Looking at travelling speeds - Using the fastest ship would take you about two hours to traverse Gemini in a straight line without a single deviation, without a single random encounter or event or anything. That's counting only traveling on an imaginary plane, but we're using all three dimensions, so stations/planets/locations/anything aren't placed in a quaint horizontal plane. Actually we're thinking on increasing default ship speeds, because even with T-Gates/Wormholes for instant travelling to predesignated points, Riftways for in-region fast travel ("space highways" you have to navigate yourself manually), T-Drive for instant jumps inside a given radius and the Power to Engines (something like cruise engines in Freelancer), a single journey can take a lot of time. And yes, there's no more loading. No more maps. Only one large Gemini. Everything is streamed on-the-fly.

Random encounters, events, anomalies, dangers -

Encounters be anything: pirates (Vanquis), company security (HeraCorp), bounty hunters (Gladius Guild), military patrols (Thaurian Navy) etc.. You can run into a pirate raid on a station, or a science expedition exploring the wastes of the Maelstrom region, Union ships mining the asteroids of the Cherubin asteroid belt, Sanctum engineers repairing their Anomaly Monitoring Grid, HoloCom maintenance vessel going on their satellite maintenance rounds... Anything.

Random events are global in nature, in the sense that they usually happen without the player's influence. Korkyra can suddenly start a massive campaign against the Thaurian Alliance. That will be reflected with actually encountering them battling it out on their borders. When I say events usually happen without player's influence, that means that player can trigger events.

The number of anomalies has been reduced when compared to the prequel. We left out the irritating ones and chose those we felt were the best and we take the time to make them better, more diverse and also more dangerous. Quality over quantity was the guiding idea.

Damage to ships, damage was displayed well on your target in SPG1. Is there going to be any improvements to the damage given to the ship (yours or enemy) depending on where the damage is? (ie: engines going out, shields dropping, scorch marks, hull breach (air escaping), chunks of ship being blown off and the model updates to reflect it).

We've done a lot of improvement on the visual aspect, effects, models etc. But when it comes to actual damage models and mesh deforming I'd have to say that's a no. It is on the feature list, but I don't think we'll have time to implement it properly and if we can't do it well, we won't go for it at all. It is there, looming, but we're not sure at the moment. The scorch marks and things like that are a lot more likely.

Damaging individual ship systems is definitely still a yes, and all that it brings as well. Crippling the target's shield emitter disables it's shields and so on. We have opted for a more action oriented approach with SPG2, but we couldn't let go of the nicer points of its predecessor 🙂 .

Having finished SPG 1, I'm glad to hear, that in SPG 2,  I might see again some fellow RPG's.  Reason to buy the Sequel.  Looking forward, I might find it on some shelf in Bangkok.