Please Read Reticule Research UPDATE!

[Matt]

Hey Everyone,

We wanted to provide you with an update on Reticule Research, and the progress we’ve made since our last announcement.

If you’re a bit out-of-the-loop and aren’t sure what’s been going on with Reticule Research or the reworked R&D Labs, these two posts should summarise it nicely.

• R&D Labs - FAQ
• Reticule Research feedback (1.3.7.1)

As you know, the introduction of Reticule Research was planned as a way to revamp the look and feel of the R&D Lab, at the same time as adding a load of new content. This was not intended as a first step toward adding RR as a full Campaign Corporation.

You had a lot to say about Reticule and your hopes and expectations for them! We took this on board, and have spent some time discussing options and looking at the work involved in introducing RR to Campaign mode - taking into account everything you told us about what you want and would value the most from RR as a Corporation.

We are now happy to announce the following:

• Reticule Research will join Campaign Mode!
• Their missions will work a bit differently from the other Corporations. This will be in keeping with their role as an experimental technology test contractor.
• Reticule content will focus on set-piece missions themed around testing and demonstrating RR blocks.
• An RR Fabricator and Terminal will be awarded after all grades are unlocked.

There are still some decisions to make, but we'll be on stream this afternoon from 4pm GMT to answer your questions: twitch.tv/terratechgame.

As always, we value your feedback very highly and read and discuss everything you tell us across all forums, Steam, social media, and other channels. Please keep it coming!

EDIT: Here is the stream of Matt & Kris discussing Reticule Research

 

[Bedacoalmaster]

Im interested in how this corp will play out in the campaign. The fact that you have given us a clear view forward to what you will be doing with RR is a great improvement over the mess that happened last time. I cant wait. (Maybe RR and Geo have a skin pack together)

 

[EB4EnderBlaze]

Im interested in how this corp will play out in the campaign. The fact that you have given us a clear view forward to what you will be doing with RR is a great improvement over the mess that happened last time. I cant wait. (Maybe RR and Geo have a skin pack together)

I wonder if there will be a new RR themed NPC.

 

[General Douglas]

Hey Everyone,

We wanted to provide you with an update on Reticule Research, and the progress we’ve made since our last announcement.

If you’re a bit out-of-the-loop and aren’t sure what’s been going on with Reticule Research or the reworked R&D Labs, these two posts should summarise it nicely.

• R&D Labs - FAQ
• Reticule Research feedback (1.3.7.1)

As you know, the introduction of Reticule Research was planned as a way to revamp the look and feel of the R&D Lab, at the same time as adding a load of new content. This was not intended as a first step toward adding RR as a full Campaign Corporation.

You had a lot to say about Reticule and your hopes and expectations for them! We took this on board, and have spent some time discussing options and looking at the work involved in introducing RR to Campaign mode - taking into account everything you told us about what you want and would value the most from RR as a Corporation.

We are now happy to announce the following:

• Reticule Research will join Campaign Mode!
• Their missions will work a bit differently from the other Corporations. This will be in keeping with their role as an experimental technology test contractor.
• Reticule content will focus on set-piece missions themed around testing and demonstrating RR blocks.
• An RR Fabricator and Terminal will be awarded after all grades are unlocked.

There are still some decisions to make, but we'll be on stream this afternoon from 4pm GMT to answer your questions: twitch.tv/terratechgame.

As always, we value your feedback very highly and read and discuss everything you tell us across all forums, Steam, social media, and other channels. Please keep it coming!

Awesome!

 

[Enderjed]

I wonder if there will be a new RR themed NPC.

Well, for that they might need to add more RR parts, like a cab, (maybe a special one like GSO and Venture's NPC), as well as an anchor, and other decorative blocks

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Reticule content will focus on set-piece missions themed around testing and demonstrating RR blocks.

Has the time come for an experimentally weaponised orbital delivery cannon that does damage to enemies scaled up by value of resource/component chunk...?

 

[HeX]

So when do I get to kidnap steal another NPC?

 

[Saelem Black]

Sorry I missed the stream! Two question and one comment for @zanzistar and @Matt

1. Are there any plans to address the current missile spam design meta? Combat in end game can be easily dominated by a few missile launchers. I could start a thread on the contributing factors.

2. Are there further plans to work on balance adjustments? (Thinking of the Class D laser, here, but it's not the only one.)

3. I think the issue with the Mk45 isn't the dps; I think that it doesn't feel cannon-y enough. In the stream, you said you'd slightly bump projectile damage. I'd rather see half the rate-of-fire and twice the projectile damage, or burst-fire with a longer reload as some have suggested. Some new, heavy and metallic sounding audio might help, too.

By the way, I don't know if this was done on purpose, but the real-world 5 inch gun on Allied ships is also called the Mk. 45

 

[General Douglas]

Sorry I missed the stream! Two question and one comment for @zanzistar and @Matt

1. Are there any plans to address the current missile spam design meta? Combat in end game can be easily dominated by a few missile launchers. I could start a thread on the contributing factors.

2. Are there further plans to work on balance adjustments? (Thinking of the Class D laser, here, but it's not the only one.)

3. I think the issue with the Mk45 isn't the dps; I think that it doesn't feel cannon-y enough. In the stream, you said you'd slightly bump projectile damage. I'd rather see half the rate-of-fire and twice the projectile damage, or burst-fire with a longer reload as some have suggested. Some new, heavy and metallic sounding audio might help, too.

By the way, I don't know if this was done on purpose, but the real-world 5 inch gun on Allied ships is also called the Mk. 45

I am just glad she won't perform like a 5-inch gun any longer

 

[Nightblade Greyswandir]

new menus in R&D are not visible before you hover the mouse over them in some parts of the map. check each teleport point and check menus on each to see missing links (so not really missing, just you have to hover the mouse over the place where they should be and they will appear)

 

[RC-3197]

So on the stream you said you are looking for some suggestions for Reticule Research blocks.

I've got two ideas (and more to come) that were suggested a while back with Reticule Research in mind.

I will link the original posts and provide short descriptions of them here:

Tesla Gun: A weapon that charges the enemy tech's using your own battery power, if you make the enemy exceed their maximum power their batteries explode. If you don't make them exceed their maximum power, then congrats! You charged them up and lost power in the process!

Teleportation Conveyor Belts: The teleportation conveyor belt (or Teleportation pad for short) is a manufacturing block that teleports resource chunks (by manually forcing the X,Y,Z position) across any distance to another of itself set to receive.

Like a conveyor it is reversible by right click, but instead of reversing the direction, it changes the state of the pad from sender to receiver. This is indicated by a green arrow for senders and a red arrow for receivers. It requires at least 1 sending pad and receiving pad to work. You can have multiple senders and receivers at once. Sending pads will get resource chunks like a filter or dropper and then send them to the first receiver that's not in a busy state. Receiving pads will receive chunks from senders, once they do they will be in a “busy” state, unable to receive chunks, until they can pass the chunk onto another manufacturing block like a conveyor, silo, etc. To allow specific pads to be used for different purposes, each block has 3 numbers ranging from 0-255 that can be set using the right click menu to set it's “channel”. Teleportation Pads can only connect to other pads that are set to the same channel as itself. The reason why channels are represented by 3 numbers ranging from 0-255 is not only because it gives you 16777216 unique channels to choose from but because the 3 numbers represent the R,G,B value of a color. This color can be displayed on the block itself (below the arrow) to visually indicate to the player what channel the Teleportation Pad is connected to. This block would revolutionize the manufacturing system by; letting us transport chunks across long distances without needing a lot of conveyors, letting us move chunks up or down quickly on multi-layered bases, bypass manufacturing bugs by moving chunks to locations where they won't effect the flow of the manufacturing system, connect areas in the manufacturing system that would be impractical or awkward to connect together. Concept art (I made in paint) is attached to help you visualize the block:

Spoiler: Concept Art

I go into a lot more detail about the blocks in the posts themselves, and these short (I can't really call the second one short, but I can't make it shorter without losing important info) descriptions don't really do the blocks justice so please check out the original posts for more detail and in the case of the second idea, a lot of probably useless java code.

Here's the part where I pull out my uno reverse card and suggest to you guys an idea you already had a long time ago:

EMP Weapons:
The exact quote is:

EMP weapons are planned for Reticule Research, they will primarily detach blocks without damaging them.

This by far is the weapon I would look forward to the most! If I were to implement this concept into the game I would recommend it be something like the hawkeye rail gun; same size, same range, it just detaches blocks techs instead of destroying them. Personally, I like being able to take as many blocks as I can from enemy techs intact so any tool that will help me do that easier is something that I'd use all the time!

Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing what wacky stuff you come up with (or is suggested to you wink wink) for Reticule Research, it is by far going to be the most interesting corp in the game!

Also you briefly talked about having teleportation in campaign (like the R&D test chamber). I think that is a great idea! It was one of the first things I thought of when the R&D test chamber first got teleportation. I imagine it would be an anchorable block like the SCU, you can place it down and right click on it to bring up a list of all the other anchored teleportation points on your map, you could even set the name in the list to be the name of the tech that it's attached to (or not attached to if it's just anchored by itself)!

 

[Bedacoalmaster]

Teleportation Conveyor Belts: The teleportation conveyor belt (or Teleportation pad for short) is a manufacturing block that teleports resource chunks (by manually forcing the X,Y,Z position) across any distance to another of itself set to receive.

I want this so much

 

[SUPER-TANK]

IDEA:
EMP Shock Launcher
Hawkeye/RR
This block cannot deal damage on it's own and has a long reload, but when the shockwave hits a tech directly, it will stun the tech it hits for seven seconds. For the entire duration, the targeted tech cannot do anything. This includes actions such as firing weapons, generating power, moving resources etc. Anyway, it will disable the function of all blocks. It will also reset the reload of all weapons when it wears off.

Why is avalanche common even though you need SEED AI

Also the Big Bertha needs a massive buff. It doesn't even go a mile and deals the same damage as a weapon with a smaller caliber. It does not make any sense for a super heavy artillery to be that weak.

 

[TheGamingEnder]

if I had water right now, I would have spat it out onto my computer. RR IN CAMPAIGN? AND PEOPLE SAID THAT IT'S NOT GONNA BE FULLY IN THE GAME!

 

[SUPER-TANK]

Also that super shield. It's perfectly balanced, yet unavailable to players, which does not make sense as a design choice. That shield lacks energy drain when used by the enemy for some reason.

 

[YaYYeeT]

Sorry I missed the stream! Two question and one comment for @zanzistar and @Matt

1. Are there any plans to address the current missile spam design meta? Combat in end game can be easily dominated by a few missile launchers. I could start a thread on the contributing factors.

2. Are there further plans to work on balance adjustments? (Thinking of the Class D laser, here, but it's not the only one.)

3. I think the issue with the Mk45 isn't the dps; I think that it doesn't feel cannon-y enough. In the stream, you said you'd slightly bump projectile damage. I'd rather see half the rate-of-fire and twice the projectile damage, or burst-fire with a longer reload as some have suggested. Some new, heavy and metallic sounding audio might help, too.

By the way, I don't know if this was done on purpose, but the real-world 5 inch gun on Allied ships is also called the Mk. 45

It's called the Type 45 Naval Gun.

 

[layer1]

The RR missions were a blast and a welcome change from normal game play. Seeing an actual building was pretty sweet.

I really, really wish I knew that I could leave the arena mission without trying to do it all at once, though earlier missions should have been a big hint since they didn't care if you left the immediate area. Just figuring out why my techs kept getting exploded (sticky bombs) was a good learning experience.