We’re finally getting closer to seeing what Depth of Extinction will be at launch with the world map and objective chooser in build 39. The goal is to provide player choice and exploration plus give a bit of risk to deciding how to outfit your team to tackle the objective.

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After choosing an objective, you will have to load out your team. Each mission has a starting bonus, which can be used to rent a sub and hire crew, and a completion bonus, which is only paid if you complete it successfully. You’ll have to rent a sub initially and though you start with two permanent team members, it’s probably a good idea to use that last 50 credits to hire a merc to help you out.

Mercs will only work for you on that one objective. They will level up like regular characters and will still be available at the base if they survive the mission. The higher the merc’s level, the more expensive it is to hire them. Mercs can also be hired at merchants and they will always be at least level one and have a class already assigned. Any equipment you assign to a merc won’t be lost when thee mission is completed, but the equipment a merc starts with can’t be removed.

You can get permanent team members by rescuing hostages on missions and freeing slaves. We’ll be working on more ways to get permanent team members (more on that below).

Moving forward, there’s a lot of territory to explore now:

• Subs - the plan is to sometimes have the team find subs on missions, that can then be piloted back to base. You’ll have to give up one of your characters to pilot the sub back, however. If they are a permanent team member, they will still be waiting for you when you get back.
• Base leveling - the level of the base determines the areas that are unlocked, the difficulty of missions (and the payouts) plus has a part in making more subs and classes available. Currently, the base levels up as you complete objectives but this might change in the future.
• Class Unlock Missions - we plan to create “challenge missions” in new areas. These will primarily put you in control of an enemy who has had a change of heart and decided to steal a sub and escape. If you can make it back to your base with the enemy character (and any other characters you pick up along the way) then you will have access to their class, they will join the permanent team and a sub will be owned.

Equipment allocation - it’s possible we will make an inventory management layer to allow you to being only certain items on the sub and limit the space available. Not sure if this will make it in the final game though.

Other stuff in Build 39:

Zoom - we’ve finally got zoom back into the game. Just scroll the mouse wheel up and down to zoom in and out. We’ve got 4 “pixel perfect” zoom levels that can be used. Hopefully this is a good change.

UI juicing work - the UI elements now have fade in and pop in effects (depending on the type of element) and sound effects. We’ll continue to build and refine these so feedback is appreciated!

Bug fixes - mostly minor stuff

Upcoming in the next few builds:

• Bleeding system - rather than dying immediately when running out of health, characters can “bleed out” and the blood points will be treated similarly to health and be upgraded via the Grit stat. This won’t be a random thing like in X-Com.
• Additional Class Skills  - we still have more unlockable classes that need their skills implemented. These classes will be covered in an upcoming blog post.
• Gamepad support - we plan to support this for the Steam launch and we have an announcement about a console launch here soon.