Highlighting Features, Site Design news - Dyvox Pytheas

I'm going to slowly start explaining the game in further detail through a series of frequent updates. I also plan on expanding the site to add forums and other web tools to make things easier to navigate.

Today we'll have a look at how you interact with the world. Rather than having menus pop up in front of your view, panels and interactive items can be manipulated by bringing up your cursor or pressing the USE key. The star system map allows you to jump from planet to planet by activating your desired destination. Selecting the star itself will bring up options to move between stars.

The system map is used to instruct the Pytheas to navigate to a target.

The tool tips will be a little more informative in the future. They will provide details about the planet and what you might expect to find on or within it.

Below is a shot of the current vehicle pad terminal. This terminal provides access to your saved ship designs, options to manipulate a vehicle parked above it and the blueprint mode for creating a new ship. The Pytheas hanger only supports construction of the smallest ship class (slightly smaller than the hanger itself for reference); you'll need a bigger venue, and a larger crew, to create anything larger than a shuttle or fighter.

A larger ships' building boundaries can be configured to fit your design ideas.

Your ship controls allow you to configure the properties of your on-board systems as well as general options. In the picture below, you can see the weapon convergence bar being adjusted. This distance sets the point at which projectiles will "meet". This is important because you can place your weapons anywhere you like. Now is a good time to mention that weapons will not fire directly into your own ship or outside their cone of fire. You can also turn the camera to fire weapons that may be facing to the sides or rear. I'll go more in depth about the cockpit console in another update.

One last image I have for you is the new engine type I just whipped up. Since jet turbines are not as useful in a vacuum, several other propulsion systems will allow you to navigate in space. Have a look!

I'll get to fixing up the site when I can, but for now I want to focus on getting enough features in for a fun-filled alpha. I will see about getting a quick forum up to see if anyone has some feedback.