[WB][M] Persistent Frontier Update 2.0 news

I would like to present for you an upcoming update. I've told in the past that I would take care of the update, so here is my promise. On the way of getting this update up, I have gotten help of a group of volunteers. They have made a make-over on the mod i regards of modelling, texturing and bringing a helping hand. As well they have brought new opportunities which Persistent Frontier didn't have before.

Few words from Vitallion, Manager(PR) of the PF production:
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Vitallion. I currently run the Democratic People's Republic of Breadistan [DPRB] clan on PF, and have been for the year or so. Having always been a consistent player in PF, and having been part of the lengthy forum discussions about updates, developing the next version of the mod has always been on my mind, which is what this post is about.

A few weeks ago, I contacted Rajiska to inquire about how the mod was coming in terms of development. Whilst work had been done in the past and at the time towards a new version, significant steps were still to come and progress had been slowing up significantly. Thats where myself and my small team stepped in to help, much to the delight of Aleksander. For those of you who played the mod March of Rome, you'll be familiar with our work and the speed at which we can produce good content, and so it is with great pleasure that I announce that Persistent Frontier is currently undergoing active development towards its next major version, PF 2.0!

So, what is this new PF version? Whats going to change? Be removed? Be added? To start off with, i'd like to go into the big core change we're doing in regards to how game play will work. After that, i'll get into the new items and juicy bits we're adding, with alot of progress pictures to show you of our spoils.

In Persistent Frontier as of now, there is no direct influence on what clan/nation can take what fort. All forts have an almost random set of uniforms in them, with some scenes using the conquest coloured uniforms to try and get some sort of unity going in what a faction looks like. Along with this, the weapons in each fort are universal (yay generic infantry musket), and there's a lot of Freedom for a clan to pick and choose the clothes they wish to wear. However, many players have raised the idea of each fort having a specific colour scheme, or hosting a specific colonial nationality instead of catering to every nation and every clan. This is the idea we're going with in 2.0.

As is current, each (official) scene will contain four forts. North Point, West Point, East Point and Colonial. Each fort will contain 9 NEW UNIFORMS in the forts allocated Nation's colour (6 Infantry Uniforms, 1 Rifle Uniform, 1 Cavalry Uniform and 1 Officer Uniform) with the nations being Britain, France, Spain and the Thirteen Colonies (or Revolutionary United States).
Because of this addition of 36 new independent military uniforms (body and legs), all current military clothing will be removed from the mod to make things more linear and professional.

In terms of Civilian and Outlaw clothing, we'll be doing dozens of new clothing options with many variants for each for this release, so, like the old military clothes, the current clothing options are being removed to make way for new RP clothing.

In short, each fort will be allocated to a nation and each nation will have their own military clothes and, more importantly, weapons!

This leads on to the next big change, the weapon system. Currently, PF sports a universal weapon system with each fort having access to the basic Infantry Musket, Infantry Sword, a variety of pistols and a rifle. Along with uniforms, each nation will have their own Bayoneted Musket (with a non-bayoneted version as well), two swords, two pistols, one carbine and one rifle. The British for example will have the Brown Bess with bayonet, a normal Brown Bess for their musket choice, with the French having the Charleville and its bayoneted counterpart.
An important thing to note is that the crafting recipe for each variant (Brown Bess, Charleville, Spanish and Colonial counterpart) will be the same to balance the mod (Bayoneted Brown Bess/Charleville = Musket Stock, Short Iron Bar, Long Iron Bar) (Brown Bess/Charleville = Musket Stock, Long Iron Bar) e.c.t.

Because of this, like the clothing, the current weapons in game will be removed to make room for the new weapons.

As of now, hardly anything in PF requires direct crafting. All clothing has unlimited stocks and cannot be crafted, along with all swords and pistols. This, in 2.0 will change. All military clothing will have a crafting recipe (we'll get to that in abit) and all weapons will have to be crafted as well. This will open up a new avenue of income and make the Smithies job far more important. But someone needs to get those resources, the Laborer needs to harvest those materials, and, in the case of making uniforms, Laborers will need to get associated with all three new crops.

Along with the conventional farmable materials such as Wood, Iron and Wheat, we'll be adding in 3 NEW CROPS!
The most important crop, and the only one usable in crafting, will be the Cotton Crop. You'll be able to weave these down into Cotton Pieces or something similar, and one of these pieces will make a Uniform or Gaiters.
Sugar and Tobacco will also be added, albeit these will be added purely for money making and not for food or crafting recipes. You'll be able to export the Sugar and Tobacco you farm overseas for a nice tidy profit, great for a worker looking to do something different and an alternate to the generic wood cutting we're all so used to doing if we're strapped for cash.

As im typing this, Jordan, our Modeler/Texturer/Animator is working on the new static Cannon Props that will come in 2.0. These cannons and their related items will be just a part of the wide variety of small and large props we'll be adding to make scenes come alive. Expect too see Wooden and Brick Buildings (enterable), hunting huts, taverns, colonial wood walls, stone walls (star fort anyone?), Native Long Houses and an innumerable amount of smaller props such as fences, barrels and boxes.
Native props will be manually removed to make way for these new props, so you wont be going into scenes seeing a Swadian Castle with Muskets in it anymore! Progress!

The Native Boats are going. Actually, they're not just going, they're being blown apart by the new ships we're replacing them with. Say goodbye to the Long Ships and say hello to these beautiful b******s:

Gunboat Reference

The introduction of new boats has been a long awaited feature and will offer players to engage in some renewed high seas escapades. Cannons (might be) included on deck if your lucky, but you'll have to wait for a Bannerlord version of PF with insanely large scenes before we give you high yield ordnance to play with.

Though classes are not a priority, a new class system WILL be put in place for 2.0. The new class system will be more streamlined than the old one, removing classes such as Frontiersmen and replacing them with more military focused classes such as Irregulars who will inherit their shooting skills. Here's a list of what we have planned:

- Laborer (Serf)
- Militia (Low Cost Infantry)
- Line Infantry (Infantry)
- Grenadier (High Cost Infantry)
- Irregular (Marksman)
- Cavalry (Cavalry)
- Officer (Officer)
- Governor (Leader)
- Smith (Smith/Engineer)

As you can see, the introduction of the Militia class and Grenadier class will flesh out the normal infantry play, along with the change up from Frontiersman to Irregular as stated earlier. A dedicated cavalry class will also be added (good one handed and riding skill) to encourage cavalry play. All in all, its not a MASSIVE change, but a more military theme with the fleshing out of military classes will add more to the long term dynamic of combat.

The current banners in PF need a change, and I myself have been working on that for the last week. The new banners are alot cleaner, actually look like banners (weird right?) and have already been tested in game. Here's some of the current assembly to show you how they add up:

Banners Preview

Vornne - PW module system

If you have ANY questions at all, dont be afraid to ask and myself or Aleksander will answer you as quickly as possible. We'll keep this thread updated with new blogs and images of our work until we release, so until then, happy hunting!

Best Regards
PF development team