Since the creation of our forum, Complexenhanced.userboard.net , the pace of development pretty much tripled, just like the number of things to be done rises and rises as we go.
A simple fact : Complex is terribly broken. In no case are we going to sit here doing nothing and letting this (by the way brilliant) concept go to waste.
Complex can be way more than it currently is, but steps need to be taken. Radical ones.
First off, the races must resemble themselves, and not something else. We have removed so much. The Orbital station(this thing is from starship troopers), the redundant ships, like the sentinel type A and B have been removed so that only the modular advanced sentinel remains. We have added IGBC's modular destroyer and cruiser in order to remove the mess in the build menu.
We are also debating the issue of the juggernaut, and how it doesn't resemble Hiigarans. Do you guys think it would be acceptable as an unmanned vessel?
The battle ark will be fixed/given a role in some way, or if that isn't possible, we'll get rid of it too.
We're planning to re-size the weapon station to replace the hiigaran command fortress - that thing is a vaygr station, and should stay one.
Also, the Gudjking shipyard is gone, including all it's abilities. It just doesn't make sense to get a Transformers-like super vessel by docking your ships onto each other. Bah...
Your standard shipyard will still upgrade your Mothership to it's battle asset though, don't worry.
I promised to give vaygr some attention when this project started. Currently however we're giving them attention by removing the unfair toys that made Hiigaran so much stronger in a ridiculous way.
Once the designs are right, Vaygr will get some attention of their own, that's a given. They could be given various platforms for example. We could also look into replacing their standard cruiser with a true vaygr design.
Completely not done yet!
Power. The generally most-hated thing about complex. It would take a lot of time to remove, so I cannot guarantee that the next release can do that, but the one afterwards... well, let's just say you will not recognize what you see!
Is gameplay everything though? Nah. We also care about how this stuff looks like. We do not want the main menu to look dull, so it has been completely reworked, minus the color of the menu buttons. We all hope you will enjoy the look you'll get to see soon!
That just was a pretty long read for you, dear followers, so I'll just end it here and give you an exact change log of what we have done so far. This has been only possible due to teamwork and lots of devotion.
Complex Enhanced 8.5 Change log (under development)
---NEW FEATURES
Hiigaran Modular destroyer added - one chassis to replace all
Hiigaran Modular cruiser added - one chassis to replace all
Power, Crew, Research stations and Scavengers now phase in through hyperspace at the start of the game
The standard shipyard can now create the mothership's battle asset
Added logo to opening and ending screen
New loadingscreen and main menu backgrounds have been added.
Removed "1.1" version number and updated sitelink and credits
---Design Cleanup :
Close Impact and A Dark Star removed due to too large size, and bad gameplay
Benchmark game mode temporarily disabled for this release, it needs re-scripting
Removed the Gudjking Shipyard(unfortunately the icons are switched up and we can't change it)
Removed the A and B type variant of the Sentinel. Now the advanced(modular) sentinel takes their place
The Advanced Assault Frigate now replaces the standard Assault Frigate
Complex Enhanced no longer features planet maps
Orbital station (a starship troopers ship) removed
---BUG FIXES
System clock settings are available in Deathmatch too now
Vaygr Heavy destroyers now have a frontal attack style
Command fortress "backflip" and push/pull bugs due to ion cannons fixed, but the movement order is disabled
Vaygr drive modules are affected by the previous boosts too now
Vaygr Capital and Super capital ships can now dock
Drive module boosts on housing ship decreased from +50% to +20% (unintentional double changes happened)
Drive module boosts on ships within effect radius decreased from +50% to +10% (unintentional double changes happened)
---IMPROVEMENTS/BALANCING
The Advanced Assault Frigate has been renamed to Assault Frigate
The (ex) Advanced Assault Frigate no longer requires it's chassis research to be unlocked
Advanced Sentinel cost decreased from 3000 to 2000, build time decreased from 150s to 130s
The limit on Hiigaran Shipyards is now 1. If you need more, build Battle Shipyards.
Juggernauts' movement, hyperspace and parade orders disabled
Commander rank prerequisite added to the Juggernaut research
Juggernaut cost increased from 4000 to 5000, build time increased from 300s to 360s
Juggernauts no longer have a crew requirement
Viper missiles' cost increased from 1000 to 1500
Viper missiles' mass decreased to 100
Viper and cruiser missiles' collision multipliers reduced from 3 to 2
Cruiser missiles' mass reduced to 300
Cruiser missiles' cost increased from 1000 to 1500
Should keep the Gudjking shipyard instead of the boring old model.
It has been a year since I tried complex, but I found a easy way -some tinkering with notepad in a file- to grant infinite power to all players, and thus effectively disabling the power part of the mod.
I'll see wether I can find it again and make sure to feed it back.
Also, nice change, are you also looking into the graphics thing, or only the gameplay?
We'll remove it completely soon, but thank you. No need for the files!
We are going to fix the lag eventually. We don't know the cause of the Ion cannon errors.
Should fix the debris, **** makes my comp laggy if i am not cleaning up fields all the time. Don't know if it is just me or not, I like ability to harvest debris but there is just too much, would rather see a dead ship I have to blow up with scavenger or just spawn a couple large chunks instead of a bunch of tiny ones.
But sounds good what you guys are doing, I personally dont use most of the ships, I think all capital class should be modular and just research weapon and drives. Sounds good though guys, best of luck.
The lag is caused actually by the ships you face in late game, not the debris itself. Eliminating the lag will be one of the first priorities after our 8.5 release.