Patreon Special: More about HWS Plus (HWS+)

Dear HWS Patrons,

since you are the backbone of my crazy idea to make HWS for living, I think it's only fair to give you a bit more impressions of HWS+. 

If you haven't, please read the Forum announcement first though. Click here:
https://forum.empyrion-homeworld.net/t/hws-plus-hws-a-new-era-of-hws-is-coming/28460

Since I don't have anything ready to show yet and also don't want to disappoint anyone with promises let me highlight the key things we are working on and you can expect coming in HWS+ as good as possible.

OCD and core game progression of HWS+

Let me call the Elephant in the room right away. Endless of discussions were hold about it. That I should wipe everyone's OCD once and for all. It ended of course always in the same way: those who requested it, want it "fair" for all and those who didn't want it just said "dude, just request a wipe from Rex and leave me alone".

In the end all have their points I guess but I had the one and only idea to solve this issue in a good way. To level the playground for all again but don't wipe the honest progress of some.

The solution or inspiration came from a board game: Siedler von Catan (German).
There you can convert resources at a specific rate, for example 3 to 1.
In HWS+ there will be so many new resources, weapons and devices that require the new resources, that everyone basically starts fresh.
Players with a filled OCD can convert their resources at specific location a very high rate to the new resources though. However, the new resources can't be put in the OCD easily anymore.

That way we have a healthy flow of "old" resources into new ones and new resources gives always a reason to farm / trade / fight for.

Those new resources however won't be just deposits somewhere. This unique chance of adding a lot of new resources will be used in a way that enhances your gameplay.
For example they can only be found on interesting / harsh planets, you need to specialize your ships/bases for.

Or only in form of loot from enemies / boxes. Or dedicated exploration missions of course.

The gameloop will be all about the new resources and what you can craft with them. Thus PvP will get a brand new conflict driver / territory wars. 

With that in mind the core change will be obviously the balance. Each planet will be reworked. All POIs will be removed, revisited and readded in a better way. Exploration will be a core feature of HWS+. The goal is to bound new resources to new systems you discover along the way, making it an allround progressive experience.

That brings us to a reworked loot distribution. Getting rid of the horrible to maintain Admin Core loot driven POIs and instead to easy to maintain loot config files. 1-2 files that contain all the loot we can then properly adjust when needed.

Loot driven content also means new NPCs of course. With recent modding capabilities our goal is to make planet themed NPCs you have to prepare for to beat. To make endbosses you have to prepare for.

With all of that in mind, HWS+ has the goal to align all of old and new items into a proper trading system. We want to offer various ways to get wealthy and combine trading more with exploration but also high-risk-high-reward logic.

Last but not least Legacy will be removed/reworked. Missions updated. Story polished.

All of that is very ambitious but really possible. All it needs is: time.
After 5 years, I feel this is the perfect chance for us to do this. Empyrion in terms of Vanilla is not much evolving anymore and with our own modding we can now start "fresh" and do better. You deserve it. Empyrion MP deserves it.

Doing a rework of a 5 year old project is neither easy nor convenient nor comfortable.
In the end though you guys, our HWS Patrons, motivate me to tackle this big challenge though.
I really want to go all out again, with all experience gathered and give my very best.

So let me end by thanking you honestly and I really appreciate you allowing me to do this.

RexXxuS

P.S.: Please note that all of this is not set in stone yet and please don't spread this to others like that. I just want to share ideas, plans and in future work in progress reports with you.