Preparation for translations should be finished within this week.

To keep myself enthusiastic about what's to come while I bore myself by moving pieces of text from point A to point B, I want to write about the final combat update.

Here are things I have to do with combat before I can release the game:

• Add last four abilities, 2 for Apocalypse class and 2 for Carrier class.
• Solve ability point problem.
• Fix enemy group approaching exploits.
• Make armoured colony seeker more interesting.
• Improve certain Titan class abilities.

I'm planning to do all that with final combat update, which I will work on after I'm done with text moving.

So, here's the last four abilities:

Reaction

Carrier class ability

Cooldown 25

Ether cost 10

- Adds 10 alloy to alloy container

Cataclysm

Apocalypse class ability

Cooldown 40

Ether cost 40

- For 10 seconds minions will take 100% more damage

Rapid Fire Mode

Apocalypse class ability

Cooldown 30

Ether cost 10

- Reduces Missile Strike cooldown for 10 seconds

Awakening Of Inner Power

Carrier class ability

Ether cost 200

- Unleashes power stored within nodes

- Jams ALL minions for 5 seconds

- Removes 40% of armour from ALL minions

- Damage is based on amount of nodes equipped

- Can only be used once per mission

Awakening Of Inner Power is ultimate carrier class ability.

I'm really proud of this one.

Unlike other abilities, it can only be used once, but it has an effect that lasts for the entire mission.

As the description says, it removes some of the armour from all enemies.

It means all enemies you will encounter during the mission will have less armour.

Each node equipped removes 1% of enemy armour

That means Awakening Of Inner Power almost useless at level 1, but it keeps getting better as weapon limit increases.

High-level ship with 40 nodes equipped will remove 40% from all enemies!

Let's not forget that weapon limit can be ignored!

Ignoring weapon limit penalty, it will be possible to remove 80% of enemy armour with 80 nodes equipped!

Weapon limit penalty increases all ability cooldowns by 400%.

Which of damage dealing abilities has the lowest cooldown and so is barely affected by the penalty?

That's right, Concentrated Fire!

And what we get is 80 Nodes Titan Carrier Awakening build!

Anyway, let's move on to other stuff from final combat update.

What's ability point problem?

It's a very old problem that I've talked about in previous echoes if I remember right.

Basically, ability points become almost useless at level 22.

At level 22 you can max out 9 abilities and because you can't equip more than that, you will never really need more points.

How to solve it? Give every ability a passive effect, that works even if the ability is unequipped.

If every ability is worth spending ability points on, ability points will lose value at about level 82.

Ability point problem is a part of level up problem, that I am currently attacking from all angles.

Aside from fixes and improvements, final combat update should add new minion modifications:

• 'Has a core' modification. Enemies with this modification will have armour core.
• 'Mine launcher' modification. It's similar to 'Sniper' modification, but releases mines instead of accurate missiles.
• 'Evolves' modification.

Now this one is worth writing about!

Minion with 'Evolves' modification will turn into a bigger minion after some time.

E.g.: Probe will turn into the tank after 5 seconds.

You can kill probe right away or wait 5 seconds and kill tank for more XP.

But it gets more interesting because evolved minions continue evolving!

A tank will evolve to heavy, heavy to a veteran, veteran to a dreadnought, dreadnought to apparition and apparition to final form!

Final form will be a monstrous minion - even more powerful than an apparition.

It will make you think twice before enabling The Assault Of The Modified modifier.

Then again, it will always drop an extant part!

This is inspired by Borderlands 2 goliaths, that level up when enraged.

Goliaths were the best part of that game for me and I really wanted to have something like that in Sector Six.

So, that's all news for now.

Until next time!