Dev Diary #43: Construct Loot, Blueprints, and Workshop - Construct Update 1

It is finally time to let you know about the first bigger update of the MENACE Early Access.

Please keep in mind that while we are working on the big milestone updates you find on the roadmap, we are simultaneously improving balancing, reworking the UI, tweaking the AI, adding minor content like items and operations, and fixing bugs. We will, of course, keep doing that throughout Early Access and beyond.

We hope to deliver this update to the Early Access build soon. We will keep you updated on the date!

Breaking the Mold

The tools that the players in MENACE can employ so far are mostly conventional weapons and equipment that were devised by human scientists and manufacturers. With the advent of the Constructs, the basics of what is known by humans and what is technically possible get substantially warped and broken up. Unknown alloys, materials, and technical components are employed by the Constructs and wait to be investigated, researched, and ultimately weaponized to level the playing field.

As the Constructs are not using any weapons or items that humans can interact with, only components, parts, and leftovers can be looted from destroyed construct entities. Turning these into anything useful requires a lot of dedication and resources, but will ultimately expand the possibilities of the TCR units beyond what's comprehensible.

The items that can be created from Construct leftovers will move the game's item progression from the midgame to the late game and will, at the same time, add many more high-tech and SciFi items that move the feeling and setting away from a conventional modern military setting. The items created through the new system will still be as immersive as possible, with punchy and satisfying visuals and sounds, and will fit in well with existing gear.

Construct Loot

For the new system, the first step is to overhaul Construct loot. The items gathered from these cybernetic enemies will no longer just be valuable trade goods but they will be actually useful.

There will be seven new loot items that are dropped by certain enemy units. Each item can be found with a different probability on a different unit.

Also, some are way more common than others.

Here is a first glimpse at the new Loot items:

Here you can see volatile reagents, mutated tissue, advanced alloys, construct weapon parts, cybernetic optics, bioprocessors, and fusion power cells. Of course, these can be traded on the black market like other loot, but they can be much more useful than that!

Blueprints and Tech Level

As soon as Construct remains spread through the Wayback, frantic research is undertaken all over the system. Most of the results are sealed behind heavy doors, but some of these blueprints find their way to the black market through shady avenues.

As the items gathered from the Constructs themselves have no use for humans, they have to be transformed or, more easily, used to improve existing, already tested items. The efforts to find actual uses for these items are very costly, cheaper for simple items, and more expensive for advanced ones.

In the new system, we will add three categories of blueprints that can be acquired through the black market by spending trade value. This is a very abstract system that symbolizes spending time, resources, and other means to find actual combat-relevant uses of construct items.

The blueprints have tech levels one, two, or three. These levels symbolize the respective complexity of a project. Tech level one items will most likely be slightly modified, and improved