Æterna
Official Terrarian
Announcing...
PROJECT: HAWKING*
PROJECT: HAWKING*
WHAT IS THIS?
Project: Hawking is a work in progress mod with the express intention of crafting an all new experience for all players. Within are many changes and alterations to the base game; so many that you would think you're playing an entirely new one! These changes are listed further below, and this list will be updated as the mod's development progresses.
Gone are the ways of old with how mods serve as expansions, and in is a truthfully new and refreshing experience!
WHAT'S THE STORY?
In short, Project: Hawking takes place in the Tau system far after humanity has expanded beyond Sol. Terraria, a large exoplanet, is home to both humanity and the Terrarians (that's you!), and sits in orbit of Tau Ceti alongside other planets such as the icy Kheimon and firey Vulcan. But you are not alone in this system, as a race of machines known as the Machina have populated most of the system. It's up to you and your allies to fight back against these threats and retake Tau for humanity.
Throughout, you'll explore these once abandoned planets and discover ancient ruins, new powers, unrelenting enemies and best of all: tons of loot!
WHO ARE WE (AM I)?
So far, the only working developer and overseer of the project is myself; Æterna.
I've preferred to work alone on this project for quite a while, but that may very well change in the future as things get more expansive.
WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Well, why shouldn't you care!?
With all that's been promised and more on the docket, why shouldn't you be intrigued by what we have to offer?
WHAT DO WE CHANGE?I'm glad you asked!
Below are an extensive list of planned changes, removals, additions, and other shenanigans to get you interested. Note that some things are always subject to change at any given time, so nothing will always be a constant. (Our way of saying "don't get your hopes up too high just yet")
- Mod Whitelist
- Starting with the open beta, a mod whitelist will be instituted, forcing all mods not on said list to unload and disable.
- This was done due to the drastic changes made in the mod essentially causing every other mod to break upon initially loading.
- This was also done because Project: Hawking has the express intent of being played by itself and not with other content interfering with the narrative / sandbox the mod has.
- The removal of mod compatibility does not mean their indefinite incompatibility, however, as planned events to bring back certain content from these mods will be planned eventually.
- Servers and the Concept of "Live Service"
- While I myself have been somewhat opposed to live service games, the more intended model of the mod stems from games such as Destiny 2 and Warframe, with many ingrained features being relative inspirations from the features of the previously mentioned.
- Alongside this is the concept of "social spaces" where players can commune with one another, trade, hang out or gather a team for new activities.
- These spaces, as well as most activities would be hosted on our own servers (only accessible through having a valid steam account).
- Alongside this, the mod will allow you to save your progress, your character's progress, your account's accolades and much more through this steam system.
- Unfortunately, this does entail that GOG players (as well as you nasty bilge rat pirates) will not be allowed to play the mod.
- This also means we have moderation over who does and who doesn't access our mod's servers. You can be banned at any point in time for breaking our codes of conduct.
- As for the live service portion, we intend to create "intermission" content for players to do while we work on the main content of the next expansion to the story. No, these aren't paid. We will never ask you to pay for anything in fact, unless you voluntarily donate through Patreon (which mind you is NEVER expected of any player and is actively discouraged).
- New Kinds of Content!?
- Yes, you heard that right! Under the hood, we've been working on new kinds of content to bring into the world of Terraria for players to experience.
- STORY CAMPAIGNS:
- Each expansion will recieve a long campaign for each story being told. These campaigns are roughly 8=10 missions long, with each campaign also gaining difficulty options for those that choose to replay for an added challenge.
- STORY CAMPAIGNS:
- DUNGEONS:
- A 3-man activity with several small scale encounters that are somewhat mechanic-heavy. Dungeons reward their own loot and give special rewards.
- Dungeons also cosmetically reward players who go above and beyond by either doing it solo, flawless (deathless) or the fabled "solo-flawless".
- ^ Yes, you will get extra rewards from the dungeon itself as well.
- DUNGEONS:
- INCURSIONS:
- A 6 (or 8, we haven't decided yet)-man activity which involves completing several mechanic-heavy and thought-intensive encounters in order to complete. Players will need to be well prepared in order to tackle these.
- Alongside this, each Incursion released will ALWAYS have a "day one" competition to see who can be the first team to complete the Incrusion.
- While we won't sadistically ask you to do the entire incursion solo, there is a reward for those whose team completes it flawlessly.
- INCURSIONS:
- A New Expansive World(s)
- In order to keep the world split and not cram every single area into one singular world, the entire mod will be split into various planets with many locations interspersed throughout.
- The team intends to create our own variant of the Subworld Library capable of keeping subworld loading streamlined and functional on servers.
- Subclasses and Abilities
- In order to diversify the classes, subclasses were created in order to bolster certain playstyles and support class diversity.
- For example, Mage possesses the Warlock and Cleric subclasses, one focusing on damage output while the other focuses on team support.
- Alongside these, abilities were given to each subclass, with a separate energy resource and three other variable stats that are affected by your armor stats.
- ABILITY STRENGTH: Affects your ability's damage / overall effectiveness.
- ABILITY EFFICIENCY: Affects your ability's energy cost and cast time.
- ABILITY REACH: Affects your ability's effective range and effect radius.
- Each class itself is also given an intrinsic ability that they can use at any time for no cost. (For example, Ranger's dodge)
- In order to diversify the classes, subclasses were created in order to bolster certain playstyles and support class diversity.
- Armor and C.A.R.D.
- Armor has been changed to be less of a be-all-end-all, and now functions off of a more interesting system.
- Armor grants general defense as it normally does, however it uses a separate calculation than what Terraria uses.
- Armor also gains four "C.A.R.D." stats.
- Clairvoyance: Affects ability energy regen, strength, efficiency, reach.
- Agility: Affects sprint speed and jump height.
- Recuperation: Affects health regeneration.
- Durability: Affects overall damage reduction and health buffer (basically additive health tacked on before your actual health, think overshields)
- Armors roll with random values for each of these stats, with each equipped adding to your overall stats. (Overall stats cannot exceed 10)
- Social Spaces
- A social space is a place where players from all reaches of the system convene to commune with both the residents of the social space and one another.
- Instead of opting for Town NPC move ins like with how Terraria does it, we opted for all NPCs to already be there (for the most part). They will be referred to as "vendors" in this context.
- Vendors are relative to their location, with some Vendors having their own variation on the Reputation system.
- Reputation functions much like XP for that specific Vendor or faction they may be attached to.
- Doing tasks for said Vendor will increase your reputation with them, allowing for more items to be unlocked from their stock, as well as potentially reduced prices and more.
- Reputation continually increases until max rank (rank 5), in which rep can either be reset for powerful rewards or kept.
- Social spaces also contain access to your own personal Vault!
- Gone is the old 900 chests or magic storage system. You can now store all* of your items in one, easily accessible place!
- More to be added soon. Need more time to write this.
- Weapon Changes
- TRAITS:
- Weapons no longer have prefixes.
- Replaced with the "trait" system.
- Weapons roll with four specific traits upon creation (and sometimes an intrinsic trait)
- Traits affect the weapon's performance and gives it additional abilities.
- TRAITS:
- ARCHETYPES AND SUBARCHETYPES:
- Weapons now are categorized by their respective class, archetype, and subarchetype.
- CLASS: Self explanatory. Classes can only use their respective archetypes (i.e. Only Knight can use swords, only Ranger can use guns, etc.)
- ARCHETYPE: Gives defined function of this weapon. For example, the Sniper Rifle archetype is a single shot, high damage weapon, whilst the Machine Gun is low damage but fast firing (and most times, automatic).
- SUBARCHETYPE: The specific base this weapon derives from. For example, Rapid-Fire Snipers deal less damage but fire faster, whilst Heavy Snipers deal significantly more damage at lower fire rates.
- These are not randomly determined.
- ARCHETYPES AND SUBARCHETYPES:
- Class Changes
- KNIGHT (formerly just "melee")
- Gains a Stamina meter.
- Melee weapons are no longer projectile-based, only using actual melee-like attacks.
- Melee weapons gain light and heavy attack options.
- Knight gains the ability to guard or counter-attack.
- GUARD: Blocks incoming projectile damage, consuming a small amounnt of Stamina per blocked projectile.
- COUNTER-ATTACK: Reflect an incoming melee attack to deal a significantly more powerful heavy attack for half the cost.
- KNIGHT (formerly just "melee")
- RANGER
- Removes separate ammo options. Replaced with traits.
- Introduced various stats to guns, such as range, reload speed, stability, etc.
- Introduced recoil, damage fall-off, and swap speed.
- Added the intrinsic "dodge" ability.
- RANGER
- MAGE
- Self admittedly, not much was changed with Mage to begin with.
- Added several stats, such as cast speed, cast radius, etc.
- [insert intrinsic ability]
- MAGE
- SUMMONER
- Added several new weapon archetypes.
- Added multiple summon archetypes.
- Summons no longer dependent on mana.
- Summons changed to be separate NPC-like entities.
- Summons gain health, attack, defense, etc
- SUMMONER
- Inventory / UI
- PLAYER INVENTORY TAB
- Here the player can equip various armor pieces, weapons, and other cosmetic implements that they have in their Storage Tab.
- The player can only equip three separate weapons from a selection of whatever they may have in Storage.
- Armor can be interchanged between sets, as set bonuses are no longer a thing. (Changes to armor addressed later)
- PLAYER INVENTORY TAB
- STORAGE TAB
- Storage of items has now been relegated to a better organized and categorized large inventory, capable of holding much more than the original inventory intended.
- These tabs were split between generic use-functions and types of items that'd be useful for players. For example, all weapons are in a weapons tab, enhancements in an enhancements tab, etc.
- STORAGE TAB
- CLASS / SUBCLASS TAB
- This is where you customize your subclass setup.
- Allows you to choose which subclass you are, as well as the upgrade trees, cores, and remnants attached to them!
- There's not much else to this tab beyond this, however.
- CLASS / SUBCLASS TAB
- COLLECTIONS TAB
- This is where you view every item you've had the chance of collecting over your course of play.
- This includes (but is not limited to) armor, weapons, materials, cosmetics, pets (yes there are pets), ornaments, shaders, and other misc things.
- You can also view collection Sets here. Sets function as a "checklist" for every collectible item you can get in a given Intermission or Expansion. Completing a Set gives rewards!
- COLLECTIONS TAB
- ACCOLADES TAB
- Here is where all of your triumphs and achievements are catalogued and accounted for.
- Every single challenge and milestone you make is tracked here. This is account-wide, so there's no loss of information when switching characters!
- All stats are also stored here, so you can keep track of a lot of things (such as Incursion clears, play time, etc.)
- ACCOLADES TAB
- "SERAI" TAB
- Here is where all lore entires and scannable data is stored.
- Lore entires are gathered either by collecting objects or by completing certain activities / milestones.
- You can re-read previously scanned ruins and other anomalies (as well as expanded data) here as well.
- Fun Fact: SERAI (pron. "sair-aye") is your personal assistant! Her abbreviated name stands for the "Static-linked Exoskeletal Responsive Artificial Intelligence".
- "SERAI" TAB
- Enemy Spawns
- Enemies no longer spawn randomly, instead opting for several different ways enemies can be telegraphed to spawn.
- This was done to prevent random, unmonitored spawns and allow for a more "alive" system.
- Difficulty
- In an effort to add actual hard content to the game, difficulty will not be boiling down to simple stat inflation and basic AI changes.
- Instead, drastic AI changes will be apparent, with enemies in higher difficulties slowly growing smarter to what you do.
- Alongside this, activities with separate difficulties will gain modifiers which actively add more challenge (such as taking more damage while airborne, the floor is lava, etc.)
- We wanted to better destroy what the term "difficulty" really means to the community. We're hoping these changes really throw it on its head and inspire new ways to express it.
- We also don't want to waste your time with simple challenges that can seem arbitrary. You WILL be compensated for doing harder difficulties and harder challenges.
- Note, this doesn't include simple cosmetic rewards, either.
- Vanilla Majority Content Removal
- In an effort to distance ourselves from vanilla, most of the previous content will be 'removed' and made inaccessible through normal play. This was done to keep things at odds with our own systems and forsake the heap of things left behind.
- Some content will be returning in later updates of the mod however. Be on the look out for announcements once the beta releases.
- Flying and Wings
- Unpopularly, wings and the ability to fly for long distances will be removed. If you're following, this likely won't matter that much, if at all, since our systems drastically change most aspects to the point where long-scale flight isn't necessary.
- On top of this, wings have been a "pain-point" in combat due to their ease of use and providing mobility, allowing for players to easily cheese bosses with little detriment.
- Contact Damage
- More of a "change", but contact damage is being removed in favor of a new combat system.
- This method of combat is severely limiting and underwhelming. We wanted our enemies to have a unique feel to them and their AI, so this change felt best.
CLOSING WORDS
Now I expect there to be a lot of unanswered questions regarding this project (and due to the way I left things sort of unfinished as I am strapped for time at the moment, I can understand that). If you'd like to monitor the progress of this project (and keep up to date on the goings on), be sure to drop by the discord server... when I get around to making it, that is.
I'm reachable either through the main tML server on Discord, or through here, though I self-admittedly don't use this platform that much.
If you'd like to provide feedback, please do so! I will be more than happy to answer any concerns / respond to any criticisms. All I ask is that you be respectful and keep an open mind, as I'm aware some of these things may be a bit jarring or "completely bat-schnitzel insane".
For now, though, that's the end of the post.
See you space cowboy...
~Æ
( Last updated: 10/4/2022 | 1:32PM] )* "Project: Hawking" is a placeholder in-progress name and is not the official name of the mod. This post will be updated once a proper working name has been conceptualized.
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