– From what I understand from the dev diaries, you will only be able to use one attachment per armor. Is this correct? Was this due to clipping/graphic compatibility issues(i.e: using two different types of shoulder pads and getting wonky looking clip as a result)? Or due to balance issues?
Actually both. We wanted the player to decide what upgrade to attach and not mindlessly stack one over the other, increasing his power to ridiculous levels.
Apart from that it would also look very silly :)
– All in all I must say it is pretty cool that you managed to make the attachments universal, with no clipping issues or any of the sort, even with the limitation of one attachment per armor. Did you have to tweak/modify the graphics on some of the original armors in order to achieve that?
Yes, but it was within limits. I only had to change the placement of some armors (mainly bandit armors) so they align better with the attachments. There will be a few odd cases where the attachment graphic might look a little wonky, but overall I think it works pretty well.
– Are the attachments permanent or will you be able to remove/exchange them at will?
We decided to make the permanent. Most of them are pretty drastic modifications to the structure of the armor (for example riveting plates all over the fabric) which would be very hard to remove. Furthermore we wanted the Player to take proper decisions and think before committing to attach an upgrade. In my playtesting runs it works pretty well this way and doesn’t feel that restrictive.
– Will the simple attachments you can buy in shops include cloaks made of fabric? Might seem like a silly request, but those fallen hero armors that have them on look pretty badass and you already have the assets. It would be a cool cheap customization option for mercs on a budget or to use on armors which are already too heavy(obviously a cloak of fabric would add pretty minor/insignificant bonuses).
We actually discussed that quite a bit. The main issues here are: If we implement “cosmetic” upgrades it’s a bit of a pain if you can’t remove them again. Furthermore I would have to offer them in a variety of colors and patterns which would again mean a bunch of work.
Our favorite solution has always been an additional inventory slot for “cosmetic” items, but it’s difficult to add something like this to a finished game, as there are so many issues with ui and other dependencies.
So -at least for now- the armor upgrades are very special items to make your mercenaries look cool and “mercenary-like” while at the same time providing significant stat boosts and unique bonuses.
Cheers!
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