Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

When Will The Repopulation Ship?

There is no official launch date at this point, but it is slated for a 2014 launch.

Will The Repopulation Require a Subscription?

No. It will be a Free To Play title with income being generated from an in-game cash shop and optional one-time membership fees.

What Will Be In the Cash Shop? Will It Be Pay To Win?

We will not be Pay To Win. It is our feeling that free players are an important part of the user base and they add to the community. We don’t want those players to feel that they are at an unfair disadvantage just because they haven’t paid. While there may be things like skill gain increase boosts, we’re looking at lower increases than the 100%+ than has become standard in modern MMOs. We also don’t plan on adding items of power, such as potent armor, weapons or fittings. We do feel that players should earn whatever they get. That having been said, we do have to generate revenue in some way.

So what does that leave?

Account perks for one. Things like extra bank, inventory or character slots. Cosmetic items such as different armor or weapon looks. Non-combat oriented cosmetic or convenience items such as new hairstyles or furniture may also be available. We’ll explore and adjust as necessary.

Are Spaced Names Supported?

Players are allowed to have a single space in their name. This allows players to have the same first names but different last names to other players.

Will There Be a Day/Night Cycle?

Yes there will. Not only will it get darker at night, but NPCs may despawn or move locations at different times of day. You may see something similar to Fireflies at night time in some locations. Lights and Signs may also turn on or off, and some shops will close.

How About Weather Effects?

Yes. They will also change.

Can You Learn the Languages of Indigenous Species?

Some indigenous species do have their own language, and may be willing to teach it to those who befriend them. Learning these languages can open up new opportunities, and will also allow you to decipher what these NPCs are saying, rather than it being garbled. But you won’t be able to speak to others in those languages.

Do You Support Player Titles?

Players can earn both Prefix and Suffix titles.

Are There Rewards For Exploration?

New exploration points will reward you a permanent one-time skill boost to a skill related to that area. In addition to this, engagements and one time missions will spawn randomly throughout the world and reward players for discovering them.

Why is my Forum Account or Backer Icon Missing?

If you registered your forum account between June-September 2013 there is a chance your forum account information was lost as a result of a backup failure. If your account is missing, please re-register using the same username if possible. If you were an backer of the project, please email support@therepopulation.com and we'll take care of you as soon as possible.

Combat Related

How Does RPG Mode Work?

RPG Mode is your basic MMORPG combat mode. You place abilities into your action bar and then click on them or click a hotkey to activate them. They have recharge timers to limit how often you can use more powerful abilities. This mode is your standard MMORPG mode.

How Does Action Mode Work?

Action Mode allows you to play the game as though you were playing a First Person Shooter. You aim at your crosshair, which moves as you rotate the mouse. You can then interact with friendly targets or attack enemy targets by clicking the mouse. The default method is to do a normal attack/interaction/buff when you click the Left Mouse Button, and to do a Momentum based attack/interaction/buff when you click the Right Mouse Button. There is also a Defensive Modifier button which can be held to change this action to a Defensive ability or an alternate buff type in the case of a friendly target.

You must still obtain new special abilities in order to be able to perform them. Once you have earned different abilities though it will switch to them automatically based on how you fired and what it hit. For example landing a single shot at an enemy’s head may do a Head Shot ability if you know one. Otherwise it may fall back to a basic attack. Shooting twice in an opponent's legs might do a Double Leg Shot if you had one, and might fall back to a Leg Shot next, then a Double Shot, and then a basic attack. Firing near an opponent and not hitting them may do a Suppressing Fire ability.

Ability timers and the selection process is designed to allow players to simply click and play and for Action Mode to determine the ability that best suits their actions.

Won’t Action Mode Add To Lag?

No it will not. From a server perspective Action Mode and RPG Mode are the exact same thing. Action Mode is simply a different control scheme that allows you to play the game as you would play a First Person Shooter.

All of the Action Mode calculations happen client side. We track where you clicked, what it hit, other players or objects it was near, what body location it hit, how many times you fired, etc. We then take into account which abilities you have obtained for your current weapon type, and whether or not they are on cooldown or available. It first tries to select the best ability, and then continues to fall back to the next best fit until eventually it falls all the way back to a basic attack. It then sends whatever ability was chosen to the server, in the same way it would have sent a RPG Mode request.

Won’t Action Mode Players Be At An Aiming Disadvantage?

It’s important to note that since this is a faked FPS system, you don’t necessarily have to click an opponent for it to register as a hit. It will take all the information at its disposal into account and try to determine what you were shooting at. For example if you last fired at Joe Schmo and then a second later you fired a shot that barely missed him, it might register as a hit because it would have determined this was your most likely attempt.

Can You Target Specific Limbs?

You can target specific limbs, assuming you have an ability that supports it.

• Body Shots are your baseline attack. They are most accurate and have moderate damage.
• Leg Shots can slow your opponent, and additional legs shots can stop them in their tracks until they receive medical attention. They are tougher to land than body shots.
• Arm Shots can reduce an opponent’s accuracy and attack speed.They are tougher to land as well.
• Head shots are the least accurate, but most damaging attacks. They can cause disorienting effects.

What Are Openings?

Openings are situations that leave an opponent exposed in one way or another, and are caused by abilities. They are a type of combat state such as being knocked off balance, knocked down, bleeding, being disoriented, burning, having a broken arm, being motivated or disheartened. These openings make you more vulnerable to (or better protected from) certain types of attacks. For example shoving an opponent might knock him backwards slightly and could also knock them off balance if you’re lucky. If it does knock them off balance, they would then be far more vulnerable to other abilities which may now knock them down where they could not previously.

Many of our special abilities have baseline effects, and then extended effects that only take place if a certain opening is present. Through coordinating your attacks with allies, you can increase your combat effectiveness, as a result.

What Are Postures?

There are three combat postures: Standing, Kneeling or Lying Prone. Each posture has its own unique advantages and disadvantages.

Standing is your base posture. It offers the highest movement rate, and the best melee protection, while offering the lowest ranged accuracy and ranged defense. Kneeling lowers your movement speed, and makes you more vulnerable to melee attacks, but increases your ranged defense and accuracy. Lying Prone offers the same bonuses and penalties as Kneeing, but to a greater extreme.

Some abilities can only be used in certain positions. For example, some sniper abilities will not be available if you are standing, but can be used if you are kneeling or prone. What Are the Benefits of Cover?

You can take cover behind certain objects in game. Simply standing between one of these objects and your opponent will provide you with defensive bonuses. If you kneel behind cover you will receive an even higher bonus.

How Do Combat Roles Work?

Each weapon type fills into a specific combat role. Depending on which type of weapon you have equipped, you are thus changing your role in combat. Special Abilities for each weapon are themed around that role. For example a Shotgun is medium-range cone of fire AoE. A Sniper Rifle is for long ranged, slow firing DPS. And an Axe specializes in point blank AoE.

How Does Armor Work?

Armor types have different forms of protection against different damage types. Some weapons are more effective against some types of armor.

What Is Momentum?

Momentum is a reflection of how well things are going for your character. As positive events occur, you gain Momentum. You lose it when negative events occur. An example of a positive event would be landing a critical blow, or being motivated by an ally. An example of a negative event would be having one of your allies die.

What is Momentum Used For?

Certain abilities require, and often consume some of your Momentum. These abilities are generally more powerful than regular abilities.

Not all abilities require the same amount of Momentum, however. You will need to make choices whether or not you should spend Momentum quickly on mediocre abilities, or save it up for more powerful ones.

What Is Species Mastery?

Species Mastery allows you to learn about each of the NPC species by dissecting them. This can provide some resources for crafting materials, and also aids your knowledge of an animal’s vitals. With higher mastery levels you gain passive bonuses when fighting that particular species.

Will There Be Group And Raid Content?

There will be a large variety of it. Both through engagements and with world bosses. Our bosses use a generated special ability system which allows them to choose a few random abilities from a larger pool for their species and difficulty tier. So even if you face the same boss twice he may have drastically different special abilities the second time through, forcing you to adjust your tactics on the fly.

Engagements

What is an Engagement?

Engagements are similar to public quests in other games, except they are mutable and can spread based on how players react to them. They are not always active, in fact some are quite rare. Some occur regularly at certain locations, and others are rare throughout the world.

For those not familiar with public quests, this was an innovation first seen in Warhammer Online. Any player from the appropriate faction who entered into an area when one of these public quests was active would be given objectives that were shared by the other players. If you participated in the goals, and successfully completed the public quest then you would have a chance at automated rewards. This system was innovative in that players worked together with other players under a common goal, without needing to group or speak to them. But what often happened was they began to invite those other players, and befriend them as they’d see the same player repeatedly in these locations.

What Do You Mean By Mutable?

When an engagement begins it has specific goals. These goals could be to defend a station from attackers, to collect some lost items, protect an npc, etc. There is also often a time limit to complete the goals.

If the players complete all the goals during the specified time limit then this engagement is considered a success. Even if they fail then it can be considered for varying levels of failure based on if it were a time limit based failure, or if they failed some or all of the goals. Each of these results can tell an engagement what to do next.

It could end the engagement in which case this engagement region would go to sleep and then randomly choose any of the other engagements available to activate at a later time. Or it could cause the engagement to mutate into a different engagement or a new random engagement based on those results.

For example, the Aemar Mine is mining operation that is four levels in depth. Many missions can center around this mine when it is in normal operations as there are numerous different NPC types working inside. The top level is subject to occasional raids by the Lesoo tribes. They take no prisoners, will start at the top and then slowly spread to the other levels. If you allow them to take over a level they will set up camp there. What was once a mission hub has now turned into a dungeon. The longer you allow them to occupy the deeper they become entrenched and the more bosses that become available inside. New missions will become available centering around the occupation. Once you clear the Lesoo out, operations will return to normal.

The above example is just one of many different engagements that can occur within these mines.

Can You Explain How Engagements Spread?

The world is split up into Regions and each area can contain many of them. Engagement spawners are attached to each of these regions and can also be assigned parents and children. When an engagement reaches success or fail conditions it not only has control over its own engagements, but it can also send an engagement change request to its child or parent regions.

Both positive and negative changes can spread. This allows players to have some effect on their environment.

Will You Be Able to See a Counter of Remaining Goals?

While we may show specific numbers on a case by case basis (Such as Hostages Remaining ?), in general you will be given a generic goal like “Protect the Hostages” instead. We felt like specific counters, especially when you had large numbers of NPCs or objects, just felt too artificial.

Will You Be Able to See the Time Remaining?

Similar to the Remaining Goals question above, we felt that having a specific timer felt too artificial in most cases. This can be overridden for specific engagements.

How Are Rewards Assigned?

Engagement rewards are assigned automatically. Not every exit condition gives a reward. It should be noted that there can be success and failure rewards, and rewards that are given to all participants, or only to the top performers.

There are some random elements in the top performer calculations for balance.

What Will PvP Engagements Be Like?

PvP Engagements will fill the roles that were typically filled by instanced PvP, except in a world environment, by providing goal based PvP. This might be something as simple as capturing an NPC controlled city. It could also be something much more complex like aiding an infiltration camp and if you succeed having it grow and expand it can turn into a base. From one side you will have infiltration and establishment goals, and from the other side you would have goals to destroy the encampments.

How Can Engagements Alter the Environment?

Engagements can completely alter NPC, Monster and Boss spawns. They can alter weather or fog effects in some cases. They can add new particles, models, lights, missions, etc. They feature many ways to show control over the environment.

Will There Be Engagements In Dungeons?

Most dungeons will use engagements to alter their content and ensure that they are not always a static experience.

Are There Region Specific Engagements?

Yes. Some engagements are designed to be reused throughout the world, where others are designed to target specific locations. We can add and remove engagements to any of the engagement spawners and set the frequency with which they will activate when an engagement is idle. This allows us to place certain themes in certain locations to provide backstory or server events.

Items

How Do Fittings Differ From Sockets or Augmentations In Other Games?

The key difference between our fittings and other games implementations of them is that nearly all of our Weapon and Armors allow you to outfit them with 5 fittings. In essence the actual Weapon or Armor piece is just a shell that determines its type, visual appearance and basic stats. You can then customize that item to your liking through the use of fittings.

In What Ways Can You Enhance An Item Through Fittings?

Fittings can be used to enhance an item in just about every way supported, though not all fittings work for all armor types. Some examples of Fitting improvements include: Penetration vs. an Armor type, Critical Chance/Multipliers, Attack Speed, Procs, Damage, Accuracy, Range, Aggro, Defensive Stats, Momentum Gain or Retention, Energy Costs, Durability, Damage Reduction, Stealth, Running Speed, etc.

How Do Fitting Points Work?

Each item can support a number of fitting points that is determined by your skill level with that weapon or armor type. The higher your skill, the more points are available. Each equipped fitting will use some of these points, and the more powerful the fitting the more points it will consume while equipped.

How Does Repair Work?

Over time your gear will take damage and need to be repaired. This can be done using repair kits or the repairing skill. Kits or players of higher skill will repair more damage, with less chance of damaging an item. If an item becomes damaged its quality level will permanently drop making it less effective than before. This mechanic allows us to remove items from the economy over time, provide purpose for crafters, and helps to prevent inflation. As a result, just about everything in the game can be removed and resold and the only bind on pickup/use items will be cosmetic ones through the online store.

I see a lot of xxyyz Fitting, what is up with that?

Each fitting has a level along with a grade value. Instead of having a bunch of different items we elected to make better use of what we had. Each fitting can mutate slightly based on the grade and can even include additional stats that were not present before. The recipes as well can produce different results offering a lot of additional options without a bunch of extra items or fittings out there.

Missions

What Are Missions?

Missions are similar to quests in a fantasy based game. Unlike most traditional quest/mission systems though our missions are largely generated and repeatable.

Will Generated Missions Be Simplistic?

While some missions are designed to be simple and quick distractions, others will be epic in scope. The more complex missions will generally give better rewards to compensate for the time required to complete them.

Won’t Generated Missions Feel Canned?

Missions are designed using a template system. We can create complex storylines with them. Just about any quest feature you have seen in other games is supported in our mission system. The key difference between our generated missions and other games static missions is that the generated missions ask for criteria of NPCs rather than than hard coding to a specific NPC.

For example a mission template in previous games that asked you to pick up an item from a local Metallurgist would hard code it to the one Metallurgist in that area. Our mission generation system will find a Metallurgist near your current area. We can give multiple types of filters for each of the NPCs in a mission. For example NPC #1 might be any NPC, where NPC #2 might require an Eccentric Scientist in a Creative Mood. NPC 3 might require any NPC with a Rude personality. Some of these traits are mutable, for example an NPCs moods, dilemmas or causes can change, and those changes can cause an NPC to become available for new mission templates.

We can also use multiple generated hostiles and filter them by a difficulty ranges, or specify static NPC types if we so choose. We can use a mix of static or generated items, and generated crafted items, as well.

Will the Same Missions Be Available In Every Area?

Each mission template can specify which areas it is available within. This allows us to have some templates which can be generated throughout the world, and others which are specific to a certain region.

Do Any Missions Branch?

Many missions have variable outcomes or paths. Your interactions with NPCs happen using a chat bubble system that allows you to select from up to four responses to any NPCs inquiries. You should actually read this text because your choices can have an effect on how your mission will branch. Some options may allow you to complete a mission more quickly, and others will unlock bonus steps or rewards.

Some of these response options also allow you to perform skill checks. For example, you may have the option to use your Diplomacy skill to try to influence an NPC to let you slide. This will perform a check against your Diplomacy skill. If you succeed you may have just taken a shortcut past a point, or may open up a bonus branch. But if you fail, you may make the mission take a turn for the worse.

Do My Actions During Missions Have a Long-term Meaning?

Quite a few of our mission templates force a character to make a decision that may have a long-term effect on their character. If you are Rude, Generous, Greedy, or any number of other traits towards NPCs, they will take notice. Your reputation will spread and you may receive different reactions from them in the future, or they may offer new missions or branches based on how NPCs expect you to react. You may find yourself running into traps by NPCs who take advantage of your reputation.

You will also earn achievements through your travels, which you may or may not be aware of. These achievements can be used as mission filters in the future. If you went out of your way to rescue someone, that may be beneficial to you later. If you continually choose the darker path, you may gain the attention of Underworld types.

Can I Disable Missions From Being Generated?

To disable missions from being generated, you simply uncheck the Looking For Work flag in the Mission Window.

How Do We Receive Generated Missions?

Generated Missions are mailed to you using an in-game email system. Mails can be checked from any location using your PDA. The NPC will describe their situation briefly, and you will be given a chance to accept or deny the mission.

What If I Only Want to Do a Certain Type of Mission?

The Mission Window allows you to filter for a specific type of mission. Filter types include: Any, Combat Only, Trades Only, Diplomatic Only, Harvesting Only, Underworld Only, Epic Only, Non-Combat Only, and Trade/Harvest.

Are There Mission Chains?

Yes there are. Certain mission templates are only available if you have completed certain other missions, or certain other achievements. Missions can have many prerequisites attached to them.

Are All Missions Repeatable?

No. Most generated missions are repeatable, but some are not. This is specified on a per-mission basis.

Will All Missions Be Combat Oriented?

Plenty of mission templates involve no combat at all. Some are menial courier tasks, others are diplomatic, some require rogue skills, others ask you to craft specific items or harvest specific materials.

What About Group Missions?

Some missions will be targeted for groups or multiple groups. This is indicated in the mission journal with a visual marker.

How Will Rewards Be Distributed In Groups?

Any mission completed while in a group will automatically share some of the rewards with your allies. In addition to just sharing the rewards, there is a bonus to the rewards while in a group. We hope that this encourages players to group up and work together.

Could You Explain Epic Missions?

Epic Missions are long and complex missions that often result in very nice rewards. These missions will be time consuming. Some of them may require some thought to figure out. Not all epic missions require groups, and not all are combat oriented.

Does That Mean There are No Static Missions?

No. We also support static missions but they are far less prevalent than in Theme Park based games. Our static missions are generally faction raising, bounty or collection related.

What Are One Time Missions?

One Time missions are a special type of mission which spawns randomly in more obscure locations throughout the world. They are designed to encourage exploration. These missions will only be completable once. Once someone has completed the mission, the NPC will despawn.

Will Missions Make Me Think?

Some missions will require problem solving and others will not. Players have the option of rejecting missions or aborting them at any time if they prefer a simpler approach.

Will All Missions Have Markers to the Necessary NPCs?

Not all of them, it varies on a mission to mission basis. Most easier mission templates do have markers to NPCs, or the general area of where you should go. More complex or epic missions may not.

Why Have Missions When You Already Have Engagements?

We feel as though both serve different goals. Engagements are fantastic for getting players working together by happenstance. But their scope is generally limited to a particular situation. There is a limit on how long you can expect players to be able to work together towards a goal before some need to log off.

Missions meanwhile can be epic in scale and span the globe.

Won’t Doing Missions Slow Down My Skill Up Rate?

A common reward for completing a mission is a DNA. This DNA can be spliced with your own at medical facilities to provide a boost to a skill of your choosing. There are different categories of DNA targeted at specific boost types. Our goal is for these DNA rewards to compensate for any time a player loses while running around, so that grinding mobs isn’t the fastest way to skill up.

What Types of Rewards Will We Receive From Missions?

You can receive Credits, Items, Fittings, Crafting Components, Recipes, DNA, Achievements, Reputation, Titles, Languages and Faction.

Nations, Cities, and Structures

What Is a Nation?

Nations are similar to Guilds in other games. They are a collection of players unified under a common goal. Nations can be attached to one of the major factions (OWON or FPR) or they can be considered Rogue Nations. While OWON Nations can not attack other OWON players, and FPR cannot attack FPR, Rogue Nations can be attacked by any other nation that is not allied.

Can We Declare Wars Or Forge Alliances With Other Nations?

You can set your reactions towards other nations to one of five different levels: Ally, Peaceful, Neutral, Hostile, or Nemesis. Units can be set to attack players below a certain alliance level. Both nations need to approve positive alliance changes such as becoming Allies, but you can become more hostile without the permission of the opposing nation.

Can a Nation Own More Than One City?

Yes, they can. You will be able to view all of your nation’s cities through a tab in the nation window.

Do I Need to Join a Nation to Build A City?

Player created cities are attached to the nation who owns the control center, so yes. There are however generic OWON and FPR nations which you will be automatically joined to when you create your character. You can leave those nations to form your own or join another if you see fit.

What Are the Responsibility of Mayors?

Mayors are responsible for managing a particular city. This includes managing a city’s resources to improve it in many different ways including: Artillery, Armory, Barracks, Construction Yards, Cloning Facilities, Electronics, Hospitals, Military Training, Laboratories, Fortifications, Markets and Industrial upgrades.

How Many Ranks Can A Nation Have?

You can currently create as many as 99 different access levels, and each can be given a custom name.

What Do Nation Ranks Affect?

Nation Ranks affect your permissions to do any type of functionality. They determine if you can do things like buy Nation or Personal Structures, Change Alliances, Create Blueprints, Invite, Demote or Kick other members, Destroy, Rotate or Lock Structures, Place Buildings, Harvesters, Control Centers or Walls, Use Nation Funds or Withdraw Credits from the Nation Bank.

Player Vs Player

What Will Player vs. Player Combat Be Like?

There will be Player vs. Player combat. We plan to initially support two rulesets, and will consider additional rulesets (such as a PvE server) if enough demand for them exists.

The base ruleset will feature a partially protected PvP method. You will not be attackable by anyone within your starting faction. You start as Inactive Military, which means that you can not attack or be attacked by opposing faction members in protected areas owned by your parent nation. This makes up the area near the starting cities and provides content that you can use as a safe haven for skilling up. In the middle of the two nations is a more remote area, where player created cities will be formed and which is unprotected. When in these areas you can be attacked by rival nation members. You can switch to Active Military on these servers to allow you to attack members of opposing nations in the protected areas, but only if they are also Active Military. There is no item looting from other players on these servers. PvP is for fun and to raise your military rank.

The hardcore ruleset forces all players to be Active Military from the beginning. This means that they have no safe havens. Friendly guards will still aid them though. Item looting will be enabled in some form on these servers, as well.

Can You Conquer a Rival Nations Cities?

You can conquer a rival nation’s cities by destroying their control center and placing your own within it. This is a time consuming process that will require a lot of effort.

What Kind of Protection Do Our Cities Have From Attacks?

Cities have many options for protection. You can build walls to make it difficult for enemies to penetrate inside. You can build turrets which can be set to attack your enemies. There are also structures that will spawn units such as guards to protect your city.

These protection methods are intended to give the defender an advantage in situations where they may be outnumbered. We want to make conquering cities a difficult process.

Will There Be Instanced PvP?

We do not currently have plans for instanced PvP. We feel that separating players in instances removes them from the world, and creates less opportunity for world PvP.

That having been said we will have PvP oriented Engagements that will have some of the same objective based goals that you normally receive from instanced PvP, only in a world setting.

Skills

What Classes Will There Be?

There are no classes as The Repopulation is completely skills based. Players will begin the game with a full set of possible skills, but will be unskilled with all of them. These skills can be increased through use, or by rewards obtained through the mission system.

What Is the Maximum Number of Skills You Can Master?

You could technically master every skill if you had an unlimited amount of time. Mastering a skill tree will take a considerable amount of time though.

Will Mastering Many Skills Make Veteran Players Overpowered?

The Repopulation is designed so that the difference between a veteran and a new player is much more subtle than in a level based game. Mastering multiple combat skills will allow you to switch to different roles in combat, but since your role is tied to your weapons you will only be able to perform one role at a time. You won’t be much more powerful than a player who has only mastered a single combat skill, your advantage will instead be in the ability to adapt to different roles.

What About Crafting and Multiple Skills?

Similar to other skill lines, there is no limit to what you can master through crafting. Unlike traditional crafting systems though, we have a limiting crafting supply that runs dry. The bottleneck for crafting is obtaining the materials.

In addition to this you not only gain skill within your craft, but each individual recipe also has its own mastery system. The more you produce a certain recipe, the higher the quality of the results you will be able to craft. The combination of those two traits helps ensure that a specialist crafter should be able to provide the highest quality possible, where a jack-of-all-trades crafter would have to spend an immense amount of additional playtime to achieve the same results.

Why Didn’t You Elect To Cap Skills?

We didn’t cap the number of skills that you can master because we didn’t want to create a situation where players felt a need to create alts. Creating alts changes your character and name, and causes you to lose your persona and reputation. Traditionally players feel the need to do this because they want to try a new class, or trade skill, or they have consumed the games content. In the Repopulation though we have an endless supply of generated content. So rather than force you to start a new character and re-level through older content we felt the better solution was to allow you to simply skill up a new line, but to balance skills so that you could only play one combat role at a time.

Within a skill tree there is a diminishing return system which ensures that you gain very little after a certain point. There will be no more abilities and only a very tiny passive increase. If we add additional tiers post-launch though you may find yourself qualifying for any new abilities automatically.

What Skills Are In The Game?

The list of skills includes: Animal Handling, Diplomacy, First Aid, Intimidation, Leadership, Veterinary Medicine, Acrobatics, Concentration, Disguise, Stealth, Energy Tank Tactics, Light Armor Tactics, Medium Armor Tactics, Heavy Armor Tactics, Shield Tactics, Aerosol Tactics, Assassination, Automatic Weaponry Tactics, Axe Fighting, Bladed Weapon Tactics, Blunt Weapon Tactics, Combat Knowledge, Counter-Attack, Dirty Fighting, Dual Wielding, Handgun Tactics, Laser Tactics, Protection, Rifle Tactics, Shotgun Tactics, Thrown Weapon Tactics, Unarmed Tactics, Survival, Swimming, Thievery, Tracking, Vehicle Control, Armor Crafting, Artillery, Carpentry, Chemistry, Cosmetic Styling, Culinary Arts, Cybernetics, Firearms Crafting, Fishing, Foresting, Genetic Engineering, Hacking, Horticulture, Installations, Melee Weapons Crafting, Mining, Pharmaceuticals, Repairing, Robotics, Tailoring, Trap Knowledge, Vehicle Engineering, WIlderness Gathering, Aerosol Defense, Automatic Weaponry Defense, Axe Defense, Bladed Weapon Defense, Blunt Weapon Defense, Defensive Knowledge, Defensive Tactics, Dodging, Handgun Defense, Laser Defense, Parrying, Rifle Defense, Shotgun Defense, and Thrown Weapon Defense.

In addition to this there are several advanced skill lines that will only be attained by true achievers, and which we have yet to release information on in order to not spoil their contents.

How Does Diplomacy and Intimidation Work?

Diplomacy and Intimidation are ways of manipulating NPCs, either through diplomatic means or by attempting to bully them. You can use these both through the mission dialog system, and as special abilities. An example of a Diplomatic combat ability would be to convince an NPC to attack someone other than yourself, where an Intimidation based ability might strike fear in the heart of your opponent.

What Pet Types Are There?

Tamed Pets can be obtained by taming animals when they are still babies. These pets will grow and mature through proper feeding and Veterinary attention. If you do not properly care for tamed pets they will permanently die. These pets retain the special abilities of their species, and can grow to be quite powerful.

Robotic Pets serve a specific role such as a Combat Bot or a Medical Bot. They must be repaired and also consume batteries. They are not quite as powerful as Tamed Pets in combat, but are easier for upkeep and can perform non-combat roles.

Genetically Engineered Pets are created by Genetic Engineers by splicing DNA of one or more species. They are the least powerful of the three pet types, but have the most variety in special abilities due to being able to create hybrids. They are also more easily controlled. The downside of these pets is that once they are killed, they are permanently dead.

Tradeskills

Do I Need To Fight Monsters To Be A Crafter?

You can exist without any combat in the Repopulation if you so choose. However, in some cases the natural resources you need are most easily collected through combat. It really depends on the trade skill.

A trade skill that relies on hides would benefit from some combat to obtain those hides through Corpse Extraction, but they could also be bought from other players or obtained through missions. Other materials such as metals are far easier to obtain through harvesting than combat.

Will Crafted Items Be Useful?

Very much so. Not only will you be able to craft a variety of different items, but the highest quality crafted components will be the best gear in the game.

Won’t High Grade Craftables Limit the Function of Raids?

Raid bosses will drop a mixture of very good items, and crafting components which can be used by crafters to create some amazing items. They will certainly still have a place.

Will The Best Crafting Materials Only Come From Raids?

No. They will also be available rarely from manual harvesting and epic missions.

What Are the Differences Between Manual and Automated Harvesting?

Automated Harvesting is a hands off approach that involves placing a harvester and letting it slowly harvest resources for you. Manual harvesting requires you to interact with randomly spawning resource nodes to extract resources from them. Manual harvesting is faster and gives you a chance at obtaining rare materials.

How Does Corpse Extraction Work?

Corpse Extraction is a harvesting skill used on a dead creature. This ability can improve your Species Mastery of that species, but also can result in harvests for that specific species type. The higher your Species Mastery with that species, the higher grade and quality your results will be.

You have the choice of doing a Quick harvest here which will automate the extraction process. Or you can choose to manually tweak how you harvest, to look for specific grades or to attempt to reach a higher grade.

Are Resources Unlimited?

No they are not. If an area becomes overharvested it will produce resources less often. If an area has not been harvested in a while it will produce plenty of them. This system is meant to encourage players to harvest in more obscure locations, rather than in the safest possible areas.

Will everyone be producing the same results?

No, our system is setup to allow for a grade and sub-grade quality for each result. So you can produce anywhere from an F-A result along with a sub-grade of 0-9. A result with a grade of B5 is going to be better than a C5 and a good deal of all the components that go into a recipe are created from another recipe so you have the chance to create better quality ingredients to get a better quality result. The better you are at a certain recipe and the higher your skill the easier it will be to create the higher quality B and A grade results. Harvested materials make use of this system as well and the higher quality materials is what everyone will be after.

Can a recipe create multiple results?

It is possible, not every recipe will do this though, but it is possible that a grade A might produce a completely different result than a grade B. Each level of result also can produce a different result if designed to do so. In addition, we make use of what we call filter ingredients that can change the result as well. These can be used to produce an off balanced fitting as an example or an altogether different result. There could literally be 100s of different results from a single recipe based on all of these factors if we wanted the recipe to do it.

Are there rare recipes?

If you are asking are there recipes that are harder to earn the answer is right now they are all fairly common knowledge. Since a recipe is linked to many different results it is possible to have rare results linked to a recipe. Most "rarity" in the process is from producing high grade results that are more sought after than the lower grade counter parts.

Is there any other randomness to the results?

We make use of what we call the crafting Event system to provide random options to playing during the crafting process. Many times they will get 2 or more options that have a variety of risk/reward scenarios. You can take it safe not to waste the process or risk a higher reward at a high chance it will actually make it far worse. These events will also require an ingredient to function properly and each recipe can have a certain set of events and more can be added in during development.

Vehicles

What types of vehicles will be available?

Many vehicles are designed solely for transportation. But others are geared towards combat, or can be upgraded to support it.

What Are Vehicle Upgrades?

Vehicle Upgrades are similar to Fittings but for Vehicles. Different vehicles can accept different types of upgrades