It's time to share with you one of the new features of version E:
the new and interactive crew creation system.
Crew is a fundamental layer in eXode
Crew members make your Evacuation possible.
They either "make it or break it".
And during colonization they are the main assets to receive orders, explore, research, produce and fight.
At some point, they are the bread and butter, the real stuff, along with your starship of course.
eXode implements extremely detailed characters but wants to propose a system "simple to play". There is a fine line here. And it's not easy in the first steps to find the right balance.
Our first draft is not perfect. It's not easy to have a very detailed and deep simulation, be fair to players, be balanced and also give control; people will crumble over the number of skills and personality attributes which have a use ingame, because eXode is a colony simulation too, with events, and events between your crew members.
Having stats and attributes means that events, and success or failure, do not come out of thin air. You have to know your risks, and for that, you have to know what people are good at.
In our first playable version we could not provide the necessary control some strategy players would enjoy. But the good news is: all of it is already getting better in version E!
The "indirect control" the player has is receiving a huge bonus in version E thanks to one thing: a new crew creation system, which is also interactive.
Getting More Control!
Yes, that's true.
You will be in control now of a few more things about your crew!
This gameplay comes before Station Approach and has no timer so you can take all your time.
While you can't min/max everything, you can now review your crew members after they are generated.
You can then rename your characters (maye with some limitations with the Veteran ones) and take decisions to adjust critical things.
Create your Number One!
Do you have a character you want to base your colony gameplay on? Name this character your XO!
Your XO is your First Officer or "Number One" and receives a huge bonus in Discipline, Loyalty and other attributes.
Augment your top Skills!
Some roll was bad and you think it's an important asset? Use your points to increase this value!
Investigate and get more information!
The skills displayed to the left are the best skills this character has rolled.
But you can explore further!
You also receive "investigation points" and you can use them to reveal more skills to increase. You can even check this character's background and even reroll it. Background will have more importance in eXode now, and knowing if this character was part of gangs before or some remote planet with a specific culture will become more interesting!
Also, you can get more points.
You can get more Investigation points if you added characters with the "Investigation" keyword in your deck, such as the Drachian Commissar!
But I know at least two other guys who have this skill...
Find them all by using our Deck Expert tool !
You just have to use our search feature and look for "investigation".
Eight cards have it, such as this guy:
All of them are part of our booster collection so they can still be found, and players have also been trading them.
When can we use this feature?
The new interactive crew system will be put into testers hands for closed testing and feedback, to check that it works in most screens and take some feedback. This will happen in a few days in our testroom. This limited demo will stop after this crew review, leaving the rest of version E undeployed.
After some more days the full version E will be put into testroom. We should be less than two weeks from it now! There will be a countdown before it's final release, as well.
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More information about EXODE can also be found on our website, our Discord, or multiple posts such as this one about our epic characters, or this trailer made by a fan, or this review or this one . A summary of latest posts and events is also here.
Also running a witness node:
You can check the post about it here and if you like what this means you can:
See you soon in eXode!