Gameplay F.A.Q.
Q: What is the gameplay loop?
A: In a nutshell:
- Salvage ships to earn credits and increase your Rank at LYNX Corp.
- New Ranks unlock new tools and upgrades
- Complete work orders to gain LYNX tokens to purchase upgraded gear
- Use your new tools to tackle continuously larger, more difficult and more dangerous ships.
Q: How much debt do I owe Lynx at the start of the story campaign?
A: $999,999,999! If you die and have to pay to get cloned early in the campaign, it can jump past the 1 Billion mark.
Q: Do credits made from salvaging ships go straight to paying off debt or do you have an option to pay debt or buy upgrades?
A: Currently credits go directly to paying off your debt. Certain supplies can be purchased at the Kiosk in your bay that will add to your debt. Lynx Tokens are used to purchase upgrades.
Q: Will each ship have a time limit?
A: There are timed shifts! From the second you enter the bay the clock starts ticking. However you can take as many shifts as you need to complete a ship. Just remember LYNX will charge you a bay rental fee for each shift you take so efficiency pays.
Q: Is it possible to deconstruct an ENTIRE ship?
A: It is! Every single part of every ship is a dynamic physics object — which means that no part of the ship is “baked” into the world just for decoration. Sometimes you need to seek out weak points to sever the denser structure to pull the ship apart, but you can certainly “clean your plate” as we like to say.
Q: Can I select the gender of the character I play as?
A: On day one there will be a single Player character “voice” to choose from (Gender unspecified) BUT we plan on adding more options during early access. It is important to us that the character represents the Player as much as possible to help immerse them into the experience as best we can.
Q: Is there somewhere you go in between salvaging ships?
A: Between shifts you return to your HAB. There you can explore the catalog of ships available, repair or upgrade your tools, view the contents of data drives you salvaged, etc. And it’s something we’ll keep expanding on.
Q: Will there be any player customization options?
A: We’d love to look at this more in the future and see what other things Players want to customize to help them express themselves in the game. One of our goals long-term is to allow Players to customize the HAB space (as well as your gear). For example, it would be rad to carve the name out of the side of a ship and hang it on your wall! But for now, these are just ideas that may or may not make their way into the game. We’re excited to hear yours!
Q: Will there be different dockyards for us to operate in?
A: Currently, Players have a single salvage bay at Morrigan Station to salvage in – but we shall see. :slight_smile:
Q: How many hours of gameplay will there be?
A: We’ve got 15+ hours of gameplay ready for you on Early Access launch day and CAN’T WAIT to see what you think once you get to spend some time with it! In terms of the final game release, we’re looking at approximately 40+ hours worth of campaign content. But there will be 3 different Campaign difficulties to play in, each with different rules and rewards, so that number could grow exponentially for those that enjoy the challenge. Plus we have additional game modes incoming during Early Access that will provide hours and hours of additional gameplay goodness. That 40+ hour mark could end up being laughably low for Players that dive deep into the game.
Q: Is the gameplay hours estimate describing the time players will take to finish the story or how much voiceover/other story work must be done in order for the story to be considered “complete”?
A: Those numbers “roughly” represent the amount of time the average Player will spend interacting with meaningful narrative content, whether it’s the main story-thread of the game or other worldbuilding seeded throughout (such as personal data drives you find inside ships, which can be decrypted to view the files on them and learn more about the world). There’s LOTS to do in between all that of course; Players are free to spend as much time as they want perfecting their salvage skills!
Q: What are the ships releasing in Early Access? What are their differences besides size?
A: The Mackerel and the Gecko(formerly known as the Salamander) are the first ships in Early Access. Each comes in a variety of roles / functions that dictate how they’re configured and what kind of salvage you’ll find inside them. The Mackerel currently has three such “variants” and the Gecko has two. We’ll let you discover what those roles are. And more roles for both are coming in Early Access. In terms of size difference, the Mackerel can be between 20 to 30 meters, and the Gecko is between 50 to 60 meters.
Q: What is the largest planned vessel for the game at the moment?
A: We’re aiming for 100+ meters. There are obviously technical constraints we need to work within, but that’s the target!
Q: How many different internal systems are you looking at having? What sort of other obstacles might we have to work around when deconstructing a ship?
A: There’s a lot going on inside these ships! There are electrical systems (which also affect whether lights / doors / airlocks work or not), coolant systems, fuel lines and pressurization. There are also multiple “grades” of material that are uncuttable until you upgrade your cutter further. Because all of these things get mixed and matched via the procedural ship building system, every ship is going to be a unique challenge.
Q: Is the story of shipbreakers superficial or will we get some insight into the character we play, and where we are going as we play?
A: The “story” of Shipbreaker, told via the campaign, revolves around the industrial sci-fi world of the Hardspace Universe and YOUR role within it, because YOU are the character. That’s all we can say right now without spoiling anything 🙂
Q: How many different corporations are there? What range of space-businesses are covered?
A: Lots! Our goal is to make the world feel populated, realistically structured, and highly corporatized. There are mining companies, freight / delivery (person, commercial and industrial), tech companies, shipwrights, medical corporations and so on. Some of the ships you salvage will belong to some of these companies, others manufacture your tools & equipment and yet more show up in the lore.
Q: In the short videos the cutter seems to cut simultaneously with 2 lasers that move to opposite directions. How does this version of the cutter work?
A: The cutting tool (actually called the Splitsaw!) is a rail-guided handheld laser-cutting tool. Lining up your cut for the perfect split involves wrestling with zero-gravity drift, explosions, decompressions, and a variety of other hazards. You’ll have full freedom to bisect objects into two pieces from any angle you wish — and some objects may even have other surprising reactions to being cut!
Technical addendum: Our physics simulation relies on all individual objects to be convex, (or a collection of convex pieces). By allowing our cuts to be planar in shape, we can always guarantee that no matter the angle a convex object is cut, the newly created object(s) will also be convex. It’s part of what allows us to have thousands of dynamic physics objects at once!
Q: Is there a definitive goal in the game aside from just salvaging because you want to?
A: At a high level the goal for the Player is to pay off their debt to LYNX so they can break free of their contractual obligation and forge their own way out in the Solar System. When we release acts 2 & 3 of the story during Early Access, we’ll see if this goal shifts for the Player at all.
Q: Is the game centered around a more comical approach or will it seem more gritty and sincere story wise?
A: There are many layers to the game’s “story” so the answer is BOTH and more! We found early on that space can be a cold, dark and lonely place and that we needed to do our best to provide players with moments of humor when and where we could. We hope you like it! But at the same time, we do have some very gritty and sincere – sometimes even tragic – moments because while there are some great things that have comes out of LYNX’s “Pave the way to the galaxy” program – there has been a lot of not great things that happened in its wake.
Very much like some of the inspirations we had for the HARDSPACE Universe as a whole with things like the Gilded Age and the “real world” Shipbreaking that takes place all over the world. Some pretty serious and gritty things that we try to pay respect to as best we can. There are many lenses to view the Hardspace Universe through, many of which will be there for you on Early Access launch day.
Q: Will there be any Warship’s which you could take apart?
A: No warships planned for launch, but they’re definitely in the long roster of possible ship types we have.
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