Do you have any info on the non-combat game mechanics - it has been a while since we saw a design post about mining, engineering, etc. are those articles still up to date or did they drastically change during the process?asked by Dutch Bar Citizen

They didn't drastically change, there are some changes. I can't really give much detail until everything is again- set in stone because I don't want to give false expectations - but there were some changes from our perspective - definitely for the better. Again, those were our first step into seeing what you guys like about mining, what you like about science, what you like about all these things.

For example, for mining, we're still having mining as it is and the docking, etc. as it is on the website but we're currently expanding the idea - we don't want it to be only mining, it needs to be a resource gathering thing where you- from picking plants to gathering data about biological species or I know- harvesting wood because you are freezing on the planet - it's- the entire idea of gathering resources and the logistics of moving them and how we do that, there's a lot of smaller little things that come as that - mining is one of them and there are lot of things that fall under the resource gathering.

The other side of things is the science part where it's a lot less about gathering stuff - it's more about analyzing and performing certain experiments and seeing how that goes - there is definitely a lot of work getting done on this part because once it is not finished- but in a state where you guys can have some fun with it, that's where we will start learning more and more and end up in the live game.

As you've seen from the 3.0, there is a lot of professions coming in that is more about the cycle of pirate, transporter, mercenary - it's like this vicious circle - this guy preys on this guy, this guy preys on this one and from here- this circle will keep expanding. This guy is gathering resources, this guy moved it to the refinery, this guy does- we're trying to kind of create this vicious circle where everyone interacts with everyone rather than having "this is one career and it works on it's own" - it never works on it's own.

A pirate without transporters is pointless, a mercenary that doesn't have transporters to defend or to fight or some reward to fight for - there is no point for him. Everyone has these ...

So, the more combat oriented professions we have, the more non-combat oriented professions we'll need to add because these guys like to attack these guys and these guys like to develop and go away from these guys. So it's an interesting gameplay where you're trying to protect yourself while still doing your experiments or still mining or stuff like that. So, all of these professions have a bit of combat in them because people with combat will not leave you alone.

So yeah, it's… we're definitely not ignoring all combat, this is something we're keen on, we want those professions to prosper. Those are the money makers, the other guys are just preying on them, they're stealing from them but these are what keeps the entire economy of the world going, is the mining, refining, producing, the scientists, the...all of this stuff definitely.

--Yes, it's very interesting that you say like more gathering type of stuff, like...so maybe you can say the Reliant Sen is space's exploration/science vessel so it would be more in the aspect of gathering certain things for science and exploration and like a 315p more of the exploration role.--

There's different types of exploration where you go to a sun and analyze its corona and find if you can find some places where maybe some things can be harvested, sell that information to the harvesting guys who has the tools cause you might not have all the ships to do, you have one and you specialize and are very good in that thing and you do that part. You might have another ship that basically goes in a nebula and starts running experiments there and that's completely different things or one that gathers bio samples and grows weird life species in space that can only grow in space because you're in zero-G and you have a special room for them rather than on a planet.

So we want to run all these experiments and the results of these experiments will open up new technologies in the world which were not available before or maybe they were available to certain people but not you and your organization and your guys. So, that's the beauty of having science in the game because it keeps the universe constantly evolving, it's not a static thing like, 'oh, I've learned everything there is nothing new for me'. There is constantly new things to discover and evolve the economy and the entire gameplay of the world.