This week I did a lot of work towards getting the Command ship upgrade process to use resources. To do this I’m putting into the game world a new type of object – “cargo pod” basically a container of resources. What will happen is this: the command ship needs resources to perform the upgrade, the command ship will request a resource from a trading station, the trading station will launch a cargo pod, command ship will pick this pod up (fly into it). The command ship may then have enough resources for the upgrade. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while since the trading portion of the game (in its current state) transfers resources magically between the trading ship and the trading station. So in the coming weeks you’ll see the same transfer of resources take place between trading ship and trading station as will happen between the trading station and the Command ship (via the cargo pods).

Also when destroying a trading ship it may drop cargo pods, so piracy will become a larger part of the game, pirates will appear to attack your trading ships and attempt to take the cargo pods (this portion is a bit low priority). The idea of cargo pods will also evolve into “marine pods” where a ship will launch a pod carring soldiers to attack ships and bases. This is how the capturing of bases will take form (this is higher priority).