- On the sixth anniversary of the closure of City of Heroes, the devs at Ship of Heroes are releasing a video that they feel is responsive to both the community’s desire for a new superhero game, and also an example of one of the underlying strengths of COH – support characters are fun to play. In SoH, each character has two powersets. The Restorative Nanites powerset is both a healing and a buffing set; it does no direct damage at all, but it is a fight-changer when a teammate has these powers.
- Restorative Nanites is the kind of powerset that most game development teams won’t highlight. The powerset shows up to ten powers that players can employ for healing and buffing, both for their own characters and for teammates. As such, it is a powerful and diverse powerset, allowing every character in Ship of Heroes to be completely unique. It is not flashy, and these powers are not offensive powers to defeat enemies – they are strategic powers that allow players to dominate the battlefield.
- The devs are using this video to quietly announce another significant coding advancement. They’ve shown images of the new day/night cycle for Apotheosis City, and now we are told that the FX for the hero powers will react to the time of day, making them noticeable but not blinding at any hour. Good coding, devs!
- As usual for SoH, this video has been produced in a packaged version of the game, replicating what a player experiences, and not in the engine editor. The SoH team shows a very high level of transparency in the production and delivery of a stream of videos about the development of their game.
- We know that the devs at Ship of Heroes have showcased at least eight full powersets, each with 10-12 unique powers. Since they have also shown some partial sets and some standalone powers like flight, we know that Ship of Heroes has already revealed nearly 100 unique powers built just for SoH. The devs have promised to increase the total to more than 150 powers before the Beta begins.
- Interestingly, the Restorative Nanites powerset has an even mix of single-target and AoE powers. In SoH, it’s not expected that a player will take all of the powers in a powerset, since players have to make choices. This means that Restorative Nanites could be a powerful selection for either a lone wolf playstyle or a team or guild environment, or a mix of both. Different players will choose different powers from the set.
- The Restorative Nanites powerset video came out just a week after a popular newsletter showcasing very positive internal FPS numbers to the community. Also, this powerset is the first one that the devs have created that utilizes the PopcornFX technology for all of the powers in the powerset. PopcornFX is a cutting-edge technology used in many CGI-intensive movies, as well as in videogames.
Ship of Heroes is being developed in the Unreal 4 Engine, version 4.18, and is planning a feature Beta test at the end of 2018, and a launch in 2019.