Fallen Earth QotW: PvP Friendly Fire, Farming, Horses & Vehicles

This week's Fallen Earth QotW feature delivers a development progress update, which shifted towards melee weapons, gear and mutation animations. In addition to that, the developers gave answers to seven burning fan questions concerning training horses, PvP friendly fire, vehicles, faction farming and more:

This week we're working on Kingman, Mumford, melee weapons, Science gear, and mutation animations among other things. It's the second week of our two-week cycle, so now its more buckling down and getting things done than brainstorming.

One thing I do want folks to keep in mind with these questions of the week: the answers are our plans right now. After more testing, work, etc. we may find that these ideas don't work and have to retool. Obviously we want to do this as little as possible since it cuts back on other things we can do (plus we think we've got some good ideas) but it's likely to happen. If you get the final game and find that some things have changed slightly know that we had a good reason. We try to stay true to our design ideas as much as possible, but if 99% of our testers tell us something isn't working as we planned most likely it needs to be changed.

1. Could you explain a bit more about "crafting" horses? I'm thinking using Animal Handling/Training it would be take an existing horse and train for speed or endurance etc. but would love a confirmation.

Crafting horses was a poor choice of terms, as demonstrated by the regular mockery I get each time I use the concept in meetings around the office. We're reusing the crafting system to create a system for training your horse to have better abilities. Effectively you'll craft a bridle or saddle you then use on your horse, upgrading its abilities. You don't actually take a horse and make it into a new horse, you just make your horse better through crafting some training implements.

Now if we had a model for a stitched together horse with bolts in its neck, then I would be all about people actually crafting horses.

2. As far as i understood u can shot in PvP everyone, so how do you recognize players of a faction you're friendly with? Will the crosshair be colored differently or something alike?

This is a review question I realize, but I thought it would be good to cover it again: you can't unless they choose to wear their faction clothes. Uniforms are good for something. Also going into PvP teams with folks you know is a good idea.

3. Killing players will decrease/increase certain faction points, will something be done to prevent faction farming?

When you kill someone that has positive faction ratings with various factions you lose a percentage of their faction ratings from your own ratings with the same factions. So you lose a lot more Enforcer faction for killing a Colonel than a Recruit. If you kill someone with negative faction ratings you gain a number of faction points with the same factions. Players don't lose faction for being killed, but faction farming will be difficult considering there are no regen pods in PvP areas. It won't be a very efficient way of doing things (your buddy kills you once and then has to wait for you to run back to the PvP zone). We're also looking at putting a cap on the points you can earn from one PvP kill.

4. When you leave your vehicle will there be anything on your map to help remind you thats where you left your vehicle?

Yes, vehicles will be marked on your overland map with a small icon denoting the model of vehicle. Players can have up to five vehicles simultaneously, so you'll want to know where each one is.

5. So how will vehicles and other items that stay out when you leave them be handled for trading purposes? Will there be items in your inventory that are associated with that vehicle or item and thats what you trade?

When you create a vehicle it appears in your inventory as a key, bridle, or other representation of the vehicle. You may trade or sell that representative item as normal. Once you use the item to summon the vehicle the representative item disappears and now the vehicle is associated with your character as a separate character. This means once you activate a vehicle you can't sell or trade it, but you can salvage it for parts. Crafters will want to sell their vehicles before taking them for a test drive.

6. Are multi seater vehicles going to be available? For instance a four seat car so you can bring friends or maybe a bus so you can bring lots of friends?

Not at release. We've developed our plan for launch vehicles a lot (adding motorcycles and ATVs for example) but in doing so some things get left by the wayside. We figured it was better to have an awesome vehicle system as a base, and then layer on multi-person vehicles later, rather than try to do it all at once and do it halfway. It certainly is something we're working on though.

7. After you leave your vehicle but before it disappears, does it still take damage? Will I be able to shoot through it? Will it become an impenetrable shield that can be used in PvP? What becomes of the vulnerability of vehicles once parked and unoccupied?

Once a vehicle is parked it may still be attacked. It no longer collides with characters, but attacks will affect it normally so you could use it for cover if you wanted. It won't be impenetrable in the sense of being indestructible; vehicles can be disabled by damage. The time it takes to repair a vehicle will be such that using them for cover won't be a very affordable tactic.