As promised earlier this year, Fallen Earth team released three screenshots depicting the visual upgrade the game is undergoing towards improving the characters and overall look of the game world. Lead Designer Lee Hammock also delivered a progress report along with a slew of answers to the fans' forum questions concerning vehicles, weapons, explosives, skills and clan rewards. Check the before and after screenshots below and a snippet of the report:

We're mixing things up in the office a bit now, trying out some new management strategies and methodologies. This week we're doing some work on some starter towns while also working on tuning up our mutations and special attacks. Most of the teams will be working on the same things next week as we move toward a two-week-oriented work schedule.

Last week I mentioned that the functionality of Evade was getting folded into Melee, and some folks seemed curious about this. We did this for two reasons:

The first is that we felt it cost too many APs for players to keep their defenses at a competitive level and because we're trying a new angle on balancing melee vs. ranged combat. We've slightly re-tuned the attribute and skill system so a Melee player can branch out into a wider range of skills more easily than a ranged character, allowing a Melee player to get slightly more bang for their AP than ranged combat-oriented characters. For example, a character who is melee-focused will want to max out their Strength and Coordination, which will also allow them to max out their Stealth skill plus nearly maxing out their Dodge skill. A ranged combat character will want to max out Dexterity and Perception, and while Perception does affect a lot of skills, Dexterity doesn't, so the ranged character doesn't get the same broad advantage per AP that the melee character gets. It's a non-standard style of balancing playstyles, but we're giving it a shot to see how it plays out.

The second reason is that Animal Training wasn't originally a skill raised with APs; it was raised through use, sort of like a craft skill. We thought this was unbalanced, since pets can have a direct effect on combat, and all other skills that have a direct effect on combat (aside from making items used in combat) cost APs. We like the unity of having ten active skills, ten craft skills, and ten mutations, so we removed Evade and put in Animal Training to keep the numbers even.

We didn't end up having the PvP combat test as planned due to some scheduling conflicts, but as an apology here are some before and after shots of the visual upgrades the game is undergoing. These are all actual screenshots or models taken directly from the game.

And on to the questions:

1. How many different numbers of vehicles do you plan on having in the game?

Not sure, but probably the 4-6 range at release, though each will have customizable elements so you can make yours look unique. Adding more vehicles is definitely a priority and we will be adding more as we go along.

2. Also will there be faction vehicles?

Factions will have some vehicle customization options only available to members of that faction, though whole faction-specific vehicles are not going to be available at release. Making each of the vehicles is a pretty intensive process, so we'd rather use our resources to make a base variety that most folks can use and customize before we start making vehicles large segments of the population can't use.

3. Could you please give us an update on the Interactive Skills?

Well, while all the functionality of the Interactive skills still exists (getting better prices from NPCS, being able to run more NPC harvesting operations, etc) we've decided to link them to other attributes and skills rather than make a a new skill category. It ended up feeling like one more thing to confuse people with, another advancement system people had to worry about since they didn't advance using AP (we didn't want players to gimp themselves in combat by spending AP on these skills), and some of the skills had questionable utility compared with some other skills. So basically, if you want to get the effects that were originally discussed for the Interactive skills, you can get them by maxing out your Charisma, Perception, and trade skills.

4. We will be able to make explosives? Like, molotov cocktails, pipebombs, etc.?

Players will be able to make various types of throwable explosives.

5. Will we be limited to the weapons you mentioned, "Sub machine guns, 9 mm's, assault rifles, etc." Or will we be able to get, if you will, "Exotic" weapons like the flame thrower, rocket launcher, or even mini guns?

We're currently exploring the possibility of rocket launchers.

6. I'd like to hear about how this guild leveling is going to work. Seems like an interesting idea that I've not personally come across in any games.

This is still getting straightened out, but the basic idea is that clans will be able to earn "clan APs" through a variety of missions, such as huge raids on enemy factions or turning in a huge number of crafted goods. These missions can be accomplished by both small and large clans for the most part, but larger clans will most likely have an easier time of it. These clan APs can be spent on special abilities like getting discounts from all merchants, increasing the rate at which you earn the favor of the faction the clan is aligned with (clans do not need to be aligned to a faction, but get more abilities if they are), or get a small speed boost. None of the clan abilities are combat-oriented; they all support other play activities.