Fallen Earth: Mutation Attacks & Skills, Graphics & Mechanized Horses!

In the latest edition of Fallen Earth's Question of the Week feature, Lead Designer Lee Hammock delivers a short and concise development update while answering a handful of the community's questions:

This week's answers will be a bit short because I've got to fly out to New York City this afternoon for the Virtual Worlds Conference. This week we're working more on the tutorial, balancing items and critters, plus working on the towns of Zanesville (the Enforcer stronghold for the Plateau) and Needle Eye.

We had a question previously about players being able to trade items between characters, and while we don't have a system for characters accessing the same vault (aside from clan vaults) we do have the capacity for players to mail items to each other.

Also the fast transit options haven't taken their final form. We've found some problems lately (characters took to long to get places so we made them run faster, but that made PvP too hard since people were nigh impossible to hit, so we decided to make horses and vehicles available sooner) that we're still working out in terms of travel, so once we get all those figured out the fast transit system will be sort of the last thing we do.

1. How will mutation attacks be handled? I recall the Tech 'glue bomb' example, and I was wondering if we're dealing with some sort of ground reticle for AoE stuff? Is it all single-target?

Most mutations require a target in the reticle and most mutations are single target abilities. There are radius effect mutations, but not a lot. Most radius effects go out from the target you hit since we figured that stopping and placing a radius marker would slow down combat too much (and get you shot a lot while you placed it).

2. How skill reliant are mutations? More so or less than skills like rifle?

Mutations are based on the same hit resolution system as all other weapons so they're just as skill-dependent as rifles (assuming you mean player skill). If you mean character skill, as in the kind you spend APs on, advancement of mutations is totally based on spending APs and what mutation injectors you can find.

3. Will the graphics for buffs, special abilities and mutations be robust, or subtle? For example, if I use "Rally", will my allies light up and sparkle (or whatever), or will it be more toned down?

All effects, be they buffs, debuffs, damage over time, etc., have some manner of visual component so the player has immediate feedback as to whether the effect went off successfully. We've tried to keep these low key where possible, but at the same time we need to communicate information so playability is our prime concern. We generally don't have effects that have long-term particle effects on players; a player hit with a buff may get a 1-second glow or symbol over their head to show they were affected by the buff, but it won't be a glow that remains for the entire buff. Where we could we eliminated particle effects and went with animations, such as Group Tactics Effects using hand signals.

4. Can we build mechanized horses with railguns for legs? Please?

Sounds like expansion material.