Update - What's Next
Delivery Pilot: Dreams and Debts » Devlog
Recently, I've posted the first public release of Delivery Pilot - Dreams and Debts. I'm really happy with the response! I've gotten a ton of helpful feedback, and I thought about them a lot. Please continue to give me your thoughts! I really appreciate them!
Based on the feedback I've received, here are my current goals:
Clarity for players - What's the strategy? What are my options?
- Add morning scenes in the beginning of that game, that should succinctly explain ranks, how pay scales for missions, and hopefully give the player some direction and things to think about. Right now, I don't think what the player can do is being signaled well to the player.
- Add some labels for officers. Currently, there are 6 personalities that affect morale, pay and scenes. By giving them labels, it should help the player make more informed decisions.
Reduce difficulty - Right now it's impossible.
- Make officers have 100% chance of giving missions (unless their subordinates don't know the MC well). Currently, it's set to 60%. I thought it might be fun, but in practice it's pretty anti-fun.
- Add a bonus system. Each playthrough will have one or two big but situational, randomly rolled bonuses (can be re-rolled). For example, 50% more income for missions from Yellow stations.
- Minor tweaks, including making one of the officers pay a bit more (but also cause more morale loss).
Needs more lewd scenes.
- Add morning scenes, where unnamed NPCs will harass the MC if she isn't fully modest in her attire. The chance of this occurring will be based on how scandalous she looks.
- Unlock all her outfit pieces, as higher level obligations. To get these obligations, her relationship level with officers have to be higher.
- Add a dress-up/undress system. Something I really want to add is having the player go through the outfit steps that the MC has to go through, due to the her obligations the player has chosen. If it's deeply unpopular, I'll add a skip button.
- Add many more lewd scenes further down the track, maybe version 0.3 or later.
UI Improvements - Too much clicking.
- When the MC has a mission, entering the vessel can take the player directly to the cargo hold.
- When the Cargo hold is inspected, the return button could take the player directly to the cockpit.
- When leaving the cockpit in the evening with an ongoing mission, the player will be directly taken to the cargo hold.
- Look into adding more and on-brand sound effects and controls.
- Unfortunately, there's not much I can do here, right now. I could redo the UI, and I might do so some day. But, this will be a big job.
Other aspects that were disliked but are unlikely to change
- Cannot manually save and load. Unfortunately, this is not likely to change. It's a design choice I like and it would be too hard to switch now. What I can do instead is try to balance the game around this fact and the "Iron Woman" design.
- Too Grindy. Unfortunately, this is true. This also doesn't work well with an "Iron Woman" style game. In those kinds of games, you'd typically like to die fast and try again. However, this is meant to be a long experience. You don't have to do it in a single sitting. I hope that it's still fun for some people, to see how far they can go, even if they don't beat the game. That's why I've added the archive. I also hope to make the journey more fun with more lewd scenes in the future.
Get Delivery Pilot: Dreams and Debts
Delivery Pilot: Dreams and Debts
Sci-fi Reverse Dating Sim
| Status | In development |
| Author | acacGames |
| Genre | Strategy, Visual Novel |
| Tags | Adult, Dating Sim, Erotic, Sci-fi |
More posts
- GoodbyeSep 16, 2023
- Update (02-Jul-2023)Jul 02, 2023
- Update (24-Jun-2023)Jun 24, 2023
- Update (18-Jun-2023)Jun 18, 2023
- Update (11-Jun-2023)Jun 11, 2023
- Update (04-Jun-2023)Jun 03, 2023
- Update (27-May-2023)May 27, 2023
- Update (21-May-2023)May 21, 2023
- Update (14-May-2023)May 14, 2023
- Update (07-May-2023)May 07, 2023
Comments
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This game looks promising as do the improvements on this list.
Except this one:
This WON'T help reduce difficult but will reduce fun. here's' why:
1. in v.0.1 the 60% chance to get a mission from any officer makes you sometimes take missions from officers that a player wouldn't contact otherwise, if the major (once unlocked) has 100% chance to give you a mission why would anyone ever take a lesser paying mission from a any of the captains on that colony? With the change, the player would ignore most of the officers in the game.
2. rarely, this can cause you to have no missions on a day and have to take a day off resting. this restores morale buy 6 to 8 points, which can help you. I've played this 5 times, and on the 2nd playthorough I lost due to moral drop. In that game I've had only 2 or 3 days off and at least one mission on every other day. in 2 other games (that i eventually lost due to failing to pay the debts) I would have lost earlier if the Pilot girl hadn't rested on days without missions
The change will not help to reduce difficulty, because the problem is not lack of missions but low paying missions, when I have to earn 15-17K in 5 days but every but have to choose between missions paying 880 , 1200 or 1300 credits, I won't make the money despite flying 5 missions, I would still lose but be more frustrated.
What you need to change instead is the chance to get a pay raise. I don't know the code, but in v.0.1 if I ask for pay raise, the officers decline far more often than agree or make an offer. You should instead increase the acceptance ratio for pay raise (not to 100% but higher than now). This would make missions worthy doing and speed up the outfit progression.
Finally, if you want to give the player a way to do something other than rest if the officers have no missions, add an option to do something else on the colony that's criminal or lewd. But you might already plan that, (judging by this dialogue lines: Some officers mentioning an other way to earn money when they decline a pay raise)
I hope you'll consider this Feedback. If you want, I can give some Feedback/Ideas on the hierarchy of officers and their distribution between colonies.
Awesome, thank you for the feedback! What really makes me happy is that you really get what I was aiming for, whether or not I've succeeded at it, yet. You make a good point about the chance to get a mission. I'll give you the reason you might go for the captains, and it has to do with relationship levels and ranks.
So, the chance to raise relationship level is 100%, but your have to fill up the relationship points, which you do by doing missions. So, officer Bob starts at relationship level 0, with 0 relationship points. Because he's RL 0, it only takes 1 RPs to enable him to level up. So, after doing 1 mission for him, if you loop back to his station, you can ask him to level up the relationship, and he will (well, he might ask for a vow in return). To go from RL 1 to RL 2 with officer Bob, you need to do 2 missions for him.
Going back to the captains, you want to do missions for the other captains, because that's the only way to level them up. You want to level them up, because the other majors that they report to will not give you missions until 2 of these captains are also relationship level 2. So, lets say Major Alice will give you missions, and she's on the same station as Captain Bob. Captain Bob and Captain Charles report to Major Diana (C and D on other stations). Major Diana won't give you missions until Bob and Charles are relationship level 2, so you might still have to do missions for Bob, even though Alice is offering you more money right now.
But then, why level Bob above level 2, then? Good question. So you might be right about the keeping it below 100%. There is one more reason. Major Alice might pay you more, but she might send you to nowheres-ville station, and Bob might take you to a station with a better Major or a Colonel or to an Officer you are close to leveling up.
I'll think on it more. I might make it 100% next version, and if it's not fun in practice, I can put it back down to 60% or maybe somewhere in the middle.
On the other hand, if I could just signal to the player that, yes, sometimes you won't get a mission on the current station, but that's okay. It's not the end. Don't feel frustrated. Get some rest and recover morale. Or fly to a station where you can level up an officer or maybe get a high paying mission. If I can do that, then I'm happy to keep it at 60%. I would prefer that.
Ohh, could I ask you a question? You mentioned that indeed if you don't get a mission on that day, you can rest to recover morale. Did you know you can also fly to other stations (without doing a mission), as well? I'm not sure if I made that clear or not, it might not be.
I do have some more levers for managing the difficulty. I'm concerned about what you said, where weekly debt payment is just more than you can make in an ideal week. Others have said similar, as well. If the bonuses are not enough, then here are three things I can do. I can easily make the days between repayments longer. I can also easily make the missions pay more. Lastly, I can change the loan structure so that you pay for a longer period, but the increase between each week is smaller. I'm not sure if that will truly fix that problem, though. I think I'll have to trial and error a bit. But, player feedback definitely helps!
In regards to the officer ranks and distribution, sure I'm always happy for more feedback, thanks. :)
It's good to hear that my feedback helps you!
So, the chance to raise relationship level is 100%, but your have to fill up the relationship points, which you do by doing missions.
In this case, you should consider implementing additional pay raises on top of the ones gotten by doing missions. e.g. 1 pay raise per RL and any more per RNG Nice officers could have a chance to give one for free while pervs would require the MC to wear skimpier clothes or do other lewd things. This would speed up the pay raise, currently the problem is that the debt rate raises faster than the pay increases.
But then, why level Bob above level 2, then?
More than that, why should the pilot keep wearing clothes she agreed for that captain if she doesn't need him any longer?
Did you know you can also fly to other stations (without doing a mission), as well?
Yes, but this option seems vastly inferior to just resting: I don't get morale but lose it and the differences between stations are not that big that changing it would pay. I admit that I've never unlocked any of the Colonels or the General so I don't know if they would pay much more than the Majors.
I can easily make the days between repayments longer. I can also easily make the missions pay more. Lastly, I can change the loan structure so that you pay for a longer period, but the increase between each week is smaller.
A fourth option would be making the Loan Shark make lewd offers (like the officers) in exchange for reduced rate. That would match the game's theme.
In regards to the officer ranks and distribution, sure I'm always happy for more feedback, thanks.
Thanks, here are a few annoying things:
1. the distribution of officers seems random, a Captain might work for a Major on the same colony or on a different one.
2. Some colonies have 2 Majors and 2 Captains, making it confusing who's the overall superior officer, others have a Colonel with Captains but no Majors.
3. any officer could offer any task.
This looks more like competing businesses and not like a regular, organized military.
Here's my suggestion to fix that:
There are 3 types of colonies: Red (Industiral), Yellow (Security) and Blue (Research). These immediately reminded me of Star Trek uniforms. I would therefore recommend assigning all officers (except the General) to 3 Branches matching these colours, e.g. Engineering, Security and Science. Each hierarchic tree (1 colonel, 3 Majors and 9 Captains) would belong to 1 branch.
- Officers would give tasks fitting their branch. e.g. only engineering officers would ask to transport construction materials and only security officers would ask to transport ammunition. Some goods (like furniture) could be send by any branch.
- Each of the 3 Colonels would be located on a colony of the matching colour and have 1 Major of the same branch on the same colony responding to them, while each of the 2 captains on that colony would belong to a different branch: e.g. Settler Security Array (Yellow) has a Security (Yellow) branch Colonel with a security Major reporting to her, a science Captain (reporting to a science Major on a blue station) and an engineering Captain (also reporting to an engineering Major elsewhere).
- 6 other colonies would have 1 Major (same branch and colour as the colony) and 3 Captains (1 for each branch). The Captain of the same branch as the colony's Major would be reporting to that Major: e.g. Pioneer Research Base (blue) would have a Science Branch Major, a Science captain reporting to him, a security Captain (reporting to a security Major on a yellow station) and an engineering Captain (reporting to an engineering Major on a red station).
- The headquarter would have the General (either from a random branch, or no branch at all, as she or he is the Commander in Chief for that sector) and 1 Captain from each branch.
- During the introduction each officer would state their job (e.g. I'm Captain Alice Smith, Security officer on the Horizon Industrial Array)
This would be similar to real and standard sci-fi military structures, with each colony having one senior officer and the different branch officers have their clearly defined duties. It would explain why officers are not on the same place as their subordinates and superiors: every station needs officers from all three branches to be run, so they assign their subordinates to nearby stations.
I hope you like that idea, it shouldn't be too hard to code.
Yeah, that's a really cool idea. I like its elegance and symmetry. Sometimes, I have to give up on something that makes sense story-wise, for the sake of game balance or simplicity. But, I think this is really doable. Do you mind if I implement it some day? It probably won't be any time soon, because I have a big list of to-dos, beforehand. But it's definitely a good idea.
I'm glad you liked it!
And yes, you can implement this suggestion an any other I may give you later.
But I probably won't make any new ones until you've updated the game, the ones one your list already look good, I want to test them in the next version.