Hello everyone!

In this week's devlog, we'll detail another system tied to the missions: the Guild Upgrades system.

Upgrades

As mentioned in the previous devlog, the world is divided into 5 different regions. Upgrades can be built into any of these 5 regions and will confer a variety of bonuses, primarily to that region.

After selecting the Upgrades section in the Guild, the player can decide in which region they want to build upgrades for. Selecting a region will show it on the world map, show which battle maps are tied to it and which upgrades are currently built on there.

Afterwards, the player can build upgrades for the region, or reset current upgrades for the region.

Resetting the upgrades will refund a portion of their cost and clear all upgrades from the area, so the player can change their layout if they feel like it. On that screen, the player can see the layout for the selected region and the currently built upgrades if there are any. Each region has its own layout for adding buildings. This example has a 3x4 area to add buildings. Other regions will have different areas, such as a 3x3 or perhaps a 2x3 and a 1x3, etc.

Selecting to build a new upgrade will show the list of all possible upgrades the player could create as well as their cost in CP (Company Points). There will be a core of buildings that will be the same for all regions, but some regions will have unique buildings that confer special bonuses or bonuses that pertain to the specific zone better (things tied to poisonous maps for example).

You can see the bonus for the selected upgrade in its description. These bonuses are divided into 3 general categories:

- Mission Bonuses: these bonuses apply to Mission that are in the same zone as the Upgrade.

- Patrol Bonuses: these bonuses apply to Patrols that are in maps that are part of the same zone as the Upgrade.

- Global Bonuses: these bonuses apply all the time to all zones. Those are considerably rarer.

On top of this base bonus that a building confers, there's a concept of synergy, where a building can bolster another building if they happen to be touching on the building grid. For example, the Cantina will confer a bonus to the Gardens, the Bounty Board and the Watchtower if they are built side by side. Thus, the grid available in a region (3x3 vs 2x3 for example) will impact what kind of bonuses you could get in that region. And, of course, the player's choices in placing the buildings will also have an impact on that front.

Here's what it looks like when selecting the Gardens, which receives a bonus from the Cantina. It shows what the bonus would be on that building if it was next to a Cantina, in this case "receive 2x as many components from Gathering".

Finally, when selecting a specific upgrade, you will be able to place it where you want in the building grid, assuming you have the CP and the grid position isn't already occupied by another building. As you select a position, the "border bonuses" that will be active will light up to show which would be active from placing the building there and greyed out if they wouldn't currently confer a bonus.

The current building icons were taken from some of our maps and aren't final, but they should showcase the visual style the buildings are going for.

Upgrades Bonuses

Currently, there are 24 different building upgrades and each will have its own unique building sprite. Each has their own bonus and many will have synergy bonuses as well. Here are some examples of the bonuses the upgrades will grant:

Missions:

- Missions take 20% less time to complete.

- Missions award 20% more CP.

- Missions award 2x as many components as normal.

- One extra unit can be sent on each mission.

- Missions award 20% more AP

- ...

Patrols:

- While patrolling the region, increase the chance of meeting stray Kawa Bandits 5%

- While patrolling the region, increase the chance of meeting stray Zotzits 5%

- While patrolling the region, increase damage dealt by player units by 5%.

- While patrolling the region, all deployed units will start with Renew.

Global:

- Store prices in any store are 5% cheaper when buying.

- Guild prices in any guild are 5% cheaper for all services costing GP.

- Can run 1 more mission at the same time.

- ...

When combined with the Missions, the Guild Upgrades system should give the player a lot to do outside of battles and help them open up new challenges, areas and rewards.

Feel free to send us comments, ideas, feedback and suggestions!

Thanks for reading!