Hermann Peterscheck kicks of the first entry in the official Jumpgate Evolution blog by discussing ship design.

In Jumpgate Evolution, ship design is one of the most critical components in the game. When we first started working on it, we spent a lot of time with just one ship, in one sector, fighting a handful of enemies. At first we just wanted to make a ship that was both fun and intuitive to fly. This involved changing camera controls, controller input and lots and lots of unit tests. In the end it took about sixty to seventy iterations to get a flight model and control scheme that felt right.

The next thing we did is come up with what kinds of roles we wanted people to have. This was fairly simple in that the kinds of ships that people want are reasonably well defined. You want to have a quick and nimble fighter, a heavier combat ship, perhaps a missile boat of some kind. On the commercial side you need mining and transport ships. For the high end we considered things like “spy” class ships or heavy gunboats, support class ships that can repair armor or refuel ammunition and just about anything in between. It’s a really fun process to just throw ideas out and see what seems cool and fun to try.

Read the new entry.