Drox Operative 2 Early Access Update

Soldak Entertainment launched their starship action-RPG Drox Operative 2 into early access back in June. And now, three months of continued development and a total of 14 patches later, we can check out this general status update on the studio’s website that summarizes all the biggest changes those patches introduced. Have a look:

It has been my intention to do a monthly Drox 2 early access report. This first one is at about the 3 month mark, so I’m a bit behind. 🙂

Drox Operative 2 is currently available on Steam and GOG.

As of this post, we’ve released 14 patches with 579 total changes (which can be read here). This consists of a ton of small fixes and balance changes, but there have been a bunch of larger changes.

Skill system: The biggest change so far is probably the new skill/command system. Now instead of unlocking bigger ships and more slots with crew points in command, you unlock slots in the skill system. Each ship has 21 slot skills, 21 general skills, and 14 race specific skills available to put skills points into. The slot skills are basically the new way to get bigger ships and more slots. The general skills are available to all races, are generally weaker, but provide a little bit of everything. The race specific skills are what makes each race more unique and are usually the more powerful skills.

Weapon Grouping: You can now group weapons (or other components) so that when you press a mouse button or key for a use slot, up to 4 components can be fired/used instead of the usual 1.

Multiplayer: We have improved multiplayer connectivity and optimized traffic to make the multiplayer experience better.

Young races: We have had young races that have random portraits, icons, and traits since the start of early access, but now they are more interesting due to having random services and they can emerge into the galaxy. So even though they are random, if they do well, they can become a more persistent friend or foe.

Guild Win: Guild quests have come back similar to what was in Invasion of the Ancients though instead of being mandatory they are optional. However, you will now get a Guild Win if you complete enough of the guild guests.

Resurrection: After your ship has been destroyed, resurrection is now much safer. On resurrection, your ship’s engines and thrusters are repaired and you get 10 seconds of immunity to make it a bit easier to get back on your feet.

Crew Points: In Drox 1, pretty much every ship had to put a lot of the their crew points into tactical. Now most of the weapon types have an alternate crew attribute that you can meet the installation requirements for. For example, you can install fighters if your helm is high enough or beam weapons if your computers are high enough.

Icons: And last, but definitely not least, we’ve added a ton of new icons for planet bonuses, random race portraits, military stances, outsider attitudes, social stratification, and race traits.

That’s it for all of the major new changes, but there are still a lot of potential changes coming up (which you can see here). Hopefully I can start making a post like this each month.

As always comments are welcome!