Battlestation: Harbinger Content Update Kickstarter

EDIT: The kickstarter campaign is NOW live!

CLICK here to see the Kickstarter! You don't want to miss it.

Let's do it, commanders! Let's make Extended Edition happen.

Commanders!

We have begun work on a big content update for Battlestation: Harbinger. We are going to do some major changes based on the feedback we have gotten from you, our players. We need your help.

We will launch a new Kickstarter for the new improved Harbinger next month!

This huge update will be implemented to both the mobile version and the upcoming PC version of Harbinger. We aim to publish the update in late November or early December this year for Apple and Google. We aim to publish the PC version for Steam in January or February 2016.

Some of the new planned features for this Big Content Update:

• New user interface for PC
  
• 3 new races. The Celestials, the Schillae and the Unknown Threat.
  
• 1 campaign with 4 galaxies. The races you face, and in which order, are randomized every time you play. This will give you a lot of replay value! 4th galaxy has an epic end boss battle.
  
• More and better missions.
  
• More cool turrets to choose from!
  
• New ships, especially big carrier ships.
  
• Balancing the game (Please don't be angry at us for nerfing some turrets. We try our best!)
  

How much of the new features we can implement depends on you, our fans! We will launch a Kickstarter campaign next month and we need you to be with us.

Additionally to the features mentioned above we will also implement more. We need you to register on these forums and give us comments which of the following you want to see the most:

• Richer environments such as: Black holes (Slowly sucking hull), Electromagnetic Storms(Disabling shields), Asteroid clusters, debris of old ships and defunct space stations.
  
• Fast forward in battles.
  
• More neutral and friendly units, like mercenaries to hire.
  
• Different kind of traps. When you click on it you are either faced with loot or enemies, or both.
  
• Something else?
  

Please register here right now and give us your suggestions:

Click here to register and join forums

We need new ideas for turrets! Do you have anything in mind? Please let us know here in this thread.

Kickstarter will start next month October! When you register you will help us, because we will have a channel to reach you when we need you. We will show you a lot of interesting stuff from the development of the content update. Be the first to see screenshots, gifs and streams by registering.

This is so awesome! I will definitely be supporting your Kickstarter. Also please make a tesla cannon! Somekind of lighting cannon that obliterates the enemy shields.

3 new races, holy shit! Can't wait!

What I feel is needed are more utility mini turrets(Blue). For example, speed turrets, general effect turrets, etc.
This can give people, quite easily, the option to create "builds": Sacrifice firepower but gain the ability to be really fast as a hit and run destroyer.
Also, Ramming? I Know it adds collision which is not built into the engine, but can be cool.
Scuttle : Send a ship in and detonate it, suicide with ships around it.
Electronic warfare: Send missiles away from you, or better yet, ATTRACT fire (AKA tank ship).
Decoys?

Oh, and my favorite thing: Energy management: Power to shields, engines and weapons is a must have.
Super easy to code in, LOADS more strategy at the players fingertips, and generally badass

Keep on the good work you guys.

Hey, just registered. I've been playing this game nonstop since it released and got all my friends at work into it too. It's bar none my favorite iOS game ever! Fantastic work. I will be helping out your kickstarter.

My suggestions:

To your immediate questions, I would vote for environmental hazards, those sound fun. Mercenaries might be cool too because bigger fleets and bigger battles are awesome! 'traps' might be ok, but I worry they will feel unfair at times.

Balance suggestions:

Lasers - they are by far the worst weapon, and I really want to like them. Maybe they can do more damage the closer the enemy is? I also notice that the laser cannon says "long range" in the description, but is shorter range than the energy cannon which says "medium range" in its description! Might be worth fixing one way or another. Also, laser point defense is absolutely worthless, it says it's great vs fighters, but only does 5 damage to hull and 15 to shield before upgrades and has a slow firing rate. I've never seem them shoot down a missile. I really think lasers should be the ideal way to track and destroy missiles, while bolter and gatling should be fighter-focused, thematically. Lasers could really use a boost or a different purpose. They look really cool though!

Escape pods, teleports, and Shield boosts take up valuable red turret slots and I have little incentive to choose them in games. They might be better in blue module slots instead, or even hangar slots?

The Plasma Bomber - these guys are in serious need of balance tweaks. They require a LOT of upgrade points to be able to do any real damage to anything. They have such a slow move and turn radius that they rarely get more than one shot off before dying. They seem to die as quickly as any other fighter or drone - I would think a bomber would have more hull than a fighter, or even shields? Finally, I notice all the fighters and bombers shoot at where the enemy currently is, rather than where they will be, like the red turrets do. Thus, the plasma bomber in particular misses very very often when shooting. I don't know how easy that is to tweak, but it would be cool.

Purchasing weapons from stations - I would love to see a little more variety of weapons purchasable from stations. Perhaps stations can 'grow back' new weapons once you have purchased one from them so you can get more variety?

New module ideas:
Speed/hull upgrades - maybe add more blue modules that help the ship move faster or survive longer?

Photon-torpedo style weapon - I think a cool turret might be something like a photon torpedo. I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to mimic weapon loadouts from my favorite sci-fi shows, and while Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica are very doable, Star Trek proves very difficult to mimic and still win the game. I might like some sort of medium speed tracking plasma torpedo with a fairly long range. A little like the mega plasma cannon, I guess, but with missile-style homing capabilities. Obviously you'd want to balance that with a higher cost, but it would do a ton of damage.

MAC/Rail Cannons - This is a little like the current Projectile Cannon, but with a twist. Halo among other sci-fi franchises make use of massive slow-firing spinal mount projectile cannons that pack a huge punch and can potentially weaken shields. I'm not sure if the game engine is capable of spinal-mount weapons with a narrow field of fire, but I think that would introduce cool tactical elements to the game (or even broadside-only fixed cannons!). Nevertheless, a projectile cannon that fires rarely, but fires an extremely fast shell that does nuke-level hull damage, and maybe 100 shield damage. I'm imagining a recharge time of like 15 seconds at least!

Different fighter types - I would really like to see a variety of fighters like we see possible in First Contact. Plasma/laser/gatling/shields.

Larger/more powerful Particle/plasma Beam weapons - I'd love to get a really powerful hull-damage laser like we see in Babylon 5, something that feels really deadly. I know there's some rare celestial mega lasers but I hardly ever find them, and they just aren't strong enough! A nuke-level end-game weapon that is super expensive.

That's all I can think of for now. I want to see this game succeed so much, because you really deserve it! Best of luck.

Your guys are doing great with this game!

I like all of the planned ideas and only have a few suggestions.

Balancing:

Lasers: Lasers are almost useless in my experience, I would like to see them have longer range, and maybe have damage scaled on distance, or alternatively keep the laser but make them due only shield damage, but introduce particle weapons for hull damage.

Hull Bonus and ship upgrade modules:
While the game does support shield upgrades, I would also like the ability to add some extra hull, preferably using secondary slots or maybe by adding a ship upgrade slot outside of the weapon mounts. In the same idea it would be nice to increase speed or maneuverability with upgrades.

Fighters:
Fighters are great, but the bolter drone is my default as the other fighters don't have enough kick or are so slow or inaccurate that it is not worth the investment.

New weapons:
Particle Cannon: Like a laser but focused on hull, maybe no shield damage at all so you have to build your ship to make it work.

Line of site Projectile Cannon:
Like a MAC cannon from halo, it can only fire when properly aimed, but does tremendous damage, possibly one shot kill but use 3 main weapon slot or some other drawback (Maybe uses 1 main weapon but requires two secondary slots for power storage)

Mine field: Deploy mines in an area (maybe a dedicated mine ship) that can be used in conjunction with distress beacons to give you the upper hand.

Self-Destruct Option: send a ship in two die and take a fleet with it.

Environment:

All of the ideas you have listed are great! It would be cool to be able to claim abandoned space stations for humanity and possibly upgrade captured ones as well. It would be cool to also just have a larger station in general, it makes me sad when I see one get destroyed.

Black Holes: This would be interesting, but I think it would be intriguing to see if they change how weapons fire and hit as well.

Traps: I like this idea a lot, but if you up the risk I would like to up the reward as well, maybe improving the likelihood of getting good weapon drops?

Other:
I have seen some people say they want energy management, I like this idea for the desktop version, but it would be too much for a mobile game, on mobile I just want to get in and start shooting. If this is something that many people want implemented, it would be nice if it could just be a menu option like difficulty.

All of the planned changes you have are great, I am looking forward to seeing the results!

Supporting all the eay

great news, thank you for continuing on this. as many have said before lasers need help. maybe mesh Humanity's Last Hope with Harbringer. I had backed that and thought that was great. Some interesting strategies in HLH and I think that they could work with this. Not saying to ditch HLH all together but take Harbringer further. Also, throw in a stretch goal or two. You said you didn't need no stinkin' stretch goals in HLH but if you had something it may have made a difference.
thank you once again. keep making this great!

Great to see your adding in new type of carriers and more options, hoping their will be drone command enhancements and enabling mini drone deployments as described in past emails to you guys.

Anywho heres a recap publicly so people can perhaps build upon my feedback/ideas

Still though im a total fan of carrier crafts, hoping you can make super carrier ships housing 3-5 drone bays allowing for the ability to leave behind drones to guard zones, and add in more complexity to the use of drones, (while equally keeping it simple, allowing drones to have some sorta feature like say, a salvager drone, that hops to other sectors during turns and comes back with salvage, assuming it isn't blown up, etc..) With the ability to assign drones the ability to guard said savager drones.

A big part of your game i really liked though is the fact you can have drones period, and your able to issue commands to these drones, enabling you to be a drone tanking machine, or not rely on drones heavily and swap out.

A few things i'd love to see added besides what i mentioned in regards to drones are, multiplayer. I understand with the complexity of the game itself, that adding in multiplayer maybe hard, but i feel if you enable bluetooth, wifi (local or remote) gameplay, we can really see sparks flying with multiplayer battles consisting of turns and duking it out (with both players perhaps pitted against one another, in a similar fashion in the star map, but with more risk, like say, either they work together in a co-op based fashion or in a winner rushes to the end takes all, sorta fashion, enabling a pretty brutal type of gameplay) although if such a feature were ever to be added... with the game in its current state, i would strongly suggest to increase the strength of enemy numbers/spawning in fleets based on player(s) in match. I know this is probably a near impossible request at this point but i can definitely take interest in this sort of opportunity.

Core things i'd like to hopefully see implemented more for the carrier play and story line

- Updated story/enemy faction storyline
- Potential for random events to take place (anomalys like random storms that wipe out ships or pirates, something of the sort that wipes or affects both or one side of the gameplay (ex: pirates jump in and help you for a price if you fail to offer reward/pay they will turn*))
- Ally support calls (calling in friendly AI fleets to assist you), of course with the repercussion of a time limit to help turn the tide (while equally also enabling the enemy to do so)

Weapon/Turret/Gun emplacement ideas
- Red Slot weapons:

• a Salvager beam (tractor beam) that collects salvage(so you can grab items while in a fire fight instead of needing to be nearly next to items during a fight), this allows for quick fight and flight tactics (it might help if your fleets to small or your to heavily outclassed and get stuck due to lack of scrap to buy better turrets)
  
• Mine deployer (Deploys mines varying from slow mines that slow down enemy doing minor damage, to heavy damage mines that do little to to much damage) (automatic or manual fire is optional{?} (Makes for a better retreat backwards when enemy fleets rush you)
  
• Deployable sentry gun/unit (Deploy a stationary turret that deploys out with limited health/ammo that stays to fire at nearby hostiles, this turret can be recalled via some sorta chainlinking effect or perhaps serves as a defensive node that can be left behind on a per jump point basis {Thus restricting its redeployment}, or perhaps temporary deployment that is autorecalled after battle
  
  

- BlueSlot weapons;

• Up laser turrets range, increase cooldown timer for fire but extend range
  
• Enable missle turrets (or perhaps rocket turrets, micro rockets), ex: Close range anti missle turrets or something of the sort no more than maybe 150-200 distance to reduce spamming effectiveness
  

- Drone Suggestions;

• <li>Add in missle drones! Enemy has them why dont we? As a cap restriction add in limited # of bays for missle drone deployment or restrict missle fire rate like enemy drones
  
• Salvage drone, names self explanatory but it gathers salvage/weapon/item drops nearby but has the potential to be destroyed by enemies{If your internal storage is full for ship parts it just keeps them floating around you
  
• Deflector drones, as the name suggests, these drones solely are shield drones that deflect damage (perhaps missle absorbtion) or bullet damage (or reflects back the attack on attacker(s) based on a %
  

I bought this game just to try i didnt know i would be addicted to it

Ita amazing that you will be adding new features to the game ... most of the suggestions i want to make already written by some users i cant wait for the new update to come

My own personal suggestions are
make the game harder or add new mode add more enemies speed up the game and fix the freeezing moment in the game ...umm I agree and support the guys who wrote about turrets and ships needa a lot of change. ..and do nerf the flak canon..make the game hard to play wo players play more yet easy so they dont get bored..and about the drops nerf it a lil bit ..thats all

Thank you cant wait for the new update

Ive been playing nonstop.since this cane out i love love love it.

Black hole/Singularity Cannon?
Late Game find? Does mass damage to ships but can only be used once in a sector, due to spatial instability?