Q: Why is it called Novus Aeterno and what does it mean?
Novus Aeterno is Latin for “new beginning of time”. The time of the old empires has ended and the start of the game is the beginning of new empires, stories and experiences.
Q: What is an MMORTS?
MMORTS stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy. An MMO is a multiplayer video game which allows hundreds, even thousands of players to play simultaneously. Due to the amount of players, MMOs are played online and feature at least one persistent world containing all the players. Novus Aeterno takes elements of current day MMOs and combines them with a unique RTS experience to bring players a vast and beautiful galaxy wherein they may make friends, defeat enemies, create spanning empires or simply just explore.
Q: Are players able to play against anyone, independent of the server they are on?
A: The entire galaxy of Novus Aeterno will exist on a single global network. Taitale’s innovative server architecture will allow all players to connect to every other player in a seamless galaxy without any loading times or server changes.
Q: Will you have Player versus Environment (PvE) content or will the game be Player versus Player (PvP) only?
A large part of Novus Aeterno game play revolves around PvP. However, PvE will also be included through unique galaxy wide events, which players can participate in. These events will push the main story forward. Galaxy wide events will take place at all times and can be joined whenever a player wishes.
Q: How many Characters can I have on my account?
Due to the structure of Novus Aeterno; only one character will be allowed per account.
Q:Will there be 3D movement?
Originally we had full 3D movement within Novus AEterno. However, we soon realized, along side the firing arcs and directional armour each ship has, it becomes a mechanic that is too complex. Once a player commands hundreds of ships fighting countless wars across multiple solar systems, full 3D movement becomes overwhelmingly complex.
Q:Can you choose where to approximately spawn, so you are at least near to your friends?
All players spawn at a random location when they enter the game for the first time. Novus AEterno is a fast pace game, so it won’t be long before you and your friends will be able to come together in the same sector of space and start working together.
Q:How many playable races will be in the game?
There are a total of 5 races planned for Novus AEterno. The humans, who are currently the only playable race within the game function very similar to how most RTS units function.
The 4 other races are each extremely unique. Each one has their own way of researching technology and offer unique styles of combat. We even have organic ships that will rip through enemy hulls using their teeth.
Q: Can you build planetary defences like ion cannons or fortresses?
Each player has a fortress shield which protects their home planet. Anything within the protection of the fortress shield cannot be fired upon nor captured. Player will be allowed to build a second fortress shield. Both fortress shields can be moved to other planets, with enough time, but at least one of the two must be active at any point within the game.
We are planning on adding in planetary and orbital defences at a later stretch goal on Kickstarter.
Q:How long does it take to do stuff in the game? (build buildings, capture planets, build ships etc.)
Most of the core elements in Novus AEterno is designed to have basically the same pacing as you would expect from any Real-Time Strategy game. Players will be able to build massive fleets and engage in combat for the first time on the same day that they started.
Other elements within Novus AEterno, such as the growth of population, conquering enemy planets and research will take a significantly longer amount of time as they are elements which determine the progression of a players empire.
Q:How do you keep the balance between new and old players?
The balancing between old and new players comes down to the Command Points (CP) system.
The cap on CP is the same for any player within Novus AEterno, no matter how long they have been playing the game. Each ship a player builds will have a CP cost determined by the strength of the components the player has decided to place on the hull. Stronger components and more High-tech components will cost more CP. A veteran player might have greater tech than a new player, but the CP costs of his ships will also be a lot greater.
Q: How will research affect game balance?
The Research within Novus AEterno isn’t like what you would expect from a RTS game. There are no tech trees and the research outcomes are completely random to each and every player. Something that worked for your friend might turn out to actually decrease the effectiveness of your own fleet. Due to the random element within the research system, a player who has just joined the game might unlock something that a veteran has never even heard of before.
All tech is scaled on CP cost. With greater technology comes greater production costs. Just because you have unlocked an extremely powerful weapon, doesn’t mean that it will be able to just equip all your ships with it. The more powerful a component, the less of it you can have.
Q:What happens when I go offline?
When you log out of Novus AEterno, your empire will remain within the persistent universe. There are, however, a few systems put in place to prevent players from taking advantage of someone being offline.
(1) Overwatch: When you have logged out of Novus AEterno, or if you are disconnected in any other way, your empire will be placed under the protection of an A.I. called Overwatch.
Overwatch will protect your empire from hostile players while you are offline. Between 15 to 30 minutes after the moment you logged off, any ships that were destroyed will be respawned in waves from your home planet at little to no cost to the player. You will be able to customize Overwatch to respond to specific events any way you see fit. But keep in mind, Overwatch will only act defensively.
(2) Planet Population: A captured planet’s population grows over time with a percentage of the population automatically being converted to militia. The longer you control a planet, the larger your population of militia will be. These militia forces need to be defeated before another player can take over your planet.
(3) Fortress Shields: All players start the game with a fortress shield protecting your starting planet and its immediate surrounding space. Anything within the fortress shield cannot be damaged. You can select a second planet to also be protected by a fortress shield. At least one planet must be protected by a fortress shield at any point during the game. This prevents a player from being completely knocked out of Novus AEterno.
Q:What are the PC requirements to run Novus AEterno?
With the game currently in an Alpha state, it requires quite a lot of resources to run as many of the elements aren’t optimized as of yet. We continuously optimize the game and we are aiming for something like this:
Minimum
Intel Core2 Duo @ 2.4 GHz
256 MB VRAM, Shader Model 2.0
DirectX 9.0c
Very low quality with 30 FPS.
Recommended
Intel Core i5 @ 2.67 GHz
1024 MB VRAM, Shader Model 3.0
Medium quality with 60 FPS.
High quality with 30 FPS.
Optimal
Intel Core i7 @ 3.4 GHz
2048 MB VRAM, Shader Model 3.0
Very high quality with 60 FPS.
Q:What will the game cost upon release?
This has not been written in stone yet. We are looking at a $40 one-time purchase when the game goes live, with an OPTIONAL $10 a month premium account option.
Q:If the game is a one-time purchase, why do you have the option for a premium account?
Running the servers for a game is extremely expensive. As gamers ourselves we felt that asking for a monthly subscription is unfair to other gamers and being completely free-to-play won’t help us at all.
We needed to form an option which would give players incentive to buy the premium accounts without making them stronger than non-premium players. This is why all the perks from premium status fall under the category of Empire Management. There is NOTHING in the premium package which will make one player stronger than another. It is just there to give players a helping hand with the management of large empires.
Premium account will have access to the following:
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Longer offline build queues. If a user is offline quite often, he can still keep progressing and not completely fall too far behind friends who are more active.
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Additional automated trade routes between your own planets. This does not make it less vulnerable, only simpler to manage your empire.
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More in-depth AI customization. A bit more options for your offline and online AI.
A player without Premium status will be able to do absolutely everything a premium player can accomplish. It will just means a player without premium will have to spend more time managing specific elements of the game.
Q:Will we be able to host our own private servers?
Novus AEterno runs off between 15-40 servers. The architecture is extremely complicated, requires a lot of maintenance and is incredibly expensive. We will not be able to offer the ability to create private servers as it will be too expensive to accomplish due to the complexity and maintenance required.