As you step out of the dingy shuttle, your mind flickers back to the life you led before circumstances forced you to bond off world as a colonist...
Backgrounds represent the prior occupation of the newly arrived colonist. Each background is tied to a victory condition - when the victory condition has been fufilled, the player can reroll and choose a new background. In some cases successfully completing a background will award a permanent, but minor, bonus that persists over rerolls and can only be earned once. Rerolling successfully also unlocks victory points, which allow the player to choose more challenging and rewarding background in his next game.
Of course a player might wish to instead remain in control of his colony, for a variety of reasons - rerolling immediately after one of the easier victory conditions is satisfied would leave the colonist with little impact on the game planet and a low level of technical achievement.
Easy backgrounds are available to all players (require no victory points to unlock) and consist of: Ranger, Fabricator, and Retiree. These backgrounds grant a minor starting bonus for the beginning player, without significant drawbacks.
Medium background require 2* successful easy background completions to unlock and consist of: Slicer, Outlaw, Wild man, Clanner, and Beaurocrat. These backgrounds come with moderate bonuses that affect the course of gameplay, and moderate drawbacks or challenges for the player to take into consideration.
Hard backgrounds are the most challenging starting scenarios and offer the most powerful bonuses. These backgrounds are unlocked after 10* successful background completions and consist of: Stranded, Freak, and Slave-clone.
* subject to change
Other updates
* the old server is having a motherboard replaced
* the new server is available at wayfar1444.com but won't be running the MOO until the old server is repaired
* Exploration was fleshed out, concept and specific wise
* Players receive 10** free exploration chances per day - when entering wilderness they haven't fully explored, exploration progress is awarded and a special event may be triggered
* Special events added: resource cache, shuttle debris, empty lair, sickly wildlife, wildlife attack!, broken down vehicle, blast site, human corpse, contaminated wildlife, unknown technology, mutant wildlife, crash site
* Solar system generation has been written and is awaiting implementation
* Solar systems generate a central star and several planets, placed on a 2d plane
* basic star ships have been written and are awaiting implementation
