Genre: Shooter, Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Tactical, Indie
House of the Dying Sun
BETA Update: 8.19.2016
Hi!
This patch covers some more under-the-hood tweaking (this time with Steam) along with some unit configuration and AI upgrades. You'll need to opt-in to the beta branch of the game to play with these changes. Here is the list:
DESTROYER: +HP/+SHIELD
DESTROYER: Increased turn and move speed
DESTROYER: Better forward coverage for point defense
FRIGATE: Better forward coverage for point defense
CONTROLS: Radials will lock out most other commands
CONTROLS: Fixed "Toggle Move Order Mode" command
CARRIER: Lowered torpedo steering and hull damage
STEAM: Better Steamworks integration
AI: Fixed long attack run behavior
AI: Allied fighters will wait for clear shot with longer-range weapons like the Long Rifle
Destroyer Balancing
We're nudging the destroyers back up in terms of vitality and maneuverability. They were a little too paper-thin, especially when they encountered units that could outrange them like carriers.
Point Defense Coverage
Point defense locations on allied capitals have been reconfigured to have better forward-facing coverage. If they are equipped with Omniflak, they will have an easier time shooting down incoming torpedoes.
Expect a few volleys to make it through, but your units should be able to defend themselves a little better. Thanks a lot to the players that brought this up!
AI Upgrades
We've fixed a couple instances where the AI would seemingly fly off when given an order. The reason for this was they would try to set up for an attack run on their target at a percentage of their weapon's max range.
So in the case of the Long Rifle or Torpedo, they would think they were too close and try to fly out to the 8km+ distance before turning around. There is now a cap on this distance that makes them behave much more reasonably.
The other fix makes them a bit smarter when using these long range weapons and their target is behind cover. They will wait until they have a clear shot when using the Long Rifle, for example.
As always, if you run into any problems, please don't hesitate to post in the forums!
Good hunting!
Hotfix 8.12.2016
We've been working with our middleware author and we have an experimental fix for a bunch of conflicting joystick inputs/throttles, sometimes causing the mouse to disappear in menus.
This fix should remove the need to "Force Mouse in Menus" option if you have a non-gamepad controller hooked up.
Thanks to the users that tested this and let us know that it helped!
Patch Notes 8.11.2016
Hi!
There are some big under-the-hood changes here along with some bug fixes and balance tweaks. These have been tested for a short while in the beta branch and all seems well, so they are going live:
ENGINE UPGRADE -- This should solve the black screen soft crash that some people were seeing, especially on 970+ cards with 3gb of VRAM. The previous workaround was to use the DX9 launch option, but that should no longer be necessary. Please let us know if it helped!
DRONE: Imperial drones cannot heal each other
WEAPONS: +RANGE for allied destroyer artillery
WEAPONS: +HULL DAMAGE for allied destroyer artillery
WEAPONS: -SHIELD DAMAGE for allied destroyer artillery
UNITS: -HULL for allied destroyer
CHALLENGE MODE: Drones reinforce faster
LEADERBOARDS: Handled case where Steam is down
CONTROLS: Only mouse movement will switch to KBAM mode, letting you use the keyboard & simple joystick in tandem
AUDIO: Normalized all radio chatter, tweaked starting volumes in the options menu
WEAPONS: Slowed down enemy supercapital artillery
Imperial Destroy Balancing
The destroyers always had a muddy role in the combat encounters, so we're trying to fix that.
Destroyers now act like your own set of archers instead of tanky brawlers. They can engage at +100% of the range, making them short-range snipers, but they do more damage to hull and less to shields. This makes it important for you in your fighters to move ahead and drop shielding on their targets, and also to protect them. Their increased range buys you more time.
They start off somewhat inaccurate at low rank, but at max rank they should be excellent shots.
Next Update
The next major update will be 1.0, and we're shooting for sometime near the middle of September. There will be some small extras in this update that we'll talk about as we get closer to the date.
If fires pop up in the meantime, especially due to some unforeseen engine upgrade complication, they will be addressed.
Thanks for your support!
UPDATE 8.11.2016 @ 9:53 PST
Some users were reporting upside-down VR displays, so we're reverting this build until this is hunted down. Thanks!
UPDATE 8.11.2016 @ 10:22 PST
Looks like the problem has been isolated. We're going to push it to the beta branch and give it a few runs to see if it's good to go.
UPDATE 8.11.2016 @ 11:06 PST
A few intrepid players have verified that the fix is working, so the main branch is being updated with this version. Thanks for your patience!
Minor Balance & Performance Update
Hi!
We're going to be incrementally tweaking the challenge mode while making some performance improvements.
Most of these balance items will affect high level Challenge Mode play, but campaign will see some small changes/improvements as well. The first pass is to improve Imperial drone effectiveness and limit the amount of shields enemy waves can field.
CHALLENGE MODE: Carriers and Battlecruisers now have much heavier escorts instead of too much fighter spam
CHALLENGE MODE: Decreased chance of flak drones for sniper units
PERF: Fixed some hitches when switching fighters or going in and out of tactical mode, prevents some holodecking in VR
PERF: Minor fixes, mostly having to do with small one-off garbage collections
Good hunting!
Challenge Mode Is Live
Challenge Mode
Live on the main branch is a new scenario, Last Stand at Ol's Shelter, previously known only as "wave clear." Each day (at 17:00 PST), a new battlefield is created. Each day, a new roster of enemies is summoned. Each day, you will die.
The rules are simple:
You will fight randomly-generated fleets until you lose your fighters or your Host Termination Timer is up
Each fleet is led by one or more traitor lords with a random set of upgrades
Eliminating these leaders fends off death by adding time your Host Termination Timer
Bonuses may be earned by eliminating civilian vessels
Your furthest wave and time is put on display using Steam Leaderboards
Challenge Mode is extremely challenging and is recommended for veteran players. Upgrades earned in the campaign will be available in this scenario.
This mode also represents one of the major feature milestones on the road to leaving Early Access. We're not quite there yet, as there is still work left to do across the game. Thanks for your support and patience!
Patch Notes
This update also includes the following fixes (among many others):
CONTROLS: ArmA-style mouselook is implemented (defaults to LEFT-ALT)
CONTROLS: Joystick axis freelook is implemented
FIGHTER AI: Major improvements to things like weapon selection and attack run positioning
DRONE AI: Healing Drone AI has better prioritization, will top off nearby allies
GAP DRIVE: Fixed cases where AI would kill themselves
PERFORMANCE: A ton of minor performance fixes went in, hopefully adding up to a better VR experience for many
We'll keep tweaking Challenge Mode until 1.0 arrives, so leave feedback in the Steam Forums! Your feedback has been invaluable so far. Thanks for taking the time to write it!
UPDATE: 6.26.2016
Hi!
We've decided to push some fixes to the main branch while work on the wave clear mode continues. Here they are:
OPTIMIZATION: Made several small framerate optimizations
WEAPONS: Fixed bullets sometimes clipping through very close objects
CONTROLS: Better control debugging data at startup
CONTROLS: Mouse is confined to window
CONTROLS: Generic templates for many joysticks (experimental)
THE TEMPLAR: Allies better prioritize target carrier
A lot of the framerate optimizations were very small things that add up over time, or things that trip the garbage collector unnecessarily in odd situations. There will be more of these kinds of optimizations happening throughout Early Access.
Good hunting!
BETA UPDATE: 6.19.2016
Controls update!
If you were every seeing the game get progressively worse when entering the cockpit mode, this was likely due to the TrackIR setting being enabled but no device was detected. There are now safeties in place to keep this from being a problem.
If you are still having problems with what seems to be ghost data left behind when rebinding controls, please email bugs@marauderinteractive.com and we'll get you squared away.
There are EXPERIMENTAL flight stick templates set up, so you should at least be able to navigate the basics right off the bat. Anything but KBAM and gamepad support is still at-your-own-risk but we'll be trying to help wherever we can.
CONTROLS: Cleaned up rebinding garbage data being left behind
CONTROLS: (experimental) Flight stick template for most controllers
CONTROLS: Fixed throttle bugs, added debug info (still ongoing)
PERF: Fixed shader scripts causing some thrashing in final battle
BUG: Setting TrackIR to ENABLED should no longer slow down machine when entering cockpit and a TrackIR device is not hooked up
To access the beta update, right-click the game in your Steam library, select "Properties," then click the "Betas" tab. Select "beta" from the dropdown menu.
Good hunting!
UPDATE: 6.16.2016
All of the beta fixes are now pushed to main branch. Let us know if you run into any problems! Here is a list of what has been fixed:
AUDIO: 192khz sample rate support
AUDIO: Fixed errors causing log spam when starting some missions, potentially causing audio issues
AI: Allied fighters are better at Purifier Bombs
AI: Fixed cases where flagships would clip through terrain
OPTION: Vignetting screen effect option added
CONTROLS: Updated control input middleware
CONTROLS: Added option for forcing mouse in menus even if joystick input is received
CONTROLS: Added options for mouse inversion
CONTROLS: Added option for weapon gimballing in mouse mode
CONTROLS: Added mousewheel zoom sensitivity
SOFTCRASH: Fixed softcrash on warpout
FIX: Erasing your campaign save no longer erases your settings
GAP DRIVE: Performance hitch fixed
GAP DRIVE: AI are better at avoiding terrain
TEXT: Fixed a few spelling errors in mission descriptions.
ACHIEVEMENT: Gun Nut should fire more consistently. Just beat a mission that gave you a weapon (such as SU'MEER'S CLOUD) and it should pop.
Even though there are still some odds and ends, we're now going to turn our attention to the side mode known as wave clear. We'll have more info soon. Thanks for your support!
BETA UPDATE - 6.14.2016
Some of the beta fixes in the last update needed some love, so we are keeping this update on the beta branch for now. If all goes well, we'll push it to main tomorrow:
AUDIO: Experimental 192khz sample rate support
AI: Allied fighters are better at Purifier Bombs
OPTION: Vignetting option added
CONTROLS: Option for forcing mouse in menus even if joystick input is received
CONTROLS: Options for mouse inversion
CONTROLS: Option for weapon gimballing in mouse mode
SOFTCRASH Pt2: Fixed a case when certain ships would cause issues during warp
By forcing the mouse in menus, this will tell the game to ignore your flight stick that is likely sending out input data, which is causing the game to oscillate between mouse and joystick modes. Binding should be made easier with this option.
You can also turn off gimballed turrets, so the game will behave much more like a virtual joystick. By inverting the cockpit mouse controls, this mode is defaulted to on.
All previous beta fixes are included in this version.
More soon. Good hunting!
BETA UPDATE - 6.11.2016
We have some changes that are going into the beta branch right now. Some are a little touchy which is why we're not pushing them to main immediately.
FIX: Erasing your campaign save no longer erases your settings
GAP DRIVE: Performance hitch fixed
GAP DRIVE: AI are better at avoiding terrain
AUDIO: Fixed errors causing log spam when starting some missions, potentially causing audio issues
SOFTCRASH: Fixed a case when certain ships would cause issues during warp
TEXT: Fixed a few spelling errors in mission descriptions.
To access the beta branch, right click the game in your library, select "Properties," then go to the "Betas" tab and select "beta" from the dropdown menu.
If these changes are good to go we'll drop them into the main branch.
