One of the runner up suggestions from the previous voting & suggestion thread was the ability to keep your AI with the ship. This allows you to save your AI into the fleet section and swap out whole AI fleets. Have multiple AIs you are working on etc..
Units that have the little corner on their name are units that have AI rules attached to them.
Balancing Changes
x2 Front and Back pieces changed to $3/$2 from $5/$3
Slight nerf to warhead AoE, from 210m to 200m
Lobby changes
We made it so that only the host can start battles. We also added a 5 second timer to start of battles allowing people that don’t want to play to leave and abort the timer. And finally kicking a player from a team prevents that player from joining again for 15s.
There was no consensus on who and when a battle should start. Now its the host’s job to start battles as soon as teams are filled. As rank play was introduced players could trap other players into games with them by pressing the start button quickly before the other player has a chance to leave. This was bad. When a host kicks a player from a team, that player can’t instantly join and start a game. A source of much trolling. I hope to see less trolling of this kind in the future.
New challenge AIs added
All of the AIs were already present in the galaxy campaign, except for Nayenne which was made by a highly skilled player. We though it was awesome and put it into the game.
Nayenne
WaveMotion
SparkShower
FireFly
AssaultandBattery
RushDown
BaitandMissile
SiegeCore
AlphaStriker
Ranks
Our rank experiment is continuing. We had to reset some people’s ranks due to “rank” farming. So don’t rank farm, it’s really easy for us to see who is doing it. We are thinking of ways to roll them out to the 2v2 and 3v3 in the future.
See you in game!
Istrolid Version 38.22
We are happy to introduce the first version of a competative Ranking system.
In addition, we have a number of smaller bug fixes this patch
Player Rankings
Calculated during 1v1 mode only.
Your first games will give you a bonus as you learn.
All 1v1 wins will give you Ranking Points from your enemy, based on the difference in your rankings.
This system will be subject to changes early on, as we try to expand and improve it.
A players 'tier' or skill bracket is shown above their color.
Istrolid Version 38.14
This update comes with several small general fixes and a range of balance changes to weapons. These are aimed mostly at normalizing all weapon costs to $5, bringing most weapons down from $10. This should allow stacking low-angle mounts to be more competitive than before when compared to hex-modding, so that we can see more large battleships which stack forward-mounted weaponry, rather than everything being able to fire in 360 and using hexmods.
Balance Changes
All weapons now cost $5.
Heavy PD damage 44->60, making it more a versatile PD/weapon hybrid.
Heavy beam 40T-30T
Flak range 350->360, projectil speed 30->27. This helps it slightly when retreating, but makes it easier to dodge.
Autocannon range 500->470 as it benefits a lot from the price drop.
Tesla energy use down 10%.
Warhead weight 5T->6T
Phase bomb damage 180->150. AoE 50->75. This should make them less swingy and more reliable, but they still probably need a rework.
General fixes
Fixes to spelling and wording.
Fixes to login/password reset.
Clicking on links fixed
Copy/Paste fixed on Mac.
Support Istrolid with our first DLC: Paint Job!
A lot of players have asked how they can support the game, so we’re releasing our first pack of cosmetic features for players who want to show their love for the Istrolid, and help with our rising server costs! For $10 you get all these cool decals that you can add on top of armor or batteries anywhere on your ship:
All supporters also get pioneer features as a bonus, including the ability to rotate all armor pieces and wings as well as name your ships.
This DLC includes:
Insignias
Letters & Numbers
Stripes
Ability to rotate parts
Ability to name ships
Think of all of the cool new ships that you can build!
Istrolid Version 38.1
Updates have been a little bit slower this week as we try to complete some larger projects.
That said, we still have some improvements to the fleet screen and editor.
UI Improvements
Dragging onto units now swaps the units, rather than copying over.
Now gives a red indicator when dragging off the fleet screen will delete.
Holding alt and click on a unit now deletes it instnatly.
Holding alt and clicking on a part now deletes it.
Istrolid Version: 37.108
We have a series of improvements to campaign mode this patch. Most notably, we have improved the boss fights, with 5 new bosses.
Galaxy Changes
New Progress System
Displays the highest difficulty you beat a mission at.
Galaxy remains available after you win, so you can replay as much as you want
Streamlined the tutorial levels a bit.
New Bosses
Tempest: Hit and Run Skirmishing Boss
MasterMind: Powerful defenses with a stealthed boss hiding behind them.
Zeus: Powerful Tesla-based AI that tries to keep it shields up.
DeathStrike: Fast and powerful assault AI that uses giant recharging stations to function.
SwarmLord: Carrier Boss with a hoard of units using it as a base.
Balance Tweaks Heavy PD Generally Buffed.
Larger hitbox to hit more Missiles.
+20 Range
+10% damage
Bug Fixes These are done in something of a rolling basis, but are constant.
Of Note:
<*>Harder to Scroll off the galaxy accidentally.
<*>Fixed various issues with player AIs.
Istrolid Version 37.103
We continue to work on some larger projects for you, but in the meantime we have some fixes.
Cloak
Now does not cost energy when you are not cloaked.
Costs 400/energy a second while cloaked, until you hit maximum cloak.
Now only decloaks when the ship actually fires, not just when it has a firing solution.
Ultralight Armor
Was in a bit weak of a place because of volumetric.
Now has half its former mass.
Additionally, there are bug fixes to problems that players can never see that should increase perfomance a bit.
We will be doing more major releases later this week, but in the meantime, we are trying to keep the game balanced.
As a referesher on cloak mechanics:
Cloaking Energy A ship must generate enough 'cloaking energy' to equal its mass, in order to be cloaked.
Each cloaking device cloak's 60T of ship, every second (so a 60T ship will cloak in exactly one second).
The maximum 'cloaking energy' a ship can have is equal to twice its mass, and it will begin costing 6.6 energy per mass, until it hits twice its mass in 'cloaking energy'.
While a ship moves, it loses 40% of its Mass in cloak energy, every second.
If the ship ever fires or touches an enemy ship, it will go down to 0 cloak energy.
Ships that are cloaked can only be hit by locked on missiles, and area of effect attacks. They cannot be fired at by the enemy.
In Short A giant ship will decloak after 2.5 seconds of moving, when fully cloaked.
A ship can move while cloaked without losing power at 150 Mass per cloaking device. This will cost 400 e/s per cloaking device (while cloaked). More allows it to to cloak from visible while moving, less devices means you must stop to recloak after recovering for a bit.
You can tell how far a ship is in the cloaking process by how much of its health-bar is transparent.
Post-Launch Recap: A Crazy Start
It’s now been a week since I launched Istrolid on Steam. Before the launch, I thought maybe a few thousand people would check it out but I was way wrong. Instead, Istrolid has had over 70,000 people try it out so far. This is 10,000 people per day, which is crazy-awesome-amazing! About 1,000 people play Istrolid every hour:
Since Istrolid got so many more players than I expected, I had to create a bunch of new servers on the first day. This was an interesting challenge because I hadn’t built a good system for bringing up new servers. I didn’t think I’d need one, but I was wrong and here is what I built:
Along with bringing up a bunch of new servers, I’ve also been updating the game many times a day. Istrolid is set up so I can put out updates without requiring a new download on Steam. This means you’ve been getting updates and bug fixes without even noticing!
Most of these updates have been fixes to unexpected issues that came up because so many more people are playing the game than I had anticipated. Here are some issues I’ve this fixed this week:
Looking back at this launch week, it has made me realize how humble the beginnings of Istrolid really were. Istrolid started as a simple WebGL prototype with spaceships you could fly around. I’ve always liked space and explosions. In the demo, you could only build 13 ships. There was no design component yet, it was all really simple. From there, the game just expanded and improved.
Saktoth and RyMarq joined in to help me improve the game in the very early days. We worked together to add some of the coolest features in Istrolid. Probably the best one was the ability to design your own ships. Multiplayer also really made the game better because you could battle your ships against other people’s, seeing who had designed the best fleet.
Istrolid took us over a year to create. That’s a long time, but it was also a lot of fun. We chose to make Istrolid free because we wanted to get as many people to play it as possible. This is what makes us so happy about our launch being so successful with so many players. It’s amazing so many people are playing our game. Thank you!
Istrolid Version: 37.93
We have been trying to improve the multiplayer experience in what ways we can right now. Most importantly though, thanks to Treeform's hard work, we believe we have fixed all problems with player's ship lists being wiped. As of last version it should have been rare, but now it should be a thing of the past entirely
Bug Fixes:
Fixed losing ship-lists. Ships will now never be deleted if a conflict occurs, in the worst case of error's duplication is now the failure state (and still very unlikely).
Massively reduced performance cost of warheads (it was entirely too high).
Fixed a bug that would cause shaped charges to do radically too much damage.
Changes:
Shaped Charges now have a built in No Overkill behavior. If they would kill the target twice over, they do not trigger. This means that unlike basic warheads, they will not trigger on small intercepting craft.
Warheads will no longer trigger on a ship with Shaped Charged, until that ship dies. Combining the two will allow warheads that don't die to random tiny ships, and can penetrate deeper into an enemy squad before exploding, but are a bit heavier and harder to use.
Player Search Feature: Players will now have their current current server listed in the player list, and there is a search bar up top so you can find them more easily.
Clicking on the listed server will bring you directly to their game.
In the coming days, we will be revealing a system for players to have a more engaging and competative multiplayer experience and will be further refining the balance of the cloak. We are currently working on a rework of the boss-fights in the campaign mode to make them more engaging, but do not have a clear ETA on that.
As always, thank you for playing.
Istrolid Version 37
Its been a bit of a hectic start over here, but we are overcoming the first hurdles of the steam release.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a major cause of progress loss.
Improvements to server stability.
Quality of Life: We have made a number of changes this weekend, as I am sure most players have noticed.
Most noteably:
Servers now have local chat-rooms, and wont be affected by global spam.
Server list is now better sorted to find games easily.
Moderation tools have been added to deal with problematic players.
The first player to join a game becomes the 'host', and will control adding AIs and kicking players.
Balance Changes: Wave Gun (Push and Pull): 500 Range > 750 Range. Damage to 8.
The wave gun was in a rather conservative place, due to a series of changes before release.
These changes should put it in a better place, where it will be easier to dirupt enemy formations, chase down enemy ships, and counter enemy rushes using the weapon.
Thanks to all players who stopped by and tried the game, and we are sorry for a bit of a rough start. More players showed up than we had planned for, the response so far has really been incredible.
