Yes, despite what you may have heard we're not all dead quite just yet. Development's been seriously slow the past few months and it took a while to get the random additions in order for an update release.
So let's see what's changed.
Weapon Reticles
So one of the problems with combat's always been not knowing exactly which way your guns are pointing before shooting, which led to many a misfire. That should be gone now however, with these new reticles.
There are four different reticles for different gun types.
The only ones displayed are the ones that are in the currently enabled firegroups to reduce clutter on larger ships and they stack when close as well.
Scope
With the reticles in place, you can now be a lot more accurate with long range weapons like railguns. And with increased ranges you also need a way to look at things up close.
Introducing the sniper scope that replaces boost on the shift key as default.
Reworked Space Station GUI
The cargo management and transfer systems on space stations have gotten a complete rework - not only from a graphical but also from a backend standpoint as well, with everything working somewhat differently now.
It's not completely balanced yet and will likely need some price scaling depending on galactic faction and location but it should be a lot easier to find undiscovered modules now at least.
Crafting
Instead of only player owned stations, crafting is now available everywhere (for a small fee per module). The large amount of ores was reduced to only two so it's far more practical to have a sizable stack of each in storage for repairs.
It also has a new GUI, complete with scolling and type filtering.
Cargo Transfer
In older versions of the game you could buy an infinite amount of new modules from stations which wasn't very realistic.
Now each station spawns with a random supply of modules that you can buy from a brand new cargo transfer menu.
Both of these also support right clicking and moving/crafting a selected amount of an item.
Ship Cargo Transfer
There are ship-to-ship cargo transfer menus as well now, although still very experimental.
At the moment it's a very useful feature when transferring large amounts of cargo from mostly intact derelicts.
Texturepacks
This feature was mostly added to have support for loading some sort of smaller size textures for lower end systems. It just happens to mostly allign with the way texturepacks could work so we added that instead and 2 default texturepacks:
High (old textures, selected by default)
Low (2-4x downscaled textures)
The texturepacks can be selected in the game launcher or set in the settings.cfg file itself.
The "textures" folder where the game sources the assets is located in the game directory with more information about texturepack creation in the readme.
Changelog:
Additions:
added space station cargo containers
added weapon aim indicators that show firing vectors of active weapons
added scope
added a right click menu to station menus for quantity selection item transfer, along with shift clicking to transfer an entire stack
texture packs and a selection for them into the launcher and settings.cfg (more info in the textures folder)
two stock texturepacks: High and Low (high being the stock one and low a 2-4x downscaled version)
friendly and fleet ships now follow you into interstellar warp
space stations now spawn with cargo inside contaiers, available for trade
ship to ship trading (experimental)
Changes:
Kepler Cola pallet is now obtainable and usable as a trading-only item
reduced VRAM usage so the game doesn't go over 1GB and cause problems on older hardware
nerfed junker weapon stats
removed most textures from game executable, transferred them into texturepacks
removed NPC ship ramming on loss of all guns, made them warp out instead
removed engine boost
removed starting velocity from shells for easier combat mechanics
increased speed of shells
power and shield bar rework
lockon time reduced to a fixed amount of half a second
tracking camera movement is now always on but available only when using the scope
less intrusive and more transparent reticle
separated crafting and trade menus
menus now show item stacks like the inventory
replaced all old ores with two new ones: Metallic and Crystalline
reworked module recipes
reworked crafting
reworked trading
various small tweaks
extended weapon ranges
Fixes:
fixed ship savefile name filter so it removes all forbidden chars
fixed tooltips
fixed a ConcurrentModificationException crash or two
more robust mouse scroll input
fixed green cube randomly persisting after building, though it still happens on occasion
fixed station dashboard crash
fixed the tutorial (again)
various small fixes
Thanks for reading everyone, and our apologies for being so slow! Hopefully we can now finally focus on making only the questing system.
Deploy Armor! - Update v1.17
Hello everyone!
This update is a bit late if we look at our usual schedule, mostly due to the Nordic Game conference and university work, but also some other things. So sorry about that, but now it's here and it's live!
We've got mostly new module additions this time, a slight overhaul of the galaxy map and some building system additions.
I think this does nearly double the old number of modules so at least we have that going for us which is nice. There are also some inventory overhauls that are nearly done but didn't quite make it into the update yet, so stay tuned for those.
New Modules
New 3 unit long armor modules, bound to come in handy.
Some 6 unit long armor modules for those extra large ships.
These rounded slopes can make a nearly perfect circle if you put 4 of them together, and there are some longer (3 unit) regular ones as well.
The old pylon got a slight texure rework and we've added a whole bunch of new pyon/wing like armor blocks for some more interesting designs.
Now we've got some special armor modules for the other two manufacturers, from extra light (but not very durable) girders to help make larger ships in the early game to the super heavy side plates that can take some fire.
The industrial CAR-4 reactor is getting a larger, 3 unit version - the AR-8 which is a bit more economical fuel-wise. There's also a pretty large new Titan Power Core that should be good for larger ships.
Now we'll soon be adding multiple mechanics regarding passenger transport and similar, so you'll need some habitation modules for that. We've got some basic ones for now and we'll get to more interesting versions later down the line.
Currently they're purely decorative however.
There are two new collectors and two new antennas to look forward to.
Then finally a larger mk2 fuel tank for U.R.A. and a larger shield generator.
Some of the existing modules have gotten a re-skin as well:
Inventory Sorting
So with all of these new modules, the inventory became a bit of a drag to use so we added sorting for ease of access and fixed that bug that reset the scrolling location every time you clicked anything.
Galaxy Map Factions
The map is one step closer to a more finalized design, with support for dynamic rendering of faction areas as they change along the campaign.
NOTE: You do have to start a new game if you want the faction areas to generate atm, otherwise all systems will show up as independent.
The old, now invisible bands of systems still loosely define the technology you can find at certain parts of the galaxy, but that may change in the upcoming updates.
This also brings a new space station livery for the central United Research Alliance faction which resides at the very center of the galaxy:
Building System Additions
There have been some minor under-the-hood fixes for the building system, but it now really abides by which part of a module you select.
That means you can grab a module by a certain point and it will align the module to attach it there if possible, otherwise it will try moving and it to fit.
It now also shows the point you're attaching to by highlighting it green, for a little more transparency and feeling of what's going on.
the building system now shows the point you're attaching to in green
better warp effects
United Research Alliance livery for space stations
a new ability that lets you demagnetize all nearby derelict ships
some new sound effects
Changes:
minor AI tweaks
reworked galaxy map, added faction areas (requires starting a new save)
renamed the plasma shotgun to the M-24 Double-Barrel Plasma Autocannon, reworked firing cycle to shoot faster and one shot at a time
new sound effects for omnidirectonal and twin turbo turret
fuel tanks now spawn dry
reaction wheel force reduced by 40% and power usage by 55%
ship automatic roll corection now pauses when in manual chase mode and firing weapons
all passsive collectors now scale pickup volume with ship speed instead of electric power
replaced radial menu double selection needed for ship demagnetization and schematic restoration with a rotating timer instead
recolored ore textures, giving them more unique appearances to make them easily identifiable
Fixes:
fixed tutorial blockage and possible crash
significantly less thread lockups from ship updating
reduced volume of backing up beeping
fixed issue with displaying shield regeneration values
inventory no longer resets scroll positon when clicking an item
some corrections to the building system
the inventory should no longer have a "ghost" spot at the very end of the list
fixed a module rotation bug
ship windows should no longer look too saturated when in direct lights
Thanks for reading everyone, and have a good one!
Hotfix 1.16a
Hello again so soon!
Turns out there were a few rather problematic bugs in the recent update, so here's a fix to iron out all of what we've found.
Changelog:
Fixes:
the main menu news section should now display stuff again
fixed an issue where in some cases detaching the last pod made it go invisible until the next module was added
corrected some info text grammar mistakes
group selection no longer resets weapon fire groups to secondary
fixed a threading reliability issue
detached active npc ships turn on generators properly now
updated station easter egg effects
fixed a rare-ish building related crash when detaching modules
Changes:
reduced reaction wheel power draw slightly
increased spawn rate of command pods on derelicts
reduced crash damage by 20%
despawn time of far away derelicts and free floating modules has been decreased to 12 and 7 minutes, respectively
That is all, have a good one!
POWAH! SPEEED! - Update v1.16
Good morning/day/evening and welcome!
This update is a little bit different than usual, as it focuses primarily on optimizations and performance gains, as well as some building system and ship destruction upgrades.
And what performance gains are there you ask?
Massive! Insane! Monstrous!
It's all a bit technical however, so if you don't feel like reading the entire thing skip to the part with the group selection and ship breakups.
Let's start from the top:
Physics Engine Upgrade
Long story short, the game uses the Bullet Physics Engine to power all ship ship movement and collisions, BUT until now it was actually not the official version of the engine.
What it did use was a 2004 Java port of it, since well the rest of the game is Java and it was compatible out of the box. Now however it's been replaced by the near-latest official C++ version, interfacing via JNI.
This means that pretty much all physics related lag is gone. Puff. No more problems when approaching stations with infinity class ships, and crashing them into each other is a breeze when you ignore all other explosions and such (like in creative mode for example). Of course mileage may vary with your hardware.
Thread Lightly
The game used multiple threads before, but not on this scale. Now most of the super intensive calculation code is asynchronous and no longer blocks the main rendering thread - so any major lag spikes or stutters should be a thing of the past (when not doing completely outrageous stuff that is :P).
Ship Updates One of the more intensive processes of updating a ship is rebuilding the so called visual node, which needs to be done at every ship change, be it damage or module addition/removal. A large part of it is now parallel which means that the changes may show up with a slight few milliseconds delay - but in a completely smooth fashion.
Star System Loading Asynchronous star system loadup pretty much means that warping to other systems is nearly instant, as well as it reduces the final period of the initial game loading time, loading a savefiles, and respawning by loading a save.
Hitting That
...but faster.
We've mostly rewritten the parts of code that do weapon hit detection so they're a bit less accurate (but not enough to notice) and incomparably faster.
Remember how firing off a bunch of splash damage weapons (i.e. flak cannons, nuclear turret or the fusion cannons) would cause pretty significant lag spikes? That should be a thing of the past now for smaller ships and at least workable on ginormous ones.
All other weapons have gotten an immense speedup as well - and with shields up the calculations are culled completely aside from the shield bubble which is pretty fast in the first place.
That has the side effect that while shields are up, nothing can do any non-physical damage to you - including missiles low fps that tend to clip through shields for some unknown reason. Not exactly a full solution but at least the damage problem is solved for now.
Ship Breakups
Everyone can now stop asking "Shouldn't ships not stay in one piece when not connected?" because we have that now. :D
Okay, say you have a ship...
Exhibit A:
And concentrate fire on a certain spot.
The unconnected sections will form new sub-ships.
If they have no command pods then they'll drop off as derelicts, otherwise they'll form new allied ships that will follow you (or your opponent) around and help you in combat once you lock a target.
It's like Titanic all over again, but with more explosions.
In upcoming updates we'll hopefully manage to add a separator/docking port as well so you'll be able to split up some sections to make fighter carriers and such, then seamlessly dock back into one ship.
Group Selection
But now you might say: "So I kind of took a shot into this one single module that was supporting half my ship and it completely broke off. Am I supposed to attach all of that back piece by piece?"
And the answer is no, you don't have to! The group selection will see to that.
1. Hold down [LMB] and move around to select multiple modules:
2. Pick up the one you want to attach by and move the entire thing:
3. Repeat for desired result:
Good as new!
Here's also a slightly older wip imgur gifv of it in action: https://i.imgur.com/cl901rP.gifv
It also supports union selection if you hold down [SHIFT] when selecting. It does have a few smaller problems at the moment, you can't rotate the selected group and it doesn't keep the correct firing groups if you drop the group as a separate ship - which may switch them to secondary battery.
SoonTM we may find a way to add a copy and paste option for creative as well :)
As always you can check for the more minor changes in the changelog below:
Changelog:
Additions:
ships now break up and split into derelicts or fleet ships when not connected
new npcship stance for ships that are a part of your "fleet" (light blue icons)
group select function for the building system
added a blue pulse to the area scan ability
more system info to crash logs
Changes:
replaced physics engine with C++ version
ship saving menu is now more user friendly
friendly stations now appear as blue like ships
removed large explosions on npc ship death since it didn't really make sense anymore with the new break up mechanic
slightly better smoke effect fade out for nuclear explosions
major hit detection optimizations
offloaded a lot of blocking calculations into separate threads, making everything smoother
the NTB Hornet Launcher now has 4 tubes instead of 9, but the rockets it fires do more damage, go faster and further
NTB Hornet Launcher and Neutron Torpedo Launcher reload extended by 5 seconds
disabling "High Quality Particles" in options now yields a lot fewer debris particles
better occlusion detection for launchers and engines, so they're finally able to fire through all those wide gaps occupied by turrets that really shouldn't have ever been blocked
module ore wreckage spawn rates are now more consistent and don't scale as much
updated ships and adjusted small ship tier spawning limits so it should be easier to initially start up with a starter ship
various tweaks
Fixes:
fixed memory leaks that caused the game to eat RAM when playing for a long time
missiles no longer hit through shields at low framerate
ship loading menu now blocks group selection spamming which could give unexpected results
derelicts now despawn after a while if you're not anywhere near them (after about 15 mins)
fixed a cargo rendering issue
recalibrated warp speed display counter
fixed the knife random event again, so it only spawns in the Core Worlds
fixed the huge lag spikes enduced by splash damage weaponry
the side inventory should no longer sometimes react to mouse clicks when the mouse cursor is not even in the same postcode (hopefully)
star ambient noise volume scaling fixed and reduced to 40% of previous max volume
fixed stock exchange background grid's size
fixed the weird issue where sometimes sounds from the npc ship that kills you persisted afterwards
minor NPC ship warp AI fix
a countless amount of small fixes and speedups
stars now act more like planets when you get close and no longer trap you into an area band in creative mode
For the next update the main focus will be (and for sure this time :P) AI and tractor beam overhaul, more modules and hopefully even NPC shuttles.
And on that bash shell it's time to end, goodbye!
Until next time. :)
Anniversary, Control Overhaul and Other Things - Update v1.15
Hi!
Yet another long awaited update is upon us, with way more changes and fixed than additions as it happens. The main probably being the way ships are controlled - for the longest time the main way to fly what are basically capital ships was using jet fighter-like controls with complete disregard for physics.
Well that changes today, with all ship rotations now fully done using physics forces and steered using PID controllers.
Yesterday also happened to be a 3-year anniversary of the first ever build of the game ever, so I've prepared a few comparisons for nostalgia's sake.
There's also a few new modules, a new news section in the main menu where you may or may not be reading this and much more. Let's jump right in!
3-Year Anniversary
So yes for those interested I've got a short summary of the early beginnings of the game. Back then I was hardly a programmer and learning as I went, with JavaFX as a 3D engine.
I've put it into an imgur album if you wish to check it out so we don't clutter this post too much :)
Physical Ship Rotations and Chase Camera Overhaul
So let me start this topic by describing how the old chase cam rotation system worked (in rough).
It calculated the way you were pointing the cursor, transformed that vector a bit, added roll and directly applied that value to the ship with complete disregard for physics. The worst part is probably that it used actual ship mass in determining ship rotation speeds that makes no sense whatsoever.
Sounds bad right? Well it was, but it was the only way to get the system working decently at the time. It was also based more on jet fighter steering than large craft which didn't help at all.
Now the new system works kinda like this:
The camera is free to rotate around without any restrictions.
The ship has one open source PID controller per axis that does some rather non-trivial math to make sure it rotates to the point you're looking at and not overshoot (by much)
Strafing and rolling still works as before, aside the fact that the ship will autocorrect the roll to 0 if you're not using it at that moment.
That's what's called the autorotation part of chase mode to be completely exact.
Now while in chase mode you used to hold down RMB to switch sides right? That's been replaced and clicking it toggles between autorotation and static mode.
What the static mode is basically it disables autorotate and lets you fly the ship using build mode controls (as I'm told some of you have already been doing for huge ships). So this is an easy way to use guns mounted sideways or in the back without the hassle of switching sides at all.
If you're feeling unsure as to how to handle this exactly, try replaying the tutorial once - it's been updated to include the new system. Although it should be a tad bit more intuitive than last time.
Reacton Wheels
With the new rotational mechanics it meant that some larger ships became dreadfully slow to rotate for obvious reasons. So we've added torque wheels to somewhat re-address the balance.
Reacton wheels in general work by spinning heavy flywheels and then stopping/starting them to achieve torque. In real life they're only limited to one axis but we've made them affect all three for ease of use.
XYZW Reaction Wheel Package
The first one is a compact U.R.A. version that packs quite a punch, but may be a bit awkward to stack in large quantities.
Heavy Duty Reaction T-Wheel
The industrial version is a lot larger and more suitable for dreadnoughts and such. Not quite as power efficient or strong as the more advanced version above.
As far as power consumption goes they only take power when you're rotating but they may be somewhat power hungry.
Tannhauser Fusion Turret TFT-99
Ah yes it was about time to make some other large splash damage weapon aside from the nuclear gun battery. Enter the Tannhauser.
With rotations on par with the Omnidirectional Tower (okay it's still pretty slow), and 360 rotation, great gun depression and elevation it's a complete high tier replacement for the nuclear gun battery.
It also has a higher fire rate (albeit a smaller number of barrels) and does more damage per shot.
Available in your local module store now. :)
New Lock-On Tracking
With the new camera system comes a new target tracking system since the old one wasn't really usable anymore.
The idea is that once you lock on to a target the system keeps the camera looking in the general direction - but you can move the reticle around as well.
This makes it so you can apply constant lead to a target without much effort and can be a parsec more accurate than with the old system.
Note:
There is a not so obvious checkbox in options that disables tracking for people with ginormous ships that like to shoot torpedoes at one thing and guns at another since it can get annoying in that case.
New Warp-In Effects
One of the more random additions is the warp-in stretch effect rework. The old one was a bit lame wasn't it? At least I thought it was so you're getting this instead.
It may not look quite as impressive when warping yourself, but other ships sure do put up a show...
Wide Area Scan Upgrade
According to some suggestions, the area ping has been upgraded to use color coding.
This should hopefully help in figuring out what exactly is in that pile of far away radar spots you're thinking about flying to.
Saving Interface
Now I know some of you have been somewhat annoyed with the old save-and-quit system of saving so we've slightly redesigned it:
You can now save and quickload the game anytime you wish (the game no longer autosaves when loading) and exiting does now only quit.
The game still autosaves when entering a system so it isn't a true parallel quicksaving system like in fallout for example - where quicksaving and autosaving make completely different files. We may get something similar done eventually however.
News
To bring us on par with other modern indie titles, the game now fetches news directly from Steam via RSS feed and displays them (or at least some of the intro anyway) on the main menu:
But that's not all, you can view about 10 previous news posts and get links to them as well.
As always you can check for the more minor changes in the changelog below:
Changelog:
Additions:
stations now auto-drop you out of warp
a module despawning system which removes far away free floating modules after 7 minutes
news fetching box on the main menu
wiki link in the pause menu
weapon ranges are now displayed in the shop tooltip
more glowing led rgb parts to URA faction modules
new warp-in effect
new quest log (frontend only)
Tannhauser Fusion Turret TFT-99
XYZW Reaction Wheel Package
Heavy Duty Reaction T-Wheel
a WindowedPositionOverride special setting to settings.cfg, see wiki for usage
you can now set the game to continue running when alt-tabbed out of it in the settings
a decimal point for scanner range value in stats (and fixed the calculations for it)
Changes:
all ship rotations are now fully physical and ships use PID controllers for steering
completely reworked the chase camera interface
wide area scan now shows different item types as different colors
reworked the saving buttons in the pause menu to allow for saving without quitting and quickloading last save
miniguns fire 20% slower and do 20% more damage
M-24 Plasma Shotgun fire rate halved, damage doubled
reduced Ronald Railgun damage slightly
updated Not-Bussard collector's mesh and renamed it to DualFan Collector
locking on is now 2x faster
reworked autolockon disabling, so it now won't relock for 3 minutes if unlocked by the player
replaced some icons
removed the broadside settings checkbox since it does not have any meaning under the new camera system
added more rotational force to MK2 tier engines of all factions
made weapons fire towards their max range when the target is further away, making the far-to-close transition smoother
slimmed down lockon reticle design
Fixes:
fixed weapons taking twice their power consumption on firing startup
fixed inventory gui numbers vanishing on 4K resolutions
workshop stats should now be formatter properly
fixed a bug in the building system where modules would attach to nodes behind the camera
removed needless inventory updates when picking up modules
"the knife" special event should now only happen in the Core Worlds
restricted file scanner of ships and worlds to only look for .shp and .dat files (and not crash when it finds something else there)
command pod engine glow should no longer persist in some cases when it shouldn't
fixed some close-to-planet scaling issues
fixed certain billboard descriptions
fixed station lights sometimes turning off when they shouldn't be
if a station hub is the last command pod on your ship it cannot be attached to other stations (which caused crashes previously)
fixed crash(es?) when entering Core Complex
fixed bug with npcs not warping close to planets (not for the lack of trying on their part)
planetary name corrections
adjusted some firing arcs for weapons
fixed issue where miniguns would completely stop spinning when blocked
other minor fixes nobody ever noticed so I've already forgotten what they actually were
fixed Ronald Railgun mass and health stats
moved shield generators from the Armor inventory category to Utility
Known Issues:
ship loading list may stop loading halfway in some cases and needs a category reselection to load it again (technically a constant issue that hasn't been fixed yet)
Thanks for reading and have a good one!
Hotfix 1.14a
Hi guys,
We've managed to fix some of the stuff in your recent bug reports (and a known issue) - which prompts this quick fix patch. There's also some random stuff that's been added already and there's no reason to not include it.
Changelog:
Fixes:
fixed sound being sometimes muted when starting the game or a new save
fixed shader crash issue with the module construction effects (again)
stars should no longer look odd when the bloom filter is disabled
Other Changes:
controllers are now no longer disabled through the launch parameters, but can be enabled by editing the settings.cfg file and setting UseJoysticks to true (not that anyone would need it at the present time, but anyway)
more planet and star system names
That's pretty much it, have a good one!
Just-Kidding-We-Are-Not-Dead Update 1.14
Hello again!
It's been a while since the last real update. While I could give you a hundred excuses as to why we've been dead for two months, long story short they're all about university studies and lack of motivation.
Not all work has been still however, we've slowly managed to build up a quite a long list of random stuff. There have been numerous changes, updates to the sounds, galaxy generation, map, planets, and lots of fixes. No new modules or models this time unfortunately, as not even one of the ones showcased in the previous news post is done yet.
Our current direction for the next update has changed somewhat, and the station expansion will likely have to wait while we implement more drastic changes that will hopefully make the game more playable in the long run.
New Gas Giants
The shader I was working on is finally up and running in-game, giving us brand new animated gas giants. They could still use some work up close, but that's an issue for another time.
Funny story, while adding these in I noticed that gas giants in general were accidentally disabled about a year or so ago in some update. Seems like nobody missed them until now :P
Names and Labels
To give the star systems more of a sense of location, you can now check each planet's and star's name by simply hovering over them using the mouse.
Planets can be either designated by the star they're orbiting (e.g. Earth would be Sol 3 under this convention), or have an additional special name if that planet is of any more significance. This will become more pronounced once we actually add planetary colonies.
Since there weren't any planetary names before, we added those and updated the star names as well, so they're not as generic and boring as before.
Planetary Landings Crashings
To put an end to that age old question everyone absolutely has to ask: "But can you land on planets?" you can now go and see for yourself.
One you get close to an atmospheric or gaseous planet you'll get an atmosphere warning and reentry effects. Shortly after, the planet's scale should become more obvious.
As to what happens next, let's say these ships are generally built to work in space :)
Galaxy Generation Changes
There have been some changes to the way a new galaxy is generated, with about twice as many star systems to explore. It's mostly needed because of the new locations we'll be adding (and have already) so there's still some regular old star systems to complement them.
The galaxy map has an updated set of icons, renders stars smaller and adds some new location types to explore.
Rogue Planets
The first new location to visit in the galaxy are quite rare rogue planets. These planets don't orbit any stars as they've become ejected from their origin systems by some gravitational event in the distant past.
Currently this is the only location where a space station isn't guaranteed to appear, but there may be up to several.
Interstellar Asteroid Fields
Another place you can now explore are asteroid fields where the odds of successful navigation are 3720 to 1.
Be advised however that these can be a bit on the demanding side performance-wise so you may want to avoid them for now on more low end computers.
New Shield Shader
For those of you that missed the old post, the shields now have a new shader that's more transparent and shows impacts.
Target Tracking Camera
Following a suggestion, there is now a checkbox in options that enables this experimental camera mode.
What it does is essentially changes chase mode to always look at the object you have targeted, while disabling auto-targeting on hostile ships to prevent annoyance in some cases. It's still a bit wonky and mostly useful only for small ships, so use with caution.
Changelog:
New Sound Effects:
turret rotation and lockon sounds
shield impact/collapse/enable sounds
a few more explosion sounds
stars and black holes now have an ambient sound
updated warp failure sound
Other Additions:
rogue planets (New Galactic Location)
interstellar asteroid fields (New Galactic Location)
gas giants (we didn't notice they were accidentally disabled)
new gas giant shader, they're now slightly animated
new shield shader
post-warp entry effect
focus on target lock (can be enabled in settings and will track your target with the camera) - experimental
reworked system and planetary names
mouse hover over planets and stars shows their name and class
ships get smaller when approaching planets and explode in a large splat on hitting the surface
partial reentry effects
hostile ships may try to ambush you at derelicts, asteroids and funnels
asteroids now have normal maps (that is, look more bumpy in light)
Changes:
expanded settings menu
fewer asteroids spawn in planetary rings now and they don't spin initially, greatly reducing physics load
railguns no longer shoot through shields are now 30% less effective against them
firegroup menu no longer drops shields
hostile ship will now spawn with an equivalent of your current ship mass/size, instead of the stats you had when you first entered the system
all galaxies include the new system types and new ones will spawn with about 2x as much systems
stronger fuel explosions, with fuel tanks dropping gas clouds on destruction as well
station hubs no longer add command points
minor optimizations
reworked map icons
minimap shows asteroids as gray prisms
reworked screenshake to hopefully be less vomit inducing :)
things damaged by fuel explosions (e.g. space stations) now aggro the ship that shot the fuel cloud
decreased spawn rate of knife and fist by 50%
Fixes:
fixed player shield and reactor settings (hotbar ability on/off) not saving
fixed issue with shields not setting frequency correctly sometimes
fixed industrial mk2 engine warp exhaust
ships now orient correctly before interstellar jumps
partially fixed dark gui modules when shadows are disabled (still persists in some cases)
fixed neutron torpedos not checking obstruction on launch
fixed cruise warp effect color issue at low framerates
neutral ship warp bounce fixed (ships would appear to instantly warp back from a location they just arrived at)
fixed phantom targeting issue when collecting a targeted object into cargo containers
dps stat should now show up for huge ships as well
gas giants now...uhm...exist?
Known Issues:
there's a certain issue with sound being muted on startup sometimes, which can be fixed by going into the settings menu and back (we'll probably make a follow up patch for that soon once it becomes clear what exactly is wrong)
Achievement "Ten Times Light" is no longer obtainable and will be replaced soon
Thanks for reading and have a good one!
Progress News Report
Hello everyone.
There isn't that much to show so far and pretty much none of it is related to the main theme of the next update (which will be passenger modules and more in-depth station management).
Here's a short summary of what's we already have however and some of it is in the beta branch if any of you want to take a peek. ;)
Continuing Graphics Upgrades
The shields will be getting a nice overhaul. With the old geometric triangle bubbles gone, these have a changing hex-based texture that reacts to impacts. It's also a lot more transparent when idle so it should be less of an annoyance when building.
A new gas giant generation system is also in the works (with animated winds and stuff) but they may not make it into the next update quite yet. Sometime soonTM for sure however.
They tend to look really good from afar right now, but the up-close part isn't even close to being done.
Modules
While next update should hopefully focus on station crew and passenger modules, (possibly even some docking clamps) we don't really have much to show in that aspect yet.
So here's a WIP antenna and a gun turret instead:
The antenna will most likely be industrial as they lack any large scanners, while the turret is still being decided upon at this point.
Other
We have a lot of minor changes incoming as well: options menu being split into subgroups, some warp entry effects, turret rotation sounds, chase camera being fixed on locked on target, random fixes and so on.
Aside from these things we've been drowning in suggestions lately so you may see a bunch of those implemented as well.
Thanks for reading and have a good one.
Update 1.13a
Hello space travellers!
This is more of a halloween-removal patch, but there are a few things we've managed to add since then, along with some crucial fixes.
M-3567 Alligator-Type Ronald Railgun
Ah yes, moar dakka! The industrial faction now finally has some bigger guns up its sleeve with the new railgun.
It has a 244 degree turning radius, a gun elevation of 42 degrees and is the largest turret as far as occupied space goes. It mostly owes that to it's barrel which is a nimble aimer despite its impressive length.
The range to which it can more or less instantly fire its projectiles is just over 8 kilometers, dwarfing the range of any other weapon in the game right now.
It is however not as powerful as one might expect and won't be breaking any records in rotation speeds.
Compression Tank Mk1 Mesh & Texture update
Continuing our research alliance faction overhaul, the mk1 fuel tank is now also based on a octagon design.
The bussard collector and shield generator should be updated in the following weeks, completing the overhaul.
Planetary Rings
I am very much aware that the state of planets in the game is less than ideal, so we'll be somewhat updating their design in the near future.
Starting with the rings this time, they are now presented in a higher definition, more sharp and crisp, and now show the shadow of the planet as well.
Oh, and they're also animated now! With hundreds of tiny ice particles zooming around the orbit when you get close up.
Changelog:
Additions:
M-3567 Alligator-Type Ronald Railgun
new planetary ring effects
weapon range now prints out when running wiki data printout
new texture and mesh for Compression Tank Mk1
with weapon ranges now more clearly defined, NPCs and secondary batter weapons will start shooting as soon as they are in range
Changes:
increased weapon accuracy at long distances
removed halloween stuff
added dispersal to Nuclear Gun Battery shells
Fixes:
station skin change and module construction shader should no longer crash on macs using versions below opengl 3.2
crash of options menu screen on the main menu on smaller resolutions
modules should no longer stay transparent after building is aborted in one specific case
ship module scrapper now properly treats cargo in containers, expelling it instead of deleting it
Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a great halloween!
Halloween Update 1.13
Doot Doot
Hey, we're back and just in time for Halloween! This time we've managed to finish a large portion of the unfinished 3D model backlog, lots of fixes and some special Halloween stuff as well.
In this town of Halloween
Special stuff first, but I won't go into details for obvious reasons...
There's some cosmetic stuff.
Module colors are back again, this time in different styles.
And some more interesting stuff.
And when you get bored of it, you can turn it of in the options menu (game reboot is needed).
New Modules
As you can see, this update is mostly about the new modules. Some reworks of alredy existing ones and a bunch of new ones - with a few more arriving next week after the Halloween period ends.
Industrial Conglomerate
I feel like we've been somewhat neglecting this faction recently, so this time it gets a new structural wing element, the old reactor and basic engine have been reworked to look a bit better...
...then there's a brand new Mk 2 engine: the Roche-Assisted Graviton Engine System or R.A.G.E. for short.
Junkyard
Finally got around to finishing the second rusted command pod and added an old reactor as well.
This reactor (or generator) is now the starting one, and is half as powerful as the CAR-4 and twice the size while being more fuel efficient.
United Research Alliance
There's a new gun called the M-24 Double-Barrel Plasma Shotgun which expels twin shots with decent range and rate of fire. Its turning angle is restricted to 180 degrees so it can be placed in a more compact fashion.
The new SETI Antenna Dish is now the most powerful and largest scanner in the game. Once used to search for intelligent life, now used to tell them where to pay taxes.
Station Modules
There are three new space station modules as well. The Typhoon Spherical Habitation Hub is a larger version of the stock hub and can only be found in the core worlds.
There's an Observational Deck which allows for 40% faster module construction with the Terminal and finally, billboards are back!
There's also a recreational biodome, which serves no purpose at the moment, but will be used to provide entertainment to station crews in an update or two when we get station management implemented.
Restore Schematic
Due to requests from @SpiralRazor here in the Steam forums, there's now an option in the radial menu to quickly restore your ship to the last used schematic (last saved or loaded).
As of now, the function works the same was as loading a ship would, selling any modules that aren't a part of the blueprint. Hopefully we can get it to just leave them on in a future update.
The station needs to have the required modules (Repair or Terminal or both) for it to work. It also needs to be selected twice to commence the process which should counter any misclick problems.
Building Transparency
In response to some feedback regarding station construction all modules are now transparent when being placed.
Some of the larger modules that obscure the 5x5 docking port used to be hard to center right but with this it should be a piece of cake.
Weapon Knockback
Ever felt like your guns needed more kick? Well now they do, with physical knockback force being exerted onto your ship and a camera movement to complement it as well.
Here's a demonstration upped to 160% of default (to make a point). You can adjust it yourself in the settings menu of course.
Changelog:
Additions:
modules are now transparent when being placed
SETI 16.5m Antenna Dish
Radioisotope Thermoelectic Generator
Nobutake-Type Pod (Mk2 Rusted Command Pod)
Parks & Recreation Biodome
R.A.G.E. System (Mk2 Industrial Engine)
new mesh and textures for the Industrial Basic Engine Mk1 and CAR-4 Reactor
Observation Deck
Landscape Billboard
M-24 Double-Barrel Plasma Shotgun
most weapons now exert a knockback force on the ship (+a camera effect)
screenshake slider in options
Typhoon Spherical Habitation Hub
an option to quickly reload your last used (saved or loaded) schematic by opening the radial menu on a station with the required infrastructure
KNIFE random event
Workshop uploads are now automatically tagged and sorted into categories
fuel tanks now drop fuel into space when destroyed
Changes:
nerfed 5"/42 Caliber Gun rotation speed
buffed UH-37 Turret's rotation speed
7.0 Caliber Buffers Gun turns slower, does more damage and has a slightly slower rate of fire now (keeping the same dps)
replaced station icons on the galaxy map
nerfed Flak cannon damage
HUD arrows pointing at stations are now station icons
rewised the way how neutral ships and stations load, making for more smooth inter-system warp
Fixes:
some minor wiki printer bugs
radial menu should no longer appear offscreen in some cases
loadgame menu now displays the currently loaded game's text in white and selects it by default so you can just click engage on the main menu
loading ships in campaign no longer gives you money but takes it from you instead
crash when overwriting a savedgame with already generated systems
issue where "the fist" random event would be really common in the core
adjusted unknown substance inventory image size and particle effect
unknown substance now has an effect on stations
partially fixed station modules sometimes not shutting down after flicker cycle
game crash on entering the void in the central system
fuel explosions' shockwave now pushes away stuff in the right direction
some design issues with the out of fuel dialogue
Halloween (togglable in options):
replaced structural pylons with leg bones
candy debris
pumpkins on modules
ghost tactical mode ability
colored ships and stations (note: colors do not save)
Thank Mr. Player for good reading and catching up.
