This is the fifth and most likely last maintenance patch of the 0.12.0 release. It includes fixes to a major bug causing spawning ships to be much less diverse than they should have been. With the new version you should now see all sorts of ships all over instead of the same ones over and over. Furthermore, in preparation for upcoming changes in libxml, we have removed save game compression. Although Naev should still be able to load compressed save games, it will only save them without compression from now on. From 0.13.0 onwards, and on systems using newer versions of libxml, loading compressed save games won’t be possible anymore. You’ll either have to load and save with this release, or uncompress manually.
Changes since 0.12.4
Fixed bug causing lower diversity in ship spawning
Fixed autonav not respecting shield thresholds
Fixed AI spamming afterburners in an unhealthy way
Removed support for save game compression as libxml 2.14 disable compression by default
minerva/pirate3: fixed dialogue being weird if paying with tokens
Minor typo fixes and translation updates
Naev 0.12.4
This is the fourth maintenance patch of the 0.12.0 release. It contains fixes for several crashes, including a fairly high impact one when shooting asteroids with explosive weapons. It also ensures that no pirate presence leaks into the area around the starting system, and makes sure some missions are completable. This release looks set to be the final of the 0.12.x series as we focus on the 0.13.0 release that is slated for December this year.
Changes since 0.12.3
More robust jump check to fix crash when creating new systems
Gave Pacifier +400 fuel bonus to match description
Made the baron comm event respect system claims
Shaky swan no longer gets killed by patrols
Fixed crash when shooting asteroids with explosive weapons
Disallow cooling down while jumping
Fixed crash with pilot.navJumpSet
Remove all pirate presence within 2 jumps of the starting system
Minor typo fixes and translation updates
Naev 0.12.3 Released!
This is the third maintenance patch of the 0.12.0 release, that fixes a bunch of minor issues. Some of the larger fixes include not being able to stealth with active point defense, and distress signals causing hostility cascades which could be a problem especially in the Frontier. We don’t anticipate too many more problems and have shifted most of the focus on development of the next major release.
You can get the latest version from any of the following sources:
Largus Gene Drive (Nyx) has a max speed of 175, not 275
Tweaked Melendez Mammoth XL and Eagle 6500 top speeds
Fixed not being able to stealth with active point defense
Fixed being able to complete the test of purification after failing
Fixed GUI getting weirdly offset in some cases
Cannibalize button doesn’t overlap with capture anymore
Don’t crash if loading a save where the player’s current ship doesn’t exist
Gauss has a reputation requirement
Derelicts are no longer space-worthy
Fixed Tartarus landing graphics
Fried now shows the stellar winds on the map
Reworked aggressivity on distress signals to be more consistent
Try to fix trails not appearing on variant ships
dv_goddard: The Siren of Halir no longer fails the mission after you get the commandos
dv_shopping: Fixed not giving the player the Fancy Key Chain
Misi will sell the Fancy Key Chain for those affected by the dv_shopping bug
oldwoman: The old woman complains again
shadowvigil: seiryuu doesn’t disappear if you land
darkshadow: four wind fighters can hurt the player
kex3: made it completable by making it much easier to dodge and have a fairer fight
Fixed stealth circles not appearing on hostile pilots if their faction is friendly
Fixed some date-related mission information not being updated
Fixed landing music playing with VN music in some situations
Significantly buffed point defense damage
Story mode gives an additional -50% fuel usage modifier
Minor typo fixes and translation updates
Naev 0.12.2 Released!
This is a maintenance patch that fixes a lot of small issues here and there. It includes improvements on deployed escorts, fixing looting FLF ships causing nearby planets and other ships to become hostile, and puts Dvaered ships for sale among other things.
You can get the latest version from any of the following sources:
Changes since 0.12.1
Made plasma drill much easier to apply to asteroids
Don’t reset cargo if not space worthy when reloading
Truly fix the negative mass exploit
Made miners less bad at mining, their only passion
Slim GUI set formation button is no longer clickable when invisible
Removed outdated tip from NPC messages
Round faction reputation at hypergates
Hypergates no longer spoil system names for you
Fixed description of the Squadron Synchronizer Module
Deployed fighters are always aggressive (for now)
Player can’t make own escorts hostile with AoE weapons
Fuel usage is a negative is better stat
Added faction.areNeutral to get true neutral state of factions
Ammo can not become negative anymore
Made Za’lek drone weapons builtin
Be more restrictive on which factions give waste dump missions
Added the Admonisher ΩIIa for sale
Reputation can’t go above +100 or below -100
Made ship buying reputation requirements more lax, using maximum of local and global reputation
Fix overlay map not updating after obtaining map while open
Stealth Discovered Speed should be Stealth Discovered Rate
Fixed mass being displayed twice for outfits
Don’t have player.teleport break the game while the player is landing
Modified condition of many neutral missions so they don’t appear in the wrong places
Dvaered ships are now also sold in more accessible locations
FLF should not cause reputation chains making other factions hostile
Fixed the ship_buy hook referring to the ship sold when trading ships
Fixed captured ships having inconsistent load outs and not spawning near the pilot
Fixed zebra losing cylinders when thrusting
Don’t remove builtin weapons when spawning pilots naked
Fixed pilot.distress() not sending signals to spobs
lovebiz01: fixed condition allowing it to appear anywhere
dv_goddard: fixed spawning of Silent Death
harjas_vengeance: avoid certain system to make the mission easier to do.
minerva missions: fixed a ship not spawning correctly
Large cargo hulls now match the cargo difference of the small and medium hulls
Minor typo fixes and translation updates
Naev 0.12.1 Released!
With big releases, come big bugs. A bug that would potentially mark the entire player’s map as known has crept into the release. It has been fixed along with other minor fixes, in particular, a bug made the obelisk tests require manual setting of weapon sets, and a persistent ship AI repeating to the player over and over that they haven’t played in a while.
You can get the latest version from any of the following sources:
Changes since 0.12.0
Fixed psychic orbs having trails
Crop selected spob name if it goes out of bounds in the GUI
Fix obelisk tests not setting properly the primary weapons of the player
Fleet members don’t try to investigate, only leaders do
More lenient update checks when updating saves
Pilots should no longer see through stealth when attacked from stealth
Fixed sometimes full map being partially displayed
Don’t show the “didn’t play in a while” message every time a save is loaded
Difficulty modifiers extend to the player's escorts as well
After a whole month of beta testing and furious bug fixing, following the tradition, we are once again doing our yearly release. This release includes many engine improvements, such as 3D ships, an in-game wiki, reworked weapon sets, notable performance increases, etc., but also a significant amount of new content including a whole new area, more and reworked missions, and ship variants among others things. We also have not forgotten significant quality of life improvements; folding messages, more visual indications for things such as important characters at the spaceport bar, filtering for the mission computer, and more!
We would like to thank all the contributors who participated and helped in the making of this release that we hope will both surprise new players and veterans alike!
Most notable changes:
Nearly all the ships are now modeled in 3D with fancy lighting and tilting effects!
You can now capture ships!
New ships and ship variants!
Faction reputation is no longer a single global value, but more nuanced and local.
Simplified and more powerful weapon sets
New challenging area to access many secrets.
In-game Wiki full of mechanics and lore explanations!
The new version should be compatible with older save games, and will update things as necessary.
Full Changelog
Gameplay
Ability to capture disabled ships
Faction reputation is no longer universal, but varies on systems
Direct faction hit changes are shown as messages
Your actions will more directly affect ships in the system
Significantly increase maximum potential fleet capacity
Excess energy to battery recharge efficiency is now flat instead of varying based on charge level
Gave the Za’lek Sting a slight detection buff
Can only have a single patrol mission active at a given time
Pirates are less numerous during Chapter 0
Dvaered Arsenal has no fighter bays and fewer slots
Lowered CPU cost of some fighter bays
Decreased CPU and energy provided by large core slots
Pillaging ships affects reputation
Significantly increased the amount of fuel provided by outfits
Camouflage burster gives a speed bonus while active and disables when out of stealth
Can scan ships with ‘u’ key
Gave the Quicksilver another medium structural slot
Beam weapons have minimum delays instead of minimum durations
Can stealth when missiles are locked on
Deployed fighters take stress and damage over time when their mother ship is destroyed
Electron Burst Cannons and Za’lek Heavy Drones have had their damage per second lowered
Improved point defense
Spittle Tubuloid Cluster is now a utility and does more damage
Guardian Interception System does double damage
Missiles explode when intercepted
Bounties have explicit time limits
Derelicts should appear in remote systems
Quality of Life
Added colourblind correction mode
Exposed more colourblind options to the user
Can modify game speed directly instead of using a slow mode difficulty for accessibility
Messages get folded instead of repeating
Asteroids no longer fade out if close to or targeted by the player
Display fuel consumption for ships in the equipment overlay
Added option to match speed with the slowest ship in the fleet (on by default)
Made it so ships in the equipment screen do not change order based on value
Mark spaceport bar tab when there is an important NPC
Weapon set keybindings change window tabs
Use short outfit names when displaying groups of outfits
Shown more useful things you have when buying outfits with things other than credits
Can sort and filter the mission computer
Added small optional bounce to NPCs when they start talking
Inform the player when they don’t meet mission requirements for some important missions
Can add new plugins directly from the options menu
Can toggle whether autonav stops when missile lock-ons are detected
Added colour coded factional backgrounds in the shipyard
Can rotate shipyard image for ships with 3D graphics
Prompt when deleting notes
Added accessibility option that allows skipping story minigames
Can view and change all your ships in the equipment tab when there is refuelling
Reduced space dust size by 50%
Changed mouse click selection priority, it prefers spobs/jumps and will ignore clicks reselecting the same object
Content
New in-game wiki with explanation on gameplay mechanics and lots of lore
8 new missions
The Onions call
4 new ships
13 new ship variants
Give a new twist to existing ships
6 new outfits
New area with unique challenges
New events
Get more Sirius abilities
Find the dark side of the Nebula
New NPC portraits
New generic NPC and News messages
Reworked trails to make ships feel more speedy
Engine
Support for 3D models
Lighting is based on system stars
Fancy effects for special systems
Ships tilt slightly when rotating
Simple animations are supported and used when applicable
Support for an in-game wiki
Can process YAML, Lua, and markdown
Cross-link support
Support for custom widgets
Stats (except inverted stats) are now additive instead of multiplicative
Try to merge saves if multiple directories correspond to the same player
More robust weapon set support that can handle multiple overlapping weapon sets
Faster handling of asteroids with large exclusion areas
Added fuel_usage_mod ship stat
Fixed player losing navigation targets when unidiff is applied
Fixed ai.idir giving wrong answer by M_PI_2 in some cases
Threaded more loading components
Lua require now caches chunks
Dropped SDL_image fallback
Use higher internal timer for all platforms
Support for Tracy
Spobs that are not landable yet generate presence will be shown on the map
Warn the player if they try to use a name with all space characters
Decoupled the collision system from the rendering system
Added a low memory mode to use fewer and smaller textures with 3D
Lazy load ship and outfit graphics to reduce memory usage and decrease load time
Use clang-format to format all the C code
Use enums internally to represent keybindings instead of strings
Always use replaygain information when available when loading vorbis files
Stop repeating the same warning after a fixed amount of times
Support for outfits that don’t break stealth
Editor has partial support for universe diffs
Editor has separate configuration and file dialogues
New ship stats
Global weapon range, damage, fire-rate and energy usage
Range ship stat for all specific weapon types
Turn, speed, and accel for launchers
Shield downtime modifier
Deprecated old faction API in favour of the new one for local / global standings
Added support for temporarily overriding faction standings
Fixes
PSO and Mizar nebulas have trails again
Removed fancy background mode
Can remove fighter bays with deployed fighters
Sol is less friendly
Fixed rare cases where fighters would not be able to dock
Fixed hypergate and wormhole effects getting stuck
Obelisks tell if you have completed them already
Fixed space dust disappearing with certain jump abilities
Boarded pilots become permanently disabled if they lose space-worthiness
Double tap will activate feather drive like blink engines
Fixed camouflage burster not activating stealth
Fixed bug where beams were counted as giving energy in the equipment optimizer
shadowvigil: claim entire route
sh01_corvette: should be completable on easy difficulties now
patrol: fixed escorts and fighters becoming hostile if hostile to the mission giving faction
Fixed debugging paranoid builds under Windows
Fixed autonav not respecting shield thresholds
zbh10: Godheart and friends get at most 1 fighter bay per ship now
Fixed ESS Trinity being bribeable
Cargo on fleets with be displayed to make room for mission cargo when necessary
Made it so Shadow Vigil doesn’t try to go through Surano system for reasons
blackhole/zbh09: fixed softlock during a cutscene under certain conditions
Don’t play wormhole sound on main menu
Don’t allow the player to sell unique ships
Fixed corner cases where destroyed player ships would not properly be updated
Fixed Sirius Providence flow absorption bonus
Fixed positioning of a certain blockade
Fixed some visual aberrations when forcing the player to land or jump
Prioritize pilots and other objects over uninhabited planets when clicking
Can always bribe your way to pirate’s clansworlds
Consistently colour the ShipAI messages in the tutorial
Made max_fps actually get respected
Fixed map decorators not shown in editor
Update the overlay scaling given the player’s position
Fixed population not being updated by universe diffs
Fixed date acquired being wrong on some platforms
Improved pilot facing corrections when jumping
Pirate ambush derelict events break stealth
Mining minigame result affects yield more
Absorption is no longer limited to the 0% to 100% range
derelict_rescue: only allow generic target space objects
Restored portable installs with the Windows installer
Show intrinsic outfits in the “Other” tab
Fixed plural form of 0 items in many cases
Ships significantly past the mass limit are no longer space worthy
Don’t allow ship shield/energy to go negative
Jumping through a one-way normal / hidden jump reveals the hidden side
Increased nebula visibility by 400 km
Fixed map thresholds for interference
Editor now shows dialogues on errors and allows user to choose directory to save data to
Escorts will try to respect player’s autonav rules by default
Don’t show stealth circles during cinematics
Made pilots in formation less prone to spinning
Workaround MESA driver bug that causes dark or invisible ships on AMD hardware
Can no longer abort missions during landing animation
[TAG-210]
Naev 0.12.0-beta.3 Released!
With the bug frenzy calming down, we are proud to announce version 0.12.0-beta.3. This release contains a myriad of bug fixes and should be quite close to the final 0.12.0 version that is planned before the end of the year. As always, please report any issues on this tracker, and feel free to join our Discord or Matrix chatrooms. Find out more about them here!
You can obtain the new version by opting into the beta branch with the steam client.
As a new ship variant of the Llama, the Llama Voyager shares many features but has fundamental differences such as fuel regeneration.
Changes since 0.12.0-beta.2:
Fixed collisions for some ships at certain angles
Changed mouse click selection priority, it prefers spobs/jumps and will ignore clicks reselecting the same object
Fixed map decorators not shown in editor
Centered buttons at the top of the holo-archives
Show if a system has a bar in the map
Fixed conf.mouse_doubleclick not disabling when set to 0
Fixed crashes when a faction is assigned a non-existent colour
Update the overlay scaling given the player’s position
Fixed population not being updated by universe diffs
Fixed date acquired being wrong on some platforms
Round reputation values when displaying standing text for consistency
Display local standing in the information window
Fixed certain combination of opening menus locking up
Fixed fmt.number displaying wrong values when negative
Fixed spoiling of system names on the map
Improved pilot facing corrections when jumping
Can no longer abort missions during landing animation
Fixed editor crash with empty descriptions
Fixed editor crash when making links to systems with no presence
Fixed rehabilitation missions
Fixed escorts not using special outfits and abilities
Fixed escort fighters existing after undeploying escort
Fixed Certitude trails
Pirate ambush derelict events break stealth
Mining minigame result affects yield more
Absorption is no longer limited to the 0% to 100% range
derelict_rescue: only allow generic target space objects
onion04: don’t fail if something happens to the gawain after taking the cargo
traffic_01: don’t use hardcoded systems
bounty: fixed error with deadlines in certain cases
neburesearch04: don’t let the drones see through stealth and disable the player from relanding to skip stage
minerva/judugement: fixed error in VN flow
Minor typo fixes and translation updates
Increased maxmimum reputation for a certain hidden faction to 70
Restored portable installs with the Windows installer
Documentation fixes
Minor typo fixes and translation updates
Naev 0.12.0-beta.2 Released!
A lot of major and minor issues, in addition to some minor new features, have been resolved calling for a 0.12.0-beta.2. In particular, support for lowering the saturation of the nebula, and having escorts respect your autonav preferences (you can disable it in the settings from the info menu) have been added as new features. We don’t have any intention of adding any new features before the final 0.12.0 version, and will keep on resolving bugs as they are found. As always, please report any issues on this tracker, and feel free to join our Discord or Matrix chatrooms. Find out more about them here!
You can obtain the new version by opting into the beta branch with the steam client.
As a new ship variant of the Llama, the Llama Voyager shares many features but has fundamental differences such as fuel regeneration.
Changes since 0.12.0-beta.1:
Fallback for missing holo archives ship entries
Reset proteron reputation more aggressively
Fixed overlap in VN logs
Show intrinsic outfits in the “Other” tab
Shooting weapons no longer resets autonav speed up
Fixed plural form of 0 items in many cases
Made pilots in formation less prone to spinning
Ships significantly past the mass limit are no longer space worthy
Lowered the price of a certain map
Lowered presence of a certain faction
Prevent changing autonav target via Lua when jumping
Disable jettisoning cargo when landing
Removed overlap in the options menu
Don’t allow ship shield/energy to go negative
Don’t show stealth circles during cinematics
Jumping through a one-way normal / hidden jump reveals the hidden side
Escorts will try to respect player’s autonav rules by default
Increased nebula visibility by 400 km
Fixed text overlap in the holo-archives for certain languages
Fixed reputation changes not working on dynamic factions
Fixed text overlap if ship name is too long
Fixed automatic weapon sets behaving oddly with multiple ships
Fixed rare crash when setting hook on non-existent pilot
Fixed map thresholds for interference
Fixed some reputation values not being correctly rounded
Fixed OSD not advancing in a certain mission
Fixed Sirius Divinity collisions
Fixed beam weapons in “in range” mode not respecting range bonus
Fixed hiding mission OSDs and changing priority being reset on take off or jump
Fixed asking your ship AI for advice
Fixed point defense requiring toggling thrice to turn off in some cases
sensor anomaly: Nelly will no longer appear in too dangerous or risky systems
mephisto type v: lowered heat generation
seek_n_destroy: fixed hints breaking in certain cases
pir_hit_intro: fixed OSD being displayed wrong
taiomi04: update OSD after boarding ship
bounty: fixed OSD getting reset after killing/capturing target
ant_supplies: fixed hostility after jumping into system again
Editor now shows dialogues on errors and allows user to choose directory to save data to
Minor typo fixes and translation updates
Naev 0.12.0-beta.1 Released!
This year, we’re starting the betas a bit early given the large amount of content modified and added. As always, this release contains a large amount of changes done during the past year which likely have introduced a lot of bugs and issues that we want to iron out before the final release of 0.12.0.
Now, this release changes a lot of how the game currently plays, and, while it is highly recommended to start a new game, it should be possible to just load up your old saves without too much stuff being changed. In particular, some of the major changes are:
Nearly all the ships are now modeled in 3D with fancy lighting and tilting effects!
You can now capture ships!
New ships and ship variants!
Faction reputation is no longer a single global value, but more nuanced and local.
New challenging area to access many secrets.
In-game Wiki full of mechanics and lore explanations!
If you try it and find any issues, please report them at the issue tracker. Discussion about the game can be had on one of the various discussion forums and chatrooms we have. Check them out here!
You can obtain the new version by opting into the beta branch with the steam client.
As a new ship variant of the Llama, the Llama Voyager shares many features but has fundamental differences such as fuel regeneration.
Full Changelog
Gameplay
Ability to capture disabled ships
Faction reputation is no longer universal, but varies on systems
Direct faction hit changes are shown as messages
Your actions will more directly affect ships in the system
Significantly increase maximum potential fleet capacity
Excess energy to battery recharge efficiency is now a flat 50% instead of varying based on charge level
Gave the Za’lek sting a slight detection buff
Can only have a single patrol mission active at a given time
Pirates are less numerous during Chapter 0
Dvaered Arsenal has no fighter bays and fewer slots
Lowered CPU cost of some fighter bays
Decreased CPU and energy provided by large core slots
Pillaging ships affects reputation
Significantly increased the amount of fuel provided by outfits
Camouflage burster gives a speed bonus while active and disables when out of stealth
Can scan ships with ‘u’ key
Gave the Quicksilver another medium structural slot
Beam weapons have minimum delays instead of minimum durations
Can stealth when missiles are locked on
Deployed fighters take stress and damage over time when their mother ship is destroyed
Electron Burst Cannons and Za’lek Heavy Drones have had their damage per second lowered
Improved point defense
Spittle Tubuloid Cluster is now a utility and does more damage
Guardian Interception System does double damage
Missiles explode when intercepted
Bounties have explicit time limits
Derelicts should appear in remote systems
Quality of Life
Added colourblind correction mode
Exposed more colourblind options to the user
Can modify game speed directly instead of using a slow mode difficulty for accessibility
Messages get folded instead of repeating
Asteroids no longer fade out if close to or targeted by the player
Display fuel consumption for ships in the equipment overlay
Added option to match speed with the slowest ship in the fleet (on by default)
Made it so ships in the equipment screen do not change order based on value
Mark spaceport bar tab when there is an important NPC
Weapon set keybindings change window tabs
Use short outfit names when displaying groups of outfits
Shown more useful things you have when buying outfits with things other than credits
Can sort and filter the mission computer
Added small optional bounce to NPCs when they start talking
Inform the player when they don’t meet mission requirements for some important missions
Can add new plugins directly from the options menu
Can toggle whether autonav stops when missile lock-ons are detected
Added colour coded factional backgrounds in the shipyard
Can rotate shipyard image for ships with 3D graphics
Prompt when deleting notes
Added accessibility option that allows skipping story minigames
Can view and change all your ships in the equipment tab when there is refuelling
Reduced space dust size by 50%
Content
New in-game wiki with explanation on gameplay mechanics and lots of lore
8 new missions
The Onions call
4 new ships
13 new ship variants
Give a new twist to existing ships
6 new outfits
New area with unique challenges
New events
Get more Sirius abilities
Find the dark side of the Nebula
New NPC portraits
New generic NPC and News messages
Reworked trails to make ships feel more speedy
Engine
Support for 3D models
Lighting is based on system stars
Fancy effects for special systems
Ships tilt slightly when rotating
Simple animations are supported and used when applicable
Support for an in-game wiki
Can process YAML, Lua, and markdown
Cross-link support
Support for custom widgets
Stats (except inverted stats) are now additive instead of multiplicative
Try to merge saves if multiple directories correspond to the same player
More robust weapon set support that can handle multiple overlapping weapon sets
Faster handling of asteroids with large exclusion areas
Added fuel_usage_mod ship stat
Fixed player losing navigation targets when unidiff is applied
Fixed ai.idir giving wrong answer by M_PI_2 in some cases
Threaded more loading components
Lua require now caches chunks
Dropped SDL_image fallback
Use higher internal timer for all platforms
Support for Tracy
Spobs that are not landable yet generate presence will be shown on the map
Warn the player if they try to use a name with all space characters
Decoupled the collision system from the rendering system
Added a low memory mode to use fewer and smaller textures with 3D
Lazy load ship and outfit graphics to reduce memory usage and decrease load time
Use clang-format to format all the C code
Use enums internally to represent keybindings instead of strings
Always use replaygain information when available when loading vorbis files
Stop repeating the same warning after a fixed amount of times
Support for outfits that don’t break stealth
Editor has partial support for universe diffs
Editor has separate configuration and file dialogues
New ship stats
Global weapon range, damage, fire-rate and energy usage
Range ship stat for all specific weapon types
Turn, speed, and accel for launchers
Shield downtime modifier
Deprecated old faction API in favour of the new one for local / global standings
Added support for temporarily overriding faction standings
Fixes
PSO and Mizar nebulas have trails again
Removed fancy background mode
Can remove fighter bays with deployed fighters
Sol is less friendly
Fixed rare cases where fighters would not be able to dock
Fixed hypergate and wormhole effects getting stuck
Obelisks tell if you have completed them already
Fixed space dust disappearing with certain jump abilities
Boarded pilots become permanently disabled if they lose space-worthiness
Double tap will activate feather drive like blink engines
Fixed camouflage burster not activating stealth
Fixed bug where beams were counted as giving energy in the equipment optimizer
shadowvigil: claim entire route
sh01_corvette: should be completable on easy difficulties now
patrol: fixed escorts and fighters becoming hostile if hostile to the mission giving faction
Fixed debugging paranoid builds under Windows
Fixed autonav not respecting shield thresholds
zbh10: Godheart and friends get at most 1 fighter bay per ship now
Fixed ESS Trinity being bribeable
Cargo on fleets with be displayed to make room for mission cargo when necessary
Made it so Shadow Vigil doesn’t try to go through Surano system for reasons
blackhole/zbh09: fixed softlock during a cutscene under certain conditions
Sporadic Naev Newsletter Vol. 4
This year we’re having another edition of our Sporadic Naev Newsletter. We’ll be covering some of the improvements that will appear in the 0.12.0 release, and more importantly, discuss a feature almost 15 years in the making: Naev going 3D! Now, this doesn’t mean gameplay is going 3D - gameplay is fundamentally unchanged - however, the ship models are now in 3D, allowing us to do new fancy effects and lower memory consumption while at it!
Less Pirates in the Early Game
One of the major complaints that Naev always gets is how ruthless pirates are, especially in the early game, when the player has no proper defenses. Although the past several releases have tried to mitigate the issue by establishing a safe starting area with no pirates, and adding more introductory missions to help the player get started, for those players that strayed too far from the starting area, it was often fatal. Now, Chapter 0 will feature significantly less pirates, that will ramp up to normal when the player reaches Chapter 1. This should give the player time to get better ships and survive the pirate menace.
In order to implement this feature, the in-game universe editor was significantly reworked (yet again!) to support universe diffs, that is, instead of saving the entire universe, only changes with the default are saved. While this has been used only for reducing pirates, for now, this is going to come very in hand when implementing the next stages of the major campaigns, where the universe will undergo many significant changes. It will definitely be a good investment for things to come.
Naev, now in 3D!
So, while this is something that was proposed around 15 years ago, this is something that has been quite active in the works for almost 5 years now. During that time, it has been rewritten twice: first using object files and more traditional rendering, and now using gltf files with physically-based rendering. As we’re not using any sort of game engine, it was all written from the ground up, and includes some fancy things like variance shadow maps, FidelityFX filtering, high dynamic tone mapping, and super sampling. There’s still many things to do, but this finally lets us start to do fancier things that were infeasible using spritesheets. That said, spritesheets are still supported, however, 3D models are the recommended way of adding new ships.
It has taken a lot of work, but all the ancient models have been updated to work with the newest blender, and many models have seen upgrades in different aspects like texturing, engine glows, broken geometry, and animations. Some ships have had to be nearly completely remade to work with current standards. There’s still a lot to do, but they look much better, and the same model can be used in the shipyard, communication window, and in-game.
With 3D, we finally can also have ships tilt slightly when turning. This makes flying feel much more natural, and the tilt shows off more highlights and details of the ships. While we were hoping to add blinking lights and more details, those have not yet been implemented, but there is a real possibility that they will come sooner and later, once some logistics are figured out.
For now, only ships have been reworked into 3D, but we hope to have planets, stations, and asteroids to join them in the near future. Some effects such as the backgrounds, wormholes, and the likes will still be kept in 2D, however, it will all work much better together. Oh, and last but not least, we’ve taken this opportunity to add 4 new ships to flesh out a bit more the Naev universe!
Linear Energy Regeneration
Although many players had not noticed, energy regeneration in Naev used an RC (Resistance-Capacitor) charge curve, which meant that energy would regenerate faster the less you had, and slowly taper out. This was not properly conveyed to the player and has now made linear. Now 100 GW of energy regeneration will always be 100 GJ of energy generated per second. While it is not possible to keep exactly the same behaviour as before, outfits and ships have been adjusted to try to be as similar as before the change.
Quality of Life for all!
A lot of Quality of Life has also made it into the nightly. Spaceport bar is marked with red exclamation points when there is an interesting NPC, there is support for sorting and filtering mission computer missions, repeated messages get folded in the GUI, asteroids won’t disappear when the player is nearby or actively targeting them, and much more! This should ensure a smoother experience for the players and get rid of lots of small friction.
Additionally, the game uses lazy loading and threading to load much faster than before, starting up much faster and using less memory in general.
Concluding Remarks
All the aforementioned fixes can be already tasted in the nightly branch which can be obtained through the steam beta, github, or itch.io. They will be included in the next 0.12.0 release which is scheduled for December if you’d rather wait for a more stable release instead of risking the bleeding edge. If you’re interested in seeing the full changelog, including things that have not been discussed here, it’s available on github. With that, this concludes the Sporadic Naev Newsletter Vol. 4, and see you again in the next one!
