Added Schematics which are special type of buildings that perform tasks.
Added Syphon Refinery(created from Schematics). This structure takes syphon from Syphon Miners transported with Syphon Containers and converts it to the resources relevant to the biome it came from.
Added Schematic Tab in the in-game knowledge base(press B) where you can view any Schematic with the resources it requires and a 3D model.
Added Syphon Miners(created from Schematics) which will mine from the surface of the earth bringing you materials relevant to the biome it’s used in. The speed is relevant to the Resource Value of the System. Systems further away from Capital Gates will reap more.
Added Syphon Container(created from Schematics) which is used to transport material made by Mining Syphons.
Added Schematic Projector which projects a hologram of the schematic you’d like to build so you can construct it easily.
All Systems now have a resource value which affects the yield for Mining Syphons. Systems further from capital gates have the best possible yield.
Added black background for System Names on the map.
The Systems map now correctly centers on the player when opens.
When a System is hovered over in the System Map it will display over any overlapping system names.
Reset Blocks now have a 5 minute timer to prevent exploits and mitigate raft spam.
Gravity Springs will now hold the ship in place when fired.
Hard Glass damage by bullets has been reduced by 75%.
Reduced Table health to 25.
Demo players on Community Servers can no longer be promoted to Nation leaders.
Gravity Storms now require a threshold of ships to be able to create ore deposits.
Initially loading the game in a play session should be much faster now for very large chunk caches.
Nerfed Missile Pod, it now only fires 1 missile at a time. Make sure you double down on defenses.
Missile’s can now be detonated by bullets and other explosions.
Special Blocks(blocks that save data) when corrupted will no longer remove the whole chunk but delete the offending block and log it.
Added soft sound effect for placing blocks.
Energy Wells are now more expensive to craft.
Debugging or unavailable blocks are now hidden in the Item Database to be less confusing to players.
Temporarily System resource values are shown on the map. As “R: 10”.
Fixes
Fixed Nation Beacons not being positioned correctly on system reload in some cases.
Fixed a server crash caused by chunks undocking from each other in certain situations.
FFixed a server crash caused by ships jumping in certain situations with unloaded docked ships.
Fixed ray cast bug that would make new land chunks after the first block impossible or very hard to place new blocks on or interact with existing blocks.
Fixed the mesh part of the trophies not always being removed.
Fixed an exploit with Mounted Repeaters.
Fixed an economy exploit through crafting value inflation.
Fixed max claim count not working in some cases.
Fixed lighting and rendering for Item Kit items in equipment and actor previews.
Fixed global lighting for Item Kit items.
Fixed Decorative Glass types not being hurt by bullet damage like other Glass materials.
Fixed a potential server crash caused by Reclaim machines.
Fixed a crash related to physics joints on docked ships that no longer exist.
Fixed a crash related to physics groups not existing.
Fixed splash damage hurting players through walls in some cases. Most notable with Missile defenses.
Fixed crash caused by telescope in some cases.
Sky Nations Update - 0.92 Schematics!
Hey guys, the new update is out that adds quite a few small changes and a new mechanic into the game.
What's New?
The new mechanic is basically a combination of two smaller mechanics. The first one being Schematics. Schematics are structures you can build out of certain materials that perform tasks for you. You can check out the current Schematics you can make via the in-game Knowledge Base window(default key: B) under the Schematics tab. This will show you the a 3D model, a description and the materials you'll need to construct it. Building them can be a tricky affair, luckily there's a new block called the Schematic Projector. This little holographic projector will create a faint hologram of the schematic directly above it for you to build into to make sure you match it exactly.
The first 3 Schematic machines you can build in this update are:
Syphon Miner - This is a large device that brings up resources from the surface of the earth. It only works on-map(not in Capitals). Over time it creates a resource called "Syphon". Which is a coloured fluid, depending on the biome of the System it is mined from. The Syphon has a tank with enough space for 3 days of mining. The speed it mines the fluid depends on the Resource Value of the system(which is temporarily displayed on the Map(default: M)).
Syphon Containers - These are small containers that you build on ships which are for transporting the Syphon fluid from your Miners to your Refineries. To transfer the fluid, simply align your Fuel Ports on the Container with the same on the Miner and it will begin withdrawing the resource until it is full.
Syphon Refinery - Refineries are large structures that will convert the fluid into resources. Matching up the fuel ports with Containers will transfer the fluid into them and they will begin processing it. Depending on the colour(which Biome it is from) it will be converted into resources found in this Biomes. Syphon Refineries can only be built in Capitals.
All the schematic machines continue their jobs offline and also do not require power. However, they do produce resources fairly slowly over time because of this. The speed may be changed to be faster or slower in the future for balancing, but the starting figures should give me a fairly good set of data to work off.
The gains from Syphon and Schematics should hopefully give holding claims on the map a significant benefit as well more legitimate reasons to attack others holding those prime spots. These are also more progress in the overall plan I posted quite awhile ago for Capitals vs on map claims and encouraging PVP. In line with this claims are a little more attackable, turrets now only fire 1 missile at a time, rather than a volley of two(essentially a 50% reduction). A bug has also been fixed which was allowing missile splash damage to travel through walls. Making claims on the whole more viable to take with the right amount of resources vs defenses, risk(spent resources) vs reward(gained resources/advantages) should still play a big part in your decision making on whether to attack an area.
To combat more cheesier ways of attacking claims that we've seen recently such as Raft spam in order to force the gates to throw ships deeper into a System and sometimes past defenses(mitigated with spread out turret defenses) the Reset block has been given a 5 minute cool down per player and Energy Wells are now more expensive making this a much more expensive endeavour.
As mentioned above the second mechanic is Resource Values. Systems have their own Resource Values. These are currently displayed on the map under "R:" next to the system name temporarily, in the future it will require you to prospect the area in order to learn these values. Resource values are somewhat random but also scale up depending on how many jumps away from a Capital Gate you are. Systems with higher Resource Values basically give faster yield for your Syphon Miners.
There has been a huge host of smaller changes and fixes not mentioned here which you can check out in the change log below.
How do I update?
The client will be automatically updated for you. The server files will be out shortly when I've fixed anything that pops up within the first few hours of the new servers being live.
Sky Nations Update 0.91 Gravity Storms and Weapons!
Update 0.91 is now out with some new weapons to play with and a new medium event as well as a host of smaller changes and bug fixes.
The new event is known as a Gravity Storm, which both helps clean servers of those messy swarms rafts and provides a sweet set of materials for players who happen to be first on the scene after the storm has passed and its deadly gravity pull has subsided. Be careful though, if you're in the same System as the storm grows you will die. So find your nearest Gate and get out of there!
The new weapons consist of:
A Gravity Well, a new machine that can be crafted from some of the loot drops given by the Magmasite Queen which when triggered will pull in any nearby objects or ships. Useful for pulling your enemies in ready for boarding! As well as boasting some utility uses for clever builders.
A Gravity Spring, essentially the opposite to the Well it will generate a force pushing objects away. This can be used to divert projectiles and push boarding parties away in a moment of crisis.
Both gravity weapons sit on a ship wide timer to prevent their overuse. They will also stabilize the ship using them against Gravity weapon during their activation.
I've also added Trophies as discussed in the developer log a week or so ago, added a new set of loading screens from player builds and a host of other small tweaks and bug fixes. For the full list check out the change log at the bottom of the post.
How to update
The Steam and Sky Nations Launcher will automatically update your clients for you. The server files will be available shortly once I'm sure they're fairly stable on the Community servers.
Changelog
Changes
Added Gravity Well. A weapon that creates a gravitational field around your ship.
Added Gravity Spring. A weapon that creates an anti-gravitational field around your ship.
Added Gravity Storm medium event. A storm will occasionally occur in unclaimed systems with 100 or more ships in. These storms will pull in ships and destroy them becoming bigger for each ship. After set amount of time and they will clear leaving a deposit of ores.
Added Merchant Cat trophy. Can sometimes be found in Merchant Cats trade stations.
Added Magmasite Queen Trophy. Dropped very rarely by the Magmasite Queen.
Added Tables. Craftable from 4 planks.
Added new loading screens showing player builds. Submit your awesome constructions to possibly be in it by shooting me an email: ben@skynations.net - Needs to be 1920x1080.
Added reproducible attribute to blocks/items. Items that are not reproducible cannot be constructed in the ship constructor. Reproducibility is shown in the item description if the item is not reproducible.
Sped up MQ movement.(pending remake of phase 2)
Remade Glass texture and added 2 alternatives as Decorative Glass blocks 1 and 2.
Optimized some rendering bottlenecks for very dense areas.
Optimized draw calls over many parts of the core engine.
Optimized lighting. Areas with hundreds of lights should perform better now, especially for lower end GPUs. You should be able to set your max light settings much higher now in some cases.
Loading screen no longer disappears until the client has made a connection to the server.
Admins in god mode will no longer receive the disable block placing debuff when taking damage.
Crash logs will now save in a folder relative to the current server version with a time stamp. i.e. “Crash Logs 0.91/3-51 4-2-2015.log”. This should make it easier to log multiple crashes and also separate the versions to prevent old reports.
Fixes
Fixed a bug causing some players to appear relative to the center of a system when jumping.
Fixed Reclaiming machines not checking the correct amount of free space when teleporting in docked ships.
Fixed Reclaiming machines breaking physics of clamped together ships when pulling them to a new instance.
Fixed Reclaiming machines not teleporting ships from unloaded sectors that are clamped to other ships.
Fixed a bug that would reset the Max light count in the Options window to the minimum.
Fixed player count in lobby being incorrect and much lower than actual server count. Servers also now update the lobby much more often.
Fixed MQ spawning regardless of player high event threshold.
Fixed Rcon settings missing from Server Settings.xml
Fixed Rcon not loading correct file and thus server settings not enabling it.
Fixed Item Magnets pulling items and destroying when they’re already full.
Fixed a bug causing ghosts of player sessions to be left if they log out before authentication happens.
Fixed a threading crash on client when generating meshes.
Fixed an exploit where you could keep the same amount of thrust when turning thrusters off as long as you didn’t try to throttle up or down.
Fixed Merchant Cat still selling depreciated SPS blocks.
Fixed Jetpack being used up while climbing ladder blocks.
Fixed Loot crates will move back into the system borders if they are spawned outside.
Developer Log 5 and a Server Setup Guide videos
Hey guys, I've uploaded a new video on some of the things coming in the next update and a guide on setting up your own servers. You can check them out here:
Server Guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RKVELiSIBA
Update 0.90 Magmasite Queen
Update 0.90 is out which brings one of the first events in a set that can happen randomly in Sky Nations: The Magmasite Queen! The Magmasite Queen is a large monster and mother to all Magmasites. She will appear on the map every one to two hours when a certain amount of players are on the server(setting in the Server Settings). She is designed to be taken down by a group of players and has three distinct behaviours for you to avoid and counteract. She drops a few new items that will be used to craft new items and weapons in coming updates. So make sure you save up what you get from her! They might not seem useful yet but they will be very useful in the future! As always MQ is a work in progress, so feedback is welcome and there are still a couple of changes I'd like to add to the fight including more sound ques and some mechanical tweaks.
I've also added better keyboard support for non-English keyboards. As long as the game supports your language in the font(which supports a lot of characters), you should be able to type correctly in your native characters. This includes languages like Russian and Japanese. Big thanks to Chris Herold(of SquidUI) for the help on extending the keyboard support.
As always for a full list of changes check out the change log below.
Old Versions
For those that wish to play older versions of the game I've created a branch in the Steam version allowing you to play the previous version to the current update. This should make the server updates transition a little easier as you can continue playing by switching to an old branch until the server you play on switches over. Please remember to use the latest version before reporting bugs though.
How to update
The client update by itself via the Launcher or Steam depending on where you purchased the game. The updated server files will be available within a couple of hours once I'm sure it's stable based on the Community Servers.
Added Magmasite Queen. The Queen will spawn when is met(see below change). She has a chance to spawn at a max once every hour and a minimum once every 2 hours(which is random i.e. 60 minutes + rand(60)). She only spawns in Fuel Biomes(the biomes with molten rock in) and must be defeated within one hour of her spawning otherwise she will despawn. She will never spawn in claimed areas, nor can areas be claimed while she occupies them. She drops loot not obtainable anywhere else which will be used to craft new items and blocks in future updates which will not be buildable with constructors.
Added mic volume indicator below push to talk icon. So you can see that your mic is active. A little green bar will show your relative volume.
Added a speaker icon(same as push to talk one) next to player name tags when they are using the mic.
Clamps now save their clamping over system loads and unloads. For your pre-existing clamps to save their status you will need to break them and place them back down in order to reset them.
Added a better input method for capturing text input from windows. Key presses should not be missed for players with low frame rates.
Non-English keyboard layouts input should now work correctly and display the correct characters. For example Russian or Japanese keyboards.
Reduced Mounted Repeater Fire rate by 50% but increased accuracy by 50% to make it more viable both against players and mobs(it has also gained a significant accuracy increase from a bug fix listed below).
You can now set the starting position and instance for players in Server Settings with and .
Improved performance of a couple of bottlenecks on the client by about 400%+. Very dense areas should be a lot less CPU intensive on the client.
Removed close button on Server Lobby that would leave you without a Lobby window with no way to get it back.
Added , and to server settings. These are the minimum player counts required for low, medium and high difficulty events. Currently High is the only one used for the Magmasite Queen. Though the others will be used as more events are added in.
Fixes
Fixed a bug where cached chunks weren’t always used as opposed to requesting new ones. If you’ve already visited an area, unchanged parts should load very quickly again.
Fixed a bug with new player block and energy wells not spawning chunks in the ideal location.
Fixed a bug with placement of new ships for energy wells and new player block where ships were spawned inside objects.
Fixed a bug that would cause Mounted Repeaters inaccuracy to favour certain positions or spread too wide.
Improved the player getting stuck after jumps in some cases due to the ship being in the wrong position on the players screen.
Fixed a couple of bugs that would cause the ships themselves to be moved into un-loaded chunks before they were loaded when jumping to a new system. Especially for slower servers.
Fixed a couple of rare instances where physics objects would not be disposed of when their object dies which would build up overtime and hurt server performance.
Fixed a couple of gaps in the system border walls.
Fixed a rare crash caused by the server resending class information to the client in very specific circumstances.
Fixed laser damage continuing to stack after two lenses.
Update: Physics, Voice and Docking 0.89
Physics!
The physics update that we've been testing on the aptly named "Physics test server" is finally out. Physics brings a lot of changes to various mechanics as well as new opportunities for building cool stuff. It replaces our old system of flight which was quite limiting, if you bumped into anything they were solid objects, they wouldn't budge and on a technical level it was very awkward to do a couple of things I want to do in the future with the old system! Now you'll find you can push ships around and even use the new Docking Clamp to clamp ships onto each other in order to dock them together(or make a bigger ship!). Physics also opens the way to expanding and changing the way propulsion and handling works in the future. All of the moving parts in Sky Nations have been rewritten with this new physics system, so things like Cannonballs and Missiles will be much more reliable and won't occasionally pass through objects and explode when you are moving to fast.
Voice
I've also added Voice communication in this update; I previously added Voice in an update quite awhile ago but found quite a few issues specific to certain setups and sound drivers and had to remove it. It was something I really wanted to comeback to and sort out and I finally have. By holding V(default binding) you can chat with your fellow sky privateers. The sound is 3D, so you can hear both where the sound is coming from and how far away it is. This should make it a bit easier to communicate those vital orders when you're in a situation that demands something a bit faster than typing. There's still a bit more expansion to this I'd like to do in the future such as displaying a speaker icon over those talking and allowing users to choose their Input device in the Options(rather than using the Windows default one).
Testing & Future
I'm looking forward to see what people do with some of the gained flexibility physics bring and also using it myself to make some more interesting weapons and events in the future! As always check the change log below for the full list of fixes and changes.
I'd also like to thank the following guys and girls for helping me test the new physics rewrite on the test server and providing feedback on the forums, steam and twitter:
Knite
Dahl
MrBlue
Mugvahyu
It would of certainly taken a lot longer to get it done and stable without you guys and thank you to anyone else that hopped on and had a play.
Developer Log
I posted a short developer log a few days ago about the physics changes which you can check out here. Though some of the docking mechanics have changed slightly since then:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wUVkfeCGbA
How do I update?
If you're on Steam, the Steam client will update it automatically for you. If you play via the Launcher, the launcher will automatically update for you. Server files:
http://skynations.net/?page=download
To update existing servers just copy and paste the files over your existing ones. As always, make sure you backup your game data before doing so.
Changelog 0.89
Notes: Ships in tight spaces such as ships used as hangar doors may need to be fished out after first start up by admins of servers as the physics system may move them slightly.
Changes
Added experimental physics engine to the game to replace system for collision. The entire underlying collision system has been replaced with this.
Added Voice communication. The voice communication uses 3D positioning so you have to be relatively close to the people you’re chatting with. The default binding is V. To talk just hold V down. You can disable both talking and listening via the Sound tab in the options menu. Muted players cannot use Voice.
Ships are now velocity based rather than previously moving at a speed directly forward. If you move very fast in one direction then turn you will ‘drift’ as you maintain the velocity for a short time before it falls off.
The ship speed UI element above the energy bar has been changed to Thrust to more accurately represent how it now works with physics. Thrusters give you more ‘thrust’ which is essentially the pushing power. In brackets next to it is your Sky Knots Per Second(sk/s) which is actual moving speed(same measurement as previously).
Added experimental Docking Clamps for docking ships on to other ships. Right click to attach a ship above the clamp. A ship clamped down cannot have another ship clamped on top of it. Though currently you can clamp as many ships onto one given ship. Ships that are clamped have their movement disabled. Though the carrier can still move with the combined weight.
Changed cannon balls speed(thus there range). To make it a bit more viable to hit moving ship targets for both artillery and static cannons. Their collision detection is much much more accurate than it was previously and there shouldn’t be situations of cannon balls moving through objects.
Ship positions are much more accurate now for all clients watching them as they are completely simulated on the server side instead of using the driver and fault checking.
All damage is unified now. Which means shotguns, repeaters, lasers, explosions and future types of damage are all handled generically. Which has fixed things like Escape bubbles not taking bullet damage.
All weapons have been ported to using physics system for collision, which should be much faster and more accurate.
Cannonballs can be shot with any weapon to detonate them before impact.
Many missiles should cause less problems for server performance during sieges.
Fixes
Various collision based crashes fixed for both client and server.
Fixed being able to type over character limit in client textbox leading to your messages not being shown.
Fixed many ‘box cast’ situations where ships could end up positioned inside of things from jumps, teleportations, energy wells and other methods of positioning ships. These are also much more tighter and best placement of new ships should be much more predictable.
Fixed a bug where some very specific configurations of blocks would break collision detection.
Fixed cannon balls exploding on fast moving ships as they updated over the top of them. Especially when shooting forwards.
Chat should be unaffected by loading data from chunks now as they travel in different channels.
Fixed incorrect material types for Mass Generators, Power Displays, Steel Shutters, Signs, Emblems, Copper Doors and Energy Wells. (Thanks sssuperguy).
Fixed players seeing a ‘ghost ship’ of the ship they were on when it jumps to a capital they do not belong too.
Ammo Crates on a SPF’d ship can no longer be opened by non-Nation members.
Fixed ships coming to a instant halt when the driver dismounts.
Login Issues
Update: I believe I've fixed the issues. It'd be great if you could post here or let me know on twitter if you're having any further problems with login. Again sorry about the inconvience it was factors out of my control to do with our server host.
Sometime yesterday it started becoming difficult for players on Steam to login. It seems that the requests are timing out between our web server and the Steam web servers. I'm currently working on a fix for this and trying to find what has gone wrong and solve it as fast as possible.
Do not worry if your game pops up with a login/register screen. This is just the default if the game cannot work out if you have an account(which is related to the issues).
This does not effect users who play the game outside of Steam.
Sorry for the inconvience, I'll update this post when I fix it.
Developer Log 4 - Physics, Docking and Testing
Hey guys, I've just uploaded a developer log on the new physics system I've been working on implementing into Sky Nations and what it means in general. It's a small part of updating movement which is a part of updating combat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wUVkfeCGbA
I wanted to get the physics update out today but unfortunately I've had a sporadic internet connection and power due to some damage to the lines caused by the weather for just over a week. So I've not been able to have a test server up for quite as long as I'd like to.
How to try the physics build
If you'd like to pop in and test the new physics out you can by changing the game to the testbranch and logging into the physics test server.
To do that you need to:
1. Right click Sky Nations in your Steam Games Library and click Properties.
2. In the Properties window that pops up choose the Betas tab.
3. In the betas tab there is a drop down menu, choose testbranch and Steam will auto-update the changes.
Note: To switch back to the normal version in order to play on normal servers repeat this process and just choose the defaulr branch.
Reporting Bugs
If you happen to pop on the physics server, if you could report anything that doesn't work as intended to do with the physics that you find on the test server either on the: Sky Nations website forums Or:
Steam Community Hub
That would be a great help!
Update 0.88 - Merry Christmas!
Update 0.88 is up, with it is a collection of small changes and bug fixes as well as Winter texture pack as a small celebration of this festive time! I wanted to clear some of the backlog of smaller irks(such as improvements to the Item Sculpter) and bugs before I move onto nerfing defenses and adding events in more serious updates that will be coming in the New Year.
If you'd like to enable the Winter texture pack. Simply open the Options menu in-game(Esc->Options) and choose Winter from the Texture Packs list in the General tab of options. Then click "Apply" and "Save". It should make the game a little more festive with some newer snowy textures.
Clients will be automatically updated. The server files are available here:
http://skynations.net/?page=download
To update your server simply copy them over your existing files. Make sure you back up your existing files first!
Changelog 0.88
Notes:
Back up your map as always!
Changes
Added a Festive Winter Texture pack.
The Item Sculpter is no longer modal and so you can use chat while sculpting.
You can now place and make Copper Railings. Recipe: 1 Copper = 2 Railings.
Added Steel Railings. Equivalent recipe to Copper Railings.
Added Wooden Railings. Equivalent recipe to Copper Railings.
Added Local Save/Load for Item Sculpter so you can save your progress without submitting the item.
Added SafeZone toggle for Capitals in the Territory tab of the Nation window. Leaders can toggle it on and off.
Added /whoid which will list all players and their ID’s for moderators and above.
Added /kickid which will kick player with given ID.
Added /banid which will ban player with given ID.
Added /muteid and /unmuteid to mute players with a given ID.
Added /fixplayernation command which will remove a player from a Nation if they cannot correctly leave for very old player saves and Nations that have been corrupted from crashes.
The directional light is now better angled for the Item Sculpter.
Added Admin/Moderator tag to usernames in chat to prevent impersonation of an Admin.
Added bandwidth monitoring for classes both client and server side. Very useful for debugging!
Gate Beacons no longer rotate to reduce needless bandwidth and collision usage.
Dropped items will no longer fall through chunks that have not calculated their Octree yet.
Shadows are now more accurate and no longer cast onto emissive blocks. They will also fade out over distance to prevent artifacts.
The sun and moon movement is now much smoother for smaller time compressions.
The Item Database no longer shows custom items made by players of the server you are connected to so it is much less confusing for new players.
Tree leaves now have inner surfaces to conjoining blocks to make them look more dense.
Fixes
Fixed a bug with /ban using wrong IP for IP bans. Though username bans still worked fine.
Fixed some tools being sellable.
Fixed exploit where Leafy Soup was priced wrongly for it’s ingredients.
Fixed a SafeZone exploit.
The server will now automatically recount claimed systems for Nations on startup to make sure the Nation count is correct and to account for crashes or admin changes to the map.
Fixed formatting on death messages.
Fixed players being able to trigger multiple different new player blocks while waiting for one to start which could crash the server.
Fixed Recalling ships from empty systems causing them to not collision check and become stuck in objects when they are teleported into the System you recalled them from.
Fixed items falling through some chunks after certain alterations to blocks.
Fixed a crash caused by removing Energy Relay connection in very specific circumstances.
Fixed an error caused by leaving a Nation which causes it to disband.
Fixed a bug that causes players to be stuck in a Nation without actually being in it under very specific circumstances.
Fixed lighting on worn sculpted items.
Fixed sculpted items sometimes being drawn behind the sky floor, making them appear to be semi transparent.
Update 0.87 Capital Beginnings
The beginning of the large proposal I posted here a little while ago is out today. The release of all the features from the document is going to be staggered out over a couple of updates. This is so people have a chance to adapt to the changes, such as moving your bases and goodies to your Capital before existing claims take on a different meaning within the game. It also gives me bitesized portions to work on which can carry other smaller changes and bug fixes.
The first part of this is update is a basic implementation of the Capitals themselves and the Gates that lead to them. For those that don't want to read the long document above. Capitals are the new bases for Nations. Each Nation is provided with one and players from outside that Nation cannot visit it(for the moment). This gives you a safe place to build and harbour your stuff. It also means risk for your creations is choice based. You choose what you're going to take outside of the Capital and who you let into your Nation, rather than your goods being up for grabs while you're offline. This is going to be significantly fleshed out in coming updates with changes to the on-map existing claims, which will be less easily defended and become more volatile and will have unique bonuses to owning them as well as some special rewards from an event system designed to bring players outside of their bases to do ship to ship combat. You can check out more of the overall plan for the Nation changes here.
Reclaim machines have also seen a massive nerf to bring them closer to what they were intended for. They will now take 4 minutes if they're being reclaim from an area that players are in. You cannot use them if a player is standing on the ship you are trying to reclaim. The bubble that appears around them, which you can destroy to prevent the Reclaim from happening now has significantly less health as it has been changed from 5000 to 1000. This should make ships that are being Reclaimed sitting ducks if they are being Reclaimed during combat. Which was the original intention.
Smaller changes but important changes include Mallets now being x2 effect as they were before. Ships created from Constructors now cost 125% of their Material cost rather than previous 100%. Making it more expensive to manufacture ships and trade up through materials. Ship plans also now automatically remove SPF's to prevent confusion when using a Ship Constructor and expecting them to be pre-bound to the players Nation.
Community Servers
Just as quick update on the Community Servers as I know most people play on them. I no longer Admin or host either of them, as it takes a significant amount of time away from development. I'll obviously still pop in to chat and play. They will still be used to test fixes before wider releases. Community 2 as always is run by Siroro and Community 1 is now run by FaceWound. So you have a specific server issues for either of the two Community Servers talk to the respective lovely chaps that run them rather than emailing me. If you find a bug or issues outside of that obviously please send those my way!
How do I update?
Clients will be automatically updated.
The updated server files will be uploaded in 24 hours or so when I know they're fairly stable. Adding Capitals was a significant change to a lot of SN's internals so I want to make sure we weed out any crashes first with Community 1 and 2.
Changelog
Notes
When updating your servers MAKE A BACKUP OF THE MAP. This update changes elements on the map. Changes
Added Capital Systems for Nations. A completely safe system that lives off-grid for Nations to build their HQ in and store their ships. New Nations will have them automatically generated when their Nation is created. Existing ones will be assigned systems on first server startup after the update. All Capitals are ID 100000 and above, so if you have existing systems(unlikely) that follow that ID range you may want to change them.
Added Capital Gates. These are large gates which will take Nation members to their Capital if their capital is assigned to the specific gate. Server owners will be asked on first startup how many gates they want generated after the update. They will overwrite random unclaimed systems on the map. I recommend choosing a number below 10% of your System count otherwise you will have too many gates. Capital Gate systems are safe zones by default.
Added Capital Gate assigning UI to the territory page of the Nation window. You can only have one Capital Gate assigned to your Nation and the choice is permanent so choose wisely. Capital Gates are marked on the world map.
Added Copper Railings. Recipe/Item coming next week.
Thruster burn damage now passes through Respawn Chambers glass parts to burn things behind them.
Added message notifying player they cannot use Respawn Chambers on ships.
Changed Bans so they display a reason and are for a set interval. /ban now uses the formatting: “/ban username hour reason”. Usernames with spaces must be replaced with underscores. For example “/ban Merchant_Cat 24 Prices too high!”.
Changed map zooming to be centered to the middle of the screen rather than the corner.
Ship plans now automatically remove SPF’s to prevent confusion.
Mallets are now 200% more effective.
Reclaim Machines have been massively nerfed. It now takes 4 minutes to reclaim a ship from a loaded system. If the system is unloaded, which means no ones been in it for quite a few minutes it will still be instant. The bubbles around the ship while reclaiming also now have ⅕ of the health they had previously with 1000 instead of 5000. Ships being reclaimed will now be the sitting ducks they were intended to be to prevent players cheesing out of situations.
You can also no longer start a Reclaim if someone is standing on the ship.
Manufactured Ships now cost 125% of their material worth rather than 100%.
Fixes
Fixed chunk cache building up to be too big in some cases creating long loading times.
Fixed actor preview being invisible in the Item Sculpter.
Fixed turrets getting the player stuck if they’re mounted to it on it’s destruction.
Fixed head getting stuck in 3 block high blocks above repeaters. Players can also now fit in 2 block high spaces when mounting turrets.
Fixed Artillery Cannons requiring 3 block high space to mount. They now require 2.
Fixed an exploit used to cheat a way into ships to delete SPFs.
Fixed exploit where you could not unbind from Respawns that are now owned by other players.
Fixed a bug where the second claim you made did not have to be adjacent but all others do. All claims except your first one must adjacent.
Fixed map centering for find me/merchant cat/bookmarks.
Leaves should no longer consume blocks when growing downwards.
Fixed telescope resetting sensitivity.
Fixed some exploits used by third party applications.
Fixed server crash caused by clients connecting early to the server at startup.
