Star Fleet Armada: Rogue Adventures
Patch Notes for Release version 1.1.1.46 released on June 24th 2017
First, there are 2 known issues that we are working on and will be fixed in the next patch (Monday or Tuesday). They are both in the fleet combat. The first is if you have a pirate ship in your fleet the graphic does not show up, The ship shows in the ships list and is in the battle just no graphic.
The second is the launch time for the first set of fighter squads at a pirate outpost or starbase is not being set correctly. The pre-battle screen gives you one time and once the battle starts you get another time.
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Now for the cool stuff in this patch:
Increased the length of nebula encounters by about 5 seconds, and added a yellow static charge that will briefly appear about 1 second before a lightning strike is going to strike in that area. The static charges are harmless but will give players time to better aim their shots or move their shuttle craft. This should allow players to gather more gas extract as these were a little too difficult to accumulate.
Added a ‘Disperse Crew as Needed’ button to the edit fleet screen. This will move crew from transport and fighter carriers to battle cruisers, research vessels and cargo ships in need. Battle Cruisers are filled first, then cargo and then research vessels. The crew comes from either a transport or fighter carrier. They must have over 33% of their maximum and it takes it from the one with the higher crew count.
Planet Landers now have auto fire and this can be increased using the Engineering Stat.
Added a text showing how many open ship slots a player has while in combat. This was something the player would want to know for the purpose of capturing enemy ships.
Fixed a bug which was allowing ships to move after an enemy action before they were supposed to.
Fixed various typos.
Lowered the damage done by Chemical and Vaporizer Bombs as they were a little too powerful.
Added if a ship device module is stackable or not to all ship device module tooltips. You can still add multiple Modules that are NOT stackable to a ship but only the strongest will be active during battle. This means that players can have a backup just in case one is disabled or destroyed during a battle. For example, you could have two Weapon Generators so you can continue to get the recharge boost if one is destroyed or disabled.
The sound effects in the intro screen will now use the volume set as the player’s preferences. These are saved each time the player enters the esc menu.
Fixed an bug that causes the game to crash while using keyboard or hybrid controls during a star lane jump.
Fixed an issue where you could see the movement path of a cloaked enemy ship and see where it was if you put your mouse over it.
You are now allowed to continue to collect resources while exploring a planet if your fleet cargo becomes full and your planet lander’s cargo is NOT full. The excess will go into the jettison chamber when you return. You will still get the audible message that the fleet cargo is full as a warning.
Made the armor and crew gauges on the ships list in combat a little wider to make it easier to see.
Last but most definitely not least is the new star map lens system. This is addition to the existing search functionality found at the bottom of the star map.
This will work very similarly to Civ 6. In the lower right corner is a list of check boxes for each of the 8 things listed below. The list will have an icon that will match the icon that will show around the star system that meets the criteria. This icon can be clicked on and you will see the rings around those star systems that meet the requirement. Just like pressing the find button when using the advance search functionality.
Next is a check box to enable or disable the filter. Then is the name of the criteria. There is also a button to check or uncheck them all.
The icons will appear around the star system with only six that you will see at the same time. Here is a list of the lens’:
These first three will all share the location directly on top of the star. This is because they all are related to each other and only one will ever be totally accurate.
Discovered ----> Visited ----> Totally Explored
As you can see, you must first discover a star system. Then you will visit it. And finally you can explore each and every encounter.
The others are:
Wormholes (before they are turned into a star lane)
Research Units (This will include anomalies, comets and gas planets with RU's left on them)
Space Stations (This one will also have an icon next to it that shows what type of space station it is. Green $ for trade center, blue beaker for research station and so forth)
Civilian Outpost
Hostiles (this will include pirate outpost and races or rebels that dislike you or worse.
Thats it!
Patch Notes for Release version 1.1.1.45 released on June 21h 2017
So if you were thinking of starting a new game, nows the time to try it!
Added the rain and wind sounds to the sound emitters. So now they will accept the volume of the sound effects master volume control.
Removed the ‘Leaving Orbit in’ delay screen that appeared when you pressed the button to leave orbit. Pressing the button now takes you back immediately.
Player’s window and sound preferences are now saved each time the player goes to the Escape Menu. These are loaded when you first launch the game.
Comet Encounters now start with the shuttle craft as full speed since there is no reason to every have it at anything else.
Adjust the effect of some of the planetary terrain on the planet lander. For example cracks in the earth will only slightly slow down your planet lander as these are hard to see on some planets. They were at 60% of normal speed now they are set to 85%.
Message to upgrade ship bays or modules will no longer show up each time you go into the fleet edit screen. It does it every 10th time.
We are currently working on combat balance for mid to late game and should have an update soon.
Patch Update
Patch Notes for Release version 1.1.1.44 released on June 19th 2017
For example if you have a Large Fighter Carrier and it is has a Fighter Squad I, you must first upgrade it to a Fighter Squad II and then to a Fighter Squad III. Then when you upgrade the ship to a huge ship you can upgrade to Fighter Squad IV.
When you mouse over a modules icon while it is installed on a ship and the module can be upgraded, the tooltip will tell you to LMB on it to upgrade it and it will show you the cost in GMU’s. The tooltip will also display the message that you can RMB click to un-install the module too.
This will make it much easier to keep your fleet's battle strenght at it's maximum capacity as you upgrade the ship sizes.
Patch Notes for Release version 1.1.1.43 released on June 18th 2017
Fixed an error in the new ship paths during combat where an enemy ship’s path would disappear if the player changed the path of one of their ships.
Made a few adjustments to the recharge times of the ship bays. Lowered the cargo ships recharge time so the player would get a chance to use the repair drones quicker and more often.
Added the ability to make your away team or planet lander move backwards in Mouse and directional gamepad mode. The away team could already move backwards using the RMB but also added the use of the Space Bar. And the Space Bar can now be used to make the Planet Lander go backwards as well.
To make them go backwards using the gamepad in direction mode you would press the upper left shoulder button. For that reason when setting the gamepad buttons the cycle buttons can only use the lower shoulder buttons. You can select which button is cycle low and which one is cycle high, but that’s it.
Patch Notes for Release version 1.1.1.42 released on June 17th 2017
During combat the player and enemy ships have movement path lines that show you what the direction of the ships path is. For the player the distance shown is fairly long. However for the enemy it is very limited. This was done intentionally as the ability to lengthen the enemy’s path distance will be something you can get later and is tied to a whole new relic system being developed.
There are two check boxes in the upper left corner labeled, Show Player Ship Paths and Show Enemy Ship Paths. By default these are on but can be turned off. If they are off you can mouse over a ship to see its current path. This is true for both the player and enemy ships.
For the player the paths are drawn in green and for the enemy they are red. Fighter Squads have a thinner line than the other ships. If you RMB click on one of your ships a purple line will be drawn from the selected ship to the current mouse position. That let's you know you are changing it and you can see what path that ship will follow. If you LMB click it will set the path and the path will turn back to green. If you RMB click it will cancel the action.
When you select the Mass Aim button then a line will be drawn from ALL your ships to the current location of the mouse. LMB click will set it, while RMB click will cancel. This is a huge benefit while in combat and we’re sure that everyone will enjoy the new feature.
What Features are on the Horizon for SFARA?
First, we are adding the ships movement paths for both the player and the AI. These will only show if the battle is paused. And there will be a check box to allow the player to choose if all ships paths are shown or just those that have the mouse over. This will be true for both the player and AI ships separately.
Secondly we are working on a new enhanced help system initially for just the combat. It will replace the large information window that appears when you click on the Question Mark Icon. Honestly, that's just too much information to be hit with!
Heres how it will work. You will click on the icon and a much smaller window will appear, but still large enough to display a fair amount if information. At the top of the window will be two pull down menus. The first will have 5 selections. They are How, what, when , where and why. The default will be 'How'. Then based upon that will be another pull down with a list of questions that you as the player may ask that starts with the selected word.
For example under How would be questions like: How do I fire my weapons? or How do I change my ship's movement direction. Under the 'What' selection might be What is a critical hit? I think you get the idea.
Once selected the player would get instructions on how to do that particular thing step by step.
If this becomes popular we would then start the process to add this to all of the screens.
The priority is the fleet battle ship paths first. Then the fleet battle enhanced help. The rest of the enhanced help would come at a later date depending on it's popularity.
Please give us your feedback!
Patch Notes for Release version 1.1.1.41!
Fixed an issue where if a player was playing using a gamepad, saved the game and then exited, then disconnected the gamepad prior to loading the game, it would not set the default for any of the 4 encounter types to mouse if they were set for directional gamepad controls.
Also fixed an Issue where the player would go into the screen to set up the game pad and then leave while they were in the middle of the setup process using the ‘esc’ key. Now the player can only use the ‘esc’ key if they have cancelled out of the set up sequence. This will also ensure that the gamepad selection will not show up while on the star map for each of the 4 encounter types.
Fixed an issue on the star system view where the font size was wrong when viewing the players list of current life forms.
Increased the turn rate for ships and fighter squads while in fleet combat by 100%.
Fixed the keyboard and hybrid mode issues when moving the shuttle craft. It was not correctly moving left or right.
We finally pinned down the crash error regarding the merchant ship. Players were trying to LMB click on the merchant ship which wasn’t necessary or expected as the ship comes to the player. This has been fixed.
New Game Manual Available
We also now have a version without the background image for those who are visual sensitive. This version can only be downloaded from our website at www.starfleetarmada.com under the Media --> Manual menu. The standard version is the one attached to the game manual link in steam, but can also be found on our website.
Patch Notes for Release version 1.1.1.40 released on June 13th 2017
Fixed an error where the gamepad calibration process would generate an error.
Fixed an issue with one of the fonts being too large when playing at 2560 X 1440 resolution.
Fixed an issue where the player’s fleet would get caught in an endless loop when trying to target a very close target while in a star system.
Add a new gamepad option for the planet lander and away team. Allows the player to select directional gamepad play which will result in the planet lander and away team moving in the direction of the stick, not using the rotate left/right and move forward/backwards. Player can now use either play style option. The away team and planet lander still needs to rotate to the general direction of the stick before they will move. This was done to keep the importance of upgrading your planet landers turn rate.
Fixed a graphic draw issue when viewing the mouse over information for a neutral or friendly star base while in a star system.
Removed the ‘battle stat’ requirement for a neutral star base, but kept in on a neutral fleet. This was done because the player can attack a neutral fleet, but they can’t attack a neutral star base. One a neutral race’s fleet is attacked the star base will then have the battle stat as their posture will change to dislike.
Fixed an issue on the combat screen where the ship’s mouse over tooltip was being displayed behind the ships list instead of next to the ship when having the mouse over the ship in the player’s ship list.
Due to an issue with the game running at a high fps rate while in fullscreen mode without focus, the game will switch to windowed mode while it doesn't have focus and return to it's original mode once you return. This seems to have fixed the issue.