XO
Bug Fix Update 1.48b2
- Attempt to fix a bug with certain Radeon cards not displaying some text in buttons
*If you have a Radeon card and have experienced this issue please let us know how this goes
- Fix boarding in tutorial
- Fix some cases where Taker fails to seize
- Improve speed of transfers
- Fix precaptured ship logic
- Squash about two dozen autobugs
- Adjust some more events to respect terse setting
- Fix damage control flow
- Adjust formation layer for visibility
- Correct a game lockup when jumping
- Fix issue with double trade at shipyard
- Fix pirate radio transmitter
- Correct some starting mission problems
Minor update 1.48b1
Thanks so much for the bug reports, you all are just awesome people
- Corrected an issue that could lead to a harvesterless/eventless game
- The tutorial no longer halts after the first jump
- Several events were fixed up (Lone Frigate, Overfrothed, Mining Concern, Second Command)
- An issue with double trade happening on a Corp shipyard event was fixed
- Made a ship that shouldn't show up that was showing up not show up
- Fixed the starting game text
Major Update! XO 1.48 “Wave Bye Bye”
CUSTOM PLAY STYLES:
You can now customize how you play XO!
The Harvester wave speed can be set - including movement between jumps only, which gives you effectively infinite time at a given location.
You can also now control when your game is autosaved, as well as save when you want.
There are a number of other options from turning off politics altogether to controlling how frequent lifeboats appear.
Starting fleets were also separated from game difficulty.
If you have ideas on things you’d like to see added here, we welcome your feedback on the Steam forums or our Discord.
I’ve playtested a fair bit, but setting the Harvester wave to expand only while you jump might make the game too easy, so we may need to come back and balance that one after I’ve had more player feedback. Do please chime in.
We also took the opportunity to clean up the NEW GAME dialog, and add options for saving the game when exiting to the main menu and quitting.
RESOURCE DETAIL:
Hovering the Fuel, Water or Ore icon now give you a comprehensive breakdown of how much you can store, where you can store it, how much you are collecting and how much you are using.
This took a little over two months to fully implement. We expect there to be some small issues, please let us know if you see anything that doesn’t look right. There’s a lot going on in there.
MOVEMENT:
We spent an absolutely epic amount of time polishing up movement, which proves that a) rocket science is really, really hard and b) we’re not rocket scientists.
Ships and boarding parties are much better at not overshooting their targets compared to 1.47. We expect that there are still some bugs in movement, please report them when you find them.
Captains be advised that if you order a ship to try and intercept a target that is moving towards you, your ship almost certainly will overshoot trying to reach the target as quickly as possible. Use waypoints or Ctrl+ orders for finer control.
NEW SHIPS:
The Pact Tender is ordinarily equipped with a tractor beam, although it can later be upgraded to a laser. It is a fast, lightly armored ship able to seize and salvage other vessels.
The Empiric Armorer The Armorer is used by the Empire to permanently add armor to ships. Passengers must be placed aboard the armorer in order to operate the factory.
NEW ITEMS:
Mk V Armorplating permanently adds +5 repairable armor to any ship in your fleet, but permanently reduces acceleration and top speed. Be advised that adding too much armor can cause a ship to be unable to move.
Turbo Thrusters and Slow Burners allow you to increase acceleration in exchange for a lower top speed or increase top speed at a cost to acceleration. Both items are permanent. At the moment, they can only be found as cargo items and in trade. Should we add a factory ship for them?
The Quantum Container contains a mystery upgrade. The longer you wait, the better it is!
The Superplotter is even faster than Networked Computers at reducing jump plot times. And yes it can be stacked with Networked Computers.
MINIMAP ICONS:
Ship classes are now visualized on the minimap: cargoships appear as circles, farmships as drops, industryships as boxes and warships as triangles. Stations, mines, and Harvesters are also displayed with unique icons, making it a lot easier to identify what is in system at a glance. This is particularly useful when jumping in.
BOARDING PARTY UPDATES:
Pirates are now able to steal cargo when boarding a ship.
Training boarding parties is a little easier now that the battleship has gained the TRAIN BOARDERS self-action. Just select and right click the battleship.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a ship under duress needed maintenance but had no slots free, because the boarding party was taking up its only slot? We did. And now you can find out.
If you put a cargoship or an industryship under duress, and you’re enemy with that faction, there’s now a small chance of sabotage occurring.
Diplomats can non longer plant explosives on stations, it was correctly pointed out that this goes against their nature.
Diplomats now have a ‘no duress’ boarding option, which brings a ship into the fleet without causing duress if successful, assisting those Peaceful Victory attempts.
Speaking of that, having the Irenic faction leader in your fleet increases diplomat’s boarding success by 20%.
It’s now possible to ransack a jumpgate station with a boarding party after the jumpgate has been opened, for those of you fond of that kind of thing.
Boarding shuttles no longer retain their previous velocity after impacting a target.
If the only boarding party aboard a ship under duress is put into stasis, that ship will now try to jump and require being retaken
CONTENT:
Completing the tutorial now gives an achievement. Ordinarily I’m against giveaway achievements, but I feel like completing the tutorial is an important investment that I want to reward.
I put a lot of time into adding new enemy attack modes. Enemy ships now employ tractors, there are more multi-faction attack types, and more sophisticated boarding actions.
A number of warship types are now more self-aware and will seek out certain types of ships, including nonplayer ships. In particular, be on the lookout for pirates.
I added a number of new events early game into the rotation to help keep runs fresh, including starting station events.
More events were given a ‘stall for time’ option.
Several new events were created that give plans as a reward.
I adjusted Empire gunboat behavior and reactions at Empire jumpgates.
Behind the scenes we added variables tied to ships which allows us to do a lot of fun and interesting things, but also helped us make gutting, duress, mustering and ship factories work better.
I made sure an event referenced an Empire Sleeper awakening, just because I think Dune is a great movie and even greater book.
I dusted off, cleaned up, added to and otherwise improved the Captain’s Guide. Access the Guide from the main menu in-game. When I get around to it, I’ll make it even betterer.
You can now continue to trade with a station that is taking damage from nonplayer ships.
BALANCE:
I rebalanced and added events to make sure that the Peaceful Victory achievement was more easily attained. It’s still quite hard as you cannot disable or destroy any ships or put any ships under duress* for your entire run.
*However, if you use the Resort to remove duress on any ships in your fleet before you reach the final jumpgate, you will still qualify for the Peaceful Victory achievement.
I don’t like to see wasted shots, so ion torpedoes gained some new rules. In version 1.48 an ion torpedo will fire if:
its target has a charging or charged weapon
another ion torpedo has not already been fired at this weapon, including by other ships
if a target has X weapons, never fire more than X total ion torpedoes at it across all attacking ships
This makes the weapon much more effective at suppressing enemy fire.
Laser targeting was also improved to reduce and possibly eliminate the chance of wasted shots when defending or attacking ships.
Destroying Harvester Reapers that have latched onto a ship now has a variety of possible results instead of just disabling the latched ship.
Ships with a WEAPONS FREE or DEFEND ROE will now target reapers that have latched ships they are protecting or that are in their formation.
You can now only have one item of Networked Computers per run.
Networked computers can now also be equipped on the Irenic Questar.
I increased the number of ships that start a timer before jumping away instead of straight up jumping away.
Harvester warships are much slower and some now attack using large sweeping moves that cut across your entire fleet.
If you have no weapon aboard the battleship, your odds of coming across a laser were increased, particularly early game.
Nerfed the harvested Sector 1 jumpgate, it was way too brutal.
Early game Harvester waves always come from spinward (the left), simplifying fleet defense.
Irenic jumpgates can be pretty tough to crack when enemy. They now have a parley option that gives a nonviolent method to pass the gate.
Mustering with a Pact Scout can now be aborted once the Scout has jumped - this will cause you to lose the Scout.
Added a salvageable ship on the far side of the final jumpgate if the player jumps in without ore but with salvage ability.
Added a Hypermaul spawn if the player jumps into Sector 5 with no weapons above range 4.
In easy mode, added a range upgrade drop when reaching the final jumpgate with no weapons above range 4.
I experimented with ship loyalty tests only popping up when you were enemy with a fleet, but it makes more sense to allow them when neutral as well.
Removed the Hail Mary diplomat launch that some Irenic jumpgates would attempt.
Confiscation attempts can now be made on ships that are attempting to jump away.
Additional Harvester reinforcements added to prevent ‘all quiet on the starward front’ scenarios.
Removed Harvester wave delay items if the game is set for waves to propagate only during jump.
Reapers now latch and hold abandoned ships if they have passengers aboard.
QoL and POLISH:
I read all of the feedback we get, and respond to as much as I can. I can’t fully express how deeply meaningful these comments are, but I’m honored to receive each and every comment, thank you. Over the last few months I’ve gone over all the feedback and made a heck of a lot of changes as a result. I hope you’ll see the results and enjoy XO even more.
You can now rename ships once they are in your fleet. Hover a ship icon in the fleet list, then hover the name of the ship and left click.
If you hail a ship and the hailing ship has no space, cargo transfers are now jettisoned as containers next to the ship so the cargo can be retrieved instead of lost.
Similarly, if you receive ore that exceeds your storage capacity as a result of a trade or salvage action, excess ore is now jettisoned as cargo containers.
The game now handles multiple timers much more gracefully. Hovering timers now gives a little more information about what the timer is tied to. The most recent timer will always be on the left.
Damaged ship parts and explosions now inherit the velocity of the ship; lasers also track to moving explosions
Input is not allowed in the first 250ms when a dialog with multiple choices appears to try and catch accidental keypresses.
When a target ship is already held by a tractor, aborting a new tractor hold order on the same target ship does not turn off the tractor, only the new tractor hold/move order.
Bloom levels were adjusted and balanced; weapons have increased HDR emissons including the tractor beam. Among other things, this should really let you bring out your inner Klingon with those Ion Torpedoes.
The resolution and sharpness for achievements and medals were increased. They really look amazing in 4K!
Hovering a ship now displays it’s target if it has one, e.g. “ATTACK RAVEN”
The fleet list was improved with better scroll arrows and logic. The list now extends to the bottom of the screen and is a little higher.
A ship’s starting weapons are now shown when hovering the ship in the new game dialog.
Jumpgate stations now reply when you hail them a second time.
Randall our genius UI master talked me down off a cliff of adding UI where no UI should ever have been added. Thank you Randall.
Playing in Master mode no longer shows the mini-tutorial tooltips.
Water riots, particularly the last stage dismiss ship dialog, will not trigger (or go away) when water reaches or exceeds zero due to a shuttle or ship being destroyed during jump.
Ship names and planet names are no longer be duplicated in a single run.
Spare parts can now be installed using a self action or by hovering their cargo slot.
Current ROE is indicated by a box on the contextual action menu.
There’s no longer a ‘rescue’ action on abandoned lifeboats. Did you know you can maroon passengers in those?
I added another somewhat obscure way to get rid of passengers, you’ll have to find out how.
Range rings are no longer displayed on warships without weapons
Nonplayer ships do a better job of following the fleet when on a quest
Damage control got a sound effect
Tips and the tutorial now reference the actual key you have bound
Ship timers were added to quite a lot of events and actions
Warships now react better if all of their weapons are destroyed
Ctrl+ actions are no longer cluttered by the “ACTIONS” text and RMB icon
A lot of ship positions were adjusted and improved in multi-ship events
Course lines for Reapers are cleared when they are destroyed
A minor bug in the ultra diveboats item was fixed
Hidden beacons were made to work better
In multi-choice dialogs ship details are only shown when the ship icon in hovered
Things like Jumpgate instructions were made clearer
Crew details are dismissed when not hovered in crew transfer window
It’s less likely for ships to jump in on top of one another
Lots of minor window position adjustments and text positioning adjustments
Made some adjustments to better accommodate 1024x768 and 1366x768 resolution gameplay
Simplified Reaper destruction animation
Made some changes to the Elysian Hauler event based on player feedback
Ye canny no more drag a ship you’ve already dragged into a scouting box, into a different scouting box
Seized ships should, in theory, no longer be subject to certain failure events
The logic for nonplayer ships following the fleet was improved
BUG FIXING:
We fixed an enormous number of bugs for this release. You can scroll through a few pages of the bigger ones in the in-game Changelog.
I can't say it enough: THANK YOU so much for helping us find bugs. I am eternally grateful.
WHAT'S NEXT?
In 1.49 we will finally be adding the long awaited Pact Carrier and fighters!
The last big task before release is adding support for modding. I plan on making my event creation tools available with the next update for those of you interested in creating your own events.
And of course we will definitely be adding some more ships, more content and fixing bugs in the run up to the full release of XO!
1.47e - update!
This is primarily a balance and bug fixing update
Features
- All Harvester warships move much, much slower now. Reapers remain the same speed.
- The game now loads without displaying the ‘wait for program to respond’ dialog
- New item: Hyperspace beacon
- Added a number of new events
- Marine, Diplomat, Shocktrooper and Mercenary boarding parties can now rescue passengers from disabled ships
- You can now use Pirate boarding parties on disabled and disabled/abandoned ships to gut them for spare parts or steal their cargo
- Boarding parties now have spinward/antispinward options
- Tractor hold and Tractor retrieve actions are no longer greyed out when the tractor is charging
- Main camera and starmap camera were made less floaty
Balance/UI
- Mining ore and melting ice were rebalanced, your feedback is appreciated on this
- Made quite a few balance and logic adjustments to individual events based on your feedback
- Cargo pirates now take over cargoships if no cargo is found
- Tractor beam range is no longer used to calculate support/protect distance on equipped ships
- Stations that are forcibly evacuated or looted now have a chance to activate weapon systems or self destruct
- Added more player options/results for ships that break away from the fleet
- Scouts are more likely to find industryships and less likely to find cargoships when mustering
- Late game, Pact Destroyers will show up much more than Pact Frigates
- Expanded results for rescuing ships before hailing them, chance of rewards and quests
- Added a tooltip when hovering the water riot countdown timer
- Water riot countdown timer now pulses periodically
- ‘Thank you for sending feedback’ now only displays when all logs have completed sending
- Made Corp and Rover warships more aggressive at jumpgates
- Using Spare Parts is a little easier
- Harvester Taker is now no longer selectable/targetable when it is mated to the Harvester Carrier
- Releasing a ship no longer clears an existing melt ice/mine ore action
- Starmap: hovering a destination on the first jump, do not display resources (onboarding simplification)
- Improved the tutorial in mysteriously subtle but meaningful ways
- Added a tooltip for hovering the minimap
- Transfer actions are greyed out if the selected ship has tractored the target
- Salvaging ships with passengers aboard is no longer allowed
Bug fixes/tweaks
We also fixed over 60 bugs, many of which were submitted by you! Thank you again for your bug reports, suggestions and ideas! Check the in-game changelog for details on the bugs fixed.
What’s next?
We are rapidly heading towards a full release, so we’ll be doing user interface and quality of life improvements, adding more ships, some very interesting new items as well as more events in 1.48!
Beta 1.47 Feature Overview
Watch Brian Jamison, Creative Director of XO cover the major features of XO 1.47!
Major Update! XO 1.47 “A New Direction”
SHIP THRUSTERS and MOVEMENT:
All ships now use RCS thrusters for movement. This was the last major feature remaining prior to release and wow it was a massive effort. We’ve been working on this movement update since the middle of last year. Can’t wait to hear your feedback on it!
NEW SHIPS:
The Rover Free Trader is a medium warship that sports ion torpedoes and (illegal) lasers, and also comes equipped with a hacked replicator that allows you to make valuable repair items.
The Irenic Questar is a science vessel equipped with labs that allow you to research technologies and create a variety of items extremely useful to the fleet.
The Irenic Resort can repair damaged and disabled vessels and also has rest and relaxation facilities that can remove the “under duress” state of any ship.
The Empire Indoctrinator allows you to change passengers of another faction into a crew loyal to the Empire. Very handy for filling your carriers with gunboat crew.
LOITER and FORM UP
You can now toggle whether or not ships in a formation return to their position after completing an order. Set any formation ship(s) to Loiter and they will not automatically return to formation. Set them to Form Up and your ship(s) will return to formation. Form Up is the default for all formation ships.
The hotkey for Loiter/Form Up defaults to L.
Also just a note that if you select an entire formation and then issue a Go To Waypoint order to it, the origin (or home location) for the formation will change to the new waypoint. This origin resets every jump.
NEW MISSIONS and EVENTS:
We added even more variety to missions and events including Slavers that want to trade you passengers for ore, new combat events, greatly expanded ship tragedies, and a number of surprises for you to come across along the way.
NEW ITEMS:
Several new items were added including mystery cargo, Harvester Reaper jammers, shield range upgrades, and more.
CONTINUOUS PRODUCTION:
Several ships including the Corp Refinery and Hypermaul can now produce items or transmogrify continuously - even through jump.
PLASMA SHIELD UPDATES:
We did quite a bit of overhauling to Plasma Shields.
Plasma Shields now discharge if a ship or shuttle is damaged by it, making them more susceptible to overwhelming force attacks.
Plasma Shields no longer automatically attack stations. We found this was leading to a lot of unintentional interstellar incidents.
Plasma Shields are much, much better at defending against boarding shuttle and Reaper attacks.
BOARDING PARTY UPDATES:
Boarding shuttles now have a cargo bay to (facilitate stealing cargo and crew).
Boarding parties can now board disabled ships (to repair, take prisoners or cargo, etc.).
Shocktroopers can now take prisoners at stations.
Fleet defense for boarding shuttles has been improved, and will likely receive more improvement in future versions.
COMBAT UPGRADES and BALANCE:
Weapon ranges are now identical for all weapons of a given type and range. (We used to have variability within each range). For example, all Plasma Shields of range 3 will have the exact same range.
Enemy pirates now target unprotected ships and attempt to steal cargo and/or hijack the ship. NPC ships also target unrelated NPC ships. And as a result, actions like this will worsen non-Pact relations when they occur. So for example, if Rover Pirates board an Empire Supplyship and steal its cargo, Rover - Empire relations will worsen.
Ships no longer attack or counterattack when their target becomes abandoned.
Stations now respond better to various forms of attack.
Jumpgates now eventually call in reinforcements.
Enemy shieldships now only attack if the battleship has weapons aboard.
Nuke damage capped at 30 maximum for a given blast.
Harvester warships now have greater flexibility and a bit more smarts.
Tractoring another ship is now considered a hostile action.
Enemy warships now wait for the entire fleet to jump in before attacking.
Empire Perpetuators can no longer recover disabled gunboats (because they lack the ability to repair them)
Enemies now recover boarding shuttles based on the difficulty level chosen.
Dramatically reduced the speed of Harvester Carriers
Mixed enemy flotillas no longer spawn minefields
Crews under duress now have a chance of discovering their orders were set to Hold Fire before their captors were removed. This chance increases over time.
Harvesters now spawn faster at your starting location.
Improved enemy ship targeting of fleet assets.
GENERAL QOL and BALANCE:
During trade, any ore that you earn that puts you over max ore capacity is now dropped as ore cargo.
When jumping with unrecovered gunboats, you’re now given an opportunity to abort the jump. (But seized gunboats do not throw this warning)
In trade, the frequency of ship items and upgrades was increased.
Several items were made easier to use by adding them to the right click context menu on equipped ships.
Cross-sector events have even more additional time added to complete them fairly.
Mines and Waypoints now display on the minimap.
Toggling autotractor while paused no longer discharges the beam.
Fuel cargo created on the Armored Fueler was buffed to 0.7 (from 0.3).
Scout ships sent away using the Muster action no longer consume fleet water.
Autosaving is now more resistant to corruption.
Mustering in the final sector now remains within the final sector.
Cleaned up the New Game UI, but a larger improvement is coming soon there.
A greater number of ships can now have their cargo confiscated. If you see a ship that seems like it ought to be confiscatable, please send feedback (F8 key).
Added more sound effects to a number of actions.
Ore-producting ships were made more likely to appear.
The Rover Dreamer is no loger available in shipyards if your max water cap has been reached.
The screen edge camera rotation preference now saves properly.
Even more ‘Beginner’ text was moved so that it only appears in ‘Beginner’ mode, so that Experienced play is faster and has less distractions.
Seized ships no longer move if a transfer is made by the seizing ship.
Intimidating ships now produces visible hover text on the target ship.
Hotkey customization was improved and expanded.
The filter UI was improved, hopefully eliminating annoyances and behavior that made it appear the game locked.
Irenic Observatoria ships were made a little more common.
Easy mode gains an easily obtainable Pact Scout.
Snacks and Intoxicants are now 60% off!
Formations and precise positioning were added to the tutorial. If you don’t know about precise positioning, check it out!
Faction leaders now spawn more commonly in Sector 2, as long as relations are friendly.
Abandoned ships that are repaired are no longer automatically released (which can lead to them being inadvertently left behind at jump, ouch!)
Added more solutions to the Get The Battleship achievement that some players more clever than I figured out.
Added additional enemy reinforcements to the end game.
Mining rates were adjusted up to be more favorable.
Visual jump timers that display when a ship is hovered were added to quite a few ships
Overall non-combat AI was improved in a number of areas.
The Resourceror event was moved out of ordinary trade rotation as it was a bit of a rip-off.
Scouting logic was improved.
We made dozens and dozens of tweaks and adjustments to missions and events based on your feedback, thank you so much!
BUG FIXING:
For this release there are four pages (!!) of bugs that we fixed. You can scroll through them all in the in-game Changelog.
We are so grateful for everyone’s help tracking down bugs. This game would never be what it is without all of your help and ideas.
Logging was also improved to help us find bugs.
WHAT'S NEXT?
In 1.48 we’ll be making final adjustments to UI, adding at least one new ship, more missions and events, plus the usual QOL and balance improvements!
1.46d - minor bugfix release
- Added new captain’s log entries, corrected some issues
- Adding spare parts for maintenance gives immediate use option
- Reinforcements now properly show up at jumpgates
- Fixed several boarding-related event loops
- Corrected issue where enemy ships wouldn’t attack
- Some pirate events were unintentionally canceling
- Corrected a few textual mistakes
- Prevent boarding caches
- Repair caches now explode as intended
- Abandoned gunboats no longer cost water
- Corrected a bug with feedback submissions
- Fixed an issue with invisible ships
- Certain transfers no longer cause problems
- Fixed some issues with the Muster command
- Hypermaul now available for database hacks
- Several other known bugs are still being worked on, thank you again so much for the bug reports!
1.46c update
- New models for all gunboats
- Minerboats can now be created from the Perpetuator
- Muster should no longer break jump
- Possibly closed off a Harvesterless exploit
- Fixed issue with HUD not positioning correctly
- Several other minor bugs fixed
GARGANTUAN Update! XO 1.46
We thought it’d be a good idea to release a gargantuan update!
NEW SHIPS:
Empire Perpetuator
This small Empire carrier isn’t able to repair gunboats, but has a mini shipyard aboard that can create entirely new gunboats. You’ll still need to find the crew for them...
Empire Minerboat
This new Empire gunboat can be used for mining ore and also point defense against Reapers, boarding shuttles and missiles. Create them on the Perpetuator.
Irenic Conservancy
This Irenic industryship recycles water in the fleet, making jumps to water-poor worlds much less dangerous.
Irenic Observatoria
The powerful sensors aboard this Irenic science ship extend your jump clock 50% longer, allowing you to loiter in a system longer with an immediate escape plotted.
Corp Fueler
A Galacticonn industryship able to package available fuel into cargo. Unlike smaller fuel cargo, each of these is good for an entire jump’s worth of fuel. The Fueler also increases fleetwide fuel collection speed by 20%.
Corp Hypermaul
The Hypermaul allows you to create weapon upgrade factories that produce specific weapon upgrades. Unlike store-bought upgrades, these come with no penalties.
Look for new Rover ships in our next update!
NEW SHIP ABILITIES:
Two ships in the fleet now have unique abilities. Access each ability by selecting and right-clicking the ship.
Damage control
Your Battleship just gained the ability to self repair. Select and right click on your Battleship for a Damage Control option, where you can self-repair 1 unit of armor every two days at a cost of 4 ore per unit. We hope to expand the drama and possibilities with Damage Control in the future.
Muster
The Pact Scout just gained a major new ability: Muster. This risky action sends the scout ahead several jumps, looking for either crew or ships of a certain type. The scout may be lost, particularly if you cannot reach the designated rendezvous in time.
Boarding parties
You can now launch boarding parties against Harvesters. Stations can also now be boarded, giving you quite a number of options to choose from should you successfully land a party aboard!
New missions, expanded fleet experience
We added quite a few new missions in this update, as well as some different options to existing missions.
Water riots have always occurred when the fleet can’t keep up with the demands of a thirsty fleet. Starting with v1.46 you have a variety of options at hand to stave off the worst before riots tear the fleet apart, including the option most favored by governments worldwide, ‘do nothing.’
We continue to add depth to different actions. Not to give too much away, but for example more interesting things now happen if you seize a disabled non-fleet ship for too many days.
Confiscations can now be attempted on stations that have cargo.
Improved AI
Enemy ships are now slightly more clever at targeting unprotected ships in your fleet, and will attempt different kinds of attacks involving tractor beams and boarding parties.
Beginner mode is easier
We worked a lot to make the game easier in beginner mode. More beginner starting missions and an easier end game are the most obvious improvements, but there are quite a few changes to events and early gameplay that should help there. We still have some work to do on that front.
Having said that, XO is probably never going to be an easy game. Do make use of that spacebar to slow down the pace and consider your next move!
Starting fleets / Achievements
We added several new starting fleets coupled with achievements.
Diplomat: earned when you become allied with all factions at the same time in a single run, this powerful starting fleet grants you an Irenic Gatherer for early ore mining and fleet defense, and an Irenic Farmship. You begin neutral with the Irenic and on a warlike footing with the Empire.
Admiral: awarded when you achieve tactical victory, this starts the game with a Battleship, Frigate and Scout.
Hard: also unlocked with tactical victory, this starts you off with a weaponless Battleship, warlike with all factions, surrounded by Harvesters with a much faster propagation wave. Score is doubled.
UI/UX:
We adjusted the camera to allow a fully top-down camera. Hold the right mouse to pan the camera and use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out.
BALANCE and QOL:
- Snacks and Intoxicants can now be used [ as water ]
- Autopause in Starmap is now an option (configure in Options)
- ROE changes no longer reset ship orders
- More ships and stations are now confiscatable
- Cross-sector mission time bonus was increased
- Precise positioning key can be bound in options [ default: Ctrl ]
- All possible starting fleets are now shown along with their required achievements
- Casino pays out faster, ca-ching
- Resource collection rates adjusted
- Sped up game saves
- More items were given ‘right click self-action’ powers
- Numerous small UI enhancements
- Improved logging in mysterious and inscrutable ways
- Moved some timers to ships instead of HUD
- The Victory screen was improved
BUG FIXING:
Thanks to our awesome community we were able to track down and fix a lot of bugs and exploits. A short, non-comprehensive list:
- Corrected some issues that would prevent jumping
- Destroyed jumpgates now always open the gate
- Fixed several other ‘jumpgate not unlocking’ bugs
- Issues with seized ships fixed
- Problems with duplicate stasis passengers fixed
- Stasis passengers can no longer be used as operating crew
- Corrected an issue with sending scouts before the fleet jumped in
- Harvested ships no longer allow transfers
- Buying ships no longer charges double in some cases
- Glitches with transferring/rescuing boarding parties unglitched
- Mining ships should now properly resume mining after jumping
- Weapons can now be extracted from the MegaFixer
- Shut the tap on a water riot timer overflow
- Eliminated several ‘no harvester’ exploits
- A cornucopia of minor text oopsies were fixed
WHAT'S NEXT?
Thanks to your feedback, ideas and participation XO keeps getting better!
Version 1.47 should include a major update to movement, unless it doesn’t.
But we will for sure be adding more ships, more missions and additional depth to the fleet side of the game. If you have ideas for ships, items or missions you should plot a course to our Discord where you can directly suggest features and vote on them!