Alpha 5 ‘Explorer’ is now available for testing via the Relic Space Discord!
What follows is a list of changes since Alpha 0.403.
Sector Map Variety
Capital ship wrecks added to sector maps
Large asteroids added to sector maps
Hostile Space stations added to sector maps
Random ships added to sector maps
Hostile and mixed sectors added to system map
Capital wrecks and large asteroids incorporated into random missions, including random mission variants.
Asteroids, Debris and Gas Clouds now spawn primarily in circular ‘orbits’ corresponding the sector’s location in the system.
Sector Travel Mechanics Changes
On reaching a new sector, starting position is the edge of the map corresponding to relative location of new and old sectors on the system map.
Mining Mechanics Changes [experimental]
Asteroid mining is now limited to large asteroids
Mining user interface simplified
Targeting Mechanics Changes
Player ship will auto-fire at any ships with hostile attitude (as indicated by ‘rotating circle’ UI colour)
Player can manually target and fire at ships from other factions irrespective of attitude (except during tutorial)
Ship AI changes
Civilian ships from hostile factions have non-hostile attitude to player by default
Civilian ships acquire hostile attitude to player if attacked by the player.
Improved AI for neutral ships so they are much less likely to block player movement
Graphical Improvements
Camera Tilt Shift effect added to main game view
Improved consistency of fog-of-war shading across zoom levels, making zoomed out views more informative.
Small cosmetic changes to the character creation screen
Balance Improvements
Player ship starts with medium lasers
Impact of pilot skill levels on speed and weapon damage increased
Skill cooldown no longer blocks use of other available skills
Minor changes to loadouts of enemy ships
Quality of Life Improvements
Tooltips for debris, asteroids and gas cloud now show impact of cover on chance to hit.
No longer possible to zoom out indefinitely
No longer possible to pan camera beyond the edge of the sector map.
‘Repeat attack’ game setting (allowing player to fire repeatedly using right-click, skipping movement) no longer optional, but set to be on by default.
Camera panning and zooming is now framerate independent.
Improved visibility of informational messages (e.g. for when enemy ships leave a sector)
Settings screen for controls now lists controls in more intuitive order
Ship ‘rotating circle’ UI colour changed to green for ships with ‘friendly’ attitude
Help text shown when trying to target a ship that cannot be manually targeted.
Camera zoom effect restricted to ships destroyed by the player
NPC ship info panel now correctly shows name of ship class
Opening any of the main UI panels now closes NPC ship info panel if open and hides log.
Tutorial improvements
Ship to ship communications disabled at certain stages of the tutorial
Non-essential friendly ships no longer spawn in first sector
Firing at first hostile ship in tutorial disabled at certain times.
Captain Jorell now has ‘friendly’ attitude.
Unchecking ‘show tutorial’ now skips starting sector and awards mission rewards from first tutorial mission.
Bug fixes
Fixed frame-rate dependent speed of camera panning
Fixed other frame-rate dependence issues
Fixed bug allowing travel to locked sectors if they are within fuel range
Fixed bug where asteroid mining causes stored energy to reduce below zero.
Fixed bug where asteroid colours do not correspond to their underlying resource type
Fixed bug where using zoom while panning camera causes the camera to be centered on a location other than the player’s ship.
Fixed bug with system map help message remaining on screen after closing system map
Fixed bug where debug panel is deactivated after travelling to a new sector
Fixed bug where UI sound effects for the settings screen sometimes do not play when entering it from the splash screen.
Fixed bug where pressing escape opens game menu instead of closing settings screen
Fixed bug where player unable to move while hovering mouse over NPC contact hex.
Fixed bug where pilot skill tooltips remain active after closing pilot skills panel
Fixed bug where NPC contact hex button occasionally fails to register mouse input
Fixed some punctuation errors and other textual issues.
Fixed bug with turn sequence causing NPC ships to sometimes exhibit strange movement animation, particularly when coming into view for the second time.