Alpha 8 Changelog

Shipyard 

-shipyard module added with option to buy ships

-3 new Order faction ships available for player to purchase

-new starting ship for player


Research and Equipment

-Added 7 new utility equipment items

-Added 7 new research goals

-Added 1 new engine and 2 new generator types

-Equipment with different quality levels now available in station stores

-Increased average number of equipment items in station stores

-improved tooltips for equipment

-tooltip info shown for current equipment as comparison when reviewing equipment in shop

-Starting ship has only one weapon slot filled, enabling significant loadout changes

-Added functionality to allow hulls with up to 7 weapons and 7 utility slots


Factions

-1 New Main Faction: Circle

-2 New ‘minor’ factions: Naveen and Voidseekers

-11 new ship types for non-player factions

-New faction territory mechanics 

-Enemy ships now avoid  entering territory of factions friendly to player

-Ambushes do not occur in ‘friendly’ territory

-New Faction Event panel showing timeline of faction events

-Other factions now also acquire relics, complete research and unlock equipment

-Relic Panels now shows research tree for all factions

-Improved system generation to ensure appropriate placement of faction-owned sectors

-added missing station and station module descriptions for each faction


Story/tutorial missions

-new main tutorial mission introducing the Circle and Naveen factions

-improvements to relic tutorial mission to ensure continuity of mission tasks

-time limit removed from tutorial missions to ensure ability to continue story missions

-dialog options improved to highlight equipment trading and shipyards

-new early help panel for keyboard movement controls


Other significant improvements

-save/load functionality including auto-save on leaving a sector

-Added weight indicator and updated ship stats display for loadout screen 

-Max weight mechanics for loadout now fully implemented

-Trading overhaul - stations now show randomly generated prices for all goods

-sector layout generation improved for increased variety of station positions

-can toggle tutorial help both on character creation and in-game during tutorial

-various improvements to enemy ship AI


Mission UI and Mechanics

-reputation mechanics now properly implemented, with NPC dialogs and missions determined by your reputation with that NPC

-NPC display in station now shows reputation required for mission

-NPCs with missions blocked due to insufficient reputation now shown as red exclamation marks on map

-NPCs in station now have icon indicating if the current mission requires you to contact them

-missions requiring you to travel to a new sector now highlight to the sector travel button

-changed colour of mission UI font and NPC mission icons to yellow


Graphical improvements

-various tweaks to main sector tilemap to allow tile colours representing faction influence/ownership

-unexplored asteroids/debris no longer shown in the main display

-new small explosion animation when ships are hit by weapons fire

-ship info icons no longer shown when zoomed out

-improved shield VFX

-improved some existing ship models

-new visual indicators showing player ship scan radius


Music SFX improvements

-Volume increased for alarm sound effect when player’s equipment is damaged

-3 new alarm sounds for hull, energy and heat critical events

 -2 new original adaptive soundtracks for new main Faction

-reduced default music volume

-weapon sound effects now have randomised pitch


-Various minor tweaks to UI

-text popups now show status of to-hit bonuses due to movement

-added explanatory note about brackets to heat and energy summaries in loadout

-reversed color coding of range indicator in targeting panel

-added heat and energy to NPC ship info panel

-increased visibility of target ship indicator

-improved offscreen mission target indicator

-added prominent message when mission targets changed

-improvements for faction event and mission complete panel

-various minor improvements to main game menu in splash and mid-game

-changed colour and layout of game over panel

-escape can now be used to cancel use of skills that have a selection panel

-escape can now be used to activate first dialog option during dialogs

-improved energy summary in MainUI

-improved formatting of ambush event panel

-goods trading UI now consistently shows quantity in weight (tonnes)

-added visual indicator when enough experience to learn a skill

-added fuel tooltip explaining the amount of fuel used

-various minor improvements to tooltip content and layouts

-character creation screen now explains pros and cons of each ‘background’ skillset

-can now mine asteroids, explore wrecks etc using keyboard movement controls

-can now only enter stations using keyboard controls by moving forward, to prevent unintentionally entering station

-text display showing ‘insufficient energy for shield’ removed

-event panels showing encounters with enemy ships removed except for ambush events

Bugfixes:

-fix unlimited inward zoom in orthographic mode

-fix strange animation behaviour when in orthographic mode

-fix bug where camera could sometimes move below map during fast zoom

-fix disable ‘tab’ input while viewing UI panels

-fix bug with position of impact animations

-fix bug with missiles circling target ship indefinitely

-fix bug where unable to target ships just outside current range

-fix bug where equipment status effects not shown correctly in enemy ship info panels

-fix bug where wrong faction icon shown in mission complete panel faction stat impact

-fix status effect name not shown in status effect tooltip

-fix various bugs related to impact on shield points when deactivating/unequipping shield

-fix bug where engine disable message is delayed

-fix bug with odd help panel behaviour in early tutorial

-fix bug with mission indicator not disappearing when completing mission for NPCs in ships

-giant asteroids can no longer be mined an unlimited number of times

-fix bug where repair equipment help panel shows when equipment is no longer damaged

-fix bug with relic names not matching sector in which they are found

-fix bug with repetition of factions in system map tooltips

-fix bug where data from previous game ‘bleeds through’ into new game

-fix bug with order of log messages during combat

-fix bug where ‘out of energy’ text popup not shown, giving the appearance of being unable to move for no reason

-fix bug where changes in loadout not reflected in station equipment store display

Other balance changes:

-general rebalancing of ship hulls, shields, engines and generators

-fire now less likely to occur due to overheating

-power to weapons skill nerfed

-precision shot skill buffed

-ambush ship strength and frequency rebalanced

-damage to equipment that is already damaged is more likely to disable the equipment

-can now enter friendly stations irrespective of visibility of enemy ships (linked to faction territory mechanics)

-overall frequency of faction events reduced