Alpha 6 Changelog

Alpha 6 ‘Loadout’ is now available for testing via the Relic Space Discord!

The following list shows the changes since Alpha 0.503

Loadout

  • 1 new ship class and 2 new ship models for Union fighters

  • Added 8 new weapon base types (each with light/std/heavy variants) including unique damage types

  • Significant rebalancing of all weapons

  • Added speed and armor info to NPC ship popup display

  • VFX for light/std/heavy variants of weapons scale according to variant

  • Various minor improvements to equipment stats tooltip

  • Disabling engine now prevents movement

Relics and research

  • New procedurally generated relics

  • Relic missions are now randomly generated alongside other mission types and no longer restricted to Lorca sector

  • 8 new research goals added, each of which unlock one of the new weapon types

Bug fixes

  • Fixed bug causing incorrect display of energy used by weapons in main UI.

  • Fixed bug causing weapon target to switch back to the closest hostile ship after selecting a new target manually.

  • Fixed bug causing weapons to fire at previous target when trying to fire at a ship that is out of weapons range

  • Fixed some issues with adaptive music transitions

  • Fixed bug where ship contact buttons are temporarily hidden after closing system map

  • Fixed bug where pressing escape closes system map instead of closing system map help panel

  • Fixed bug allowing player to continue moving after running out of fuel.

  • Fixed some issue with camera offsets when panning and zooming simultaneously

  • Improved aspect ratio scaling of character selection screen layout

  • Name input field in character selection field no longer accepts special characters

  • Pressing escape while feedback form is active no longer opens main menu in addition to closing form.

  • Fixed bug where gas clouds do not provide cover for ships within them.

  • Missions in which you recover a relic from a hostile ship are now failed immediately if the hostile ship leaves the sector

  • Ship UI text/damage indicators no longer shown for ships outside scan range

  • Cinematic zoom effects disabled while using top-down cameramode

  • Main UI now correctly shows new equipment after equipping new items

  • Fixed bug allowing purchase of items at stations despite not having sufficient credits.

Quality of Life Improvements

  • Added ‘quest markers’ to indicate which stations contain NPCs with missions

  • Mousewheel-button can now be used to pan camera

  • Added keyboard controls for camera zoom in/out (‘-’ and ‘=’)

  • Removed delay in appearance of animated damage numbers and similar texts

  • Added cause of ship destruction to log messages and game over panel

  • Added ‘close’ button for main UI panels

  • Added game settings to control camera zoom and pan sensitivity

  • Added changelog to splash screen

  • Added log messages for mining and looting debris

Tutorial improvements

  • Tutorial hostile ship class changed to transport

  • Improved appearance and increased visibility of game manual pop-up icons.

  • Fixed various issues caused by performing actions out of expected tutorial sequence

Graphical Improvements

  • New cinematic zoom camera mode with manual camera rotation

Alpha 5 ChangeLog

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.