Wait, what? Yep, you read it right. For Business Reasons, we’re changing the name of the game to Starsector. All I can say about it is this will not have any impact on how things proceed around here – these things happen to projects from time to time, and I hope that everyone will be on board with the change. (If you’re not, my apologies. If you are, thank you for your continued support!) Personally, I’m looking forward to moving ahead with the new name, and am very excited about the future.
Onward to what’s new in 0.54.1a. It’s a bugfix and polish release, much like the other .1 releases that follow up a major one. Unlike those, though, it’s taken over a month to put out. That’s the case for two reasons. One, the name change took some extra doing. Two, the 0.54a release was stable enough that there was no urgency in putting this version out – so, we’ve been able to work on the campaign design and do some prototyping along the way, laying down some groundwork for the next major release.
Update:… and that’s what I get for talking about hotfixes. New version is up – there was a bug having to do with built-in weapons – using “strip” from the refit screen or loading a variant would permanently remove them. This is now fixed, please re-download the new version if you got it already (links below updated, new build is RC5).
Original post below.
This release is essentially a hotfix for 0.53a, though a couple of new features have also snuck in. Not exactly a “hotfix” because there’s nothing urgent, but nonetheless, lots of things merited short-term improvement. Ah, terminology – the bane of every developer.
What’s new:
Lots of AI improvements (in particular, phase cloak use, and overall AI aggressiveness)
Built-in weapons on the Onslaught (“Thermal Pulse Cannon”), new system (“Terminator Drone”) for the Tempest
Balance changes and bugfixes
Various modability improvements
Fixed issue where the game wouldn’t run on OS X 10.8 with certain Gatekeeper settings (thanks to everyone that helped get this resolved!)
The 0.53a version of Starfarer is now out! This update is focused on fleshing out the combat gameplay, and future releases will focus on campaign features. That’s not to say that combat won’t receive any more attention – but this release does wrap up all of the major planned combat features.
What’s new:
Ship systems – each ship gets an active ability – flares, burn drive, a combat teleporter – and many more
Phase cloaking – three new ships that use the cloak as a primary defensive system
New mission featuring phase ships
Tons of AI improvements, new modding features, and bugfixes
The new version is, once again, not save-compatible. This is likely to be the case with new releases for the foreseeable future – things are simply changing too much at this point. On the bright side, I don’t think any mods are incompatible with this version, though they’ll probably need some rebalancing.
You can download the new version using the buttons below. You’ll have to reinstall the game, but shouldn’t need to enter the activation code again.
