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Starfarer 0.35a (Preview Released) - Patch Notes

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Alex:
Update - the preview version of the 0.35a release is out, and you can get it here.

The preview version, in a nutshell:

* New fleet control scheme
* Codex with info on ships/fighters/weapons
* Fleet command tutorial
* Mods need to be updated with "gameVersion":"0.35a" in the descriptor to show up in the list.
* Right-click and drag now pans the map around, instead of left. Left-clicking is wholly reserved for interaction with objects. This will trip you up. I apologize :)
The full patch notes are below.


Latest Changes (updated on 8/19/2011)

* Wrapped up fleet command changes, discussed in detail here
* Content:
* New ships: Medusa, Aurora, Dominator
* New fighters: Warthog, Gladius, Thunder, Longbow, Trident
* Cult of Lud captains in missions now have suicidal personalities
* Revamped missions to showcase new ships and gameplay. The names are the same, but the missions are all quite different.
* New hand-painted backgrounds, stars
* Codex interface - accessible from main menum, "more info" on context menus, mission briefing, and mission results
* Improved font rendering, added new font for improved readability of larger blocks of text.
* Improved fog of war rendering, increased fog of war resolution
* Changed the way the exe is generated for windows, hopefully avoiding some AV false positives
* Mods need to be updated with "gameVersion":"0.35a" in the descriptor to show up in the list.
* New csv loader - supports multiple lines within strings in a row, and double quotes in strings (escape as ""). Mostly useful for descriptions.csv
* Balance changes:
* Improved Onslaught - converted some small turrets into medium, improved all-around coverage
* Improved Conquest - side-facing hardpoints converted to turrets, changed slot types & sizes, made faster. Overall, more powerful and easier to use
* Lots and lots of weapon balance changes - mostly bringing weaker weapons up to par
* Added captain personalities
* Fighters more likely to return to carrier when hitpoints are low
* Added two new fighter classes. Assault - stays close to target like interceptors, but doesn't have a preference for engaging fighters like interceptors do. Support - tries to strafe around the target without making direct attack runs.
* Added friend-vs-foe indicators around ships and missiles (red diamond for enemy, blue circle for neutral, green square for friendly in map view only)
* To prevent any incompatibility problems due to extensive control changes, controls are now reset to defaults when running the new version of the game for the first time.
* Fixed AI bug that caused bombers to be too cautious with bombs, and too cautious in general. They're a lot more deadly now.
* All dialogs can now be dismissed by right-clicking outside the dialog. Pressing Escape still works, too.
* Ships use full color icons - should be placed in ships/icons/color/icon2_<hull id>.png

Full list of changes, broken out by category, below:

Content

* Codex interface - accessible from main menum, "more info" on context menus, mission briefing, and mission results
* New fighters: Warthog, Gladius, Thunder, Longbow, Trident
* Cult of Lud captains in missions now have suicidal personalities
* Revamped missions to showcase new ships and gameplay. The names are the same, but the missions are all quite different.
* New hand-painted backgrounds, stars
* Codex interface - accessible from main menum, "more info" on context menus, mission briefing, and mission results
* New High Intensity Laser and Annihilator Rocket Launcher graphics (screenshot, featuring the Aurora, which is also sporting the new PD burst lasers for good measure)
* Added new ships - Medusa, Aurora, Dominator - screenshot
* Added Heavy Burst Laser, medium energy point defense weapon
* Added PD Burst Laser weapon
Gameplay & Balance Changes

* Wrapped up fleet command changes, discussed in detail here
* Finished functional changes to the war room/fleet control interface. You can now create assignments for your fleet to carry out, instead of micromanaging the details. Blog post with details forthcoming.
* Improved Onslaught - converted some small turrets into medium, improved all-around coverage
* Improved Conquest - side-facing hardpoints converted to turrets, changed slot types & sizes, made faster. Overall, more powerful and easier to use
* Lots and lots of weapon balance changes - mostly bringing weaker weapons up to par
* AI improvements:

* Revamped collision avoidance AI - much better at avoiding collisions and also aware of the ship's tactical goals (i.e., won't avoid a collision to wind up in front of an enemy Onslaught's main battery)
* Missile avoidance similarily improved. Use of shields vs missiles also improved, especially for omni-directional shields.
* Maneuvers to avoid being surrounded and to cause enemies to get in each other's way
* Maneuvers to avoid crowding friendly ships that are between it and the target
* Large ships will attempt to vent flux and get movement/turn bonus to better face threats trying to stay behind them
* Interceptors are more wary of PD weapons
* Improved friendly fire avoidance - AI is more aware when friendly ships might move into the path of a shot, but currently isn't
* Won't vent flux when it's in a good position to do damage- i.e., when the enemy is venting or overloaded
* Perceives ships that are almost done venting flux as a threat
* Won't turn off autofire on PD groups when flux is high but enemy missiles are nearby
* More judicious about using too many missiles on a low-hull target - won't waste all of them on overkill
* Large ships aren't so easily distracted by smaller ones
* Less paranoid about the threat posed by enemy missile launchers
* Closes in to effective non-missile weapon range instead of relying on missile weapons entirely
* If a ship outranges the enemy, it will close in to just beyond effective enemy range to take advantage of as many weapons as possible.
* Improved strafing to stay away from enemy ship's firepower
* Increased propensity to fire strike weapons against appropriate targets (notably, the Apogee will use its AM blasters now)
* Alternating weapon groups now properly distinguish whether the ideal weapon to use requires aiming or not. (notably, the Apogee will use its MIRV launcher much better)
* More intelligent about using kinetic-damage weapons vs shields
* Added captain personalities
* Fighters more likely to return to carrier when hitpoints are low
* Fixed AI bug that caused bombers to be too cautious with bombs, and too cautious in general. They're a lot more deadly now.
* Added two new fighter classes. Assault - stays close to target like interceptors, but doesn't have a preference for engaging fighters like interceptors do. Support - tries to strafe around the target without making direct attack runs.
* Added "burst" beam weapons. A burst beam fires for a set duration - usually about a second - and then has to cool down before firing again. No weapons using it (yet), most likely candidates are PD weapons - the burst damage is front-loaded, so among other things, this allows for weapons that can easily shoot down some incoming missiles but have low overall DPS.
* Improved the effectiveness of armor vs beam weapons overall. This includes non-energy-damage beam weapons such as the Graviton Beam, and does not include energy damage non-beam weapons such as the Pulse Lasers.
Modding-related

* Mods need to be updated with "gameVersion":"0.35a" in the descriptor to show up in the list.
* New csv loader - supports multiple lines within strings in a row, and double quotes in strings (escape as ""). Mostly useful for descriptions.csv
* Ships use full color icons - should be placed in ships/icons/color/icon2_<hull id>.png
* Sound effects are now moddable - the contents of sounds.json will be combined the same way spreadsheet contents already were
* In weapon_data.csv, "burst size" is the burst duration, and "burst delay" is the burst cooldown.
Misc Features & Improvements

* Added friend-vs-foe indicators around ships and missiles (red diamond for enemy, blue circle for neutral, nothing for friendly - both in map and combat view)
* To prevent any incompatibility problems due to extensive control changes, controls are now reset to defaults when running the new version of the game for the firs

* All dialogs can now be dismissed by right-clicking outside the dialog. Pressing Escape still works, too.
* Improved font rendering, added new font for improved readability of larger blocks of text.
* Improved fog of war rendering, increased fog of war resolution
* Changed the way the exe is generated for windows, hopefully avoiding some AV false positives
* Changed ship variant names to differentiate between "Close Support" or "Fire Support" roles, in preparation for upcoming war room changes.
* Doubled default amount of panning. Instead of expanding the pan range, the 'Z' key now centers view on target - regardless of how far it is.
* Changes to controls - pressing 'R' will now set/clear target as appropriate, instead of using a separate key for clearing the target.
* The new default mapping for pause is spacebar.
* Entering the war room always pauses the game and leaving it always unpauses.
* Exiting the war room no longer turns off autopilot. It now stays on until it's explicitly toggled off or manual control of the ship is performed.
* Performance tweak - planets render about 100 times faster. No, really.
* Improved look of armor grid display
Bug Fixes

* Fixed bug where sometimes an incorrect resolution would be used in windowed mode
* Fixed bug where the keyboard would get into a state where it thought the Alt key was

* Fixed bug that caused the AI to occasionally turn off shields and keep them off even while under fire
* Fixed bug where AI would sometimes point omni shields away from the desired direction when first raising them
* Fixed bug where game would hang if it tried to load a non-existent image.
* Fixed bug with unknown key bindings showing up as "<unset>". Now show up as "unknown_123" etc.

theShadow:
whoooo

I am so psyched for this!

mendonca:
Wicked cool, man.

I only speak for myself, but I don't think you should be overly concerned with breaking mods (unless of course its trivial to *not* break mods). I'm happy to update mine as and when necessary, and I'm firmly aware anything I have done is definitely going to need to be updated several times if I want it to work with the final thingy.

Avan:
Nice! Can't wait to start trying out some of these things.

Alex:

--- Quote from: mendonca on June 27, 2011, 01:14:47 PM ---I only speak for myself, but I don't think you should be overly concerned with breaking mods (unless of course its trivial to *not* break mods). I'm happy to update mine as and when necessary, and I'm firmly aware anything I have done is definitely going to need to be updated several times if I want it to work with the final thingy.

--- End quote ---

Thanks for that - yeah, I just don't want to break things if it'd take me five minutes not to ;)

The "surge" just magically changed to "burst". Err, rather, it's been that way allll along, nothing to see here.

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