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[xenoargh]

Alpha 22 is now complete.  

Much thanks to Dark.Revenant for all of the kindly assistance on doing early integration of ShaderLib

Warning:  this build requires a restart, period.

Features:
1.  Full integration with lights and other shader effects from Dark.Revenant's ShaderLib and a bunch of SFX tweaks.
2.  Players may now access a storage facility from any friendly / neutral location.
3.  Crew leveling mechanic has been replaced with a Crew competency mechanic.  Different types of Crew give different bonuses to player fleets.
4.  Crew must now be paid, every week.  It's set to be pretty easy at the moment; expect it to get harder later.
5.  Some new weapons have been added, such as the Laser Saw, which is awesome.
6.  Smarter, nastier Admiral AI for the enemy.
7.  Smarter use of Flux-based weapons by the Autofire AIs.
8.  A bunch of other little stuff I can't be bothered to mention

Fixes:
1.  All reported bugs are fixed.
2.  Some underlying bugs having to do with projectile detection have been fixed.
3.  Speedups for a few things.

[xenoargh]

...and Alpha 23.  I think I set a new record for patching after release here

Fixes:
1. Admiral AI will now work properly in Escape scenarios.
2. Random dead spacecraft do not show up unless battles are big enough (I got a free Paragon while flying my first Frigate, pretty sure that's not a feature, lol).
3.  Asteroids show up in battles again, like they should.

None of this should require a restart.

[OhNoesBunnies]

Fatal: JSONObject["enemyMissileColor"] not found.

I'm getting errors like this every time I try to start up the mod--any requirements I should know about?

[xenoargh]

You should not be running any utility mods with this mod; it has Combat Radar and ShaderLib already installed   I'll make a note for that on the install page.

[Ranakastrasz]

Combat Attribute still boosts combat readiness Cap, which is now irrelevant. Not a huge deal, but probably should replace or remove that.

[xenoargh]

Yeah, that and the repair thing all need to get fixed; I also need to explain to players that their fleets are immortal so they should feel free to use up ships, adjust crew levels again so that big fleets of small ships are more attractive, etc., etc.- I'll try to get that stuff done during the next build while I get the Boss stuff done

[xenoargh]

Alpha 24 has been released. 

Updates ShaderLib to build 1.22. 

No restart required.

[xenoargh]

Updated ShaderLib to 1.23; updated the Newbie Guide.

[xenoargh]

Four releases today? Why not?

Fixes / Improves:
1. Combat Aptitude skill corrected.
2. Field Repairs is actually useful now (repairs ships 0.01% / second * level while in combat, or 1%/second at level 10).
3. ECCM Hull Mod is buffed / fixed (missile maneuverability + 50%, damage + 25%).

[xenoargh]

OK, that pretty much addresses the Aptitude / Skill Tree bugs / useless skills... other than the Marine effectiveness perk, which I keep dithering about. 

I think that's going to get cut, but I still need to build the regenerating Command Points thing to finally replace the flat-cap CP system.

I don't suppose folks have had time to really play it much, yet, but if there are things that need fixing right away, feel free to holler.  I tested the Storage thing a bit, and it appears to be OK; that was surprisingly hard to get working nicely, right now switching Dialog contexts isn't terribly clean.

I probably won't get much done until Tuesday, though, other than messing with early Boss mechanics stuff a bit more tonight.

[xenoargh]

Alpha 27 has been released.

Fixes / Changes:
1. Refactored the "immortal fleet" code to be a bit less spaghetti-code and easier to maintain, match the Newbie Guide description and I fixed a couple of bugs found with edge-case stuff.
2. Fixed some text descriptions.

Neither change should require a restart.

Now that I've played with the "immortal fleet" option working... I think it's fun, and it definitely discourages save-scumming and makes Iron Mode a lot less about tediously avoiding any losses, ever.  I do think I need to revisit how many Crew each class of ship needs to be functional as I get that part of the balance tightened up; it's still too cheap (imo, anyhow) to afford big fleets of big ships; I had a half-million credits after a couple of hours, same as Vanilla- the only good part about it was that I could spend it on something useful.  

But I definitely think that I'd rather see people building bigger fleets of smaller stuff because it works better economically, because the results are cooler and more satisfying (again, imo), in terms of having a spectacular battle; it's a lot more emotionally satisfying to be able to fight a huge battle and take losses.  

I also think that it's important to price fighter wings in terms of crew rather than initial price; IRL, the price of a fighter wing is all the money that goes into keeping the finicky beasts running and the huge amount it costs to train new pilots, and that probably needs to get reflected in the way this works; a Wing might be cheap on DPs compared to, say, a Destroyer, but expensive on Crew and thus more costly over time.

I also think Making Do is vastly OP in that context, and I'm thinking it needs to become a minor capstone buff, especially now that the tree it's in is inherently useful, instead of something you might drop a point or two into in late-game.

[NightfallGemini]

What's an effective starting fleet style? In the old version, I tried the old school frigate 'wolf pack' and it worked for the most part, but this time I tried fighter wings and it felt more like something to convert to late game rather than something to roll with early on. With the new crew system it's a very fragile balance to strike, and I like having things just perfect when I start out. Any pointers?

[Wazubaba]

I found a very small bug that will keep the mod from working on linux: graphics/shaders/distortions/ripple/0001.png should have .PNG instead.
On linux file-names are case-sensitive  

[xenoargh]

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll fix that.  Technically, that's an issue with ShaderLib, file a bug report.

[Namelessjake]

When running Vacuum I can't see the ships in other fleets, just the burn of their engines. Also they don't appear when I mouse over the fleet. Is this meant to happen and if not how do I fix it?