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[Alex]

Blog post/download links here.

Hotfix - 0.7a-RC10, November 20, 2015

Bugfixing

• Fixed crash bug after battle where allies harried instead of engaging
• Fixed issue with not getting any salvage when allies decide to let the enemy go after an engagement
• Fixed typo in navigation skill effect description
• Fixed wrong sprite being used for Kite (D) (affected Codex only)
• Fixed typo in transponder tooltip
• Fixed typo in "Last Hurrah" mission description
• Removed errant quote from Locust description
• Fixed more typos
• Set Aztlan outer jumppoint to not show the gas giant
• Removed "show sensor range" campaign keyboard binding that did nothing
• Fixed SettingsAPI.getAllVariantIds()

Changes as of November 17, 2015

Campaign

• Increased salvage from combat by 50%
• Reduced number of system bounty events
• Ongoing battles will autoresolve faster if they're lopsided; i.e. several patrols vs a lone pirate frigate will not take a day to autoresolve
• Added current "suspicion level" to black market tooltip
• Emergency Burn:
  • Halved CR cost (and thus, supply cost)
  • Now prevents CR recovery while active
• Player respawn: will now pick random friendly market to spawn near, favoring larger and friendlier markets
• Boarding:
  • Requires and uses only marines
  • Removed steps with picking boarding task force and number of marines/crew to use
  • Always successful provided there are enough marines
  • Faces more resistance from crew (more crew defending at better odds)
  • Marine cost increased to 500 credits
  • Reduced sell price of ships by half
  • Successfully boarded ships are automatically mothballed
  • Somewhat save-scum-proof
• Combined "trade disruption" updates into a single item under "Events"
• Added plus sign to icons of officers that can level up
• Removed easy/normal start choice from new game creation; added two difficulty choices:
  • Normal
  • Easy
    • 50% more salvage (supplies, credits, etc)
    • Level of AI officers reduced by half
    • 10,000 extra starting credits
• "Trade disrupted" and "price update" reports only show up in the campaign-level message list if they're from the same system. Will still always show up in the intel screen.
  • Price map in intel tab much more accurate

Combat

• Damage taken is set to "full" by default
• "All" button in deployment dialog will now select as many ships as possible for deployment when there aren't enough points to select all of them, instead of being disabled
• Safety Overrides:
  • Now prevents active venting instead of increasing overload duration
  • Non-missile weapon ranges past 450 units drastically reduced by SO

Changes as of November 03, 2015

Campaign

• Turned off comm sniffer investigations (at least for now)
• Smuggling investigation:
  • Will no longer find the player guilty if they were wrongly suspected
  • Lasts 2-3 months
  • A chief investigator is assigned and can be talked to to resolve any misunderstandings
  • Guilty finding drops reputation with faction to inhospitable
  • Can be covered up (reducing chances/avoiding investigation entirely) by also selling on open market
• Added "Faction ties" investigation
  • Started by major factions when the player has a positive reputation with another major faction
  • A chief investigator is assigned and can be talked to to resolve any misunderstandings, but only a couple of times before that's no longer effective
  • Maintaining positive reputation with more than one major faction (Diktat, Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, Luddic Church) is not possible for very long; will eventually become hostile to all but one
  • Can avoid by keeping reputation at favorable or below
• Added confirmation to player transponder activation/deactivation (have to use twice in a row to do either)
• Added three new passenger liner type ships
• Added liner fleets carrying passengers to and from different systems
• Market procurement mission: now requires coming into port with transponder off if contact is an underworld figure
• Added tooltip showing markets in a star system to stars in intel map
• For now, "vengeful" reputation can be improved by doing bounties
  • Can also be achieved by normal combat, not just pursuit
• Added "radio chatter" sounds when near a market
• Commander personality now has some effect on fleet behavior
• Evenly-matched or weaker fleets may follow you around waiting for an opportunity instead of fleeing or ignoring your fleet
• Valhalla: improved accessibility of Ragnar Complex and nearby markets
• Terrain adjustments:
  • Nebulas and asteroid rings/fields now reduce fleet speed based on fleet size instead of reducing the burn level of individual ships
  • Magnetic fields now reduce speed and sensor range by 50%
  • Nebulas, asteroid rings/fields, magnetic fields, and hyperspace storms now reduce speed by a percentage rather than a multiplier, allowing "Emergency Burn" to take full effect
  • Battles in deep hyperspace no longer have nebula patches on the battlefield
• Navigation skill: now reduces burn level penalties from terrain by 5% per level

Combat

• Cruisers will now be assigned to "capture" assignments as needed
• Safety Overrides: now also extends overload duration by 50%
• Hardened Subsystems: reduced CR degrade speed reduction to 25%
• Reaper: made engine glow more prominent for improved visibility
• Atlas: removed flight deck
• Helmsmanship level 5 perk: now grants maneuverability bonus instead of top speed with zero flux

Miscellaneous

• Reduced save file size by ~50%
• Upgraded to Java 8 (should resolve issues on newer versions of OS X)
• Reduced logging verbosity
• "resolutionOverride" in settings.json should now work for oddball resolutions in windowed mode

Modding:

• Added ShipAPI.setWeaponGlow(float glow, Color color, EnumSet<WeaponType> types)
• Orbital junk removed from savefiles; regenerated on game load
• Added ModPlugin.onGameSaveFailed()
• Refit in neutral-owned stations/markets no longer offers free weapons from non-free submarkets
• Added SectorEntityToken.getCustomData(), returns String->Object map for custom persistent per-entity data storage
• Asteroids are no longer persisted in save files, unless they have something in their memory they are regenerated on game load
• CombatEngineAPI.getCombatUI()
• CombatUIAPI
  • addMessage(int newLineIndentIndex, Object ... params)
  • isShowingCommandUI()
  • getCommandUIOpacity()
• FluxTrackerAPI.stopVenting()
• ShipHullSpecAPI.getShieldSpec()
• ShieldSpecAPI
  • float getPhaseCost();
  • float getPhaseUpkeep();
  • float getFluxPerDamageAbsorbed();
  • ShieldType getType();
  • Color getRingColor();
  • Color getInnerColor();
  • float getUpkeepCost();
  • float getArc();
  • float getRadius();
  • float getCenterX();
  • float getCenterY();
• MissileAPI
  • float getFlightTime();
  • void setFlightTime(float flightTime);
  • boolean isGuided();
• ShieldAPI
  • toggleOn()
• ShipAPI
  • void setVentCoreColor(Color color);
  • void setVentFringeColor(Color color);
  • Color getVentCoreColor();
  • Color getVentFringeColor();
  • void setVentCoreTexture(String textureId);
  • void setVentFringeTexture(String textureId);
  • String getVentFringeTexture();
  • String getVentCoreTexture();
  • String getHullStyleId();
  • WeaponGroupAPI getWeaponGroupFor(WeaponAPI weapon);
  • void setCopyLocation(Vector2f loc, float copyAlpha, float copyFacing);
• ShipEngineAPI
  • void setHitpoints(float hp);
  • Color getEngineColor();
  • Color getContrailColor();
• enum ShipSystemAPI.SystemState
• ShipSystemAPI
  • getState()
  • float getCooldown();
  • void setFluxPerUse(float fluxPerUse);
  • void setFluxPerSecond(float fluxPerSecond);
• ViewportAPI
  • void setCenter(Vector2f c);
• WeaponGroupAPI
  • AutofireAIPlugin getAutofirePlugin(WeaponAPI weapon);
  • boolean isUsingDefaultAI(WeaponAPI weapon);
• ModularFleetAIAPI
• CampaignFleetAIAPI
• AssignmentModulePlugin
• List<FleetAssignmentDataAPI> getAssignmentsCopy()
• SectorAPI
  • ViewportAPI getViewport();
• CampaignUIAPI
  • boolean isShowingMenu();
• SettingsAPI
  • List<String> getAllVariantIds();
  • List<String> getAptitudeIds();
  • List<String> getSkillIds();
  • LevelupPlugin getLevelupPlugin();
  • String getVersionString();
  • JSONObject loadJSON(String filename, String modId) throws IOException, JSONException;
  • JSONArray loadCSV(String filename, String modId) throws IOException, JSONException;
  • String loadText(String filename, String modId) throws IOException, JSONException;
  • ModManagerAPI getModManager();
• ModManagerAPI
  • List<ModSpecAPI> getAvailableModsCopy();
  • List<ModSpecAPI> getEnabledModsCopy();
  • boolean isModEnabled(String id);
  • List<ModPlugin> getEnabledModPlugins();
  • ModSpecAPI getModSpec(String id);
• ModSpecAPI
  • boolean isUtility();
  • String getModPluginClassName();
  • boolean isTotalConversion();
  • String getName();
  • String getId();
  • String getVersion();
  • String getDesc();
  • String getPath();
  • String getDirName();
  • String getGameVersion();
  • Set<String> getFullOverrides();
  • List<String> getJars();
  • String getAuthor();

Changes as of October 19, 2015

Campaign

• Added visual indicators of other fleets' sensor ranges when the player is near the edge of it
• Hireable officer personalities (i.e. combat behavior) now based on the faction of the planet on which they're located
• Headquarters, Orbital Station, Spaceport, and Military Base now affect the number and quality of officers in fleets from their market
• Defeating ships captained by officers/fleet commanders now grants up to 5x increased experience based on the captain's level
• Revamped campaign fleet generation; added officers and faction-specific fleet compositions
• Revamped food shortage event
  • No more tracking of sales before event starts or investigations for overselling
  • Only affects markets of size 6 and below
  • Smaller markets are affected more, both in reduced stability and food price increase
  • Intercepting relief fleet increases unrest (i.e. reduces stability) at market
  • Selling food on open/black market has an increased impact on reputation while event is ongoing
  • Selling food on black market produces high unrest after event is over
• Updated food shortage and trade disruption events to have prices smoothly decrease with player selling commodities and filling demand
• Made intel message detail area slightly taller
• Revamped trade, pirate, and mercenary fleet spawning
• Reduced high-end system bounty rewards by about 33%
• Removed post-engagement options of "maintain contact" and "stand down"
• Ships on winning side now automatically recover some CR if the engagement was limited in scope
  • Recovery amount depends on total deployment cost of destroyed losing ships vs each winning ship's deployment cost
  • Maximum of 75% recovered if any enemy ships were destroyed
• Added Luddic Path faction, radical arm of the Luddic Church
  • No markets, but launches small raider fleets from Luddic Church worlds
  • Hostile to player, but individual fleets may be bought off with a "tithe"
• Auto-resolving pursuit: greatly increased effectiveness
• Expanded battles
  • Can join one side of an ongoing campaign battle that may involve several fleets and last up to several days
  • When engaging another fleet or joining a battle, nearby fleets - both allied and enemy - will join in
  • Adjusted bounty payments and reputation gains when done with the aid of an allied fleet
  • Salvage and bounty split will depend on how much hull damage the player dealt to enemies
  • Friendly fire incidents will cause a reputation drop depending on the severity
    • Very serious incidents will drop reputation all the way to hostile
• Fighting a faction's enemies in their system will no longer improve reputation with them
• Adjusted crew losses from battle so that you don't end up being heavily over crew capacity after losing ships
• System bounties now last longer
• Disengaging from a non-hostile fleet will only drop your reputation to hostile if you destroy any of their ships (or entire fighter wings), previously would on doing any hull damage
• Improved visuals for ship engine glows in campaign; improved fleet movement behavior
• Turned off customs inspections, at least for now - sneaking into market w/ transponder off fills the same role

Combat

• Added several new missile weapons (one small and two large)
• Hurricane MIRV - changed to be a medium range finisher weapon rather than long-range
  • Removed ammo regeneration
  • Increased number of warheads to 10
  • Reduced refire delay to 5 seconds
  • Reduced range to be in line with MRMs
  • Increased missile hitpoints and range at which the main missile splits
  • Increased flight time of individual warheads
• Added new midline missile cruiser
• Hammerhead: changed small energy mounts to hybrid (can slot in energy/ballistic)
• Added officer portrait to target reticle for ships with officers
• Added "Safety Overrides" hullmod. Boosts speed and flux dissipation at the expense of a drastic loss in peak performance time. Can not be installed on capital ships.
• Assault Chaingun: increased damage and flux cost by 50%, reduced range to 450 (from 700)
• Heavy Machinegun: reduced OP cost to 10, range increased to 450 (from 400)
• Harpoon, Sabot 3-racks: reduced OP cost to 4 (from 5)
• Salamander 3x/Pod: increased refire delay to 25 seconds (from 20)
• IR Pulse Laser: reduced OP cost to 5
• Plasma Cannon: damage and flux use increased by 25%
• Tachyon Lance: range reduced to 1000, damage increased by 200%, flux use increased by 100%
• Ion Cannon: flux/shot reduced to 30 (from 80)
• Heavy Mauler: damage reduced to 200 (from 250)
• Ship AI:
  • Aggressive officers more aggressive
  • May use strike weapons against frigates if considers itself in trouble
  • Will now consider any non-civilian ship with weapons to be a combat-capable ship
• Non-autofiring weapon groups will try to follow the mouse if they're not selected but the target is close to their arc

Miscellaneous

• New graphics for some ships (Eagle, Enforcer, Falcon, Dominator, and a few others)
• Updated portrait graphics
• New graphics for Arbalest Autocannon
• Added text scrolling for standalone (non-campaign) mission descriptions
• Many missions updated; extensive backstory added
• Added "alwaysUndecoratedAtFullscreen" key to settings.json, controls whether full-resolution windows are always undecorated or not. Set to true by default.
• Falcon: added two small energy turrets, added 10 ordnance points. (D) variant does not get the extra turrets, does get +10 ordnance points
• Fixed sound loop playback issue where loops would not fade out properly but would cut off abruptly
• Built-in hullmods (Flux Shunt, Repair Gantry, etc) no longer show up in mission refit

Modding

• Added "AMMO_RELOAD" ship system and ship system AI type
• Added "cr/u" column (cr per use) to ship_systems.csv
• Added to SoundPlayerAPI:
  • void restartCurrentMusic();
  • String getCurrentMusicId();
  • void playMusic(int fadeOutIfAny, int fadeIn, String musicSetId);
  • void setSuspendDefaultMusicPlayback(boolean suspend);
• Added GameState enum (COMBAT, CAMPAIGN, TITLE)
• Added SettingsAPI.getCurrentState() to return current state
• Added LocationAPI.setBackgroundOffset()
• Added "doctrine" section to .faction file; affects fleet compositions and officer numbers/levels
• Fixed bug where animated beam weapons would not glow properly during phase skim/teleport style animations
• Decorative weapons now render in the campaign view and on ship icons
• Dev mode only, edit variants from main menu only: shift + letter jumps to variants starting with that letter
• Added baseValueMult to .skin files. baseValue still supported.
• Made some breaking changes to FleetEncounterContextPlugin/CampaignFleetAIAPI, related to removal of maintain contact/stand down options
• Added CombatTaskManagerAPI
• Added CombatFleetManagerAPI.getTaskManager(boolean ally)
• Moved assignment related methods from CombatFleetManagerAPI to CombatTaskManagerAPI

CampaignPlugin.pickBattleAutoresolverPlugin() changed to take BattleAPI as a parameter instead of two fleets

• Other related API changes re: passing in a BattleAPI where appropriate
• FleetDespawnReason.DESTROYED_BY_FLEET changed to DESTROYED_BY_BATTLE; param is now a BattleAPI
• Added CombatEngineAPI.getDamageData() to get running hull damage dealt totals by each fleet member

Bugfixing

• Fixed erroneous rate of fire being shown for burst beam weapons
• Fixed turret alignment on Tarsus-class freighter
• Fixed music-related out of memory crash if game was left running for a long time
• Fixed faction description textbox size in faction intel display screen
• Fixed bug where boarding action CR cost was based on the deployment cost of the ship being boarded instead of the ships doing the boarding
• Fixed bug where Heavy Armor was not correctly applying the maneuverability penalty

Changes as of June 23, 2015

Campaign:

• Added campaign sensors; can now only see other fleets when they're nearby
• Added abilities that can be used by fleets, both player and AI: Transponder, Go Dark, Active Sensor Burst, Emergency Burn
• Transponder, turning it off:
  • Reduces visibility, attracts attention of patrols
  • Allows trade with otherwise-hostile factions on the black market
  • Allows open trade with hostile factions for independents, pirates, and free ports
• Combat officers:
  • Can be hired at markets using the comm directory to contact "mercenaries"
  • Can be assigned to command specific ships
  • Have combat-effective skills and gain experience

Player can pick one of two skills to gain/increase on each levelup

• Navigation skill: while waiting for skill revamp, reversed the skill gains with larger ships gaining more and smaller ships gaining less. Also reduced burn level gain; does not affect frigates. (Yes there are some levels that don't have any bonus; see: revamp)
• Augmented Engines: burn speed increase reduced to 1, now also reduces sensor strength by 50%/increases sensor profile by 50%, removed capacity penalty
• Degraded Engines: burn level penalty is now uniformly 1
• Removed speed boost after losing battle
• Added terrain with fleet-affecting effects:
  • Nebula
  • Asteroid belt
  • Ring system
  • Star corona (with solar flares)
  • Magnetic field (with auroras)
• Removed logistics rating mechanic
  • Ships have explicit "supplies/month" and "supplies/recover from deployment" stats, set to the same value (i.e one deployment costs as many supplies as operating for a month)
  • High Maintenance hullmod: increases supplies/month only
  • Automated Repair Unit hullmod: removed penalties; increase in CR recovery does *not* reduce the overall recovery cost
  • Removed supply cost per day for crew and marines (assumed to be negligible compared to ship maintenance)
  • Logistics skill, Leadership aptitude: now reduce maintenance supply use 30%/20% respectively
  • Fleet size hard-limited to 25 ships total
• Removed "deployment points" as an explicit ship stat, battle size now based on supply recovery costs
  • Adjusted deployment supply costs - up a bit for smaller ships, significantly down for capital ships and cruisers

Combat balance:

• Sabot:
  • Improved missile aim
  • Changed damage back to single-shot with 750 damage
  • Added variance in Sabot launch range to make it a bit more unpredictable
  • Increased projectile speed to where the AI can't always react and lower shields in time
• Non-missile projectiles that are fading out after reaching maximum range now deal soft-flux damage to shields
• Slightly improved Harpoon missile target tracking
• Accelerated Ammo Feeder: reduces flux cost of ballistic weapons by 30%
• Pilum: reduced hitpoints to 50 (from 125)

Ship AI:

• Ship aim will improve as time is spent firing at the same target; time from worst aim quality to best is ~15 seconds
• Autofire aim will improve as time is spent firing at the same target; time from worst aim quality to best is ~15 seconds.

As will AI manual targeting

• Improved fighting vs drones somewhat (prioritizes them less)

Combat:

• Campaign terrain effects:
• Campaign combat maps now spawn with appropriate nebula graphics and amount for the location
  • Effect of nebula changed to align with in-campaign effect
  • Fighting in corona: reduced peak time, increased CR degradation, slight screen glow
  • Fighting in ring system: lots of small, non-collision-damaging asteroids on battlefield

Miscellaneous:

• Added custom graphics for the following hullmods: civilian-grade, hardened subsystems, high maintenance, high-res sensors, phase field
• Added "Solar Shielding" hullmod - reduces effect of travel and fighting inside a star's corona; reduces beam damage taken slightly

Modding:

• Fixed NPE caused by using ship AI flags for drones
• Fixed issue where EveryFrameScripts added to an entity would never run while the game is paused
• Fixed bug where using an area-of-effect exploding missile as a MIRV projectile would cause an NPE
• Added to CampaignEventListener:
  • reportPlayerActivatedAbility()
  • reportPlayerDeactivatedAbility()
• Added HYBRID weapon slot type that allows ballistic and energy weapons, but not missiles
• MutableFleetStatsAPI.addTemporaryModXXX methods now key off the source parameter - multiple changes with the same source id are no longer possible
• Added LocationAPI.getPersistentData()
• Fixed NPE caused by assigning quad trails to ships; quad trails for ships still have artifacts
• Added BattleCreationPlugin.afterDefinitionLoad() method
• Added ModPlugin.configureXStream method that allows customization of XStream, which is used to create save files. In particular, can be used to alias class and field names to shorter names.
• Added DynamicStatsAPI
  • Allows creating new mutable stats using string ids as keys
  • MutableFleetStats.getDynamic() and MutableShipStats.getDynamic()

Bugfixing:

• Fixed bug where player gender would revert to "ANY" on saving and then loading a game
• Fixed bug where selling a not-in-demand commodity one at a time would produce a better price than selling in bulk

Changes as of April 05, 2015

Campaign:

• Added 5 new star systems
• Added "Hydroponics Complex" market condition
• Added market conditions for a variety of new planet types
• Added alternate shortcuts to interaction menu options, in addition to number keys (i.e. Esc = Leave, etc)
• Price list in commodity tooltip will now compress multiple entries for the same commodity into one, provide the prices are the same/very similar
• "Move in to engage" will show a confirmation dialog when vs non-hostile target
• Fixed autoresolve issue that incorrectly penalized ships with good shields and benefited ships with poor shields
• Greatly increased CR penalty from refitting in flight, especially for hullmods
• Locally-produced goods now available on the black market even if they're not available on the open market due to being mostly exported
• Added support for campaign missions (e.g. quests)
• Added "market procurement" mission - acquire and deliver X commodity to a contact at market
• Added browseable comm directory and mission board to markets
  • Can be used when docking with hostile markets
• Can improve relationships with specific people
  • Generally, people with a positive relationship will offer missions even if the faction is hostile
  • Other effects TBD
• Person info panel updated to show relationship, faction affiliation, player relationship with faction, person rank, and current post
• Added new music for Luddic Church faction
• Added combat officers
  • Can hire by talking to "mercenaries" via market comm directory
  • Can be assigned to any ship (not fighter wings)
  • Have the following pool of skills: all combat skills, Gunnery Implants, and the effect of the combat aptitude as a "skill"
  • Start with one level 1 skill
  • Have one of four personalities affecting in-combat behavior:
    • Timid, cautious, steady, and aggressive
  • Player can choose one of two (randomly picked) skills to learn or improve at each level-up
    • Not limited by aptitude level when increasing skills
  • Only grant the combat portion of their skills
  • Current maximum level is 20, learning a skill learns it at level 1, improving gains 3 levels
    • Gives exactly 5 maxed-out skills at level 20, or some combination of lower-level skills
    • Numbers may change
  • Gain experience based on time spent in combat, experience split among all officers deployed
  • Player can have a maximum of 10; can be dismissed

Combat balance:

• Autopulse Laser: increased damage by 20% and flux generation by 25%
• Proximity Charge Launcher: now has the PD tag
• Lasher: increased flux dissipation, armor, and shield arc

Ship AI/orders:

• Found and fixed an issue that could cause occasional suicidal behavior (would attempt to pursue an enemy perceived as trying to kite it, into a very bad situation)
• Added "Avoid" order, can be set on enemy ships to make all your ships try to avoid getting near them
  • Ships can be explicitly assigned to the "avoid" target, in which case it'll work as an "engage" order
• Improved order-following
  • Ships assigned to capture/control/assault/defend will do a better job of both avoiding enemy contact and moving towards the objective
• Improved conservation of HE missiles (i.e. Harpoons) vs unshielded frigates. Test case of Wolf (CS) vs 2x Hound (D), 2x Cerberus (D), and 1x Lasher (D) -> Wolf saves enough missiles to effectively take out the Lasher
• Improved conservation of kinetic missiles (i.e. Sabots) - less likely to fire off when high on flux and unable to follow up
• Improved behavior with regard to re-engaging a target while having higher flux than target
• Improved map-border-avoiding behavior
• Improved maneuvering to facilitate the use of Reapers and other rocket-type weapons
• Improved spreading out by multiple ships facing a single target
• Reduced propensity to get very close to a vulnerable target and stay there
• Autofire AI will now consider whether an enemy is blocking a friendly from being shot at, for purposes of friendly fire danger detection
• Improved broadside AI:
  • Will now turn more into a broadside if its frontal firepower is significantly lacking
  • Will pursue (by turning towards enemy) less

Miscellaneous:

• Apogee's Sensor Drones can no longer be set to free roam
• PD weapons with charges will now conserve up to 10 ammo vs non-PD targets
• Thumper and Storm Needler no longer show "x9999" burst size on tooltip
• Clarified "High Maintenance" hullmod description
• Fixed occasional unnecessary background texture reloading when starting battles/simulations in the campaign

Modding:

• Added DamagingProjectileAPI.getBaseDamageAmount();
• Economy shouldn't crash if there are no markets configured
• Added ShipVariantAPI SettingsAPI.getVariant(String variantId)
• Very large turrets should no longer cause visual artifacts on disabled ships
• Fixed bug that caused prices for markets of size >7 to be computed incorrectly
• shipBuy/SellPriceMult now properly affects fighter wings
• OptionPanelAPI now sets alternate shortcut that works in addition to the number key matching the option. It's always bracketed and put at the end.
• CampaignEventListener.reportPlayerOpenedMarket() now called when player opens interaction dialog rather than when player actually opens the trade UI
• Added CampaignEventListener.reportPlayerClosedMarket(); called when interaction dialog is closed
• Added OptionPanelAPI.addOptionConfirmation
• tips.json now merged on load instead of always replacing the vanilla one
• Added FactionAPI.getMemoryWithoutUpdate()
• Added PersonAPI.getMemory()
• Added PersonAPI.getMemoryWithoutUpdate()
• Added to MarketAPI:
  • void initCommDirectory();
  • CommDirectoryAPI getCommDirectory()
  • void addPerson(PersonAPI person);
  • void removePerson(PersonAPI person);
  • List<PersonAPI> getPeopleCopy();
• Added to SectorEntityToken:
  • PersonAPI getActivePerson();
  • void setActivePerson(PersonAPI activePerson);
• Added
  • CampaignEventManagerAPI.primeEvent(CampaignEventTarget eventTarget, String eventType, Object param)
  • CampaignEventManagerAPI.startEvent(CampaignEventPlugin primedEvent)
• Added ReportAPI (for accessing data from reports.csv)
• Added SectorAPI.getReport(String eventType, String eventStage, String channel)
• Added LocationAPI.getAllEntities()
• Improved performance of:
  • SectorAPI.getEntityById()
  • LocationAPI.getEntityById()
• Fixed minor on-rack missile rendering issue
• Highlighting in reports/tooltips/shortcuts/etc now requires a non-alpha-numeric char after a match (i.e. a space, punctuation, etc)
• Added support for modding person ranks and posts (default_ranks.json, "ranks" section in .faction)
• Expanded PersonAPI
• Added CampaignMissionPlugin, CommDirectoryAPI, etc (as necessary to support new campaign functionality)
• Added SectorAPI.getImportantPeople()
• Added to ShipEngineControllerAPI:
  • extendFlame()
  • fadeToOtherColor()
• Added SettingsAPI.getPlugin() to retrieve plugins defined in the "plugins" section of settings.json
• Added SettingsAPI.getSortedSkillIds(), returns skill ids sorted by "order" in skill_data.csv
• Added SkillSpecAPI
• Fixed crash bug caused by ship name Roman numerals getting up to 4000
• Added "combat officer" column to skill_data.csv; governs if skill is available to combat officers
• Made CoreReputationPlugin easier to mod without replacing entirely
  • Added RepActions.CUSTOM
  • Specifics of reputation change specified via CustomRepImpact class
  • Usage:
    • CustomRepImpact impact = new CustomRepImpact();
    • <set fields in impact to desired values>
• Global.getSector().adjustPlayerReputation(new RepActionEnvelope(RepActions.CUSTOM, impact, message, true), factionId)
• Added "evenSpread" parameter to mirv spec

Bugfixing:

• allowShipControlWhilePaused now set to true in settings.json, as was intended
• Fixed rare crash bug caused by weapon group going away due to a critical malfunction but the AI still thinking it exists and wanting trying to fire it
• System-activated engines no longer show up on ships in the campaign view
• Fixed rare crash while adjusting music volume
• Fixed bug where repair-at-market cost would be extremely high if ship crews were understrength
• Fixed issue where leaving X cargo and then picking up exactly X cargo would lead to the listed cargo space used being incorrect
• Thunder-class fighters no longer immediately go to refit after firing off their Harpoon missile
• Captured enemy ships will no longer ship up in the "disabled" category in the enemy fleet in the fleet encounter dialog
• Fixed bug where intel prices would occasionally not update correctly when docking at a market
• Fixed issue where player-sold commodity stockpile value used for pricing would reset on a save/load for commodities not in native supply or demand
• Fixed bug where market music would continue playing in the campaign after running a combat simulation in-market and then leaving
• Fixed crash caused by adjusting music volume after music has erroneously stopped playing
• (Probably) fixed issue with music stopping to play (seems to only be an issue with some mods?)
• Fixed bug where fighter wings would not properly lose CR for taking losses in combat in some circumstances
• Fixed bug where initiation a transaction at a military submarket and then cancelling would result in the items in the submarket being re-sorted incorrectly
• Increased Hound shield radius so it works properly when a Front Shield Generator is installed

[Xanderzoo]

!!Five new star systems!! Yay!

[Midnight Kitsune]

What about EXP gained from trade? Will officers get a portion of that as well? If I have 10 officers will each get 9% of the earned EXP?

[Alex]

What about EXP gained from trade? Will officers get a portion of that as well? If I have 10 officers will each get 9% of the earned EXP?

No, combat officers don't get any of that. As combat officers, they only gain experience from combat.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Will we be able to adjust how much they take from the total amount of combat experience? (IE I could set it so that they can take 10% to 100% from the "pool" of exp) This would be useful all the way through the game.

[Alex]

Hmm - that kind of sounds like an odd thing to expose to the player.

They don't affect player XP gains, anyway. It *is* currently split between participating officers, though, depending on ... factors.

[Aeson]

Will we be able to adjust how much they take from the total amount of combat experience? (IE I could set it so that they can take 10% to 100% from the "pool" of exp) This would be useful all the way through the game.

I agree with Alex that this seems like an odd thing to let the player do directly. However, given that the experience is stated to be dependent on time spent in combat, I'd think that you can fudge it to some degree. E.g. a battle is worth 100 experience and you deploy 3 officers A, B, and C; A is deployed for the whole battle, B is deployed as reinforcements after a quarter of the battle has passed, and C was in the initial wave but retreated after half the battle passed. Experience might then be divided up as A gets (100 experience)*1/(1 + 0.75 + 0.5), B gets (100 experience)*0.75/(1 + 0.75 + 0.5), and C gets (100 experience)*0.5/(1 + 0.75 + 0.5).

A question of my own on the experience split: Is the experience split going to be something along the lines of (battle experience)*(this officer's time deployed)/(total deployment time of all officers), or is there going to be something in place so that the dropoff in experience gained isn't quite so harsh for the first few officers deployed?

I.e., assuming that all officers deployed are present for the entire battle, will the experience split look something like:
100% x1 officer, 50% x2 officers, 33% x3 officers, 25% x4 officers, etc. (Split factor is f(x) = 1/x, goes to 0 as x goes to infinity.)
Or more like:
100% x1 officer, 75% x2 officers, 67% x3 officers, 63% x4 officers, etc. (Split factor is f(x) = 0.5 + 1/(2*x), goes to 0.5 as x goes to infinity.)
Or more like:
100% x1 officer, 90% x2 officers, 81% x3 officers, 74% x4 officers, etc. (Split factor is f(x) = e^(1 - (9+x)/10), goes to 0 as x goes to infinity, but the split isn't as severe for low numbers of officers as with the first split.)

I'm not asking what formula you're planning to use for the split, at least not right now; I'm more interested in how the share each officer gets changes as the number of officers deployed grows.

[Alex]

It's basically something like this: there's some base amount of XP gained for the battle, and officers get a fraction of that based on the fraction of the time they were in battle. They don't compete with each other for XP, it turns out I lied about that in my previous reply.

I could see changing that, though, but for now this does seem simplest.

[HELMUT]

• Added "Avoid" order, can be set on enemy ships to make all your ships try to avoid getting near them.
  

This one is going to be handy. The enemy Onslaught will suddenly feel very alone during battle.

Does the AI can do something similar to a player ship now?

[Histidine]

It's basically something like this: there's some base amount of XP gained for the battle, and officers get a fraction of that based on the fraction of the time they were in battle. They don't compete with each other for XP, it turns out I lied about that in my previous reply.

Hmm. That does have the advantage of simplicity, but it also incentivizes "always deploy all ships with officers on them" (using a cheap ship if you're being stingy with the credits).

"Why do you keep sending me into battle with a shuttle?!"
"Training."

On the other hand, competing for XP potentially introduces its own set of gamey behaviours (most extreme case: taking an officer off a ship so you can still field it without worrying about leeching XP). If you really want to eliminate these, sometimes the most straightforward option is the only one: give all officers the full XP amount even if they spent the entire battle twiddling their thumbs in the reserve.

[zakastra]

Will officers (have a chance to?) die if the ship they are commanding is destroyed? I think this would be a definite incentive to not throw them in cheap rustbuckets every engagement, and carefully consider when to deploy them

[DatonKallandor]

If they can die people are even less likely to engage in anything but 100% sure wins. There's already more than enough punishment for the player engaging in interesting pitched battles - there really doesn't need to be more.

[boskoro]

Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to say Awesome Game!, can't wait for the new release (any spoilers towards the date /wink).
OnTopic: I feel that the Officers should die with the ship as it would be a simple mechanic to refresh the list of Officers from time to time.

[Tartiflette]

Maybe they should just get incapacitated for a (random/dependent on the ship size) while if their ship is disabled, but do get killed if the hulk get completely destroyed. Making them invulnerable don't seems a good idea to me as they would becomes no brainers, but killing them too often isn't good either.

[celestis]

Awwww yeah! All that is awesome!