Ahoy Mateys!
This update was mostly about bug fixing. Some of the most annoying late-game bugs have now been squashed. There has been many reports about missions being out of bounds & ships traversing through islands on the campaign map at times. These were a real pain to track down, but with massive support from the community - we've done it finally :)
Some Breaking Changes
First off, those of you using INVERT Y on the camera axes for some of the settings will need to re-enable the setting for the feature you were using.
This setting was broken in a patch some months ago and now its been split into 3 major settings impacting Sailing / Telescope and RTS modes.
Major Bug Fixes
Most of this patch has been dominated by squishing of major bugs. These were a nightmare to track down but finally, with your help, I was able to squish to my hearts content.
Big thanks to those of you sending in campaign files and bug reports over the past while. These fixes weren't possible without you.
Mission Ships Out Of Bounds
Special care was taken with the spawn mechanism so that if you ever notice something like this happening again (it shouldn't but just incase!), a restart of the game will fix it.
Campaign Fleets going Through Land / Pathing issues
Path finding in RoP has always been a challenge - on the campaign map there is some engine limitations that has been causing me issues mostly due to the scaling. There has been a bunch of bug fixes in the past related to this stuff, I feel I've identified and squished the biggest cause of these bugs.
Loot Screen Details not Refreshing
There was some really simple logic issues with the loot screen after the goods separation patch. These have been solved now :) Some scaffolding has been put in place to accommodate the Mayors/Captains update for this screen also.
Empty Crews
Sometimes a ship would spawn with zero crew - causing them to surrender instantly when hit by a grape shot. I've added a few safety measures around this and rewrote some of the spawning logic - making sure your campaign data stays clean.
Cargo Summary / Fleet Capacity QOL
A new section is now available on the Market screen - this will show you a summary of the current state of your fleet cargo holds, and drydock items. Items you're buying in Red, and items you're selling in Gold. This should help you identify if you're buying too many items to fit in your cargo hold, especially later on in the game when you don't want to be scrolling through all your ships to see which one can hold what.
Here' a full list of the items completed since the last Major Update.
Breaking Changes
New functionality has broken the INVERT Y settings. You'll need to re-enable this setting if you were using it before the change.
New
Cargo Summary added to the Market Screen.
The Invert Y control has been split into 3 major settings. Sailing, Telescope and RTS.
Fixes
Fixed Major issue impacting Mission ships - causing them to spawn OUT OF BOUNDS.
Fixed Major issue in Late Game where resources taken by the Transport fleets would not be released for other entities to use them.
Fixed Major pathing issues with fleets and island avoidance in Campaign.
Fixed Major campaign late game issue causing ships to traverse through land.
Fixed issue where campaign fleets would not clear their waypoints when respawning, repooling or assigning new targets.
Fixed "cutting corners" pathing issue with campaign fleets.
Fixed issue with the Loot screen where the stats of ships would not properly refresh until selection had changed.
Fixed another potential crew issue on ships leaving them uncrewed or below minimum.
Fixed issue that would cause ships to sometimes spawn out of bounds after defeat.
Fixed issue where multiple sink missions may exist for the same fleet.
Changes
Updated the Select Ship UI so that claimable ships were more obviously needed to be selected.
Cleaned up some logging.
Rewrote quite a bit of the movement logic for the campaign fleets and transport fleets.
Tweaked some campaign values regarding movement and path finding.
Campaign NPC Speed now takes into account campaign difficulty.
Thanks to Mr. Oddly Fox for throwing a tonne of really nice screenshots onto the discord and steam screenshot section!
Thank you
Huge thank you to everyone sending in bug reports and campaign files these days. The bugs fixed were frustrating quite a few folks, so your help on this is greatly appreciated.
Events
Nexus is coming up in September!
I host an annual Game Jam starting on the 15th of September. If you're interested in game dev and would like to try your hand at it - details are on the discord.
Here is the link to the discord where most tracking / communication is happening:
See you next week!
John