Hi,
This patch replaces the old station menus for 3D environments with NPCs. It also adds new missions in new environments, new enemies and fixes. Let's go in detail:
Space Station Overhaul:
As I mentioned in a previous dev diary, the Space Station overhaul adds a new interface where you can see rooms of the station you are visiting and interact with NPCs instead of the old menus with placeholder portraits. The basic functions remain the same but with some new mechanics.
Now you can see the recruits available in a station alongside their loadout and traits (in order to see the recruits you need to talk to the "Mercenary Agent" NPC that you'll find in a Bar):
In the "Command Center" section of a station you'll be able to talk to a NPC that will show you the missions available there. I added a few extra and some of these new missions can be started directly from this menu instead of leaving the station to find them:
In the Medbay section you can heal your soldiers like before but now you can also cure injuries and diseases, these are new negative traits that some soldiers can get during combat or random events (for example, a soldier that survives a deadly attack with the help of "Death's Door" will automatically receive an injury that will reduce their accuracy or movement):
New Missions and Content:
These new missions are accessible through the MIssions board in space stations (Cmd. Center) and include some new environments and enemies to add more variety to the game:
- Void Temple: clear this place of void cultists to safeguard the people fo this system.
- Arena: fight waves of enemy pirates in a station arena to get a cash prize.
- Crisis in a Station Lab: clear the station lab of rogue androids.
Besides new missions I also added several new enemies and some of them have a chance to deploy by a landing pod in some existing planetary missions.
The new enemies added are:
- Rogue Workbot.
- CDF Trooper
- CDF Combat Android
- CDF Combat Medic
- Pirate Hunter
- Alien Bounty Hunter
- Alien Pirate Hunter
- Void Cultist (replaces previous Void Cultist from last battle).
- Void Witch.
- Tamed Xenobeast Worker.
- Enemy Raider.
- Enemy Mercenary.
- Enemy Techno Sorcerer.
- Enemy Assassin.
Also the old version of Void Cultist becomes Void Trooper, with a normal version for regular missions and a veteran version for the last battle. Same goes for Void Warriors.
Besides this new content I also added a new random event "Soldiers resting".
Fixes and minor improvements:
- Fixed a bug where some enemies (like xenobeasts) could get stuck performing an animation after dead.
- Fixed a critical bug where some soldiers could end up with the same internal ID (which prevents them from getting properly leveled up). NOTE: if you have this issue in an old save you can fix it now just by reloading the save.
- Blocked a few out-of-bounds areas in some maps that were accessible by mistake.
- Added some missing voices to a few enemies (like the Necro Trooper).
- Fixed a bug where the aiming gets interrupted for a soldier if the previous selected soldier was still reloading.
- Fixed a bug where some causes of death weren't properly recorded in the Memorial.
- Fixed an ocassional camera jitter when the player's ship is intercepted by an hostile ship.
- Added some missing cover spots (wall corners) to a few maps (including the last battle).
- Updated the Fog of War third-party shader to the latest version in order to fix some possible graphical issues during combat.
- Fixed and smoothed a few animation/IK errors when switching from a melee weapon to a ranged one during aiming.
- Added a progress bar to the Loading File panel and made a few small visual changes to it.
- Added a 30 second limit to enemy turns in case there's a freeze (of course, I'm still looking to fix this last freeze bug, this is just for the moment).
- Camera now focus on a soldier if it's launching a rocket.
- Fixed a bug where acid spit from a xenobeast doesn't pass the corroded status effect, also increased its chances to miss a target.
- Fixed a bug where the camera stops following an enemy if it uses a power or rocket.
- Other minor and internal fixes.
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If you are still here, thanks for reading and for supporting the project. Now I plan to focus for a few weeks in small patches with fixes and minor improvements before jumping to the last major patches which include stuff that I've been promising for a long time like dynamic rivals and the new non-linear map/sandbox campaign.
Hopefully once these major features and content are done I'll have also enough fixes to consider the game stable enough to leave Early Access.
Until then, I'll keep working and listening to your feedback. See you in the next patch or Dev Diary!
Regards,
Jorge