Alpha 12 released

Alpha 12 is a huge update, with new story episodes, new massive combat zones, new parallax effects, and a ton of bug fixes, balance changes and small updates. We hope you love it!

NEW FREE DEMO
We now have a brand new playable demo which you can find on our Steam Store page. If you haven't tried the game yet, please give it a go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R85MUBMoO5s

NEW STORY EPISODES
Work continues on a series of hand-crafted story episodes, designed to pull new players into the game and provide some excellent adventures for existing players.

• The trouble with Tiddlets, Part 2
• The trouble with Tiddlets, Part 3 Professor Toppingbury continues his experiments on the newly discovered and adorable lifeform.
• Deep Space Industrialists, Part 1
• Deep Space Industrialists, Part 2 This is the return of the Stargate Project, now driven by its own story episodes. Along with this new story episode, several Stargate changes have occurred:
  • Stargate phases heavily rebalanced
  • Existing progress in the Stargate Project has been reset
  • The episode will ensure there is a 'safe' nebula and asteroid belt - i.e., free from Hostiles and Meteors
  • The Stargate project is now unlocked by completing part 1.
  • Survival mode is now unlocked after completing Stargate Phase 2
  • NB Stargate phases 4 onward are likely to be changed and reset in future alphas.

• You can now switch the ship editor into ERASE mode, allowing you to easily remove habitation, armor, scaffold, and hull.
• When you erase the hull, the editor will now rebuild the walls around the erased area so that your ship is never open to space.
• Editing the Habitation deck now shows the correct exterior preview of your work (rather than showing the interior of the Habitation deck).
• Other ships are now silent when in the ship editor. No more being disturbed by a massive behemoth of a ship slowly flying past at full engine burn.
• Placing docking ports (in game mode) and spawning equipment (in creative mode) now obeys the rules of equipment placement and will show a red placement box when the position is invalid.
• Placing a docking port in the editor now shows a preview of the docking port sprite.
• Added sounds to the editor (mouse moving on the grid, selection, cancel).

PARALLAX DEPTH

• There is now a subtle depth/parallax effect on all objects floating in space.
• Ships are in the middle depth. Asteroids and derelict ships sit under, while minerals/containers/loot, etc., sit above.
• Drones sit slightly above ships in the middle depth.
• This effect can be toggled on and off from the Options menu.
• Improved the parallax effect on background planets (they move in the right direction now, lol).
• Added slight parallax effect to the Stargate.

COMBAT AND HOSTILE FORCES
There have been lots of improvements to combat in the game.

• SHIP COMBAT RATING
  • Ships are now assessed by a new 'Combat Rating,' rather than their Trade Value, when spawning enemy ships or fleets of combat vessels.
  • The Combat Rating of a vessel is almost entirely down to the number and type of weapon systems installed.
  • Armor affects the combat rating as a multiplier, based on the percentage of armor coverage. 100% armor coverage will double a combat rating.
  • Hostile ships will show their combat rating under their name in Tactical mode. (Written as 'CLASS 3').
  • You will now be awarded points based on the combat rating of the ships destroyed, rather than their trade value.

• Existing 'HOSTILE' systems have been extended to provide a more permanent combat zone.
  • The player is free to visit a HOSTILE zone at any time if they wish and will come under immediate attack.
  • Destroying all enemy ships will grant an award of combat points at the end of battle.
  • The zone will no longer clear its HOSTILE status. It will remain permanently hostile.
  • After a short break, new hostile ships will warp into the hostile zone.
  • You will receive an alert when hostile forces are about a minute away from arrival.
  • Hostile forces will arrive together via an FTL jump, in formation.
  • Civilian/neutral ships will no longer jump into a hostile zone.
  • New hostile ships will have their difficulty scaled based on two factors:
    • The combined Combat Rating of all the player ships in the system.
    • The player's Rank in Combat. This rank slowly increases as you are victorious in more and more battles.

  
  
• Hostile ship AI (flight model) has been much improved:
  • AI-driven ships now constantly assess their weapon systems, taking into account damage, ammo shortages, etc., and pick a flight plan accordingly.
  • Hostile ships will always try to bring the most firepower to bear on their target, turning the ship as required, and picking a range that is most effective.
  • (E.g., strafing runs if their best weapons face forward, or presenting the most dangerous side of the ship to the target, and picking the ideal range to circle the target).
  • Hostile ships will sometimes switch targets to the most threatening and damaging of your ships as the battle progresses.

• All active weapons are now shown much more clearly in Tactical mode, as a solid-colored box with the turret clearly visible. This should make it much easier to determine which parts of an enemy ship are dangerous and to target your own weapons on theirs more effectively.
  
• Fixed issues with cannons and railguns not firing when set to AUTO, even though the enemy is within their field of fire.
  
• Enemy ships will now sometimes drop valuable loot in the form of Precious Metals.
  
• Drones have been upgraded. They now fly 33% faster, repair 33% faster, and repair hull damage more completely.
  
• Drones will now prioritize repair work so long as BATTLE STATIONS is enabled. Otherwise, they will prioritize gathering and logistics.
  
• In the Tactical overlay, there is now an overall ammo counter for all three ammo types in the bottom left of the screen.
  
• Railguns will no longer target fighters.
  
• The Gatling Gun no longer has any 'Penetration,' meaning it will not cause hull breaches nor damage any internal equipment protected by the hull.
  
• Gatling Guns are virtually useless against armored hulls.
  
• The 'Destroy all hostiles' sector mission is no longer created, as hostile zones can no longer be cleared.
  
• Increased the general availability of cannon shells at trading posts.
  
• Mining Lasers will no longer acquire new targets when "Battle Stations" is ordered.
  
• Hostile NPC ships will no longer bother mining asteroids during battle.
  

• You can now sack crew from the trade screen, under the "sell" tab
• Sacked crew will leave on the next available shuttle
• You don't receive any "sale price" for sacking crew

FLEET ORDERS

• The Orders popup has been rebuilt
• Most orders are now ship-specific, meaning different ships can set different orders
• 'Fleet Logistics' and 'Battle Stations' are system-wide orders affecting all your ships in the system.

SMALL CHANGES

• The sounds of other ships will now fall silent in a few select places:
  • The ship editor
  • The sector map
  • Schematic mode

• Added DARK MODE for the galaxy map due to popular request, enabled from the Settings menu
  
• Doubled the amount of food harvested from Hydroponics per cycle
  
• The battery/power indicator bar at the top left of the screen now blinks with the message "POWER SHORTAGE" when your ship cannot power its equipment to 100% and has run out of battery charge
  
• We now un-pause the game when you change the game speed with keyboard shortcuts
  
• You can now double-click to select all text in a text input field
  
• Removed ability to rotate camera with ',' and '.' (useless)
  
• Changed the colour of mission summary text to stand apart from the objectives
  
• Fabricating a new Ship at a shipyard will no longer spawn resources or crew on the ship. You will have to provide those after fabrication is complete.
  
• Added a toggle to hide ships the player cannot afford in the fabricate window
  
• Drones will now collect Precious Metals found in space even if 'gather reagents' is disabled
  
• There is now sometimes some light space dust and fog around asteroid belts and combat zones
  
• Entities will now use their 'dead' sprite when unconscious
  
• When placing equipment that requires a human operator (e.g., gun turrets, science stations, weapons consoles, etc.), the operator location is now shown as a green square and must remain clear of obstructions
  
• Cancelling installation/dismantle jobs with RMB when paused will now work correctly
  
• NPC ships will now order drones at a trading post if they are short (aiming for at least 2 drones per drone bay)
  
• Mineral patch labels are now correctly rotated in tactical view
  
• Ship labels in tactical view are now rendered more clearly
  

• Issue #204: Game doesn't launch when Steam is offline
• Issue #244: Fusion Reactor consumes fuel when off
• Issue #278: FTL not found, even though I have an FTL
• Issue #318: Drones flying off on big detours before delivering cargo.
• Issue #326: If trying to install an object and then turning your view into Schematic mode, you will need to re-select the object
• Issue #328: With the "Stargate" System now being renamed to NG0, there are inconsistencies in the contracts menu
• Issue #329: Tutorial - Opening scene
• Issue #331: NPC ships still dying off
• Fix saving and loading whilst in the opening shuttle flight cutscene turns the UI back on
• Fix A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing Part 1 Objective 'Recover the Flight Recorder from Scavenger Vessel' by adding the missing location link
• Fix typo in Mining Tutorial: Travel to [an] asteroid belt with Tilium deposits.
• Fix typo in play mode: 'BOLDY GO' -> 'BOLDLY GO'
• Fix performance issues with tactical mode affecting AMD GPUs
• Fix full containers displaying the incorrect quantity in the hover tooltip
• Fix game not recognising caps lock
• Stop keyboard input being detected during the new game intro cutscene
• Fix keyboard input falling through to the game world when the map is open
• Fix being able to interact with the toolbar when you cannot see it because you have no layer selected
• Fix Black Hole Sun 1 Hyperspace Isotope count being incorrect
• Fix reward points earned for gameplay (e.g., logistics, combat, logistics...) being lost on save/load
• Fix awards given from missions being lost if you save/load before you have finished receiving them
• Fix "Upload To Steam" being available if we don't have a friendly ship selected
• Fix industry score increasing from industry performed on unfriendly ships
• Fix Exterior Jobs being attempted even if there are no available spacesuits
• Fix spurious No Storage warnings after unloading an item
• The bong sound from a Flight Recorder will no longer be audible if you are not focused on that system
• Introduction Tutorial: If you install the reactor before the tutorial instructs you to, the tutorial will recognise this and catch up
• Stargate Window: Show correct recipe for Stable Isotopes
• Fixed abandoned drones from enemy ships showing up as green in tactical view if the enemy ship was gone
• Mouse and Keyboard can now be used when the HUD is hidden

New community ships added to the base game - thank you!

• JOHNNY STRUGGLES: Acadia, Aberration of Light, Hesperia, Apophis
• RADKNITHAT: RnD Casus