Alpha 17 is now released! This massive update brings the long awaited conclusion to Survival Mode, with players making one final desperate jump to the Andromeda Galaxy to escape the ever expanding Void.
Over in our story driven "Boldly Go" game mode, the penultimate phases of the massive Stargate Project can now be attempted. A new storyline "Brave New Sector" takes players through those final stages. And on top of that, a brand new Sector Scanning system has been created to reveal new locations and treasures.
After four and a half years of work and 17 massive game updates, we are nearing the end of development for Survival Mode and the Stargate Project. We intend to begin transitioning out of Early Access and into a "Beta" phase soon.
Here's our video showing all the new features:
FULL CHANGE LIST
Survival Mode - Completion Event
It is now (finally!) possible to complete Survival Mode, by taking your fleet through the Stargate in Sector 12.
If you wish to continue surviving forever in a kind of hellish endless mode, you are free to travel past the Stargate and on to Sector 13 onward.
- Sector 12 now has an escape route, through the Stargate
- Your ships and crew must survive the long journey in intergalactic hyperspace
- Ship maximum occupancy limits enforced in Trade Screen, based on interior size.
- NPC Ship density increases up to sector 12, then drops back to normal
- You can now 'sack' civilians to get them off your ship, from the Trade Window
Trade window improved with respect to sacking crew, and taking on civilians
- Credits & end sequence now shows during the final jump
- Your final score for Survival Mode is shown at the end
Stargate Project
- Stargate phases 8 and 9 are now available for research and production
- One new product "Charged Crystals" must be produced in a new "Laser Infuser"
- Laser Infusers release radiation into the cabin, poisoning any crew not wearing spacesuits
- Radiation can be blocked using the new Radiation Blocker wall segments
- Brave new sector - a new three part storyline, covering the later stages of the Stargate Project
- Added a button in the sector map to switch between the Stargate sector and the Undiscovered sector
Industry/Automation Improvements
- A new Recipes window shows the required ingredients to manufacture any part
- Asteroids that are fully mined out will now list their internal mineral composition,
making it easier to know which asteroids to crack open with Cannon fire
- New research : Mining Laser Precision II
Triples the minerals released from each mining laser hit
- Assembly tables use pipe inputs for recipes where they previously required containers
- New type of track: Splitter
Splits input items evenly between its output tracks (as best as it can)
- New Research : Advanced Tracks
Adds ability to convert tracks into splitters (and vice versa)
- Tracks are now more fair when merging
- Loaders can now have their resource type set manually.
Default behaviour is "auto" which corresponds to old loader behaviour
- Improved equipment panel for all Factory equipment, to make it much more clear which items are loaded and which are still needed
Sector scanning
You can now scan a sector to reveal new locations.
Scanning can be done by any ship with a Hyperspace Sensor, and reveals any nearby anomalies.
Those anomalies must then be surveyed by a ship with at least one Super Computer.
- Sector scans reveal lost derelict ships, where pilots can find a Research Credit. These new items unlock late-game research projects that further increase the efficiency of your spaceships. In addition, these research projects can be run repeatedly, offering endless efficiency improvements. You will need one Research Credit to begin each one of these new projects.
- In industry mode, sector scans must be done in the Undiscovered sector (after Stargate Phase 5)
In addition to Derelict Ships, scans in Industry Mode reveal:
- Gas Nebulas
- Storms with huge gas clouds
- Asteroid Belts
- Storms are incredibly dangerous, but can be mitigated with new "Lightning Rod" equipment
Ship Editor
- Equipment Planning Mode
Use this new mode to rapidly design ships and place equipment, even if you don't yet have that equipment in stock.
The controls allow you to auto-buy any equipment placed this way, as soon as it becomes available.
Enables easy queueing for the installation of equipment, as well as both manual and automatic methods to purchase any equipment you are lacking.
- New Oval brush shape
- The Alt Tool key (Was previously the Eye-dropper key) can be pressed to make the Box Tool into a Square, or the Oval Tool into a Circle
- Export ships and palettes to the Steam Cloud
- You can now paint the interior floors of your ship
- You can also paint the walls of your ship
TRANSLATION WORK
- New translations:
- Chinese ( Traditional )
- Chinese ( Simplified )
- Korean
- Japanese
- A translation editing tool can now be accessed while translator assist is enabled, so translations can be fixed in game
SMALL CHANGES
- All crew now have surnames and a basic rank, shown in their tooltip
- Crew are Ens, Weapons officers are Lt, Science Officers are Dr.
- You can no longer place furniture outside the ship on scaffold, or in walls
- Equipment is no longer deleted just for being outside the gridmap
(If the ports are outside it will still get deleted, but you can't place them like that from the editor anymore)
- Modify powergrid window, making it more consistent with other windows and improving the layout
- Remove Tweet My Startship (wasn't used)
- Lower the trade value of Precious Ore and Precious Metals since there are now other ways to make money.
- The sector map now shows all your ships as small green triangles, and will show the ship names when highlighted
- Uploading ships to the steam workshop now uploads screenshots of the ship's exterior, interior, and schematic
BUG FIXES
- Reworded stable isotopes collection dialogue in DSI part 2
- Fix translator assist not working for communicator messages
- Fix fortress systems sometimes spawning on top of systems that already exist
- Fix assembly table phantom sprites still showing when item is fully fabricated
- Fix assembly table showing a phantom sprite of itself when set to stop and it still has a fabricated object in its output slot
- Fix DSI 2 Gas Collector sometimes spawning in Wolf systems
- Fixed: Bug in survival mode that could cause the Jumpgate to be blocked from use, even though there was no mission to activate it
- Fix autotrades triggering in systems where there is no colony or shipyard
- Fix drones returning home to a layer in another system
- Fix user ships being used as shipyards and stations
- Fix drones left stuck outside the ship when a drone bay finishes dismantling while a drone is in the exterior slot
- Fix tactical mode selection remaining selected when switching layers
- Issue #517: Shuttle docks at different distances depending on docking port orientation.
- Issue #520: Fixed a case where the Jumpgate is damaged, but cannot be repaired because there are no externally damaged tiles available for drones to repair.
- Issue #525: Text too long on mission goal.
- Issue #532: Drone Bay deleted when saving/loading
- Issue #533: CMDR Harken used as a mission destination
- Issue #536: Crash on launch related to bad .ship file
- Issue #514, #539: Storage crates ending unrelated jobs when changing crate options
- Issue #540: File extensions removed twice on ship files
- Issue #541: Shuttle gets stuck if you have moved civilians before handing in a passenger mission
- Issue #542: Assembly Tables to have pipe input (thanks TomYeltz for suggested fix)
- Issue #543: Sector map shows jump transits from both sectors
- Issue #544: Weppos have circles under their feet after being ejected into space