Hello everyone,
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and for the continued contributions to our wishlist, despite our lack of communication.
We recently released build 5 to the backers of the Kickstarter campaign who opted for it. The project is progressing smoothly.
The public early access release has been postponed to the first half of 2025. I understand the frustration with the ongoing delays, so our immediate goal is to set a firm date for the early access, which we will not miss.
Build 5 has been an important milestone for us because we’ve achieved the necessary technical stability and solidified the core features of the game.
At the moment, we still need to implement 2 main features: the drone repair system and the resource fusion system, in order to have the complete core game. These features, along with the game modes and levels, will be the focus of the next build.
Here’s the link to the YouTube video where you can see the improvements, mostly visual, made to the game. A slightly improved version of this video will also be uploaded to the Steam page.
https://youtu.be/x5wvsx79bVQ
I attach a detailed changelist of the changes implemented in build 5.
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Dev Build 0.5.12 Release Notes
Modules and Stations
-Warp Drive Implementation: Introduced the Warp Drive component, allowing units to perform warp jumps to specified destinations. Warp mechanics include warp preparation, range visualization, and warp suppression bubbles.
-Cloak Module: Added a Cloak module enabling units to become concealed, reducing their detectability to enemy sensors.
-Rotating Modules: Implemented rotating modules that can be controlled by players. Modules like the Rotator now allow rotation with adjustable speed and direction of entire Station's sections, enhancing strategic building options.
-Ram Drill Module: Introduced the Ram Drill, a module that can be used as a battering ram to collide with other stations and cause extensive damage.
-Spire armor and damage: Set damage multipliers and collision resistance for Spire modules.
Anti-Missile Turrets: Introduced anti-missile turrets that can intercept incoming torpedoes.
-Rotator Heavy Ion Cannon: Implemented new Rotator Heavy Ion Cannon, a very powerful weapon with unique visuals and sound effects.
-Blueprint addition: Added several new blueprints, like Light Cruiser, Heavy Support Stations and Tech Center.
-Energy Management Overhaul: Revamped the energy system with new status levels, icons, and detailed energy production stats. Power generators can now buff each other, and modules have updated energy consumption behaviors.
Gameplay
-Attack Stances revisited: Added Reactive and Hunter Attack Stances, as variants of Defensive and Aggressive, for a better control on attack behaviour.
-Attack Styles revisited: Attack Styles are now Flyby, Hold, Chase, Orbit and can be combined with
orientations frontal and side, so we can have more possibilities.
-Turret Targeting Improvements: Turrets now accurately follow the unit's target when appropriate, enhancing combat efficiency.
-Unit Experience and Leadership: Units can now gain experience and level up, unlocking bonuses. Leaders are designated based on kills and are highlighted with unique icons.
-Balancing Adjustments: Made numerous tweaks to unit stats, weapon damage, energy consumption, and research costs to improve game balance.
-Warship Customization: Warships now have two customizable hardpoint types, including primary and secondary weapons.
-Missile Launcher for Bombers: Added missile launchers to bombers.
-Mission Objectives and Challenges: Implemented the Mission / Objective system. Challenges offer optional goals for players seeking extra difficulty.
-Research System Update: Added a Research Tree panel with scrolling, improved visualization. Added new Research Tiers that unlock new groups of Research Nodes.
-Armor Balancing: Increased the armor for all armor modules, improving the durability of structures and requiring more strategic planning in assaults.
-Weapon Balancing: Several adjustments in weapon and turrents stats.
-Warship Behavior Changes: Warships no longer perform rolls during displacement and backoff maneuvers, leading to more predictable and stable movement patterns. Slightly increased turning speed.
-Formation Improvements: Revisited and refined formation grids for better unit organization.
-Free Formation Stance: Added the new "Free" Attack Formation Stance, that allow units to freely choose their targets during attacks, and then come back to formation.
New Claw Formation added.
-Research Balancing: Doubled the research time for all upgrades and technologies to make progression more strategic. Reduced costs for initial technologies to aid early-game development.
-Unit and Formation Fixes: Several fixes and improvements in units formation system.
-Collision Detection: Implemented a custom simple collision system for units colliding with structrures or environment. Also, units now navigate and avoid obstacles more effectively.
-Population Requirement Adjustments: Increased population requirements for heavy corvettes, Warships, platforms, module utilities, and weapons to improve game balance.
-Emergency Alarms: Modules and Warships now have critical damage alarms set at 20% health.
-Build Mode Enhancements: Build mode remains active when clicking over UI elements, and the research tab now exits build mode.
-Improved Focus System: Improved responsiveness and stability of the focus system.
-Torpedo Weapon Adjustments: Torpedo missiles can now attack from the side, adding tactical options.
-Attack Priority Balancing: Adjusted weapon and units attack priorities to improve combat targeting logic. Now every unit follow a predictable target behaviour.
-Thruster Max Speed Implemented: Introduced maximum speed limits for thrusters, affecting unit lateral and vertical movements.
-Game Events: Several new game events added, like enemy detections, research completion and unlocking, asteroid depletion etc.
Enemy AI
-Goal-Oriented Action Planning: Implemented an AI Agents system that uses advanced planning for more dynamic and intelligent behaviors.
-Dynamic AI Goals and Actions: AI goals and actions can now be enabled or disabled dynamically, allowing for more flexible and responsive AI behavior.
-Personality Settings: Prepared the system for AI personality traits, paving the way for more varied AI opponents.
User Interface and Settings
-Cinematic Camera Mode: Implemented a cinematic camera mode (Work in progress) for enhanced viewing of units and battles, that hides UI elements for an immersive experience.
-Command Panel Updates: Refreshed the command panel with new icons, tooltips, and scrolling functionality. Commands are now more accessible and easier to understand.
-Energy Icons and Panels: Introduced new energy icons and an energy production details panel, providing clearer insights into energy management.
-Speech Log Panel: Added a speech log panel that displays messages and voice lines from characters, enhancing storytelling and mission briefings.
-Mission Objectives Panel: Added a mission objectives panel that displays categories, completion states, and rewards. Objectives have associated notifications and can be focused on the map.
-Marker System Implementation: Introduced a new system allowing to have markers on the map. These Signals can guide players to objectives and are visible on both the main screen and minimap.
-Edge Scrolling Feature: Implemented edge scrolling for camera movement. Players can now move the camera by moving the cursor to the screen's edge. This feature can be toggled on or off in the game settings.
-Quality Settings and Options: Adjusted graphic settings and quality levels for better performance across different hardware configurations.
-Smart Camera Focus Button: Implemented an interface to change the camera orientation on focused objects to orthogonal axes.
-Pause Menu Correction: The pause menu no longer appears on the main menu screen.
Loading Screen Update: Replaced the loading bar with a spinning icon and text for a more modern look.
Graphics and Visual Effects (VFX)
-Explosion Effects: Enhanced explosion visuals with new directional explosions, shockwaves, audio, and improved particle effects for a more immersive combat experience.
-Final Explosion Visual Effects: Added dramatic final explosion effects for the Command Center and other significant structures. These include shockwaves, debris, and special visual effects.
-Shield Effects: Implemented new shield visuals, including bubble shields with custom shaders, and added visual feedback for shield activation and depletion.
-Cloak Visuals: Added visual effects for cloaked units better stealth representation.
-Weapon Effects: Improved weapon visuals with updated muzzle flashes, laser impacts, projectile trails, and synced sound effects.
-Battle Scars Implementation: All heavy Units and modules now display battle scars when taking damage. This visual feedback reflects their health status and adds realism to combat situations.
Improved resource harvesting visual effects with new smoke and dust animations.
-Camera Shake: Implemented camera shake for most explosions, and for warp operations.
-Visual Enhancements: Adjusted bloom intensity and threshold on the Horizon map for improved visuals.
-Ambient Effects: Added ambient visual effects for modules and units.
-Torpedoes Visuals: Extended torpedo missile engine fire and smoke trails for improved visual tracking.
Audio
-New Soundtracks: Introduced new background music tracks that change dynamically based on gameplay situations, such as entering combat or exploring new areas.
-Voice Lines and Responses: Added new voice lines for units, including responses for actions like warping, cloaking, and detecting enemies. Units now have varied responses to enhance immersion.
-Sound Effects Enhancements: Improved sound effects for weapons, explosions, and module operations. Adjusted audio priorities to ensure important sounds are heard clearly.
Adjusted audio priorities and roll-off distances for explosions and engine sounds to improve the auditory experience.
-Explosion and Environmental Sounds: Added missing sound effects for asteroid and wreck explosions.
-Module and Unit Alerts: Activated emergency sirens for modules and units when critically damaged.
-Ambient Sounds: Added ambient sounds for the Command Center, Command Units, engines, and hyperspace modules.
Performance and Optimization
-Rendering Optimizations: Improved rendering performance by optimizing shaders, reducing overdraw, and enabling better batching of draw calls.
-CPU Optimizations: Reduced CPU usage by optimizing loops, caching frequently used data, and minimizing garbage collection through better memory management.
-Particle System Improvements: Optimized particle systems to reduce performance impact without compromising visual quality.
-Data Management: Improved data handling with better organization of assets and resources, leading to faster load times and reduced memory usage.
-Control and Radar Systems: Minor optimizations were made to these systems for smoother gameplay.
Dev Build 0.5.12 Patch 1
-Now player's Assault Warship primary weapons always follow the unit's target
-Removed the upper Small Turret on Strike Warships
-Minor adjustments on UI volume
-Fixed a problem that caused modules not to be built on first mouse click
-Fixed a problem that caused asteroid not to rotate, speed of rotation is been fine tuned
-All Wreck resource yields are now correct
-Now big asteroids explodes leaving 3 small different asteroid with reduced resource yield
-Added spaces between classes blocks in research tree
-Fine tuning on big asteroids explosions
-Fixed a problem on some Asteroid entities that were not correctly released