Void Destroyer - First Month - Update

First I want to say that - Void Destroyer - being an indie project, relies on its player base for far more than just money. I want to thank you for your support, patience and feedback. Together we've made Void Destroyer a better game!

Void Destroyer's launch went so well - that I decided to quit my day job. Thanks to you I am now a full time game developer - this is something I dreamed about during the years of Void Destroyer's development. And now its here! When I look back and reflect - I am left speechless, so lets leave it at that.

Here's a short list of issues/items:

• 23 suggestions and requests added/changed.
• 7 difficulty tweaks/changes/additions/improvements.
• 10 crash bugs fixed.
• 11 non-crash bugs fixed.

Pretty Mode:

Most of all I want to highlight "pretty mode" - during Void Destroyer's development, many players asked for the option for "tactical mode to look like ship mode." I've kept this in the back of my mind for a few reasons, now that the game has been released it was a good time to look into this and (although there were many challenges) it went better than expected :)

Here is a video update with more details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBg9h1enyDA
Direct Link

Thank you once again! There's more planed - but I ran out of room!

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Full patch notes:

Suggestions and Requests:

• On screen messages (eg: ship build/destroyed) now show faction colors.
• Tiny tweaks to dialog to better inform player of possibility of resource sharing.
• Added toggle "all turrets auto control" and "all turrets player control" by player request. Player didn't want to press F5 repeatedly when in F5 mode to shut off player controlled turrets - instead have it as one button. Default / key.
• Re-enabled - "turret target only" in command mode. Splits up ship targeting and turret targeting. SHIFT + T by default. This is for players that want ship crew to pilot, but want to do targeting and firing by themselves - without it impacting ship orders.
• Color blind assist HUD - check box added to Options menu for Color Blind Assist. Changes HUD markers (non targeted ships) friendly to blue. Changes friendly ships on radar to blue as well.
• Ship mode - additional feedback via GUI messages and color coding.
• Improvements to Command mode - toggling turret groups (better feedback and prevention of same turrets selection). Additional feedback via GUI messages.
• Sped up tactical/ship mode transition.
• F5 to select all combat ships, SHIFT + F5 to select all non combat ships.
• Command ship abilities - using them when outside of the command ship (support/additions - based on player feedback).
• In during move command - moving mouse to the edges of the screen will move the camera like in "mouse GUI" mode.
• Can now toggle on/off the "auto mouse move helper" - now default off. Hold down the CTRL key to toggle on.
• Oversight - pressing M key (to initiate move command) now works just like right clicking on empty space (first marker is at mouse's position).
• Guard command.
• Mouse "GUI" toggle - hold down CAPSLOCK key (by default) (CTRL key is a modifier and thus problematic when you take your finger off of it - it doesn't exist any more to be tested against - long story) to be able to click GUI elements while in ship mode, when released mouse flight control (or look if in turret/command modes) will be re-enabled.
• Toggle all turrets primary/auto added to cockpit/chase modes.
• Select all ships of a particular class - go to the "fleet" GUI, double click on the ship class buttons to select.
• "Tactical mode that looks like ship mode" - can be set as default in Options - Game play - then check the "pretty mode" check box.
• New "tactical mode that looks like ship mode" - added toggle to "highlight" (changes the outline color) to faction colors to help recognize which ship is on which side. Default key - CAPSLOCK - might tweak the effect to be less ugly.
• Camera improvements- can now zoom in out while the camera is changing focus. It feels a bit jarring... but hey the camera feels less static, and its optional.
• Camera work - when "attached" camera zoom will be slower/faster depending on distance to attached object (command mode and orbit/attached in tac mode).
• Sped up "focus tactical on other object" camera movement.
• Added gamma slider (slight performance loss if used).
• Mod support - added "always on particle effects" to ships.
• Not being able to have more than one sun in one map.
• Sound engine improvements - more sounds, less pops, and possibly improved performance.
• Cloud saves enabled.
• Repair ships - better management of repairing orders - via guard and patrol commands.

Difficulty:

• Wardrum gets a 21% heal when reaching the Palm, first wave is delayed by additional 60 seconds.
• AI bases don't max out their attack numbers when an enemy ship is nearby (this seems to have caused a lot more than intended frigates in the Hub mission).
• Difficulty tweak - AI bases have 50% chance of adding additional unit to the next attack wave (before was 100% chance).
• 2 new platforms added to early game.
• New Tutorial - "Self Paced Training Mission" - a fairly complete mission covering, command ship upgrades, building, combat, research, and some tactics. Combining these elements to put them into context.
• Difficulty help - the "you died" screen now has a button for the tips/hints section.
• Additional damage setting added (25% less damage to player ships).

Bug fixes:

• Tiny fix to control mapping GUI (section not automatically appearing).
• Queued music wouldn't clear on load - causing big saved file issues and probably other random anomalies.
• When having targets queued, issuing a "regular" attack command (non queued) wouldn't clear targets.
• Tiny scripting error fix.
• Late game mission scripting oversight.
• Autosaves - incorrect timing potentially caused issues.
• Sound engine - UI sounds would sometimes be cut off in big battles.
• Carriers without turrets/weapons didn't function properly.
• SPROG fire mode not working properly in military parade formation (WIP).
• "New leader" button in formation GUI - old leader would leave formation instead of joining as follower - messing with formations is scary because its formations which are a bit source of crash bugs (but this seems pretty safe).
• Part of mission sending some ships away didn't take them out of unit cap.
• Gravity drive position offsets (resulted in ships oddly jumping to far off spots).
• Bug fix with target queues.

Crash Bugs: